I do not know why, but some voices, particularly female voices, just do something to me. Callas is one. Sam Phillips is another. She could sing "Happy Birthday" to me and I would have to go freshen up afterwards. Usually it's a mezzo-soprano, and thank the stars above we have a glut of them now, but sometimes it's a big steely jack-hammer of a sound like Leontyne Price. Or a "Bollywood" singer with a name too polysyllabic for me to recall here, my mind being somewhat limited even musically.
Tomorrow it will be the incredible Dawn Upshaw. My friends in the business say she's a little past her prime, but not so long ago she was winning Grammies, a total of three, I believe. We travel to Santa Fe to hear her in Golijov's Ainadamar, about the execution of poet Garcia Lorca, a fave also.
My spouse took me to the Met once to hear Cecilia Bartoli sing Despina in Cosi. When she first came out on stage she pulled the set behind her on a big long rope. She pulled an entire house onto the stage, then sang a bitchy aria about all the work she has to do for the two divas that she serves.
Later she has her big one. All men are fickle, she says, and unworthy of a woman's fidelity ("In uomini, in soldati"). So ironic, in the context of Cosi fan Tutti.
I will recall that, with tears in my eyes, as I lay dying hopefully many long years from now, and not so soon.
Upshaw has a most unique and natural voice. If you are unfamiliar with Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs then stop what you are doing and go out and buy a copy right now. It was Upshaw's first hit, in which she sings actual words written by an 18-year-old girl on a Gestapo cellar wall. It was a traffic-stopper during New York drive-time when it was first played on public radio there. Tranquil and doomed yet... tranquil.
I must pack now. The voice calls me.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
Dogs and Cats
There is this rule I have concerning patient viability: if an adult patient of about average height weighs less than my dog, then that is Not Good. This rule, over the years, has become more stringent and more likely a predictor of patient outcome, as we have gone from owning rather quite big dogs to, in deference to my spouse's preferences, sturdier but not-quite-as-big dogs.
So this admission was a cachectic 90-year-old man who looked the part of a poster-boy for cancer or some other chronic wasting disease. My wrists were of greater diameter than his legs, and I am myself rather slight.
His lungs rattled like loose tools in the back of 1960 Chevy pickup truck going over ten miles of bad road. Dragging chains. Karen Carpenter on her death-bed probably looked better. No kidding. And though my dog had been placed on a stricter diet by our ever-chastising Dr. Vet, this patient underweighed him by many pounds.
We settled him into bed, examined him, cranked up his oxygen a little, and then his deranged family came to the nurse station, demanding to know "what was wrong with him."
The oldest daughter seemed most insistent, and after sizing up the situation and escorting people to the patient's room, I pulled her aside and apologized for the lack of a family lounge on our unit. There in the hallway I simply said "Your father is dying."
I just tell people what I think. Of course, I cannot offer a medical diagnosis, but I do not feel comfortable holding back on things about which I feel some certainty.
She didn't want to hear it. "There's nothing wrong with him, he's never been sick in his life, he was very athletic, that's not what the doctor told us," and on and on. You could float a barge on it. And she accentuated her plaints of denial with demand after demand on behalf of her poor dad, who was doing all he could just to draw air without lapsing immediately into a coma. To my ears, his every rapid sour breath said "Vent me."
But as there was "nothing wrong with him" the daughter did not want such matters as artificial ventilation even to be discussed. Ever. Anywhere.
Every obvious and reasonable observation I brought to the daughter's attention regarding her father's plight was met with a ferocity I usually associate with large cats in the wilds protecting their babies from, say, hyenas or something.
As a matter of fact, she demanded that we get him up out of bed. "He wants to get up in a chair and he hates being in bed," she insisted. The tele monitor showed his resting heartrate at 140-something, and I explained that in my humble opinion and in light of the stress already suffered by this patient, perhaps now was not the right time.
"Then get somebody else to do it," she demanded. I looked to her husband, and quietly told him that as a nurse, I could not work like this. The look on his face said "sorry opinionless bastard" to me, and by then the daughter and other family members had assisted the patient to a sitting position at the edge of the bed. A moment later he fell over sideways back onto the pillows.
They were furious with me for assisting the patient to a more comfortable position in his bed. While I left the room they howled at me for my merciless cruel behavior towards their dear father in his moment of need.
As expected, my manager was brought into it, and he was as usual quietly supportive of me.
The next day, actually, it was my manager who cared for the patient, because we had sick calls and I suppose everybody just thought it would be better that way. I remember the family seeming to be a little less histrionic in its demands.
The patient died early that afternoon.
So this admission was a cachectic 90-year-old man who looked the part of a poster-boy for cancer or some other chronic wasting disease. My wrists were of greater diameter than his legs, and I am myself rather slight.
His lungs rattled like loose tools in the back of 1960 Chevy pickup truck going over ten miles of bad road. Dragging chains. Karen Carpenter on her death-bed probably looked better. No kidding. And though my dog had been placed on a stricter diet by our ever-chastising Dr. Vet, this patient underweighed him by many pounds.
We settled him into bed, examined him, cranked up his oxygen a little, and then his deranged family came to the nurse station, demanding to know "what was wrong with him."
The oldest daughter seemed most insistent, and after sizing up the situation and escorting people to the patient's room, I pulled her aside and apologized for the lack of a family lounge on our unit. There in the hallway I simply said "Your father is dying."
I just tell people what I think. Of course, I cannot offer a medical diagnosis, but I do not feel comfortable holding back on things about which I feel some certainty.
She didn't want to hear it. "There's nothing wrong with him, he's never been sick in his life, he was very athletic, that's not what the doctor told us," and on and on. You could float a barge on it. And she accentuated her plaints of denial with demand after demand on behalf of her poor dad, who was doing all he could just to draw air without lapsing immediately into a coma. To my ears, his every rapid sour breath said "Vent me."
But as there was "nothing wrong with him" the daughter did not want such matters as artificial ventilation even to be discussed. Ever. Anywhere.
Every obvious and reasonable observation I brought to the daughter's attention regarding her father's plight was met with a ferocity I usually associate with large cats in the wilds protecting their babies from, say, hyenas or something.
As a matter of fact, she demanded that we get him up out of bed. "He wants to get up in a chair and he hates being in bed," she insisted. The tele monitor showed his resting heartrate at 140-something, and I explained that in my humble opinion and in light of the stress already suffered by this patient, perhaps now was not the right time.
"Then get somebody else to do it," she demanded. I looked to her husband, and quietly told him that as a nurse, I could not work like this. The look on his face said "sorry opinionless bastard" to me, and by then the daughter and other family members had assisted the patient to a sitting position at the edge of the bed. A moment later he fell over sideways back onto the pillows.
They were furious with me for assisting the patient to a more comfortable position in his bed. While I left the room they howled at me for my merciless cruel behavior towards their dear father in his moment of need.
As expected, my manager was brought into it, and he was as usual quietly supportive of me.
The next day, actually, it was my manager who cared for the patient, because we had sick calls and I suppose everybody just thought it would be better that way. I remember the family seeming to be a little less histrionic in its demands.
The patient died early that afternoon.
Thanks, Howard
No, not that "Howard." I found this little gem while perusing the comments over at Eschaton:
One huge problem Bush has is that all of the abstract pro-Iraq war arguments--freedom, flypaper, war on terror--are unmeasurable, whereas anti-Iraq war arguments are grounded in concrete facts: lives lost, money spent, terrorists trained in Iraq. You would think our first MBA president would have known that any project needs quantifiable benchmarks. Like the old joke: "Whatcha doin'?" "Nothing." "How will you know when you're done?"
Howard McNear
That's why we here in this portion of the political spectrum are routinely referred to as reality-based. We address concrete reality. Lives. Dollars and cents. Jobs. Numbers. Simple truths. Things that can be counted, and ideas that can be counted upon to work well.
Then, of course, you have all the rest on the Bush end of the debate spectrum: the Intelligent Design is a Theory crowd, the Dominionism fascists, the Light at the End of the Tunnel sect, the Mission Accomplished set-designers, the Save Social Security by Giving it to a Bunch of Rich White Guys proponents, et al ad infinitum. You know, people who have "values." Immeasurable values, that is.
I suppose it is much easier to fool people with talk about abstract values than it would be to fool them with the simple truth.
Cindy Sheehan is not fooled. She can count to one. And that is too much.
One huge problem Bush has is that all of the abstract pro-Iraq war arguments--freedom, flypaper, war on terror--are unmeasurable, whereas anti-Iraq war arguments are grounded in concrete facts: lives lost, money spent, terrorists trained in Iraq. You would think our first MBA president would have known that any project needs quantifiable benchmarks. Like the old joke: "Whatcha doin'?" "Nothing." "How will you know when you're done?"
Howard McNear
That's why we here in this portion of the political spectrum are routinely referred to as reality-based. We address concrete reality. Lives. Dollars and cents. Jobs. Numbers. Simple truths. Things that can be counted, and ideas that can be counted upon to work well.
Then, of course, you have all the rest on the Bush end of the debate spectrum: the Intelligent Design is a Theory crowd, the Dominionism fascists, the Light at the End of the Tunnel sect, the Mission Accomplished set-designers, the Save Social Security by Giving it to a Bunch of Rich White Guys proponents, et al ad infinitum. You know, people who have "values." Immeasurable values, that is.
I suppose it is much easier to fool people with talk about abstract values than it would be to fool them with the simple truth.
Cindy Sheehan is not fooled. She can count to one. And that is too much.
Lazare
This stuff was so bad, that not even Hitler would use it.
In the great carnage of 1916-17 there were approximately 17,700 gas casualties counting the Somme, Chemin des Dames, and Passchendaele alone. These numbers would grow considerably higher due to the large number of deaths after the war that would be directly attributed to gas exposure. Despite this high casualty count for both sides, the use of gas continued to grow. By 1918, one in every four artillery shells fired contained gas of one type or another.
In 1918 a German corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler was temporarily blinded by a British gas attack in Flanders. Having suffered the agonies of gas first hand, his fear of the weapon would prevent him from deploying it as a tactical weapon on the battlefields of the Second World War.
(The link is here.)
But of course Hitler had non-tactical uses for gas during the World War Two period. Damn him.
It was really great how the generals knew that these weapons were really just weapons of terror, creating confusion and death both for the attackers and the defenders, but use continued to grow until the war itself ended. What does that tell you?
They never learn. Well, young Adolph did, because he was in a gas attack, unlike the generals of World War One (or, as "musician" Lawrence Welk once referred to it, World War eye. I was at my grandparents house, it was on TV, and I heard that myself.)
I could get sick from the irony. Humor protects me.
Andre Malraux wrote about the gas attacks, and around here somewhere I've got a copy of "Lazarus" in which he describes an episode so chaotic and horrendous that opposing fighters left their trenches and began saving everybody they could, even enemy soldiers. The leaves melted off the trees. Warriors on all sides had come to realize that at that moment, they were not enemies.
The gas was the enemy, and they conspired as well as they could so save themselves from it, dragging one another, coughing and heaving, away from the killing low clouds.
I suppose they did it without even thinking, just going on some impulse deep in the lizard brain activated by a sudden and perhaps unconscious stimulation that made them stop the fight long enough to try to save one another.
Is that the same impulse you felt when you saw little Ali Abbas on the cover of Newsweek back in the spring of 2003? Somebody, some of us perhaps, saved him, Yet some of us also bombed his arms off.
I have not linked to a photo of that famous magazine cover because in your mind's eye you can probably already see it. It has become and will likely remain as one of this folly's lasting emblems, like the famous girl in the picture from the Vietnam War era.
Even if we "win," we will lose, because to win we will just be making a lot more little Ali Abbas. And they will grow up, and they will not be our friends, because of what we did to them. So we will end up killing them, and a bunch of our own soldiers, too, because our leaders are dumber than you-know-who and they will never learn.
To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.
Andre Malraux
What does that tell you?
In the great carnage of 1916-17 there were approximately 17,700 gas casualties counting the Somme, Chemin des Dames, and Passchendaele alone. These numbers would grow considerably higher due to the large number of deaths after the war that would be directly attributed to gas exposure. Despite this high casualty count for both sides, the use of gas continued to grow. By 1918, one in every four artillery shells fired contained gas of one type or another.
In 1918 a German corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler was temporarily blinded by a British gas attack in Flanders. Having suffered the agonies of gas first hand, his fear of the weapon would prevent him from deploying it as a tactical weapon on the battlefields of the Second World War.
(The link is here.)
But of course Hitler had non-tactical uses for gas during the World War Two period. Damn him.
It was really great how the generals knew that these weapons were really just weapons of terror, creating confusion and death both for the attackers and the defenders, but use continued to grow until the war itself ended. What does that tell you?
They never learn. Well, young Adolph did, because he was in a gas attack, unlike the generals of World War One (or, as "musician" Lawrence Welk once referred to it, World War eye. I was at my grandparents house, it was on TV, and I heard that myself.)
I could get sick from the irony. Humor protects me.
Andre Malraux wrote about the gas attacks, and around here somewhere I've got a copy of "Lazarus" in which he describes an episode so chaotic and horrendous that opposing fighters left their trenches and began saving everybody they could, even enemy soldiers. The leaves melted off the trees. Warriors on all sides had come to realize that at that moment, they were not enemies.
The gas was the enemy, and they conspired as well as they could so save themselves from it, dragging one another, coughing and heaving, away from the killing low clouds.
I suppose they did it without even thinking, just going on some impulse deep in the lizard brain activated by a sudden and perhaps unconscious stimulation that made them stop the fight long enough to try to save one another.
Is that the same impulse you felt when you saw little Ali Abbas on the cover of Newsweek back in the spring of 2003? Somebody, some of us perhaps, saved him, Yet some of us also bombed his arms off.
I have not linked to a photo of that famous magazine cover because in your mind's eye you can probably already see it. It has become and will likely remain as one of this folly's lasting emblems, like the famous girl in the picture from the Vietnam War era.
Even if we "win," we will lose, because to win we will just be making a lot more little Ali Abbas. And they will grow up, and they will not be our friends, because of what we did to them. So we will end up killing them, and a bunch of our own soldiers, too, because our leaders are dumber than you-know-who and they will never learn.
To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.
Andre Malraux
What does that tell you?
Friday, August 19, 2005
Sylvia Plath at 2:30 A.M.
Usually there first occurs a mysterious and beautiful introduction, sometimes as brief and soft as a French Baroque unmeasured harpsichord prelude, but sometimes as passionate and driving as Tristan and Isolde. These are actually quite enjoyable, but for the dread of the impending pain, if I am awake to savor it.
Unfortunately, these attacks often come in the darkest night hours. Typically, about 2:30 in the morning. I hate that because then I miss the good part. I don't much notice the aura if I am dozing during it. It becomes interwoven in the loose dream-fabric of my usually fitful attempts at sleep.
Just now I am realizing how the glowing waves of the Encinitas red tides very much resemble the visual light-storms of my auras. The beauty of these is beyond description.
Then comes the discomfort. Often other sufferers employ the term "vise-like" to describe the grip in which the pain squeezes the head; or rather, a good half of it. Throbbing, scintillating, pounding, hammering, the God of Ache arches through the hemisphere with the dull tenacity of an hydraulic lift upon which an auto rises for inspection.
Then all work stops. Other stars in the constellation begin to shine. The bladder calls. For me, a round of explosive sneezes numbering in the teens passes before the wet-sock leprechauns stuff my nose adroitly. At least that stops the nasal runniness. The tour includes a halt for the lower digestive tract, and often an episode of emesis.
Emesis with or without nausea. It depends, like so many things, on nothing. Interesting, that.
I've had hospital patients who get "abdominal migraines" without headache; frequently these are young males. Sorry, those. One was misdiagnosed with porphyria, of all things, for years, becoming addicted to opiates and getting a PortaCath in the process. But that's another story. One of the few times we called the local police to help us with a patient. They all knew him and his mother.
Life before Imitrex: caffeine. With a healthy ibuprofen dose. Not good in the middle of all-precious sleeping time. NSAIDs and vomiting do the esophagus no good, no good at all, and lead to other concerns. I would then be up. and as the migraine leaked out of my head, I could catch up on a little reading or studying.
