Marion Barry Hospitalized, but Not Too Ill to Tweet

DC City Council member and former two-time mayor
Marion Barry was hospitalized in Las Vegas on
Sunday, suffering from a blood clot that developed, according to him,
while “waiting on
a plane in Memphis.” He said he’s taking blood thinner, is not
in pain, and that the condition does not affect his thinking.
Nor, apparently, his will to tweet. In fact, Barry, 76, has
been ripping up Twitter throughout the night and day with an amusing
brew of random thoughts. They include medical updates, praise
for the hospital staff, a shoutout for barbecue, love to his
family, a reference to the late Chuck
Brown,
and
calling out Channel 4 reporter
Tom Sherwood for using the ruse of being Barry’s brother to get to him through the hospital switchboard: “thanks for the kind call this
morning (even tho u got thru as a “family member).”

He also revisited and apologized for some recent
impolitic
statements

made at a budget hearing, where he criticized the number of
hospital nurses who are Filipino rather than African-American.
“Let’s grow our own nurses,” he said at the April hearing. It
turns out his nurses in Vegas were from the Philippines and
he was grateful for their care. From Las Vegas, he tweeted: “I
stand corrected; I truly didn’t mean 2 hurt or offend.”

At one point he writes, “Ok, getting off Twitter,” but then he doesn’t. He notes: “I love Twitter&it’s ability 2 let people
communicate real talk.”

Fortunately, Barry was released from the hospital and
given permission to return to the retail convention that drew him to
Vegas but was also told to “take it easy a few days.” Will that
be possible? No doubt we’ll have to go to Twitter to find
out. For now, here’s a Marion Barry tweet recap:

Carol Ross Joynt