Last week I had written a letter to Larkin Community Hospital, where the three Muslim students who were suspected of being possible terrorists and had their cars searched on the highway in Florida.  Today, I received a response to my message from the hospital in regards to their situation.  Since I had initially spoken out about their actions, I feel it is only appropriate that I also allow their response to be seen by the same audience.  I must say, however, that I am very gratified to see that the reports in the media were, in fact, incorrect, and that the students are being allowed to continue their education with minimal disruption.

September 22, 2002

As a community hospital, we appreciate and value your input and would like to thank you for taking the time to share your views. Due to the misinformation and inaccurate reports by the media, many people were under the misconception that these students were "fired" or "kicked out" of their medical program. The medical training of Ayman Gheith, Kambiz Butt, and Omar Choudhary has never been in question, nor postponed or interrupted in any way; they have simply been reassigned to an alternate location. We have been working together with the students from the beginning of this ordeal to relocate them to other facilities to assure their safety, the safety of our patients, and the ability of our hospital to provide excellent patient care.

This is a medical school rotation, not an internship as has been incorrectly reported. They were never fired. Nor were they ever dismissed from the program by their university. Larkin Community Hospital is in full support of these students’ medical education. This rotation involves lectures and rotations at clinics. They were originally scheduled to be at the auditorium at Larkin for classroom lectures, not to work in the hospital. The entire class has simply been relocated to an auditorium at a different location.

Inaccurate media coverage has generated a significant amount of ill will towards the hospital triggering over 5,000 emails, phone calls, and faxes some of which have been disturbing. This interferes with our ability to provide the high quality of patient care to which we are committed. We cannot and will not jeopardize the care of these patients nor their safety--this is our first priority.

We are a hospital—a place where people come to seek medical care--not just a place of business. This is not the place to make a statement that will risk people’s lives, but a place to care for patients. This has always been understood and supported by the medical students, themselves, who appreciate our concern for patient care and safety. Yet, media reports and other correspondence declared me and the hospital to be "racist," "biased," "un-American," "coward," "abhorrent," and even "the real terrorists." Many went even further and sentenced us to "deserving" various forms of punishment both on earth and in the afterlife.

Many people asked us to "look at the facts" and to "not pass summary judgement" based on media reports. So I ask you to follow this advice: look at the facts and do not pass summary judgement based on inaccurate media reports.

From the start of this misfortunate incident, we have maintained the same position. This was and continues to be the only solution that would both protect the students and allow them to continue their medical education while at the same time assuring the safety of our patients and our ability to provide excellent healthcare. I am personally involved in and committed to ensuring Ayman, Kambiz, and Omar get the best medical experience and education possible.

Dr. Jack Michel

Chairman and CEO

Larkin Community Hospital

Bush asks appeals court to kill Ore. assisted-suicide law

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Bush administration asked a federal appeals court Monday to strike down Oregon's assisted-suicide law as counter to U.S. drug law. Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to sanction and perhaps hold Oregon doctors criminally liable if they prescribe lethal doses of medication under the Oregon measure, the only such law in the nation.

The Oregon law, approved by voters in 1994 and 1997, allows the terminally ill to obtain a lethal dose of drugs if they have less than six months to live and are mentally competent to make the request. Patients must take the fatal dose by themselves.

I've long found the Bush administration's and John Ashcroft's objections to the Oregon assisted-suicide law rather ironic, since the Republican part is typically the one that favours states' rights and purports to want to keep federal interference at a minimum.  Yet, here is a law that was approved by the state's voters not only once, but twice, which would indicate a fair amount of support for the measure.

Here's the administration, however, trying to get the law struck down, and the Justice department wanting to penalize doctors who provide aid to terminally ill people who simply want to get it over with. I suppose part of why this bothers me - aside from it going against the usual and oft-state preference for letting the state's manage their own business - is that I have a hard time understand what there is to be gained from forcing people who are dying, have no realistic or reasonable chance of recovery, are of sound mind and want to be able to meet with death on their own terms.