So as not to disturb the others, headphones are nice, and when the headache fades I am still awake but a little music becomes tolerable and passes the time until drowsiness recurs.
My introduction to Imitrex (sumatriptan succinate,) the first of a subsequent whole family of vasoconstricting triptans, (I think Relpax, or eletriptan, is the latest newcomer,) came after a span of three days of intense sleepless pain. I had missed work, and finally my spouse took me to the local ER at the hospital in which I was then newly employed, in the middle of their night shift. My oral temperature was 94-something degrees from putting ice on my head. Useless, that.
Don, the nurse supervisor who I came to know later (marathoner and demerol thief, another story,) administered a subcutaneous dose of Imitrex, then a brand-spanking-new drug, and within five minutes the leaden fog on my head lifted and I was free at last.
Well not free free. I was uninsured, having just started that job. The ER bill was about $650 which I had payroll-deducted over the next few months, harmlessly.
I was the only patient in that rural ER.
A 3 a.m. code was called on the floor where I worked the day shift.
While lying on an ER gurney, time passes by at the rate of continental drift.
We finished the lovely paperwork and went home.
At that time Imitrex came only in an injectable form, still the best route in my opinion, as then one's probable emesis will not cause one to "waste" a dose (an oral dose, anyways,) away. For a mere $75 you got two doses. I quickly learned that about a half-dose would work for me, and research showed that worked with a good number of other migrainers. Still, it added up over those periods in which the migraines came a few times a week.
Now there are nasal sprays and tablets, and I have insurance so I do not need a $37.50 headache to justify a dose of Imitrex.
Lucky ducky me.
Like an elephant not wishing to confront the mouse in his path, the migraine turns and lumbers away, leaving only the dark quiet peacefulness that slowly succumbs to the dawn.
Unfortunately, these attacks often come in the darkest night hours. Typically, about 2:30 in the morning. I hate that because then I miss the good part. I don't much notice the aura if I am dozing during it. It becomes interwoven in the loose dream-fabric of my usually fitful attempts at sleep.
Just now I am realizing how the glowing waves of the Encinitas red tides very much resemble the visual light-storms of my auras. The beauty of these is beyond description.
Then comes the discomfort. Often other sufferers employ the term "vise-like" to describe the grip in which the pain squeezes the head; or rather, a good half of it. Throbbing, scintillating, pounding, hammering, the God of Ache arches through the hemisphere with the dull tenacity of an hydraulic lift upon which an auto rises for inspection.
Then all work stops. Other stars in the constellation begin to shine. The bladder calls. For me, a round of explosive sneezes numbering in the teens passes before the wet-sock leprechauns stuff my nose adroitly. At least that stops the nasal runniness. The tour includes a halt for the lower digestive tract, and often an episode of emesis.
Emesis with or without nausea. It depends, like so many things, on nothing. Interesting, that.
I've had hospital patients who get "abdominal migraines" without headache; frequently these are young males. Sorry, those. One was misdiagnosed with porphyria, of all things, for years, becoming addicted to opiates and getting a PortaCath in the process. But that's another story. One of the few times we called the local police to help us with a patient. They all knew him and his mother.
Life before Imitrex: caffeine. With a healthy ibuprofen dose. Not good in the middle of all-precious sleeping time. NSAIDs and vomiting do the esophagus no good, no good at all, and lead to other concerns. I would then be up. and as the migraine leaked out of my head, I could catch up on a little reading or studying.
So as not to disturb the others, headphones are nice, and when the headache fades I am still awake but a little music becomes tolerable and passes the time until drowsiness recurs.
My introduction to Imitrex (sumatriptan succinate,) the first of a subsequent whole family of vasoconstricting triptans, (I think Relpax, or eletriptan, is the latest newcomer,) came after a span of three days of intense sleepless pain. I had missed work, and finally my spouse took me to the local ER at the hospital in which I was then newly employed, in the middle of their night shift. My oral temperature was 94-something degrees from putting ice on my head. Useless, that.
Don, the nurse supervisor who I came to know later (marathoner and demerol thief, another story,) administered a subcutaneous dose of Imitrex, then a brand-spanking-new drug, and within five minutes the leaden fog on my head lifted and I was free at last.
Well not free free. I was uninsured, having just started that job. The ER bill was about $650 which I had payroll-deducted over the next few months, harmlessly.
I was the only patient in that rural ER.
A 3 a.m. code was called on the floor where I worked the day shift.
While lying on an ER gurney, time passes by at the rate of continental drift.
We finished the lovely paperwork and went home.
At that time Imitrex came only in an injectable form, still the best route in my opinion, as then one's probable emesis will not cause one to "waste" a dose (an oral dose, anyways,) away. For a mere $75 you got two doses. I quickly learned that about a half-dose would work for me, and research showed that worked with a good number of other migrainers. Still, it added up over those periods in which the migraines came a few times a week.
Now there are nasal sprays and tablets, and I have insurance so I do not need a $37.50 headache to justify a dose of Imitrex.
Lucky ducky me.
Like an elephant not wishing to confront the mouse in his path, the migraine turns and lumbers away, leaving only the dark quiet peacefulness that slowly succumbs to the dawn.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Lucky to See
It wasn't really all that red, but the water near the shore did sometimes look a little muddy. Mostly clear. During the day we didn't notice anything at all, really. That there was a rather uncommon red tide only became apparent after sunset, when the waves began to eerily flicker and glow.
It was beautiful while we stood in the shallow water where the ocean meets the beach. It was beautiful as we gazed up and down the coast for miles. And it was beautiful from the viewpoints up on the sandy bluffs. We went every night.
As the waves crested, for a few seconds the frothy peaks would flare up with an electric green-blue light. This snuffed out as the wave would smooth itself onto the slope of the shore. There was only a faint crescent of a moon, and as the waves lit up rather brightly this phenomenom was visible all along the beach as far as one could see.
Of course, it was nice during the day, too.
It was beautiful while we stood in the shallow water where the ocean meets the beach. It was beautiful as we gazed up and down the coast for miles. And it was beautiful from the viewpoints up on the sandy bluffs. We went every night.
As the waves crested, for a few seconds the frothy peaks would flare up with an electric green-blue light. This snuffed out as the wave would smooth itself onto the slope of the shore. There was only a faint crescent of a moon, and as the waves lit up rather brightly this phenomenom was visible all along the beach as far as one could see.
Of course, it was nice during the day, too.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
And She Just Wants to Ask Him Why
Regarding the Camp Casey movement, and yes, Virginia, it is a movement, President Bush has taken time from his all-important vacation to remind us all that he has to get on with his life. Unlike a certain (currently dead) soldier whose mother is presently changing the debate about this senseless war.
Bush needs five weeks of vacation, just to sit around and think up insensitive and utterly stupid things like that to say.
Somebody remind me where I read this, but the thing about Cindy Sheehan is that she, as stated above, is changing the debate.
It's not about weapons of mass destruction, nor Saddam's non-existent ties to bin Laden, nor spreading democracy (for the women of Iraq this is a particularly piquant point,) nor securing a large reserve of fossil fuel, nor preserving America's freedom, nor even about stuffing Halliburton's coffers with loot.
No.
It's about sending our young people off to die and destroying their families.
Aragorn gets it, so why don't some of your local newspaper editorialists get it?
Bush needs five weeks of vacation, just to sit around and think up insensitive and utterly stupid things like that to say.
Somebody remind me where I read this, but the thing about Cindy Sheehan is that she, as stated above, is changing the debate.
It's not about weapons of mass destruction, nor Saddam's non-existent ties to bin Laden, nor spreading democracy (for the women of Iraq this is a particularly piquant point,) nor securing a large reserve of fossil fuel, nor preserving America's freedom, nor even about stuffing Halliburton's coffers with loot.
No.
It's about sending our young people off to die and destroying their families.
Aragorn gets it, so why don't some of your local newspaper editorialists get it?
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Later
Beach books:
Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President by Justin A. Frank, M.D.
Braddock: The Rise of the Cinderella Man by Jim Hague
The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore
I usually bring a chess book, so I'll continue working through David Bronstein's coverage of the 1953 Zurich International Chess Tournament. His annotations are golden.
The young one and I, we're taking a break from C.S. Lewis but we will be thoroughly prepared when the anticipated new movie comes out at the end of the year. Instead we're reading-aloud Warriors: Into the Wild, by Erin Hunter, the beginning of a series about the Thunderclan and various other cats. It's a wonderful re-imagination of the local feral and pet cats that inhabit what appears to be an English countryside farm.
I am still moving up the metronome on Fernando Sor's Variations on a Theme From the Magic Flute, which I never played back in my college days, oddly. Searching still for some other fairly large piece to tackle, maybe a Dowland fantasie or a Weiss suite.
No work. No computer. No worries.
Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President by Justin A. Frank, M.D.
Braddock: The Rise of the Cinderella Man by Jim Hague
The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore
I usually bring a chess book, so I'll continue working through David Bronstein's coverage of the 1953 Zurich International Chess Tournament. His annotations are golden.
The young one and I, we're taking a break from C.S. Lewis but we will be thoroughly prepared when the anticipated new movie comes out at the end of the year. Instead we're reading-aloud Warriors: Into the Wild, by Erin Hunter, the beginning of a series about the Thunderclan and various other cats. It's a wonderful re-imagination of the local feral and pet cats that inhabit what appears to be an English countryside farm.
I am still moving up the metronome on Fernando Sor's Variations on a Theme From the Magic Flute, which I never played back in my college days, oddly. Searching still for some other fairly large piece to tackle, maybe a Dowland fantasie or a Weiss suite.
No work. No computer. No worries.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Over the Rainbow
Where do spoken words go after these are sounded out? Do they just disappear, trailing off into nothingness? Or do they continue to resound throughout the boundless sphere, leaving history in their ever-widening wake?
No, I'm not asking this in the spirit of a religious searcher, I just want to know how all the various things come about; how they are made and how then they become un-made. As in, where do things go?
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
Muriel Rukeyser
How do stories begin and end?
Where, precisely, do things come from?
Where do nurses come from?
Well, nursing schools, of course. But some people come out of these programs pretty much as raw material, not as "nurses" yet. They only develop their full potential after sustained apprenticeship in a clinical setting. However, there are others who leave nursing school like Athena, bursting forth in full armor and regalia.
Recently I worked with a student who was Robert-Redford-knocking-the-lights-out-in-the-movie-The-Natural good. Some people are just born with the ability to thread an IV catheter into a vein so tiny it would qualifiy for cosmological string-theory study.
And then there are "the dumb ones," but these are rather rare, only because nursing programs are such meat-grinders that if a student shows any propensity at all for failing the board exams (and thusly pulling down the success rate of the program, which nursing school deans do not like,) then they get the boot. They go to business school, I suppose, and then on into the lost realms of investment banking, law firms, upper management, or congressional politics.
Needless to say, that does little to allay the nursing shortage.
Over the years I have seen many people who, with a little effort on the part of their instructors and other working nurses, could have been pulled along. But these are exactly the kind of people that get the hatchet before the final stages of training.
I enjoy working with both the bright ones and the dim ones. The dimmer the better, as far as I'm concerned, as they will benefit more from training than somebody who already displays skills. It's fun to see the light spreading on their abilities, as these develop.
They become part of the chain. Every day, a nurse will learn something from a patient, another nurse, a doctor, or a technician. And then sometime in the future, they will apply that bit of crust of knowledge on to another's healing process. It gets passed along in an ever-increasing outward spiral. It goes someplace.
No, I'm not asking this in the spirit of a religious searcher, I just want to know how all the various things come about; how they are made and how then they become un-made. As in, where do things go?
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
Muriel Rukeyser
How do stories begin and end?
Where, precisely, do things come from?
Where do nurses come from?
Well, nursing schools, of course. But some people come out of these programs pretty much as raw material, not as "nurses" yet. They only develop their full potential after sustained apprenticeship in a clinical setting. However, there are others who leave nursing school like Athena, bursting forth in full armor and regalia.
Recently I worked with a student who was Robert-Redford-knocking-the-lights-out-in-the-movie-The-Natural good. Some people are just born with the ability to thread an IV catheter into a vein so tiny it would qualifiy for cosmological string-theory study.
And then there are "the dumb ones," but these are rather rare, only because nursing programs are such meat-grinders that if a student shows any propensity at all for failing the board exams (and thusly pulling down the success rate of the program, which nursing school deans do not like,) then they get the boot. They go to business school, I suppose, and then on into the lost realms of investment banking, law firms, upper management, or congressional politics.
Needless to say, that does little to allay the nursing shortage.
Over the years I have seen many people who, with a little effort on the part of their instructors and other working nurses, could have been pulled along. But these are exactly the kind of people that get the hatchet before the final stages of training.
I enjoy working with both the bright ones and the dim ones. The dimmer the better, as far as I'm concerned, as they will benefit more from training than somebody who already displays skills. It's fun to see the light spreading on their abilities, as these develop.
They become part of the chain. Every day, a nurse will learn something from a patient, another nurse, a doctor, or a technician. And then sometime in the future, they will apply that bit of crust of knowledge on to another's healing process. It gets passed along in an ever-increasing outward spiral. It goes someplace.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
People Who Need People are the Loneliest People
I do not think that it would be unfair to say that Patrick Haab has a mental health condition that would benefit from treatment. It seems I am not alone in holding this opinion.
Two months after arriving in Kuwait, the records state, Haab was pulled out of the cultural awareness class by his superior and ordered to talk to a chaplain. A few hours later, he became distraught, threatened to commit suicide and got into a scuffle with military officials attempting to take away a hidden knife.
There will be more of our service men and women returning to our shores with problems similar to, and greater than, those displayed by the unfortunate Sgt. Haab. That, after all, is just what war is all about. It's about ruining people.
According to the records, he received counseling for five months and a military official said "he did not think Sgt. Haab was ready to return to duty or become a functioning part of society." Military officials found out that while on "med hold" at Fort Bragg, Haab spent $12,000 on a .50-caliber sniper rifle. They were concerned enough to contact the Surgeon General's Office.
Robert Anglen has the whole story here.
This comes to light after the revelation of President Bush's 2006 budget, which of course includes huge cuts to federally-supported mental health care programs. It is possible that Sgt. Haab may not get sufficient treatment to allay further problems.
I do not think that the unfolding tragedy of his life is yet over. I truly fear for what is yet to come.
I am also wondering why Bush would wish to cut funding for the treatment of people who suffer as Sgt. Haab does. Perhaps Bush really doesn't think that such people even need medical help. So why fund it?
Maybe Bush thinks there's nothing wrong with Sgt. Haab.
Let me also say this: because so many of the homeless and mentally ill are military veterans, any cuts to programs that serve the homeless and mentally ill are budget cuts against veterans themselves.
Again, any cuts to programs that serve the homeless and mentally ill are budget cuts against veterans themselves.
Maybe the Bush Republicans think there's nothing wrong with that. It's really better to give Barbara Streisand a large permanent tax break, no?
Two months after arriving in Kuwait, the records state, Haab was pulled out of the cultural awareness class by his superior and ordered to talk to a chaplain. A few hours later, he became distraught, threatened to commit suicide and got into a scuffle with military officials attempting to take away a hidden knife.
There will be more of our service men and women returning to our shores with problems similar to, and greater than, those displayed by the unfortunate Sgt. Haab. That, after all, is just what war is all about. It's about ruining people.
According to the records, he received counseling for five months and a military official said "he did not think Sgt. Haab was ready to return to duty or become a functioning part of society." Military officials found out that while on "med hold" at Fort Bragg, Haab spent $12,000 on a .50-caliber sniper rifle. They were concerned enough to contact the Surgeon General's Office.
Robert Anglen has the whole story here.
This comes to light after the revelation of President Bush's 2006 budget, which of course includes huge cuts to federally-supported mental health care programs. It is possible that Sgt. Haab may not get sufficient treatment to allay further problems.
I do not think that the unfolding tragedy of his life is yet over. I truly fear for what is yet to come.
I am also wondering why Bush would wish to cut funding for the treatment of people who suffer as Sgt. Haab does. Perhaps Bush really doesn't think that such people even need medical help. So why fund it?
