No Code

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:25:20 GMT

I've resisted, God knows I've resisted. There didn't seem to be any point to writing about the unfortunate Terri Schiavo and her equally unfortunate family. It's a sad situation that should have been allowed to play out quietly. But a look at CNN.com was all it took to weaken my resolve. And all it took from CNN was to quote Ms. Schiavo's sister Suzanne Vitadamo who, it is reported, said that Terri "is wide awake and very responsive."

What kind of crack-fueled delusion is she having? Is she saying that this woman went from certifiably comatose to wide-awake-hey-how're-ya-doin' overnight? I know they're all stressed out what with the wall-to-wall coverage and closet-Satanist Randell Terry and his ghouls making her the new poster-child for the Save the Fetus Foundation.

On the other hand, family attorney George Felos said she appeared "very calm". Well, shit yes, she's calm! She's been calm for about 14 years now. Jesus!

And it seems that her condition was the end result of an eating disorder (ah, the irony!). Apparently, she was anorexic. It occurs to me that many anorexic women are victims of childhood sexual abuse. Is a collective family guilt behind their dogged determination to make her lie there until the very last mitochondria in her now-truly anorexic body flickers out?

The only good to come out of this is that Bush and DeLay and Bill Frist have made themselves look like the totally repugnant headline-grabbing, shameless panderers they are. Once the polls showed the public wasn't with them, they slunk away in embarrassment. (And speaking of Frist - I've met a few heart surgeons and I've never met one who wasn't a thoroughly pompous asshole. Not saying they're all like that. I just never met one. Or heard of one.)

As usual, America's Best Christian, Mrs. Betty Bowers, sums it up nicely. " I am forever grateful to my Lord and Savior for showing such a deft knack of showmanship by populating this planet with such amusingly stupid people."

Yesterday's news . . . Disciplinary action is likely for ten US Army soldiers who took place in a mud-wrestling match. The match took place at a military prison, out of site of detainees. . . Didn't I read a couple of days ago that no action is expected against any of the people involved in the murder of 18 or so Iraqi detainees? . . . and nobody above the rank of sergeant was punished for the role in torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Guess we Americans have our priorities straight: torture and murder? OK. Mud wrestling and death-with-dignity? Bad.

Way old news . . . I remember reading some weeks ago that the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners is not only being done by private civilian contractors hired by the US, but it is also being handled by friendly countries with less squeamish attitudes about how the information is obtained. The government is outsourcing torture! . . . Why can't we outsource the entire friggin' war? Hire Halliburton to find some third world cash-strapped countries to take over, give them American weapons and technology and let them do it for half the cost. Then our soldiers come home safe and generally sound. . . Sure it's exploiting poor, powerless folks, but since when has that been an issue in Corporate America?

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:48:59 GMT

For a welcome break from the news, pick up the BBC's program on DVD, "The Blue Planet." It is amazing, awe-inspiring, fierce, beautiful and a wonderful antidote to the arrogance of human beings. Eight one-hour programs about a largely unseen world that is bigger, stranger and far more interesting than we might have imagined.

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 14:41:58 GMT

Yeah, I know. I've been lazy or busy or zoned or something. I'll get busy pretty soon and write something.

Saw "The Fight Club" last week. It was OK, but way over-rated and nearly as violent as "The Passion of Christ". It was probably the biggest budget homoerotic zen-nihilist film ever made. But Ed Norton is a great actor and worth the price all by himself.

Later . . .

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 03:19:21 GMT

I took Mark Hoback's suggestion and visited formerlyROSIE. I was not disappointed and you won't be either.

A lovely sample:

here is what I think

teachers need to be paid more
the war in iraq is wrong
george bush is a disaster - dangerous for the world
racism exisits and sucks
nurses rock and derserve more respect
too few people have too much of the money
and most of them don't want to share
shocking
to me

i believe in democracy
in freedom
in peace equality and art

choose the light
be claimed
declare yourself
with grace if possible

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:15:33 GMT

I got the most annoying computer phone call yesterday. That is something I normally hang up on, but this was from the pharmacy that fills my mail-order prescriptions. The computer voice, which required voice responses from me, was annoyingly perky. There was even a hint of a giggle when it said "Thank you". If ever a computer deserved to be slapped . . .

I sent in my scripts and they wanted to confirm that I was willing to pay the co-payment - like I had a lot of choice: $190 total. Hey, if it keeps me off the gas pipe and out of the ICU, why not? But it made me a little nostalgic.

It used to be that one good benefit of being in health care was that you were a part of the family and that meant excellent health benefits. I'd get a discount rate from my physician, hospitalization in my hospital of employment at no cost, cheap prescription coverage. Little by little, year by year, that all eroded. There has never been a year that I didn't have to pay more, seemingly, for less. I expect the same is as true or more so for those outside health care.

The co-pay was what brought it home this morning - $190. It doesn't seem that long ago when I could take my insurance card to the K-Mart pharmacy and pay only 12 cents co-pay. Twelve cents! It was supposed to be $2, but they wanted the business. Now the insurance companies have forbidden stores from discounting the co-pay. I guess it won't be too many more years before I'll be deciding whether to buy meds or food, just like a lot of other Americans who suffer under "the world's best healthcare."

and then . . .