Maybe Bush thinks there's nothing wrong with Sgt. Haab.
Let me also say this: because so many of the homeless and mentally ill are military veterans, any cuts to programs that serve the homeless and mentally ill are budget cuts against veterans themselves.
Again, any cuts to programs that serve the homeless and mentally ill are budget cuts against veterans themselves.
Maybe the Bush Republicans think there's nothing wrong with that. It's really better to give Barbara Streisand a large permanent tax break, no?
Monday, August 01, 2005
Put This on a Yellow Ribbon
Let's see. Say you're a Bush Republican, and you're bored. Nothing to do. Think. What would you do? What would you do?
I know! To satisfy "making the tax cuts permanent," you'd take money away from the troops. AGAIN! Why not? Who's going to try to stop you? John Kerry? Michael Moore? Molly Ivins?
They tried to warn us. They're still trying, and so am I. Lot of good it did the last couple times around, though.
What's it going to be, folks, more hardship for those families who have members serving our country, or a permanent tax break for Ben and J-Lo? If you're a Bush supporter, that's easy. Some military people get shafted out of a few hundred dollar's worth of monthly mortgage money, and the Hollywood celebrities you just love to hate keep enough yearly tax breaks to buy a new Lexus every September until this hell freezes over.
Go ahead. Just try to pin this one on Clinton or the Democrats. Make my day.
I know! To satisfy "making the tax cuts permanent," you'd take money away from the troops. AGAIN! Why not? Who's going to try to stop you? John Kerry? Michael Moore? Molly Ivins?
They tried to warn us. They're still trying, and so am I. Lot of good it did the last couple times around, though.
What's it going to be, folks, more hardship for those families who have members serving our country, or a permanent tax break for Ben and J-Lo? If you're a Bush supporter, that's easy. Some military people get shafted out of a few hundred dollar's worth of monthly mortgage money, and the Hollywood celebrities you just love to hate keep enough yearly tax breaks to buy a new Lexus every September until this hell freezes over.
Go ahead. Just try to pin this one on Clinton or the Democrats. Make my day.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Thanks, Roddy
This was in the Haloscan comments over at Eschaton this morning:
And what does a family need, Rickster?
Lower wages, according to the Republican party. Less access to affordable health care, according to the Republican party. Fewer schools, according to the Republican party. More arsenic in drinking water, according to the Republican party. More mercury in fish, according to the Republican party. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the Republican party. Meat that has not been checked for contaminants like Mad Cow Disease, according to the Republican party.
According to the Republican Party, these are the ingredients for a strong family. And they're working hard to make sure each and every family other than their own has these things.
Roddy McCorley
Obviously a rhetorical response to Senator Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum. He's been on television talk shows like wet paint on a bench all this past week, hawking yet another "family values" book he's written. I'll bet that it's almost as good and wholesome as this philosophical masterpiece. Republican values have devolved into crappy comic book values, and they are proud of this.
It's more bait-and-switch for the red-state high-cholesterol types. Promise them "family values" (also known as homophobia,) but deliver more tax cuts for Tom Cruise and that guy who owns five mediocre Mexican restaurants.
Funny how it gets turned around. I'm for safer water, safer foods, better wages and benefits for working people with families, improved education for anybody willing to work at it, and health care that won't cause bankruptcy.
But according to the likes of Senator Santorum, I'm not "pro-family" because I believe, like most Americans, in a woman's right to control her reproductive life on her own, and I don't hate gay people. (Well, I must admit I do hate some of them, Ken Mehlman, for example. He's a loathesome little jerkwad, in my humble opinion.)
What do you want for your family?
And what does a family need, Rickster?
Lower wages, according to the Republican party. Less access to affordable health care, according to the Republican party. Fewer schools, according to the Republican party. More arsenic in drinking water, according to the Republican party. More mercury in fish, according to the Republican party. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the Republican party. Meat that has not been checked for contaminants like Mad Cow Disease, according to the Republican party.
According to the Republican Party, these are the ingredients for a strong family. And they're working hard to make sure each and every family other than their own has these things.
Roddy McCorley
Obviously a rhetorical response to Senator Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum. He's been on television talk shows like wet paint on a bench all this past week, hawking yet another "family values" book he's written. I'll bet that it's almost as good and wholesome as this philosophical masterpiece. Republican values have devolved into crappy comic book values, and they are proud of this.
It's more bait-and-switch for the red-state high-cholesterol types. Promise them "family values" (also known as homophobia,) but deliver more tax cuts for Tom Cruise and that guy who owns five mediocre Mexican restaurants.
Funny how it gets turned around. I'm for safer water, safer foods, better wages and benefits for working people with families, improved education for anybody willing to work at it, and health care that won't cause bankruptcy.
But according to the likes of Senator Santorum, I'm not "pro-family" because I believe, like most Americans, in a woman's right to control her reproductive life on her own, and I don't hate gay people. (Well, I must admit I do hate some of them, Ken Mehlman, for example. He's a loathesome little jerkwad, in my humble opinion.)
What do you want for your family?
Saturday, July 30, 2005
It's Just
They were hugging by the "time clock." It looked very serious.
I do not know why we all called the device we used to sign in to work a "time clock." Seems like a redundant and useless term. Aren't all clocks "time clocks?"
"Tina" was crying her eyes out. "Leo" gripped her tightly. I walked by puzzled. I had floated to ICU so I didn't need to slide my card at that time clock anyways. I didn't ask.
Their affair was rather well-known. To me, anyways, because one time when I got home they were upstairs in our spare bedroom. I could hear the mattress springs, and I could tell it wasn't just the cats jumping off the bed. Repeatedly.
I never bothered to lock my house when we lived there. On really cold winter days, people would leave their cars running with the keys in while they went in the grocery store to shop so they wouldn't be freezing cold when they got back into their cars. Minus ten degrees does that. Small town mentality. Bears were rare but more common than burglars.
Leo and I were friends outside of work. We would ski in the cold and bike when the winter sands were taken off the roads and the weather warmed.
Leo and Tina had used my house for more than one of their afternoon-before-going-home festivals of love. My spouse had a problem with that. Another time when I came home from work they were again already there. Done, I supposed, because they were sitting on the couch with drinks from my refridgerator. Cordially, they offered me one. Funny, that.
Then my spouse had her little talk with Leo. After which he just moved in for awhile. Even funnier, that.
Tina's husband was a tempermental and difficult man with many problems, so I had heard, and he had finally addressed these issues by blowing his brains out in their bedroom. He was home alone during the day; kids at school, wife at work. The police must have notified her while she was at the hospital, and arrangements were made to get her out of there. The shift was near-finished anyways.
Leo had been consoling her. So it was more than what I'd thought: that they were just coming out at work.
They were, and still are, nurses of great excellence.
Tina took a little time off to move in with her parents and to take care of things. When she got back to work, it was like she was really Superwoman or a Soviet spy or something and we all knew her secret identity, but she covered that up by disguising herself as a nurse. Leo formalized his separation from his wife, who incidentally worked at the same place.
I guess what I'm getting at is that a lot of times a nurse plays the role they assume at work, but outside of work their life might be very un-nurse-like, whatever that means.
You might be the same way at your job. Behind your work persona there could be a person in mourning, a person in recovery, a person whose life is just about to take a sudden sharp turn or a slow and wide gyre, or maybe a person who holds the winning ticket. Maybe a person with an undiagnosed dissecting abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Nurses can be like that, too, but at work they are always the nurse. Like the Museum of Natural History in New York City, and Holden Caulfield talking about how maybe you just saw a rainbow sheen on a puddle, and you're a different person because of that, but the dinosaur bones are the same.
I left out the "J" word, as usual.
I do not know why we all called the device we used to sign in to work a "time clock." Seems like a redundant and useless term. Aren't all clocks "time clocks?"
"Tina" was crying her eyes out. "Leo" gripped her tightly. I walked by puzzled. I had floated to ICU so I didn't need to slide my card at that time clock anyways. I didn't ask.
Their affair was rather well-known. To me, anyways, because one time when I got home they were upstairs in our spare bedroom. I could hear the mattress springs, and I could tell it wasn't just the cats jumping off the bed. Repeatedly.
I never bothered to lock my house when we lived there. On really cold winter days, people would leave their cars running with the keys in while they went in the grocery store to shop so they wouldn't be freezing cold when they got back into their cars. Minus ten degrees does that. Small town mentality. Bears were rare but more common than burglars.
Leo and I were friends outside of work. We would ski in the cold and bike when the winter sands were taken off the roads and the weather warmed.
Leo and Tina had used my house for more than one of their afternoon-before-going-home festivals of love. My spouse had a problem with that. Another time when I came home from work they were again already there. Done, I supposed, because they were sitting on the couch with drinks from my refridgerator. Cordially, they offered me one. Funny, that.
Then my spouse had her little talk with Leo. After which he just moved in for awhile. Even funnier, that.
Tina's husband was a tempermental and difficult man with many problems, so I had heard, and he had finally addressed these issues by blowing his brains out in their bedroom. He was home alone during the day; kids at school, wife at work. The police must have notified her while she was at the hospital, and arrangements were made to get her out of there. The shift was near-finished anyways.
Leo had been consoling her. So it was more than what I'd thought: that they were just coming out at work.
They were, and still are, nurses of great excellence.
Tina took a little time off to move in with her parents and to take care of things. When she got back to work, it was like she was really Superwoman or a Soviet spy or something and we all knew her secret identity, but she covered that up by disguising herself as a nurse. Leo formalized his separation from his wife, who incidentally worked at the same place.
I guess what I'm getting at is that a lot of times a nurse plays the role they assume at work, but outside of work their life might be very un-nurse-like, whatever that means.
You might be the same way at your job. Behind your work persona there could be a person in mourning, a person in recovery, a person whose life is just about to take a sudden sharp turn or a slow and wide gyre, or maybe a person who holds the winning ticket. Maybe a person with an undiagnosed dissecting abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Nurses can be like that, too, but at work they are always the nurse. Like the Museum of Natural History in New York City, and Holden Caulfield talking about how maybe you just saw a rainbow sheen on a puddle, and you're a different person because of that, but the dinosaur bones are the same.
I left out the "J" word, as usual.
Reliability Clause
If any of you at all doubt the complete bug-headed idiocy of our dear President Bush, then please click on the video link here. The smirk, the disregard for the power of the camera, his dismissal of the potential posterity of the video record, his insensitivity towards whoever may see it, his lousy judgement, all on tape.
This should be played in every church in the United States on a regular basis, for all congregations to see and meditate upon. This man has his finger, not the same one, I hope, on the nuclear button.
There has been some minor controversy surrounding a video that Leno presented this week on his television show, purporting to capture the president giving a one-finger salute as he walks away from a gaggle of reporters. You can click over to Desert Rat Democrat and take a look, if you are not already familiar with this.
The earlier video, however, is unambiguous. It is a very unflattering glimpse of the man who now leads us. I hope you can both look at it for yourself and then also imagine how it would look to the people of other countries.
Believe me, they don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we elected this dangerous plebian second-rate burnt-out frat-boy, twice, to represent us to the whole world.
Thank the stars we have a Constitution that prevents us from electing him yet a third time.
This should be played in every church in the United States on a regular basis, for all congregations to see and meditate upon. This man has his finger, not the same one, I hope, on the nuclear button.
There has been some minor controversy surrounding a video that Leno presented this week on his television show, purporting to capture the president giving a one-finger salute as he walks away from a gaggle of reporters. You can click over to Desert Rat Democrat and take a look, if you are not already familiar with this.
The earlier video, however, is unambiguous. It is a very unflattering glimpse of the man who now leads us. I hope you can both look at it for yourself and then also imagine how it would look to the people of other countries.
Believe me, they don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we elected this dangerous plebian second-rate burnt-out frat-boy, twice, to represent us to the whole world.
Thank the stars we have a Constitution that prevents us from electing him yet a third time.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Number 5
If I ever make a rock album, it will have as its penultimate track a parody of "Revolution Number 9" from the Beatles' White Album. But instead of the phrase "number 9, number 9" intoning repeatedly (and which when played backwards allegedly said "Paul is a deadman,") one will hear the phrase "Amendment 5, Amendment 5" which will sound out "due process" no matter how you play it.
From what I can make of it, all the hoo-hah about the recent Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. the City of New London is that it seems to allow municipalities to take private land from private individuals and then turn this property over to other private individuals.
That's kind of like stealing. Hence the concern.
Interestingly, New York State Senator John A. DeFrancisco says this:
Because I strongly agree with Justice O'Connor's dissent, I began drafting legislation to modify New York's eminent domain law immediately after the Kelo decision. The decision left leeway for a remedy. It hinted that each state has the right to decide how expansive its eminent domain laws should be within its borders. On July 21, I introduced my bill that would restrict the use of eminent domain.
State Senator DeFrancisco believes that within Kelo there is a "hint" that it would still allow states to maintain a certain amount of legal sanity regarding this issue. Perhaps even outlawing the inevitable abuse that could inherently flow from the Kelo decision.
I've e-mailed his office to see if I can download a copy of his bill, (or obtain a link,) because I'd like to pass it along to my legislators here in The Great South West.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Not bad, that. I would think that the 5th Amendment still has some advocates, maybe none among the President's business circles where it's probably seen as a hindrance, but here at a local level.
And now it's time to say goodnight.
From what I can make of it, all the hoo-hah about the recent Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. the City of New London is that it seems to allow municipalities to take private land from private individuals and then turn this property over to other private individuals.
That's kind of like stealing. Hence the concern.
Interestingly, New York State Senator John A. DeFrancisco says this:
Because I strongly agree with Justice O'Connor's dissent, I began drafting legislation to modify New York's eminent domain law immediately after the Kelo decision. The decision left leeway for a remedy. It hinted that each state has the right to decide how expansive its eminent domain laws should be within its borders. On July 21, I introduced my bill that would restrict the use of eminent domain.
State Senator DeFrancisco believes that within Kelo there is a "hint" that it would still allow states to maintain a certain amount of legal sanity regarding this issue. Perhaps even outlawing the inevitable abuse that could inherently flow from the Kelo decision.
I've e-mailed his office to see if I can download a copy of his bill, (or obtain a link,) because I'd like to pass it along to my legislators here in The Great South West.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Not bad, that. I would think that the 5th Amendment still has some advocates, maybe none among the President's business circles where it's probably seen as a hindrance, but here at a local level.
And now it's time to say goodnight.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Mundum reple dulcedine
This editorial suggests there are not enough people in the world of Islam speaking out against terrorism.
"Where are the responsible Islamic leaders? Where are the imams condemning the murderers who have hijacked their religion? Why are the mosques not ringing with condemnation of al-Qaida?"
Terrorism, of course, is narrowly considered to be only those bad things that Muslims do to other people. If people who are predominantly Christian steer cruise missles into the neighborhoods of large cities in Iraq, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process, this is called "shock and awe." Not "terrorism." Nice, that.
It is assumed that if an American missle blows up your family in the middle of the night, you will not feel terror. In fact, according to the current American vice-president, you will instead be moved to joyously throw flowers at those who have just pulverized your loved ones to death.
That, certainly, is insane. The subject for some other newspaper editorial, presumably. America would need its print media to widely disseminate information regarding the deranged mental status of its leaders, you might think. Wrongly, in this case, though.
Christ himself was no advocate of mass slaughter. But many of the people who live in this largely Christian country often profess a desire to submit Muslims to genocide. Here is an example of some of the things they say. Perhaps, sheltered as they are, newspaper editorialists are unaware of such sentiments.
*"Can we eradicate Islam now, please?"
* "If there are no Arabs there are no attacks. How many more need be sacrificed?"
* "It is now time to force muslims to make a choice: Live peacefully or die. I prefer the latter."
* "We need to stop fucking with these people and kill every one involved. I mean anyone with prior knowledge, anyone who payed for it, and anyone who supported it. Regardless of nationality."
* "If its Islamic it will probably blow up. All Islamic get full body searches with VERY high intensity X-rays ."
* "The best way to deliver those high intensity x-rays is through some W76 warheads at around 100 kt a piece. It will be easier to give a full body search after that."
* "Britain should END ALL ISLAMIC IMMIGRATION NOW....Continuing to welcome the enemy into your country is insane."
* "subhumans, first time on 2 feet...round em all up, every friggin' last one of them...unfortunately, I still think it will take even more violence from the Arabs before the West wakes up and goes savage on em"
* "Martyring Muslims doesn't seem to make much of a difference to the fanatics. What is needed is to take their human capital out their hands - their children. No more warped children, no more jihadis. "
The calls for genocide and apartheid are flowing freely. There is a reason why blogs like Instapundit and Powerline do not allow comments, and why Time magazine would give its "Blog of the Year" award to Powerline even though Free Republic actually "broke" the CBS story. There is a concerted effort on the part of the right to prevent this sort of overt racism and fascism on the right from being given any sunshine. These, however, are not isolated comments. They are numerous and they are appearing on the second most trafficked right-wing blog in the country, and by far the largest right-wing blog that allows comments.
(Thanks to MyDD for doing the heavy lifting here.)
Or perhaps they, the editorialists, are merely projecting, in both the psychological sense of the term and as a sort of synonym for "broadcasting." I think one could surmise that the editorial cited above does a bit of both, in the sense that it also puts forth a talking-point seen to be beneficial to those who man the White House fax machines. Goodness knows they need lots of help, though perhaps of a different sort.
No, you are correct, I am being unfair. Rest assured that newspaper editorialists will soon, probably tomorrow, exhort Christian leaders and readers to denounce bigotry against Islam and Arabs, and to decry the violence our weapons have wrought upon their innocent children. Surely that will be so.
Pig feathers.
"Where are the responsible Islamic leaders? Where are the imams condemning the murderers who have hijacked their religion? Why are the mosques not ringing with condemnation of al-Qaida?"
Terrorism, of course, is narrowly considered to be only those bad things that Muslims do to other people. If people who are predominantly Christian steer cruise missles into the neighborhoods of large cities in Iraq, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process, this is called "shock and awe." Not "terrorism." Nice, that.
It is assumed that if an American missle blows up your family in the middle of the night, you will not feel terror. In fact, according to the current American vice-president, you will instead be moved to joyously throw flowers at those who have just pulverized your loved ones to death.
That, certainly, is insane. The subject for some other newspaper editorial, presumably. America would need its print media to widely disseminate information regarding the deranged mental status of its leaders, you might think. Wrongly, in this case, though.
Christ himself was no advocate of mass slaughter. But many of the people who live in this largely Christian country often profess a desire to submit Muslims to genocide. Here is an example of some of the things they say. Perhaps, sheltered as they are, newspaper editorialists are unaware of such sentiments.
*"Can we eradicate Islam now, please?"
* "If there are no Arabs there are no attacks. How many more need be sacrificed?"
* "It is now time to force muslims to make a choice: Live peacefully or die. I prefer the latter."
* "We need to stop fucking with these people and kill every one involved. I mean anyone with prior knowledge, anyone who payed for it, and anyone who supported it. Regardless of nationality."
* "If its Islamic it will probably blow up. All Islamic get full body searches with VERY high intensity X-rays ."
* "The best way to deliver those high intensity x-rays is through some W76 warheads at around 100 kt a piece. It will be easier to give a full body search after that."
* "Britain should END ALL ISLAMIC IMMIGRATION NOW....Continuing to welcome the enemy into your country is insane."
* "subhumans, first time on 2 feet...round em all up, every friggin' last one of them...unfortunately, I still think it will take even more violence from the Arabs before the West wakes up and goes savage on em"
* "Martyring Muslims doesn't seem to make much of a difference to the fanatics. What is needed is to take their human capital out their hands - their children. No more warped children, no more jihadis. "
The calls for genocide and apartheid are flowing freely. There is a reason why blogs like Instapundit and Powerline do not allow comments, and why Time magazine would give its "Blog of the Year" award to Powerline even though Free Republic actually "broke" the CBS story. There is a concerted effort on the part of the right to prevent this sort of overt racism and fascism on the right from being given any sunshine. These, however, are not isolated comments. They are numerous and they are appearing on the second most trafficked right-wing blog in the country, and by far the largest right-wing blog that allows comments.
(Thanks to MyDD for doing the heavy lifting here.)
Or perhaps they, the editorialists, are merely projecting, in both the psychological sense of the term and as a sort of synonym for "broadcasting." I think one could surmise that the editorial cited above does a bit of both, in the sense that it also puts forth a talking-point seen to be beneficial to those who man the White House fax machines. Goodness knows they need lots of help, though perhaps of a different sort.
No, you are correct, I am being unfair. Rest assured that newspaper editorialists will soon, probably tomorrow, exhort Christian leaders and readers to denounce bigotry against Islam and Arabs, and to decry the violence our weapons have wrought upon their innocent children. Surely that will be so.
Pig feathers.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The Typical Dilemma
It had been a while since I'd seen how the patient was doing. Most of the shift had passed quietly for him. When I stepped into the room the visitor at his bedside said to me "You might not want to hear this."
The patient was lying not uncomfortably in his bed but gesturing broadly with his arms. He was slowly and dramatically repeating one phrase with little variation. In a Richard-Prior-like Sunday-morning falsetto he said "My car... in the garage...smells like p*$$y!" He said it as if he were preaching it to some wide but invisible and appreciative audience, and he bowed his head a little after each recitation.
"My car... in the garage... smells like p*$$y!"
Okay, mon ami, I thought, no more drugs for you.
But then I thought again. Maybe he actually did need more drugs.
That was the limit of his strangeness. He wasn't acting out any more than that, and he seemed safe enough. I thought he might have been putting me on a little, because he was not entirely disoriented. He knew he was going for his procedure later, for example.
Hey, I thought, they'd be giving him more drugs there. Perfect. No worries, then.
Problem solved.
The patient was lying not uncomfortably in his bed but gesturing broadly with his arms. He was slowly and dramatically repeating one phrase with little variation. In a Richard-Prior-like Sunday-morning falsetto he said "My car... in the garage...smells like p*$$y!" He said it as if he were preaching it to some wide but invisible and appreciative audience, and he bowed his head a little after each recitation.
"My car... in the garage... smells like p*$$y!"
Okay, mon ami, I thought, no more drugs for you.
But then I thought again. Maybe he actually did need more drugs.
That was the limit of his strangeness. He wasn't acting out any more than that, and he seemed safe enough. I thought he might have been putting me on a little, because he was not entirely disoriented. He knew he was going for his procedure later, for example.
Hey, I thought, they'd be giving him more drugs there. Perfect. No worries, then.
Problem solved.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Pledge a Little, Pledge a Lot
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Federation of Planets, and to the galaxy for which it stands, one universe, under everybody, with liberty and justice for all species.
A kid just tries to have a little fun by making up his own version of the Pledge and knickers begin to twist faster than longjohns hanging out on a clothesline in an Oklahoma tornado. Oh well. I suppose in the end the kid will have learned some important life lessons: adults often over-react to things, make great mountains out of little molehills, and a lot of times they just don't get it.
We all know the story but it never hurts to be reminded.
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".
The basically original Pledge, with the word "to" inserted as noted at a later time.
About thirty years after the 1892 creation of the Pledge, the reference to the flag "of the United States of America" was added, and Francis Bellamy, who penned the original, was displeased.
Bellamy did not live to see the words "under God" added by Congress in 1954, but relatives said he wouldn't have gone for it, as he himself was never a cowardly Cold War fraidy-cat McCarthyite eager to villify the people of entire countries as "godless Communists." No, he was simply a Socialist and a patriot.
Maybe the school principal who suspended the kid for writing a more universal Pledge is the only person left who takes it that seriously anymore. There are obviously people in government who do not. The Plame leakers would seem to value their political party and its narrow agendas more than they value the flag and that for which it stands. Isn't that treason?
How many times did Karl Rove stand beside his school desk and recite the Pledge with hand on heart? How many times did he thusly lie?
Lots of times. Lots and lots.
A kid just tries to have a little fun by making up his own version of the Pledge and knickers begin to twist faster than longjohns hanging out on a clothesline in an Oklahoma tornado. Oh well. I suppose in the end the kid will have learned some important life lessons: adults often over-react to things, make great mountains out of little molehills, and a lot of times they just don't get it.
We all know the story but it never hurts to be reminded.
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".
The basically original Pledge, with the word "to" inserted as noted at a later time.
About thirty years after the 1892 creation of the Pledge, the reference to the flag "of the United States of America" was added, and Francis Bellamy, who penned the original, was displeased.
Bellamy did not live to see the words "under God" added by Congress in 1954, but relatives said he wouldn't have gone for it, as he himself was never a cowardly Cold War fraidy-cat McCarthyite eager to villify the people of entire countries as "godless Communists." No, he was simply a Socialist and a patriot.
Maybe the school principal who suspended the kid for writing a more universal Pledge is the only person left who takes it that seriously anymore. There are obviously people in government who do not. The Plame leakers would seem to value their political party and its narrow agendas more than they value the flag and that for which it stands. Isn't that treason?
How many times did Karl Rove stand beside his school desk and recite the Pledge with hand on heart? How many times did he thusly lie?
Lots of times. Lots and lots.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Look Out Behind You
Suppose you are one of those lucky people that actually has health-care insurance sponsored by your employer. I do. It's very nice. It might even prevent my family from going completely bankrupt due to severe illness or injury someday.
Having health insurance is like free money. These benefits certainly have value, which not even initially taxed. Not yet, anyways.
Oh great. More "limited government" from our friends and neighbors who toil so diligently on our behalf inside the beltway.
In place of the current system, the task force, known as the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, is said to be examining a plan that would allow employers to provide tax-exempt health coverage up to a certain dollar limit. Benefits that exceeded the limit would be treated as taxable income.
In theory, that seems fair. But in practice, it would further subject health coverage to the political process. Who would determine which treatments should be included in basic, tax-exempt plans, and which should be considered nonessential? These questions have provoked political storms in the past -- for example, the battle over how long mothers should be allowed to remain in the hospital after delivery. Why invite more battles over basic care -- and more lobbying by special interests for favorable treatment? Of course, Congress might simply set a dollar limit, and let employers and health insurance companies design coverage plans to meet it. But that would create a patchwork system, with some workers getting better basic care than others.
Not only will this proposal see to it that more money is taken from middle-class pockets; it will also see to it that another layer of interference could manifest itself between you and the healthcare you might need. It's personal.
All politics is local, they say, and this is politics that reaches once again into your medical files and checkbook simultaneously. To paraphrase Marx (Groucho, not Karl,) if it were any more local it would be behind you.
Note that this idea is coming from a presidential task force. It's the president's idea. He owns it. It doesn't belong to anybody else. But you just have to wonder how they will eventually spin it as a "grass-roots effort" to increase "tax fairness" while they slather you in newspeak. Kind of like Social Security reform. Or the death tax.
Orwellian soundbites for the lumpen proles.
Similarly, the expression tossing cookies sounds rather nice, like a children's game, but of course it really means vomiting partially digested food. If you are a working American with any sense, then that is just what this proposal will make you do, preferably all over the members of said task force. Don't forget to aim for their shoes. Or higher up. That, I suppose, would be better.
So please tell me again how glad you are that Bush gave Tom Cruise huge tax breaks.
Having health insurance is like free money. These benefits certainly have value, which not even initially taxed. Not yet, anyways.
Oh great. More "limited government" from our friends and neighbors who toil so diligently on our behalf inside the beltway.
In place of the current system, the task force, known as the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, is said to be examining a plan that would allow employers to provide tax-exempt health coverage up to a certain dollar limit. Benefits that exceeded the limit would be treated as taxable income.
In theory, that seems fair. But in practice, it would further subject health coverage to the political process. Who would determine which treatments should be included in basic, tax-exempt plans, and which should be considered nonessential? These questions have provoked political storms in the past -- for example, the battle over how long mothers should be allowed to remain in the hospital after delivery. Why invite more battles over basic care -- and more lobbying by special interests for favorable treatment? Of course, Congress might simply set a dollar limit, and let employers and health insurance companies design coverage plans to meet it. But that would create a patchwork system, with some workers getting better basic care than others.
Not only will this proposal see to it that more money is taken from middle-class pockets; it will also see to it that another layer of interference could manifest itself between you and the healthcare you might need. It's personal.
All politics is local, they say, and this is politics that reaches once again into your medical files and checkbook simultaneously. To paraphrase Marx (Groucho, not Karl,) if it were any more local it would be behind you.
Note that this idea is coming from a presidential task force. It's the president's idea. He owns it. It doesn't belong to anybody else. But you just have to wonder how they will eventually spin it as a "grass-roots effort" to increase "tax fairness" while they slather you in newspeak. Kind of like Social Security reform. Or the death tax.
Orwellian soundbites for the lumpen proles.
Similarly, the expression tossing cookies sounds rather nice, like a children's game, but of course it really means vomiting partially digested food. If you are a working American with any sense, then that is just what this proposal will make you do, preferably all over the members of said task force. Don't forget to aim for their shoes. Or higher up. That, I suppose, would be better.
So please tell me again how glad you are that Bush gave Tom Cruise huge tax breaks.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Fifteen milliliters
He was one of the bigger guys, over 500 pounds. Tall, too, six feet and three or four inches. He said that all his life, no matter how much he ate, he never felt full.
He said that sometimes, even as a teenager, for dinner he would eat two whole chickens and wash this down with a half-gallon of milk, and he would still be hungry so he would have an apple pie, a whole one, for dessert.
If I'm remembering this right, after open gastric bypass the protocol was to allow the patient to take no more than an ounce of nutritious fluid, like one of those canned dietary supplements, and it had to be taken over at least ten minutes, once an hour. This was on the second post-op day. (The first post-op day they similarly took an ounce of just water over ten minutes, once an hour.) Rather stringent.
I was chatting with the patient after checking his vitals, and noticed that he had taken only about half an ounce of the drink since the last time I'd popped in on him.
"I can't finish it," he explained, "because I feel full."
For the first time in his life.
He said that sometimes, even as a teenager, for dinner he would eat two whole chickens and wash this down with a half-gallon of milk, and he would still be hungry so he would have an apple pie, a whole one, for dessert.
If I'm remembering this right, after open gastric bypass the protocol was to allow the patient to take no more than an ounce of nutritious fluid, like one of those canned dietary supplements, and it had to be taken over at least ten minutes, once an hour. This was on the second post-op day. (The first post-op day they similarly took an ounce of just water over ten minutes, once an hour.) Rather stringent.
I was chatting with the patient after checking his vitals, and noticed that he had taken only about half an ounce of the drink since the last time I'd popped in on him.
"I can't finish it," he explained, "because I feel full."
For the first time in his life.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Benevolent Self Interest
My father was a very charming man; so charming, actually, that he could sweet-talk the knickers off a nun.
In fact, once during my college years he did just that. Well, almost. The person who we initially assumed to be a nun was really just some guy who rather resembled Mother Theresa and happened to have been wearing a penguin costume, which apparently was quite warm inside, and a fair amount of tequila had been consumed by many involved.
But that is another story altogether.
It was my father's subtle way with words, and his naive but deeply-held notions of respect for all persons. Though competitive in his fields of endeavor, he always seemed to come off as an advocate for people, even in confrontational episodes. If I am ever seen to be doing something like that myself, it is because of him.
One of the new residents was writing discharge orders for a patient who was on dialysis. Included in the prescriptions was one for PhosLo to be taken once a day. Of course, that is not how the drug is used. It is taken three or four times a day with major meals so it can do its job, which is to bind to the phosphorous in foods and prevent its excess absorption, as dialysis does not adequately clear this substance from the body.
I told the resident that I had a question about that order, and showed him that during the hospital stay the patient took it as I outlined above. Later he handed me revised discharge orders and a correct PhosLo prescription for the patient.
The reason why I am happy with myself about this is not that I did anything, as I tried to leave myself out of it and place the issue between the current orders and the discharge orders. I was careful not to appear to seem like I knew something he didn't, because heaven knows that is not a reliable stance for me to take.
Rather, I just wanted to give the resident some assurance that I've got his back. And that, I must say, is something that I learned from my father, the charming man.
In fact, once during my college years he did just that. Well, almost. The person who we initially assumed to be a nun was really just some guy who rather resembled Mother Theresa and happened to have been wearing a penguin costume, which apparently was quite warm inside, and a fair amount of tequila had been consumed by many involved.