I was helping a nice, but sickly, older gentlemen into the bed yesterday so he could be examined by the doc. As I knelt down to unlace his shoes, his sweet wife, in her eighties, short, and sharp as an ex-wife's tongue, made conversation.

"How tall are you," she asked.

"Six-four."

"Really? That's wonderful." a pause . . .or two . . .

". . . I wish you could give me four inches. I would be so-o-o happy!"

I can't help it. I'm an ED nurse. My mind went south and I busily, quietly, concentrated on my work, eyes focused on her husband's shoes. I stole a glance at my colleague, but she wouldn't look at me. All I could see were her shoulders lightly shaking as she single-mindedly concentrated on untangling the monitor leads. I wanted to ask her if that meant I'd have to do it twice, but I just coughed instead, trying to remember that not everything requires a response.

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:34:20 GMT

Rat Sandwich

A long time ago, I was the news director of a very small radio station in Southern Maryland. One of the things I had to do to clear stories off the AP teletype machine and choose which to read as part of the regional news. There was a story one day that I knew I could never pass up: someone in Baltimore was suing the local chain bakery because he found a rat baked into a loaf of bread.

My mind, ever helpful started to wander. The story seemed incomplete; there were questions to be asked. How was this noticed? Was it sliced bread? How far into the loaf do you have to get before encountering baked rat? Was it baked in horizontally or length-wise? And did the victim (assuming you don't consider the true victim to be the rat) begin at the nose end or the tail end? When does one begin to notice the subtle addition of Rattus norvegicus to one's pastrami?

Which, of course, lead me to wonder what kind of bread? White bread? rye? ("Honey? Does this raisin bread look OK to you?) pumpernickel? What does one do when encountering such a windfall? There certainly were a lot of questions, more than one small news story was able to answer. Even though I was reading the story during the breakfast hour, I never got any complaints. That was when I began to suspect that no one was really listening.

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 15:52:56 GMT

"The ocean is enticing and deadly, a cradle and a stranger, a place of lulling peace that, in the end, isn't our home." - Wanda Adams

Surfing isn't a spectator sport. The men and women on surfboards aren't interested in the opinions and approval of those content to sit above the beach and watch. Their concerns are narrow and focused: the size of the waves, their shape and speed, which wave to sit out and which to mount like an explorer trying to balance on the back of a running elephant. There is elegance and grace in their art, and danger, too. The very top of the wave is foam and air. They ride down a face of moving glass, speeding away from the curl of the wave that wants to slap them off their boards and bury them under tons of rolling water.

Hawaii's North Shore is home to some of the world's biggest and most dangerous waves and, therefore, attracts surfers from around the world. When red flags dot the beaches, warning swimmers to stay out of the water, Highway 83 is filled with people looking for waves to surf and others looking for places to watch the waves and surfers collide. From Hale'iwa, past Waimea and Turtle Beach, to Sunset Beach and beyond, cars line the roadside, fill the parking lots and cruise toward the action.

The most famous of the North Shore surfing spots is a section of beach known for the highest, most dangerous waves: the famed "Banzai Pipeline." The waves break across a coral reef in a way that makes the top of the wave curl into a pipe of water filled with air. The surfers try to "shoot the pipe": ride under the curl as it breaks and outrun the crashing wall behind them. Some make it all the way through; a lot don't. A few are able to ride the wave almost to its end, flip over the top without falling off and be ready to catch the next. Most of those who wipe out are dunked, tossed around and scraped up a little, but go back for more. There is always the danger, however, off being pounded into the sharp coral or knocked unconscious by one's own surfboard.

Drive around the North Shore and you're bound to see the bumper stickers proclaiming "Eddie Would Go." "Eddie" was Eddie Aikau, one of the best surfers ever known and one of the best lifeguards, too. "Aikau's prowess as a lifeguard became widely known," writes Burl Burlingame, "and a comforting presence on the beach. No one drowned on his watch, dozens were saved, at least the ones we know about, because Aikau rarely bothered to file reports on lifesaving.

"Mac Simpson, maritime historian said, 'Aikau was a legend on the North Shore, pulling people out of waves that no one else would dare to. That's where the saying came from -- Eddie would go, when no else would or could. Only Eddie dared.'" Eddie lost his life trying to save the lives of fellow crew members when their voyaging canoe Hokule'a capsized in heavy seas. His body was never found. His name became a North Shore legend that has spawned not only merchandise, but a book and a play and an attitude. "Eddie Would Go."

The ocean is surely enticing: primordial, fresh, raw energy filled with power and life and death. I go the water's edge to see, but also to smell the salt and moisture, to hear the sharp call of birds, the crystalline sounds of water washing over sand and to feel the bass vibrations of tons of ocean breaking onto the earth; crumbling and shattering into wavelets and foam and ions and oxygen-rich air. I can't surf. But I can marvel at the skill and watch in jealous awe as man and nature create a visual, harmonious poetry.