But that is another story altogether.
It was my father's subtle way with words, and his naive but deeply-held notions of respect for all persons. Though competitive in his fields of endeavor, he always seemed to come off as an advocate for people, even in confrontational episodes. If I am ever seen to be doing something like that myself, it is because of him.
One of the new residents was writing discharge orders for a patient who was on dialysis. Included in the prescriptions was one for PhosLo to be taken once a day. Of course, that is not how the drug is used. It is taken three or four times a day with major meals so it can do its job, which is to bind to the phosphorous in foods and prevent its excess absorption, as dialysis does not adequately clear this substance from the body.
I told the resident that I had a question about that order, and showed him that during the hospital stay the patient took it as I outlined above. Later he handed me revised discharge orders and a correct PhosLo prescription for the patient.
The reason why I am happy with myself about this is not that I did anything, as I tried to leave myself out of it and place the issue between the current orders and the discharge orders. I was careful not to appear to seem like I knew something he didn't, because heaven knows that is not a reliable stance for me to take.
Rather, I just wanted to give the resident some assurance that I've got his back. And that, I must say, is something that I learned from my father, the charming man.
I Have This Thought Almost Every Day
My spouse was home, pregnant. I was at work at the local hospital, deep among the mountains and lakes of the far northern reaches of New York where we lived in 1998.
The high-voltage power line towers, which looked to me like great frozen robot men playing impossibly slow jump-rope, crumpled into low piles under the weight of the ice. They folded like boxers knocked down for the count. And the count was us.
At the hospital the lights went out momentarily but came back on again as the back-up generator kicked in. Television news described the wide swathes of of areas without electricity, along with pictures of the trees bent over in half and the power lines down everywhere. Everything was icy white. Travel was life-threatening, more so than usual.
Then it seemed like a humming sound, which we previously didn't notice much, wound down and faded away, gaining our attention as it did so. The lights went out again, and stayed out. The generator had failed, and the hospital was without power. It was quiet then.
No computers. No patient call lights. No IV pumps beeping. No televisions. Just voices.
The phones had failed too, but there was one pay phone in the Emergency Room lobby that still worked for some odd reason, and the doctors solicited quarters from all the staff so they could make the calls necessary to arrange transfers of the ventilated patients.
At that time there were no cell towers in the mountains. No cell phones. Not that these would have worked, anyways.
Some of us left the hospital and went home. I did. It was a mile drive only. Sanders were out.
My spouse was warm by the woodstove which we routinely used to heat our beautiful little home. She made grilled cheese sandwiches on it. I quickly gathered flashlights and slid my car down off French Hill back to work.
We switched patients off their drips. The kitchen staff made a fireman's line to pass food trays up the stairwells, as the elevators were useless. We wondered how long it would last. The patients slept well that night, and it did not get very cold in the hospital. Must not have been electric heat.
The next day another generator arrived which had been donated by a local business. And the power returned to the hill neighborhood where we lived, but many sections right in town remained dark. Some of my coworkers had no electricity for two more weeks.
Nurses will complain about things. That is understandable, because the work is very stressful and difficult. Marathon running is comparatively easier. I know.
But sometimes when I am now at work and I overhear people complaining about patients, assignments, lack of supplies, management, or whatever, I catch myself thinking "well, at least we have electricity."
The high-voltage power line towers, which looked to me like great frozen robot men playing impossibly slow jump-rope, crumpled into low piles under the weight of the ice. They folded like boxers knocked down for the count. And the count was us.
At the hospital the lights went out momentarily but came back on again as the back-up generator kicked in. Television news described the wide swathes of of areas without electricity, along with pictures of the trees bent over in half and the power lines down everywhere. Everything was icy white. Travel was life-threatening, more so than usual.
Then it seemed like a humming sound, which we previously didn't notice much, wound down and faded away, gaining our attention as it did so. The lights went out again, and stayed out. The generator had failed, and the hospital was without power. It was quiet then.
No computers. No patient call lights. No IV pumps beeping. No televisions. Just voices.
The phones had failed too, but there was one pay phone in the Emergency Room lobby that still worked for some odd reason, and the doctors solicited quarters from all the staff so they could make the calls necessary to arrange transfers of the ventilated patients.
At that time there were no cell towers in the mountains. No cell phones. Not that these would have worked, anyways.
Some of us left the hospital and went home. I did. It was a mile drive only. Sanders were out.
My spouse was warm by the woodstove which we routinely used to heat our beautiful little home. She made grilled cheese sandwiches on it. I quickly gathered flashlights and slid my car down off French Hill back to work.
We switched patients off their drips. The kitchen staff made a fireman's line to pass food trays up the stairwells, as the elevators were useless. We wondered how long it would last. The patients slept well that night, and it did not get very cold in the hospital. Must not have been electric heat.
The next day another generator arrived which had been donated by a local business. And the power returned to the hill neighborhood where we lived, but many sections right in town remained dark. Some of my coworkers had no electricity for two more weeks.
Nurses will complain about things. That is understandable, because the work is very stressful and difficult. Marathon running is comparatively easier. I know.
But sometimes when I am now at work and I overhear people complaining about patients, assignments, lack of supplies, management, or whatever, I catch myself thinking "well, at least we have electricity."
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Al Qaeda Po
This is how not to support the troops, and I am glad to see "kathika" over at Daily Kos address it. Randi Rhodes has focused on this quite a bit, too. Every time I've tuned in lately she's given it a mention.
Food that expired a year ago. Food left to thaw because they didn't bother to refuel the trucks to maintain refridgeration. Food blown up in attacks but served anyway. Overcharges. Double-billing. Truth, justice, and the American way.
You wouldn't feed shrapnel to your dog. And in all fairness, Halliburton subsidiaries see to it that shrapnel is not fed to our troops, either. They pick it all out before serving.
Vice-President Cheney, who was the CEO of Halliburton before taking on his job as chief White House string-puller, still gets deferred compensation from his old company. That bothers me. He shouldn't be making money from a company that is abusing our troops like this.
Yes, it is abuse. If you did this to your own children, they would be removed from you, for their own safety. Yet we allow the likes of KB&R to do so.
Who would be proud of this? Who would fight to defend companies that do this? Who would fight to defend a country that does this? Eventually, nobody.
Who will have won, then?
You don't really support the troops much by cutting VA programs, either.
Food that expired a year ago. Food left to thaw because they didn't bother to refuel the trucks to maintain refridgeration. Food blown up in attacks but served anyway. Overcharges. Double-billing. Truth, justice, and the American way.
You wouldn't feed shrapnel to your dog. And in all fairness, Halliburton subsidiaries see to it that shrapnel is not fed to our troops, either. They pick it all out before serving.
Vice-President Cheney, who was the CEO of Halliburton before taking on his job as chief White House string-puller, still gets deferred compensation from his old company. That bothers me. He shouldn't be making money from a company that is abusing our troops like this.
Yes, it is abuse. If you did this to your own children, they would be removed from you, for their own safety. Yet we allow the likes of KB&R to do so.
Who would be proud of this? Who would fight to defend companies that do this? Who would fight to defend a country that does this? Eventually, nobody.
Who will have won, then?
You don't really support the troops much by cutting VA programs, either.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Sagging Shelves
I am never going to move again. I will live in this house until the bitter end, or until I must be wheeled out to spend my final days picking at my Attends in some elderly care center or other.
There have been many major moves in my life, and at each of those junctions came losses, accidental and planned. The old army bugle that somehow disappeared during the childhood move from Woodstock to West Hurley via a summer in Hopewell Junction was one item that I am fairly sure was deliberately forsaken, as my musical talents did not lie with that instrument, nor horns in general. My parents tossed it, likely, to their great relief.
Later in life is was mostly books and records that accumulated between moves, only to be shed at the next round. I am still waiting for Hat Hut to re-release all those way-cool Steve Lacy records from the 1980's. I only disposed of them in the hope that these could be easily replaced in digital format. I long to hear Stamps again.
Hundreds, no, thousands, of books left behind. Unraptured.
Alain Robbe-Grillet novels like "Topography of a Phantom City." Tolkein in hardcover, from the first time around, when we read him to escape from Kurt Vonnegut.
Now we just don't have the space for every book we want, as the shelves are full enough. But there is one more (there is always one more) that I want to have, then pass along.
Over at AZ Place, Naum has a July 11th review of Dying to Win by University of Chicago Associate Professor Robert Pape. It's an exhaustive study (oooh, I like those!) of terrorist suicide bombings world round. Sounds like a "gotta read." Maybe you would like it when I'm done.
Why do they do that? I want to know. But does President Bush, really? Would he care about what they think? Or is he just too busy seeing to it that the Rove/Plame cover-up proceeds with all haste?
Or maybe he is busy helping Karl with his packing.
There have been many major moves in my life, and at each of those junctions came losses, accidental and planned. The old army bugle that somehow disappeared during the childhood move from Woodstock to West Hurley via a summer in Hopewell Junction was one item that I am fairly sure was deliberately forsaken, as my musical talents did not lie with that instrument, nor horns in general. My parents tossed it, likely, to their great relief.
Later in life is was mostly books and records that accumulated between moves, only to be shed at the next round. I am still waiting for Hat Hut to re-release all those way-cool Steve Lacy records from the 1980's. I only disposed of them in the hope that these could be easily replaced in digital format. I long to hear Stamps again.
Hundreds, no, thousands, of books left behind. Unraptured.
Alain Robbe-Grillet novels like "Topography of a Phantom City." Tolkein in hardcover, from the first time around, when we read him to escape from Kurt Vonnegut.
Now we just don't have the space for every book we want, as the shelves are full enough. But there is one more (there is always one more) that I want to have, then pass along.
Over at AZ Place, Naum has a July 11th review of Dying to Win by University of Chicago Associate Professor Robert Pape. It's an exhaustive study (oooh, I like those!) of terrorist suicide bombings world round. Sounds like a "gotta read." Maybe you would like it when I'm done.
Why do they do that? I want to know. But does President Bush, really? Would he care about what they think? Or is he just too busy seeing to it that the Rove/Plame cover-up proceeds with all haste?
Or maybe he is busy helping Karl with his packing.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Blow Into This End
There is an old story about some English orchestral conductor, maybe it was Sir Adrian Boult, who was notorious for his short rehearsals. He had the orchestra start up the first few measures of Brahms' Third Symphony, then stopped the players and said, "Well that sounds pretty good. I'll see you all tonight at the performance."
The story continues with one of the French horn players, a new hire to the orchestra, protesting, "But Maestro, aren't we going to rehearse the whole thing? Why, I've never even played in it before!"
To which the maestro replied "Oh, well it's a great symphony. You'll really like it."
I would thusly amend the story: suppose one of the horn players got sick, and the conductor asked the new violinist just to take over on the French horn part. The violinist would protest that not only was he not entirely familiar with the Brahms Third, but would add that he himself did not even play horn.
Nurses do this all the time. It's called "floating," and it is generally accepted that a nurse will not be asked to go work on another specialty unit about which they have no expertise. For example, a male geriatric psych nurse would not be expected to float to an OB-GYN unit.
Well, probably not.
Recently I had the pleasure of finding that it was my turn to float, and that I was going to spend the day on the Spine unit. Alrighty then. I had never worked on one before. I hoped it would not be as difficult as learning to play the French horn.
Just the thought of floating, anywhere, gave me a little PTSD, because the last time I did was Christmas and one of my patients went to CAT-scan, where he pulled out his foley catheter, went over the bedrails, fell, and was found a bloody mess. I punched out at 9 p.m. that day. Merry Christmas to me.
Though unfamiliar with the Spine unit itself, the patients were basically no clinical challenge. I sent one home, two others were "walkie-talkies" who only needed the occasional pain medication and TLSO brace application.
I took a post-op who was only sent to Spine because he needed to wear an Aspen collar until morning. His neck and head CAT's were OK. His legs were all banged up from a motor vehicle head-on. I kept him all liquored up on morphine and zofran and consoled his parents, explaining everything I could. People like explanations, and I like explaining things.
The real fun began when I got report to take a patient from one of the surgical ICU floors. Among other things, the patient had a cervical corpectomy at C-3 through C-6.
"Whatever that is," I said to myself as I took report over the phone. He also had a Halo on, and I sort-of knew that that was one of those things where they put screws in your head and fixate them to a ring brace so your neck is immobile. Cool.
On tube feedings and Yankauer suctioning (which he even did himself,) and pretty stable, he sounded a lot more complicated on paper than he did when I finally got to working with him. It helped that he was a very sweet and simple person who said "thank you" and was very cooperative in his care. He tried, instead of wimping out like some people do, and for that I have great respect. He was blessed by a good attitude and general innocence.
The other nurse was very competent, low-key, and easy-going. Helpful to the maximum.
Interestingly, at one time I walked by the nurse's station to see him and one of the orthopedic nurse practitioners looking at the website I linked above, because he himself was not entirely familiar with the term "corpectomy." (Great website, by the way. Groovy animation.)
The day ended undramatically. The oncoming nurses were a hoot, and told a couple jokes during our report off. Listening to myself, I even sounded a little like I knew what I was talking about. I at least still knew what the day had taught me, it being so fresh in my mind.
And it taught me well.
While going home, I realized that I had never before cared for a patient with that kind of Halo.
The story continues with one of the French horn players, a new hire to the orchestra, protesting, "But Maestro, aren't we going to rehearse the whole thing? Why, I've never even played in it before!"
To which the maestro replied "Oh, well it's a great symphony. You'll really like it."
I would thusly amend the story: suppose one of the horn players got sick, and the conductor asked the new violinist just to take over on the French horn part. The violinist would protest that not only was he not entirely familiar with the Brahms Third, but would add that he himself did not even play horn.
Nurses do this all the time. It's called "floating," and it is generally accepted that a nurse will not be asked to go work on another specialty unit about which they have no expertise. For example, a male geriatric psych nurse would not be expected to float to an OB-GYN unit.
Well, probably not.
Recently I had the pleasure of finding that it was my turn to float, and that I was going to spend the day on the Spine unit. Alrighty then. I had never worked on one before. I hoped it would not be as difficult as learning to play the French horn.
Just the thought of floating, anywhere, gave me a little PTSD, because the last time I did was Christmas and one of my patients went to CAT-scan, where he pulled out his foley catheter, went over the bedrails, fell, and was found a bloody mess. I punched out at 9 p.m. that day. Merry Christmas to me.
Though unfamiliar with the Spine unit itself, the patients were basically no clinical challenge. I sent one home, two others were "walkie-talkies" who only needed the occasional pain medication and TLSO brace application.
I took a post-op who was only sent to Spine because he needed to wear an Aspen collar until morning. His neck and head CAT's were OK. His legs were all banged up from a motor vehicle head-on. I kept him all liquored up on morphine and zofran and consoled his parents, explaining everything I could. People like explanations, and I like explaining things.
The real fun began when I got report to take a patient from one of the surgical ICU floors. Among other things, the patient had a cervical corpectomy at C-3 through C-6.
"Whatever that is," I said to myself as I took report over the phone. He also had a Halo on, and I sort-of knew that that was one of those things where they put screws in your head and fixate them to a ring brace so your neck is immobile. Cool.
On tube feedings and Yankauer suctioning (which he even did himself,) and pretty stable, he sounded a lot more complicated on paper than he did when I finally got to working with him. It helped that he was a very sweet and simple person who said "thank you" and was very cooperative in his care. He tried, instead of wimping out like some people do, and for that I have great respect. He was blessed by a good attitude and general innocence.
The other nurse was very competent, low-key, and easy-going. Helpful to the maximum.
Interestingly, at one time I walked by the nurse's station to see him and one of the orthopedic nurse practitioners looking at the website I linked above, because he himself was not entirely familiar with the term "corpectomy." (Great website, by the way. Groovy animation.)
The day ended undramatically. The oncoming nurses were a hoot, and told a couple jokes during our report off. Listening to myself, I even sounded a little like I knew what I was talking about. I at least still knew what the day had taught me, it being so fresh in my mind.
And it taught me well.
While going home, I realized that I had never before cared for a patient with that kind of Halo.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Thanks, jimmymac and Photodump
Click and scroll down a little, and see Einstein explain the Judith Miller problem. It's that simple, really.
The spin regarding L'Affaire Judy amazes me. Otherwise half-way sensible newspaper editorialists everywhere in the U.S. are twisting this story like a Moebius strip to make it sound like Miller is doing the honorable thing by protecting some source. I do not think that is it at all. And neither does Einstein.
The press, along with Miller, seems bent on protecting the person who outed Plame, instead of skewering Bush with a few simple questions concerning his apparent disinterest in finding out who, in his White House, committed the crime.
Crime in the White House. Bush ignores it, or covers it up. The press abides. America loses another battle for a bit of its own soul.
The spin regarding L'Affaire Judy amazes me. Otherwise half-way sensible newspaper editorialists everywhere in the U.S. are twisting this story like a Moebius strip to make it sound like Miller is doing the honorable thing by protecting some source. I do not think that is it at all. And neither does Einstein.
The press, along with Miller, seems bent on protecting the person who outed Plame, instead of skewering Bush with a few simple questions concerning his apparent disinterest in finding out who, in his White House, committed the crime.
Crime in the White House. Bush ignores it, or covers it up. The press abides. America loses another battle for a bit of its own soul.
Friday, July 08, 2005
$3214 Cash. Deal?
According to tha CIA (if you can believe anything they say,) the current population of Afghanistan is about 29,929,000 people, and the current population of Iraq is about 26,075,000. I've rounded things off a little.
Anyways, the combined populations add up to about 56 million survivors.
Though rising by over $1000 per second, as I write this the cost of the war is about $179,343,500,000. So, if you divide the cost of the war in dollars by the number of people in Afghanistan and Iraq you come up with roughly $3,214 on the increase.
Of course we've killed any number of civilians and fighters in these wars, so my little theory is going to be off by that much, but my point is this: we could have just paid every man, woman, and child in both Iraq and Afghanistan each about $3214 to just go away and not bother us, and it would still have been cheaper than going to war against them.
Hey. That's more money than Bush gave you when he cut taxes a couple years ago. A lot more. Sheesh.
Way back in 1979 when the oil was flowing, Iraqi per capita national income was only about the equal of 2313 U.S. dollars, and for 2004 that figure has dropped somewhat, to a scant $144.
It's about $200 for Afghanistan, but I think that does not take into account the recently increased heroin trade.
In either country, $3214 would be a considerable enticement for any one person to develop a warm and loving attitude towards the people of the United States. This could certainly have favorably affected the behavior of many insurgents and would-be suicide attackers, perhaps even persuading them away from violence.
Of course, if we had simply bribed the familes of all Iraq and Afghanistan into not harming us, then Halliburton wouldn't be raking in the millions they have become accustomed to in this war based on lies.
And that, really, is the whole point of this, isn't it?
Anyways, the combined populations add up to about 56 million survivors.
Though rising by over $1000 per second, as I write this the cost of the war is about $179,343,500,000. So, if you divide the cost of the war in dollars by the number of people in Afghanistan and Iraq you come up with roughly $3,214 on the increase.
Of course we've killed any number of civilians and fighters in these wars, so my little theory is going to be off by that much, but my point is this: we could have just paid every man, woman, and child in both Iraq and Afghanistan each about $3214 to just go away and not bother us, and it would still have been cheaper than going to war against them.
Hey. That's more money than Bush gave you when he cut taxes a couple years ago. A lot more. Sheesh.
Way back in 1979 when the oil was flowing, Iraqi per capita national income was only about the equal of 2313 U.S. dollars, and for 2004 that figure has dropped somewhat, to a scant $144.
It's about $200 for Afghanistan, but I think that does not take into account the recently increased heroin trade.
In either country, $3214 would be a considerable enticement for any one person to develop a warm and loving attitude towards the people of the United States. This could certainly have favorably affected the behavior of many insurgents and would-be suicide attackers, perhaps even persuading them away from violence.
Of course, if we had simply bribed the familes of all Iraq and Afghanistan into not harming us, then Halliburton wouldn't be raking in the millions they have become accustomed to in this war based on lies.
And that, really, is the whole point of this, isn't it?
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Lost Favorite Nurse Cartoon: Your Patient
I've been looking all over the web for a link to a two-panel nurse cartoon that I saw tacked up on the bulletin board of the break room in an ICU I used to do a little work in a few years ago, but I haven't found it again yet.
The first panel showed a hospital patient climbing over the siderails, IV's coming loose, foley catheter stretched to its submolecular physical limits, bodily fluids spraying... the caption underneath the frame read: "Your patient."
Don't you hate it when that happens?
In the second frame, the same patient was depicted sitting up in a chair, lines intact, linens neatly arranged, smiling peacefully and holding a balloon on a string. The caption under that read: "Your Patient On Drugs."
I just love that.
It's something of a motto for me.
Of course, there's a lot more to the profession of nursing than just the medical model. You know, a problem is identified, and a medication or procedure is applied. Rather mechanical. Doesn't really treat the whole person. Whatever. Right. Okay then.
Morphine is cheap, and there's a ton of it in the Pyxis.
The first panel showed a hospital patient climbing over the siderails, IV's coming loose, foley catheter stretched to its submolecular physical limits, bodily fluids spraying... the caption underneath the frame read: "Your patient."
Don't you hate it when that happens?
In the second frame, the same patient was depicted sitting up in a chair, lines intact, linens neatly arranged, smiling peacefully and holding a balloon on a string. The caption under that read: "Your Patient On Drugs."
I just love that.
It's something of a motto for me.
Of course, there's a lot more to the profession of nursing than just the medical model. You know, a problem is identified, and a medication or procedure is applied. Rather mechanical. Doesn't really treat the whole person. Whatever. Right. Okay then.
Morphine is cheap, and there's a ton of it in the Pyxis.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Simple Division Complicated by Tax Law That Favors Pals of You-Know-Who
If you take the current amount of public debt and then divide this number by the the current U.S. U.S. population then what you get is the birth tax.
This is the average amount of the national debt that each of us, as Americans, owes the various holders of our Treasury debt instruments; that is to say, cash owed to the governmants of Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, and the like. Of course your families' share may be higher, due to fancy-schmancy tax loopholes for the very rich, who simply do not pay their fair share, shifting the burden onto you and yours.
Think about what you could buy with that money. A year of college at a famous European university, for your brilliant daughter, let's say. Or a pretty nice car. Or a pair of these with appropriate amplification.
Or a down-payment on a stupid, miserable, decades-long war.
Bush's exit plan: when the oil runs out, the troops stop dying. That's it, folks. What? That's not it? What a laugh. And yes, you are correct. It's NOT FUNNY.
This is the average amount of the national debt that each of us, as Americans, owes the various holders of our Treasury debt instruments; that is to say, cash owed to the governmants of Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, and the like. Of course your families' share may be higher, due to fancy-schmancy tax loopholes for the very rich, who simply do not pay their fair share, shifting the burden onto you and yours.
Think about what you could buy with that money. A year of college at a famous European university, for your brilliant daughter, let's say. Or a pretty nice car. Or a pair of these with appropriate amplification.
Or a down-payment on a stupid, miserable, decades-long war.
Bush's exit plan: when the oil runs out, the troops stop dying. That's it, folks. What? That's not it? What a laugh. And yes, you are correct. It's NOT FUNNY.
The Young Salome-Lover's Favorite Cat Video
Don't let this happen to you.
It's a modern-day metaphor, really. Superb film-making, and I rate it right up there with Citizen Kane and The Great Dictator.
The fan symbolizes the Bush administration, and the cat is us.
It's a modern-day metaphor, really. Superb film-making, and I rate it right up there with Citizen Kane and The Great Dictator.
The fan symbolizes the Bush administration, and the cat is us.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Stars and Citizens
One of my old music teachers from way back in my Crane School of Music days used to say this about wrong notes: "Once they're out there you can't suck 'em back."
He was originally a trumpet player before he became a sado-masochistic music theory and history instructor. We used to call him "DelBlasto." I loved the guy. He was one of the best teachers I've ever had, and I've had many to be thankful for.
But a musical performance is not a Letter-To-The-Editor, for even if you fire off some semi-intoxicated piece of bile-ridden nonsense you can always go back later and straighten out what you said, which you cannot do after a musical recital, obviously.
Apparently that's what happened here, when some dude shot off a LTTE that did more damage to his own shoe-crowded mouth than it did to the community. At first it seemed that the printing of the LTTE posed a substantial terrorizing threat to the Muslim communities here in The Great Southwest, and to me; yes, it did.
He later clarified this by saying that he was only referring to our military in the field. He was still wrong, of course, in suggesting that our military randomly blast people in their houses of worship. But the 1st Amendment assures his right to be wrong.
I am always getting caught defending loads of bullcrap. Porn, treasonous speech, foul statements about the abilities of Arizona Cardinals football players, Ice-T songs, and the like are all examples of speech I stand ready to defend, as should be the case for anybody who carries a copy of the Constitution around in their Palm Pilot.
So, I agree with the Court's decision. But what if...
But what if the LTTE recommended that after the next attack on American fighters, somebody should go into the nearest Christian church and blast away the first five white people seen?
I bet they'd not have printed that.
While I support the rights that allow the Tucson Citizen to print such crap, I stand in bold criticism of the stupidity of its editors in so doing. In my opinion, they showed themselves to be hypocritical, terrorizing, violent bastards for publishing that letter in the first place.
What? They didn't know?!
Long live the Arizona Star. Let this suggest changes in some of the shopping habits of Tucsonians, as regards those who choose to advertise in the Citizen. I don't even live there, but I know I'll be examining some of my purchases.
He was originally a trumpet player before he became a sado-masochistic music theory and history instructor. We used to call him "DelBlasto." I loved the guy. He was one of the best teachers I've ever had, and I've had many to be thankful for.
But a musical performance is not a Letter-To-The-Editor, for even if you fire off some semi-intoxicated piece of bile-ridden nonsense you can always go back later and straighten out what you said, which you cannot do after a musical recital, obviously.
Apparently that's what happened here, when some dude shot off a LTTE that did more damage to his own shoe-crowded mouth than it did to the community. At first it seemed that the printing of the LTTE posed a substantial terrorizing threat to the Muslim communities here in The Great Southwest, and to me; yes, it did.
He later clarified this by saying that he was only referring to our military in the field. He was still wrong, of course, in suggesting that our military randomly blast people in their houses of worship. But the 1st Amendment assures his right to be wrong.
I am always getting caught defending loads of bullcrap. Porn, treasonous speech, foul statements about the abilities of Arizona Cardinals football players, Ice-T songs, and the like are all examples of speech I stand ready to defend, as should be the case for anybody who carries a copy of the Constitution around in their Palm Pilot.
So, I agree with the Court's decision. But what if...
But what if the LTTE recommended that after the next attack on American fighters, somebody should go into the nearest Christian church and blast away the first five white people seen?
I bet they'd not have printed that.
While I support the rights that allow the Tucson Citizen to print such crap, I stand in bold criticism of the stupidity of its editors in so doing. In my opinion, they showed themselves to be hypocritical, terrorizing, violent bastards for publishing that letter in the first place.
What? They didn't know?!
Long live the Arizona Star. Let this suggest changes in some of the shopping habits of Tucsonians, as regards those who choose to advertise in the Citizen. I don't even live there, but I know I'll be examining some of my purchases.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
The Cold War
Reagan had nothing to do with it. When he called upon Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" he was making mockery; a comic equivalent of Falstaff imploring "Let the sky rain potatos, let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves."
Glasnost and Perestroika were the doings, yes, of Gorbachev, but the beginning of the end of the U.S.S.R and the cold war occurred in 1972, when Fischer routed Spassky for the world chess championship. Though without violence, Fischer did to the Russians what the 9/11 attackers did to the United States after Bush's summer vacation in 2001. Let's hope that our shock will not be as everlasting as the one Fischer gave to the Soviets.
He began by skipping the opening ceremonies and losing the first game; this, of course, after his last-minute demands about more prize money. Then came the notorious complaints regarding the cameras, for the joust was televised. Though these were completely silent and immobile, they "bothered" Fischer, and the venue was changed to accomodate his totally irrational demand.
Because those cameras were not yet removed, Fischer didn't even bother to show up for the second game, which he forfeited. A few games later he startled the Soviets by playing opening moves he had never previously used in the 700 or so previous tournament games of his career, thus catching his opponent unprepared.
Even off the board he was playing the Soviets.
After the tournament Fischer refused all challengers to his title as World Champion, throwing the chess world into disarray which still persists.
By ending Russian domination of chess, Fischer cracked the walls of Soviet empire. That lost empire fizzles yet.
Fischer became an outlaw later, when he played a rematch with Spassky, during a time when "trade" with Yugoslavia (where the match played out,) was banned by U.N. and Treasury Department sanctions. International warrants led to his arrest and subsequent release in Japan. Iceland has now claimed him as one of theirs. And so it goes.
Fischer is a genius. Bush and his accomplices are not.
Too bad. We might have simply bought off all the world's terrorists for less than the price we have so far paid for Bush's wars.
Glasnost and Perestroika were the doings, yes, of Gorbachev, but the beginning of the end of the U.S.S.R and the cold war occurred in 1972, when Fischer routed Spassky for the world chess championship. Though without violence, Fischer did to the Russians what the 9/11 attackers did to the United States after Bush's summer vacation in 2001. Let's hope that our shock will not be as everlasting as the one Fischer gave to the Soviets.
He began by skipping the opening ceremonies and losing the first game; this, of course, after his last-minute demands about more prize money. Then came the notorious complaints regarding the cameras, for the joust was televised. Though these were completely silent and immobile, they "bothered" Fischer, and the venue was changed to accomodate his totally irrational demand.
Because those cameras were not yet removed, Fischer didn't even bother to show up for the second game, which he forfeited. A few games later he startled the Soviets by playing opening moves he had never previously used in the 700 or so previous tournament games of his career, thus catching his opponent unprepared.
Even off the board he was playing the Soviets.
After the tournament Fischer refused all challengers to his title as World Champion, throwing the chess world into disarray which still persists.
By ending Russian domination of chess, Fischer cracked the walls of Soviet empire. That lost empire fizzles yet.
Fischer became an outlaw later, when he played a rematch with Spassky, during a time when "trade" with Yugoslavia (where the match played out,) was banned by U.N. and Treasury Department sanctions. International warrants led to his arrest and subsequent release in Japan. Iceland has now claimed him as one of theirs. And so it goes.
Fischer is a genius. Bush and his accomplices are not.
Too bad. We might have simply bought off all the world's terrorists for less than the price we have so far paid for Bush's wars.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Nuclear Nickels
I have been making informal wagers with my numerous aquaintances regarding the price of gasoline. My five-cent bet is that it will hit $5 per gallon, somewhere in the good ol' USA, before this Bush term is up.
It seems like I may have to add a side wager concerning The Big One: Bush is, after all, a "war president," and could he be thinking that his historical posture would be even further enhanced (ahem,) if he ordered the use of nuclear weapons?
What else could he do, after running our conventional armed forces into the ground? Well, he might just do what a lot of sick and dysfunctional untreated alcoholics do: Escalate.
"The Bush NPR (Nuclear Posture Review,) calls for the development of new, more "useable" nuclear weapons; for the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states; and for reducing the time required for the United States to resume nuclear weapons testing."
I am glad that people such as those in the Union of Concerned Scientists are looking into this, so that after Bush blows up half the world, I can go around saying "I told you so" and "you owe me a nickel" to those people on the losing end of my wager.
Bush has spent his entire life making things go from bad to worse. From failed businesses to failed governorship to a failing war. He is ill, and he will not recover health without treatment (which in his utter denial I'm sure he feels is completely unnecessary,) so we can expect worse.
We should expect the worst, until he is gone, or in a 12-Step program back in Texas.
Safer now? NO. Not safer now.
It seems like I may have to add a side wager concerning The Big One: Bush is, after all, a "war president," and could he be thinking that his historical posture would be even further enhanced (ahem,) if he ordered the use of nuclear weapons?
What else could he do, after running our conventional armed forces into the ground? Well, he might just do what a lot of sick and dysfunctional untreated alcoholics do: Escalate.
"The Bush NPR (Nuclear Posture Review,) calls for the development of new, more "useable" nuclear weapons; for the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states; and for reducing the time required for the United States to resume nuclear weapons testing."
I am glad that people such as those in the Union of Concerned Scientists are looking into this, so that after Bush blows up half the world, I can go around saying "I told you so" and "you owe me a nickel" to those people on the losing end of my wager.
Bush has spent his entire life making things go from bad to worse. From failed businesses to failed governorship to a failing war. He is ill, and he will not recover health without treatment (which in his utter denial I'm sure he feels is completely unnecessary,) so we can expect worse.
We should expect the worst, until he is gone, or in a 12-Step program back in Texas.
Safer now? NO. Not safer now.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Karl Knows Knives
Way to go supporting the troops, Karl Rove. Sheesh. Not only are our troops fighting Iraqi insurgents, now they have to fight White House puppeteers, too.
To hear a man like Karl insinuate that only conservatives are really patriotic is a knife in the back to every man and woman in Iraq who serves here. At least a third of us voted against Bush and his pals. The number increases every day that we stay here, forced to make bricks without straw for months on end.
Inspiring words for college Republicans everywhere. No wonder they are beating down the doors of military recruiters all across the land. No. Not really.
We really should try to get these insane people, like Rove and Bush, out of positions of leadership in this country, and bring the sane ones back from Iraq. We obviously need them here.
To hear a man like Karl insinuate that only conservatives are really patriotic is a knife in the back to every man and woman in Iraq who serves here. At least a third of us voted against Bush and his pals. The number increases every day that we stay here, forced to make bricks without straw for months on end.
Inspiring words for college Republicans everywhere. No wonder they are beating down the doors of military recruiters all across the land. No. Not really.
We really should try to get these insane people, like Rove and Bush, out of positions of leadership in this country, and bring the sane ones back from Iraq. We obviously need them here.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Support Our Next Senator
This Arizona National Guardsman is particularly deserving of our support, as are all those who presently find themselves struggling to survive to get home from the Idiocy in Iraq.
I thank "pandora" over at the bartcop Forum for helping to get this out there. This is the first I've heard about Leonard Clark, unfortunately, but it is never too late.
I want this guy to come home and take Kyl's job. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Senator we could be proud of? It sure would make things easier for McCain to have a person like Leonard Clark in the chambers with him.
I thank "pandora" over at the bartcop Forum for helping to get this out there. This is the first I've heard about Leonard Clark, unfortunately, but it is never too late.
I want this guy to come home and take Kyl's job. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Senator we could be proud of? It sure would make things easier for McCain to have a person like Leonard Clark in the chambers with him.
Destroy All Mesa Brake Shops, But Be Fair
The recent Supreme Court ruling regarding eminent domain would seem to have put an end to silly notions about private property. My understanding is that the ruling allows municipalities to take private property and render it to other private entities for whatever development, private or public, may be intended. This might be a signal for you to go out and buy as many city council members as you can afford. Others will certainly be doing so.
If the law says they can do it, then so be it. But municipalities must be fair in such dealings.
I am all for the new medical and nursing schools to be developed in downtown Phoenix. We need these, and the chosen area is precisely where these should be placed. It will do good things for the city. Like maybe it will encourage an actual nightlife to come to fruition downtown, as this is less than negligible now.
Once we were driving through downtown near the Arizona Center on a Saturday night and I saw just one person walking around, and I thought "gee, the movies must have just let out." It is truly creepy downtown after business hours. Where do all the people go?
Away. Far away.
Hopefully the campuses will provide impetus for the flowering little arts districts near the site. Imagine that: a city of millions of people that actually has medical schools, active arts districts, and a nightlife!? It could happen here. Oh yes it could.
But it would not be worth it if the city steals value from he current owners of the condemned properties in question. Lets be fair. After all, this is The Great Southwest. Let's act as if we are all that.
Yes, I will be contacting my city councilman to let him know how I feel this should go. These people would surely like to hear from concerned citizens like you, too.
If the law says they can do it, then so be it. But municipalities must be fair in such dealings.
I am all for the new medical and nursing schools to be developed in downtown Phoenix. We need these, and the chosen area is precisely where these should be placed. It will do good things for the city. Like maybe it will encourage an actual nightlife to come to fruition downtown, as this is less than negligible now.
Once we were driving through downtown near the Arizona Center on a Saturday night and I saw just one person walking around, and I thought "gee, the movies must have just let out." It is truly creepy downtown after business hours. Where do all the people go?
Away. Far away.
Hopefully the campuses will provide impetus for the flowering little arts districts near the site. Imagine that: a city of millions of people that actually has medical schools, active arts districts, and a nightlife!? It could happen here. Oh yes it could.
But it would not be worth it if the city steals value from he current owners of the condemned properties in question. Lets be fair. After all, this is The Great Southwest. Let's act as if we are all that.
Yes, I will be contacting my city councilman to let him know how I feel this should go. These people would surely like to hear from concerned citizens like you, too.
Friday, June 24, 2005
A Taxi Driver NOT in Gitmo
A rash of graffiti has spread across the area: "We will be back." One taxi driver, a Shia who loathes the mostly Sunni Arab resistance, shrugged. "Yes. They will."
Because I work 12-hour shifts at the Great Muffin Factory Institute, some days I have little time for blogging. So, there will be many occasions when I am posting items a day or so behind the better bloggers. But when one is waiting for history to again repeat itself, timely blogging is not essential.
So it is with the Iraq version of the Tet Offensive from the Vietnam War days. Taken from The Guardian UK, the above quote is found in the center of a discussion about a recent attack by insurgents, referred to tellingly as "resistance," who perpetrated an act of violence so large and painstakingly planned that it brought the Tet incident to the mind of at least one military person there.
But the Iraq Tet has not yet happened.
Any idiot can see that this war is a laboratory for guerrilla fighters. Unfortunately, even lesser idiots, such as the people who got us into this war in the first place, will continue to deny that the worst is yet to come. History repeats. Our foolish leaders are bound to make it so.
Consider the dreadfulness of this, and note that Bush has refused to develop a timetable for withdrawal.
Because I work 12-hour shifts at the Great Muffin Factory Institute, some days I have little time for blogging. So, there will be many occasions when I am posting items a day or so behind the better bloggers. But when one is waiting for history to again repeat itself, timely blogging is not essential.
So it is with the Iraq version of the Tet Offensive from the Vietnam War days. Taken from The Guardian UK, the above quote is found in the center of a discussion about a recent attack by insurgents, referred to tellingly as "resistance," who perpetrated an act of violence so large and painstakingly planned that it brought the Tet incident to the mind of at least one military person there.
But the Iraq Tet has not yet happened.
Any idiot can see that this war is a laboratory for guerrilla fighters. Unfortunately, even lesser idiots, such as the people who got us into this war in the first place, will continue to deny that the worst is yet to come. History repeats. Our foolish leaders are bound to make it so.
Consider the dreadfulness of this, and note that Bush has refused to develop a timetable for withdrawal.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Short Shift Report
He was young and had a congenital heart defect that had required the implantation of an internal defibrillator many years before. But he had never had it checked over the years, about maybe a decade.
There was a reunion of one of the bands he played in, and he went to the nightclub with heavy clown-face make-up on so that people would not immediately recognize him, and for fun. He was playing on stage when his heart tripped out, and he collapsed. At first, people were confused, so a few critical moments passed before those around him realized he lay dying.
Unconscious and not breathing. In the emergency room he was intubated, and the respiratory therapist had difficulty taping the breathing tube in place due to the greasy thick make-up. Eventually they scrubbed enough of it off.
Severe brain damage. He had been down a long time. He recovered the ability to breath on his own, and his family agreed to make his status "do not resuscitate." After extubation, he was transferred to the telemetry unit.
Oddly, we were going through a period of low census, and we were closing the telemetry floor and moving the remaining patients, with some of the monitoring equipment, to another floor. This happened occasionally, and when business picked up a shift or two later, we again moved equipment and patients, reopening the unit. But by briefly closing it, the hospital saved a little money as they did not have to pay for ancillary staff during the closed shifts.
A few hours after I got the patient from intensive care, he died. I was with him, turning him and performing mouth care, when he let out a sigh and expired.
He was the only "patient" left on the unit when the night shift nurses started to come in. We informed them that they were to float to the other unit, but one nurse was to stay with this one patient for awhile (until the funeral home came to pick him up.)
"Mary" (not her real name,) was chosen to stay. We sat down together and she asked me for a report on the patient.
"Two words," I said. She was of course a little puzzled, and said "Huh?"
"He's dead," I said, pausing to let it sink in. Then I gave her the whole story.
She only had to stay there for a little while. A short time later they picked up the patient, and she floated to another unit.
There was a reunion of one of the bands he played in, and he went to the nightclub with heavy clown-face make-up on so that people would not immediately recognize him, and for fun. He was playing on stage when his heart tripped out, and he collapsed. At first, people were confused, so a few critical moments passed before those around him realized he lay dying.
Unconscious and not breathing. In the emergency room he was intubated, and the respiratory therapist had difficulty taping the breathing tube in place due to the greasy thick make-up. Eventually they scrubbed enough of it off.
Severe brain damage. He had been down a long time. He recovered the ability to breath on his own, and his family agreed to make his status "do not resuscitate." After extubation, he was transferred to the telemetry unit.
Oddly, we were going through a period of low census, and we were closing the telemetry floor and moving the remaining patients, with some of the monitoring equipment, to another floor. This happened occasionally, and when business picked up a shift or two later, we again moved equipment and patients, reopening the unit. But by briefly closing it, the hospital saved a little money as they did not have to pay for ancillary staff during the closed shifts.
A few hours after I got the patient from intensive care, he died. I was with him, turning him and performing mouth care, when he let out a sigh and expired.
He was the only "patient" left on the unit when the night shift nurses started to come in. We informed them that they were to float to the other unit, but one nurse was to stay with this one patient for awhile (until the funeral home came to pick him up.)
"Mary" (not her real name,) was chosen to stay. We sat down together and she asked me for a report on the patient.
"Two words," I said. She was of course a little puzzled, and said "Huh?"
"He's dead," I said, pausing to let it sink in. Then I gave her the whole story.
She only had to stay there for a little while. A short time later they picked up the patient, and she floated to another unit.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Dog Central
Once in a great while somebody does something the right way, even in a place like Phoenix. Though beaten down by politicians and their puppet-masters, the developers, there remain in this vast tile-roofed Beavis-and-Butthead wasteland a few spots that serve to remind us just why this city was built to begin with.
The Murphy Bridle Path is one such place. Here, the sidewalk gives way from concrete to dirt. There is shade. It's comfortable. The bustle of Central Avenue narrows to four lanes as it runs north through an older neighborhood. This passes for "quietude" in this cacaphonic city of endless suburbs. There are even examples, yes really, of decent-looking home architecture along the way.
At any given time of day you will see people there, unlike say, downtown Phoenix on a weeknight when there isn't a ball game. In fact, if ever you come to Phoenix, skip the ball game and take a walk along this stretch of history. I'll see you there. So will my dog.
The Murphy Bridle Path is one such place. Here, the sidewalk gives way from concrete to dirt. There is shade. It's comfortable. The bustle of Central Avenue narrows to four lanes as it runs north through an older neighborhood. This passes for "quietude" in this cacaphonic city of endless suburbs. There are even examples, yes really, of decent-looking home architecture along the way.
At any given time of day you will see people there, unlike say, downtown Phoenix on a weeknight when there isn't a ball game. In fact, if ever you come to Phoenix, skip the ball game and take a walk along this stretch of history. I'll see you there. So will my dog.
Smell Something?
As you all probably already know, the "9,000 dead" story is bogus. Here's the link to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which is probably the most sincere effort likely to be found on the web, regarding this issue.
Still, I wish we could see the returning coffins on the television news each night, along with some discussion of the financial cost of the war.
The 9/11 attacks probably cost bin Laden about a million bucks. We've spent maybe a couple hundred billion trying to fight him (if you believe that is the motive for the Iraq war.) The math says we are losing. Money, that is. So, who is gaining money?
Still, I wish we could see the returning coffins on the television news each night, along with some discussion of the financial cost of the war.
The 9/11 attacks probably cost bin Laden about a million bucks. We've spent maybe a couple hundred billion trying to fight him (if you believe that is the motive for the Iraq war.) The math says we are losing. Money, that is. So, who is gaining money?
Saturday, June 18, 2005
What Jack Said in That Movie
"Right wingers and their sycophants despise being confronted with the truth, which is understandable given that it reflects so negatively upon them."
David Podvin has more about this and about how Howard Dean's aggressive posture and language are a good thing, which you and I knew anyways.
I've always liked Dean. When I lived in "upstate" we saw him on the news all the time, because the cable carried Vermont stations, and as their governor I found him to be both fiscally sane and compassionate toward the people of his state.
Actually, he's rather "conservative" about money and this often put him at odds with the more progressive political elements in Vermont. (Dean himself has said this.)
I put conservative in quotes because Bush, inspired by Saint Ronnie, no doubt, has completely changed the meaning of the word. It used to imply fiscal soundness and only now it has come to mean complete and total fiscal derangement. But isn't that an example of the kind of petit truth that right wingers find so difficult to accept these days, the days of Bush?
Well duh.
David Podvin has more about this and about how Howard Dean's aggressive posture and language are a good thing, which you and I knew anyways.
I've always liked Dean. When I lived in "upstate" we saw him on the news all the time, because the cable carried Vermont stations, and as their governor I found him to be both fiscally sane and compassionate toward the people of his state.
Actually, he's rather "conservative" about money and this often put him at odds with the more progressive political elements in Vermont. (Dean himself has said this.)
I put conservative in quotes because Bush, inspired by Saint Ronnie, no doubt, has completely changed the meaning of the word. It used to imply fiscal soundness and only now it has come to mean complete and total fiscal derangement. But isn't that an example of the kind of petit truth that right wingers find so difficult to accept these days, the days of Bush?
Well duh.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Mukhtaran Bibi
Over at Mercury Rising, Phoenix Woman posts about and links to this shameful story.
What happened to this woman defies all humanity and also defies Islamic law.
It also begs a central question: in societies where inequality at best is the fate of the fairer sex, then how on god's not-so-green earth are we going to establish democracy there? Ain't gonna happen, folks, until Islam undergoes something at least as revolutionary as the Reformation.
The Middle East will run out of oil before that happens.
What happened to this woman defies all humanity and also defies Islamic law.
It also begs a central question: in societies where inequality at best is the fate of the fairer sex, then how on god's not-so-green earth are we going to establish democracy there? Ain't gonna happen, folks, until Islam undergoes something at least as revolutionary as the Reformation.
The Middle East will run out of oil before that happens.
Blast From the Past
It's back. We've not had much of this since Vietnam, when the term fragging first entered the American vocabulary in a significant way.
I do not see how there will be anything but more incidents such as this, as our poor soldiers remain bogged down in that insufferable Republican war.
Bring them home now. Please.
To those who may have noticed, my apologies for the snarky title. But let's not stop here. There's even more.
Fragging and napalm. History repeats itself.
Next we will be getting stories in the news about famous rock musicians who die choking on their own vomit.
I do not see how there will be anything but more incidents such as this, as our poor soldiers remain bogged down in that insufferable Republican war.
Bring them home now. Please.
To those who may have noticed, my apologies for the snarky title. But let's not stop here. There's even more.
Fragging and napalm. History repeats itself.
Next we will be getting stories in the news about famous rock musicians who die choking on their own vomit.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Such Eloquence
Scroll to the June 14th entry, and enjoy, because this is a good little read. I bet I know where he stops for a cold one on Thursdays.
Rumor-22
Over in the Eschaton haloscan comments-warp, Boilerman10 passes along a very interesting rumor involving Rush Limbaugh. Note the italics. It's just a rumor. But hey, as we were recently reminded, Watergate was once just a rumor.
It seems that Lumpy may owe some money to a few very unsavory characters, if you know what I'm sayin'. And it's not as if he has no means to satisfy his debt to these folks.
He can't pay them off without the transaction confirming his drug trafficking. The authorities have been paying rather close attention to his spending habits, I suppose, so a payoff would likely be noticed and somehow entered as evidence. Poor boy.
Let us all express sorrow for his tragic situation. It could happen to any of us, right?
No. Not right.
Most of us are too busy earning an honest living to become addicted to illicit narcotics while bloviating about sending all junkies to prison on nationally-syndicated radio.
I am looking forward to the release of the pertinent aspects of Rush's medical records. The health-care privacy laws will ensure that his draft-dodging butt-pimple problems remain removed from open discussion.
It seems that Lumpy may owe some money to a few very unsavory characters, if you know what I'm sayin'. And it's not as if he has no means to satisfy his debt to these folks.
He can't pay them off without the transaction confirming his drug trafficking. The authorities have been paying rather close attention to his spending habits, I suppose, so a payoff would likely be noticed and somehow entered as evidence. Poor boy.
Let us all express sorrow for his tragic situation. It could happen to any of us, right?
No. Not right.
Most of us are too busy earning an honest living to become addicted to illicit narcotics while bloviating about sending all junkies to prison on nationally-syndicated radio.
I am looking forward to the release of the pertinent aspects of Rush's medical records. The health-care privacy laws will ensure that his draft-dodging butt-pimple problems remain removed from open discussion.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Sixteen Percent and Rising
For those of you who haven't heard, there is a shortage of professional nurses. The number that gets tossed about regarding this, on a national level, is a keen 11%.
It varies regionally. For example, in the ever-sprawling two-dimensional metastatic growth of red-tile-roofed suburban flatland known as The Valley of the Sun, 16% of all positions for registered nurses go empty. That's a lot.
So what do you do about this crisis in health-care nursing staffing, if you are a Republican President? You make it worse, of course. Not all at once, mind you, as these things take time. You have to start an illegal and unpopular war first.
Then you begin to draft not just nurses, but all the medical people you want: doctors, nurses, operating room technicians, medical imaging technicians, and nurse aides, to name a few.
These people don't even have to pass a military physical. You just assume that if they're performing their duties adequately in the civilian world, they will do just fine in combat zones.
Of course, hospitals that presently must compete ferociously to recruit and retain nurses will have to jack up salaries and retention bonuses even more, as the field of qualified nurses shrinks under the pressure of the Republican war draft. This will push up the price of health-care in general, so your insurance premiums will rise, along with the price of anything made by people who happen to be lucky enough to have health-care coverage.
This is a Republican war in Iraq. When the draft comes, it will be a Republican draft, but all of us will suffer for it, especially those who are sick in hospitals already.
So, the next time you end up in the local emergency room waiting for hours on end, thank Preznit George for his hard efforts to make your experience even worse. And if you voted for him, please kick yourself repeatedly. We tried to warn you. We're still trying.
Nods to Thomas at Seeing The Forest for helping to get this out there.
It varies regionally. For example, in the ever-sprawling two-dimensional metastatic growth of red-tile-roofed suburban flatland known as The Valley of the Sun, 16% of all positions for registered nurses go empty. That's a lot.
So what do you do about this crisis in health-care nursing staffing, if you are a Republican President? You make it worse, of course. Not all at once, mind you, as these things take time. You have to start an illegal and unpopular war first.
Then you begin to draft not just nurses, but all the medical people you want: doctors, nurses, operating room technicians, medical imaging technicians, and nurse aides, to name a few.
These people don't even have to pass a military physical. You just assume that if they're performing their duties adequately in the civilian world, they will do just fine in combat zones.
Of course, hospitals that presently must compete ferociously to recruit and retain nurses will have to jack up salaries and retention bonuses even more, as the field of qualified nurses shrinks under the pressure of the Republican war draft. This will push up the price of health-care in general, so your insurance premiums will rise, along with the price of anything made by people who happen to be lucky enough to have health-care coverage.
This is a Republican war in Iraq. When the draft comes, it will be a Republican draft, but all of us will suffer for it, especially those who are sick in hospitals already.
So, the next time you end up in the local emergency room waiting for hours on end, thank Preznit George for his hard efforts to make your experience even worse. And if you voted for him, please kick yourself repeatedly. We tried to warn you. We're still trying.
Nods to Thomas at Seeing The Forest for helping to get this out there.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Feel the Love Explained
While I was driving to the muffin factory this morning, I caught a few minutes of Arizona's best morning drive-time A.M. radio host and he was chatting with that guy who wrote the very interesting letter-to-the-editor I mentioned yesterday.
Turns out the guy was kidding. But, the newspaper itself had edited his letter. He said his satirical position was much more evident as he had originally written it, but the Arizona Republic omitted some parts. Hence the confusion.
So let me get this straight... I remember when at the bottom of the Letters-to-the-Editor page there was small print that said something like "letters may be edited for length and clarity." Those days are gone. Gone like two Beatles. Apparently, now it is the policy of at least one newspaper that I know of to edit Letters-to-the-Editor for length and confusion.
I suppose it's really all for the best.
Turns out the guy was kidding. But, the newspaper itself had edited his letter. He said his satirical position was much more evident as he had originally written it, but the Arizona Republic omitted some parts. Hence the confusion.
So let me get this straight... I remember when at the bottom of the Letters-to-the-Editor page there was small print that said something like "letters may be edited for length and clarity." Those days are gone. Gone like two Beatles. Apparently, now it is the policy of at least one newspaper that I know of to edit Letters-to-the-Editor for length and confusion.
I suppose it's really all for the best.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Everything Counts
You just never know what information you can trust on the web, but this resonates with a suspicion that I've had for awhile.
We have long known that the Bush administration does not allow the flag-draped military coffins which arrive at Dover in the midst of night to be filmed in any way.
They prohibit this not just because they do not want America to see the coffins. They do this because they do not want us to count the coffins.
We have long known that the Bush administration does not allow the flag-draped military coffins which arrive at Dover in the midst of night to be filmed in any way.
They prohibit this not just because they do not want America to see the coffins. They do this because they do not want us to count the coffins.
Feel the Love
It has become more and more difficult to discern parody from opinion these days. Another world famous Phoenix blogger also coughed up a hairy one when he spotted this today, proving once again that at least two people read the Arizona Republican newspaper letters-to-the-editor section.
In many cases, poor grammer and a complete disdain for logical processes will clue you in to determining that a piece is "opinion," for parodists often write too well by half. So if this LTTE is indeed "opinion," we must altogether congratulate the writer on his respectable sentence structure.
Of course, one could always just call the guy and ask, but I wouldn't, for the obvious reason that his name ends with a vowel.
In many cases, poor grammer and a complete disdain for logical processes will clue you in to determining that a piece is "opinion," for parodists often write too well by half. So if this LTTE is indeed "opinion," we must altogether congratulate the writer on his respectable sentence structure.
Of course, one could always just call the guy and ask, but I wouldn't, for the obvious reason that his name ends with a vowel.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Cheek Turning as Viewed in the Ancient Roman Empire
There's a thread over at Eschaton in which Adventus explains that in Turkish (and by implication, longstanding Middle Eastern,) culture, if someone slaps you with their open right hand, on your left cheek, that to then turn and request that they then slap you, backhanded, on your right cheek, emulates a greeting!
So, as seen in its cultural context, "to turn the other cheek" means to reverse the intent of the aggressor, inviting him to hit you again but in a manner that is seen as a greeting of good friends, in that culture. This is not self-abasement, as the phrase seems to suggest to way too many people.
Jesus was not saying "Please sir, may I have another," as in the "Animal House" fraternity initiation scene.
Not that the rightwing Christian movement in this country would ever consider that. War, homophobia, tax-cuts-for-the-rich, and the dismemberment of the social contract occupy far too much of their present political agenda for them to actually stop to consider the words of their Saviour.
To be a modern American conservative Republican born-again churchgoer today pretty much means that you're really a Roman.
So, as seen in its cultural context, "to turn the other cheek" means to reverse the intent of the aggressor, inviting him to hit you again but in a manner that is seen as a greeting of good friends, in that culture. This is not self-abasement, as the phrase seems to suggest to way too many people.
Jesus was not saying "Please sir, may I have another," as in the "Animal House" fraternity initiation scene.
Not that the rightwing Christian movement in this country would ever consider that. War, homophobia, tax-cuts-for-the-rich, and the dismemberment of the social contract occupy far too much of their present political agenda for them to actually stop to consider the words of their Saviour.
To be a modern American conservative Republican born-again churchgoer today pretty much means that you're really a Roman.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
More Stars Than a Van Gogh
As soon as I ran into the room, I could smell the stale aroma of alcohol and cigarettes emanating from the patient. I was assigned to the defibrillator but one of the emergency department nurses was already on it, so the code leader asked me to just hold the guys' legs down and play gopher as needed.
He just couldn't stay still, which seemed to upset most of the people working on him. I guess it really is a lot easier to run a code on somebody who has passed out. He was wide awake and hollering his fool head off, as they say.
It was only about one o'clock in the afternoon, so I thought he was remarkably drunk for so early in the day. But what did I know?
Speaking of remarkable, I remember the ST changes on his 12-lead EKG. They were as big as the thumb of a grown man. Real crowd-pleasers, those, in leads II, III, and IV. The biggest I'd ever seen, and bigger than anything I've seen since. One of the ICU nurses, a big guy that I really liked, was holding up the copy of the EKG and we were all going "Wow, nice anterior blow-out." Very impressive.
There was nothing subtle about that guy. Nothing he said, or yelled at the top of his lungs, nothing he did, jerking around like a shark out of water, not his smell, and certainly not his ST changes, were in the least way subtle.
The emergency room physician's assistant was particularly displeased with the guys legs, so she threw her body over them to hold them down. I stepped back to get out of her way. Then the guy sat straight up and hurled everything he ate that day, which was Cambell's Chicken Soup with Stars mixed with beer. All over her back. All over himself. Vomit was dripping off of him and onto the floor. Tiny little beer-soaked stars and a few meaty chicken chunks. And a smell that "could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon," as George Carlin once said.
She scooted off him and came back with leather restraints for his legs.
He was doing well enough by then that the doctor said to wheel him into intensive care to start the streptokinase.
The code team, me included, dispersed back to our regular units.
The story was the guy was drinking in a local tavern when he fell off his stool, clutching his chest.
It was a place that I knew about but had never entered, because I do not patronize establishments that serve soup from cans. I recommend that you also avoid such places.
He just couldn't stay still, which seemed to upset most of the people working on him. I guess it really is a lot easier to run a code on somebody who has passed out. He was wide awake and hollering his fool head off, as they say.
It was only about one o'clock in the afternoon, so I thought he was remarkably drunk for so early in the day. But what did I know?
Speaking of remarkable, I remember the ST changes on his 12-lead EKG. They were as big as the thumb of a grown man. Real crowd-pleasers, those, in leads II, III, and IV. The biggest I'd ever seen, and bigger than anything I've seen since. One of the ICU nurses, a big guy that I really liked, was holding up the copy of the EKG and we were all going "Wow, nice anterior blow-out." Very impressive.
There was nothing subtle about that guy. Nothing he said, or yelled at the top of his lungs, nothing he did, jerking around like a shark out of water, not his smell, and certainly not his ST changes, were in the least way subtle.
The emergency room physician's assistant was particularly displeased with the guys legs, so she threw her body over them to hold them down. I stepped back to get out of her way. Then the guy sat straight up and hurled everything he ate that day, which was Cambell's Chicken Soup with Stars mixed with beer. All over her back. All over himself. Vomit was dripping off of him and onto the floor. Tiny little beer-soaked stars and a few meaty chicken chunks. And a smell that "could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon," as George Carlin once said.
She scooted off him and came back with leather restraints for his legs.
He was doing well enough by then that the doctor said to wheel him into intensive care to start the streptokinase.
The code team, me included, dispersed back to our regular units.
The story was the guy was drinking in a local tavern when he fell off his stool, clutching his chest.
It was a place that I knew about but had never entered, because I do not patronize establishments that serve soup from cans. I recommend that you also avoid such places.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
And Don't You Forget It
It's not about protecting our freedom. It's not about spreading democracy. It's not even really about oil.
It's about ruining lives.
It's about ruining lives.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
When to Ask
The patient arrived from the E.R at about 5 p.m. Not a very healthy specimen, really. First heart attack before age 30 years, poorly managed diabetes, hypertension basically ignored, obesity, and still a smoker even after cardiac catheterizations that resulted in the stenting of a couple/few coronary arteries. Nothing much wrong with them aside from that.
We ran into some blood sugar problems, like levels in the 500 range, but basically OK for the couple hours I spent with them before my shift ended.
Later I thought that maybe it would have been cool if the ER nurse who gave me the patient had mentioned that the patient's sugars were just a little high.
Something else just didn't seem right to me, though I couldn't articulate anything specific. I spoke to the attending doc and a couple residents, saying "I don't think this patient will end up staying the whole night here," and they agreed, but there was no reason yet to make a move.
The cardiologist wanted to take the patient to the cath lab that night. Odd, that.
Next thing you know, the oncoming nightshift nurse was getting a crappy blood pressure, like 60 over just about nothing, and the pace picked up a little. Dopamine and another pressor were started, a couple cath lab nurses showed up, and the cardiologist stuck a central line in the patient's groin.
The doctor didn't even gown up. He just tucked his tie into his shirt, and somehow he didn't get a spot of blood on him. Classy, that.
Soon it was 9 p.m. I was tired after 14 hours of work and I wanted to go home. There were about 11 other people in with the patient anyways, and it looked like I was done. They intubated the patient. I phoned the family, but they still hadn't arrived by the time the patient left the floor for the cath lab.
One of the cath lab nurses had borrowed my stethoscope, and I didn't really want to interrupt her at the bedside to get it back. It just wasn't the right time to ask. She put it on the patient's bed as we wheeled them out of the room and into the hallway, so that's when I grabbed it, at 10 p.m.
If I had left before that, my stethoscope would surely have disappeared and I'd never have gotten it back again. And those things go for big bucks these days.
We ran into some blood sugar problems, like levels in the 500 range, but basically OK for the couple hours I spent with them before my shift ended.
Later I thought that maybe it would have been cool if the ER nurse who gave me the patient had mentioned that the patient's sugars were just a little high.
Something else just didn't seem right to me, though I couldn't articulate anything specific. I spoke to the attending doc and a couple residents, saying "I don't think this patient will end up staying the whole night here," and they agreed, but there was no reason yet to make a move.
The cardiologist wanted to take the patient to the cath lab that night. Odd, that.
Next thing you know, the oncoming nightshift nurse was getting a crappy blood pressure, like 60 over just about nothing, and the pace picked up a little. Dopamine and another pressor were started, a couple cath lab nurses showed up, and the cardiologist stuck a central line in the patient's groin.
The doctor didn't even gown up. He just tucked his tie into his shirt, and somehow he didn't get a spot of blood on him. Classy, that.
Soon it was 9 p.m. I was tired after 14 hours of work and I wanted to go home. There were about 11 other people in with the patient anyways, and it looked like I was done. They intubated the patient. I phoned the family, but they still hadn't arrived by the time the patient left the floor for the cath lab.
One of the cath lab nurses had borrowed my stethoscope, and I didn't really want to interrupt her at the bedside to get it back. It just wasn't the right time to ask. She put it on the patient's bed as we wheeled them out of the room and into the hallway, so that's when I grabbed it, at 10 p.m.
If I had left before that, my stethoscope would surely have disappeared and I'd never have gotten it back again. And those things go for big bucks these days.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Schmiorities
The taxpayers of Phoenix, as a random choice city, have contributed over $598 million dollars to the cost of the Iraq war.
Compare the whole bill for this military excursion to other costs; for instance, noting that such a sum would pay to provide healthcare coverage for about 104,000,000 children.
Well now, that's interesting. We could pay for medical coverage of every child in the United States, and then some. But there are other priorities, it seems.
Tell me again how awful it was during the Clinton administration.
Compare the whole bill for this military excursion to other costs; for instance, noting that such a sum would pay to provide healthcare coverage for about 104,000,000 children.
Well now, that's interesting. We could pay for medical coverage of every child in the United States, and then some. But there are other priorities, it seems.
Tell me again how awful it was during the Clinton administration.
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