The benefits of self-directed euthinasia are fairly obvious: the individual is empowered to deal with their life - and the end of it - on their own terms; the family is able to be with the individual, to say their goodbyes, to know that their loved one is at peace with death and to know that their passing was reasonably pain-free; lowered medical costs as no further long-term care is needed (something that can actually benefit others beyond just the family, as the less insurance companies have to pay for such long-term care, the less they have to raise insurance costs); and additional hospital beds and life-sustaining equipment made available for people who may only need it in the short-term and then return to their own lives.

To some, the inclusion of hospitalization and insurance costs as well as equipment usage may seem a bit callous, but they are valid issues to incude in reviewing the situation.  Granted, you would probably need quite a few people choosing assisted-suicide to have a noticable impact, but right now we have no way of really knowing how many people might choose that option if they really did have that option available to them.  To paraphrase the old saying - a thousand dollers here, a few thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

There's another bit of irony here - not so much because of the government's position, but just looking at the issue of controlling insurance costs in general.  Recently, we've seen states going after tobacco companies because the use of their products is believed to cause health problems, and those problems cost insurance companies - along with the state-funded Medicaid programs - a lot of money to treat.  In just the last few months, we've seen people trying to challenge fast food companies over the damage their products do to individuals, and there is a great deal of talk that some states may also get involved in going after food companies, again, because of the increased costs of caring for people who have become ill from eating too much "bad" food.  Most states now have laws requiring the use of seat belts and new cars must have air bags build in, because the costs of long term care resulting from injuries sustaine in a car wreck add to the already heavy insurance and Medicaid costs.

Yet when people - any number of which may be dying because they were smokers, ate the wrong foods or were severely injured in a wreck - want to put an end to their lives, there are scores of people, groups and agencies (not to mention the Presidential administration and Justice department) who feel they should not be allowed to do so.  They take this stand in spite of the humanitarian reasons for allowing assisted suicide, and they take it in spite of the financial reasons for allowing it.

Most will say that they oppose it because they feel that all life is sacred.  And I can, to an extent, understand that.  The problem I have is that in the kind of cases where assisted suicide would be allowed, the life is nearly gone as it is.  What is gained by insisting someone live another six months or so in a body filled with pain, watching themselves wither away - knowing and seeing how difficult this is for their family, and wishing desparately they could escape?  That's not preserving life, in my opinion, that's more of a perversion of it.

http://morons.org/articles/5/2240

The RIAA and other industry interests have been trying to silence web broadcasters, and they'll succeed without our help...

Many of you may not be aware of this, but the RIAA along with other very large interests have been working hard to shut down Internet broadcasters. They recently worked with the Copyright Royalty Arbitration Panel to approve fees for Internet broadcasting that are tens to hundreds of times higher than the royalties paid by traditional radio stations. The goal here is obvious: groups like the RIAA and National Association of Broadcasters can't stand one bit of competition, so they're trying to drive out the small guys with the willing help of government.

To make a long story short, these fees will shut down the vast majority of online broadcasters, or make the better ones easy targets for acquisition by large media conglomorates that will turn them into stations that play the same tired dreck you hear on your radios today. Payment for every song played since 1998 is demanded on October 20.

Now nobody is saying that web broadcasters shouldn't have to pay royalties. Nobody is saying they should have a free ride. But there's no reason in the world to charge them so disproportionately compared with traditional radio stations.

Please support the Internet Radio Fairness Act. Fax your representatives and tell them to support the legislation. And while you're at it, you may want to support Digitally Imported, one of the more popular Internet broadcasters, if you like dance or classical music. --- Nick

TV show set to select a presidential candidate

Friday, September 20, 2002 Posted: 5:36 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- There's a real president, a fictional president on "The West Wing," so why not a presidential candidate chosen by television viewers?

That's what the FX hopes to produce. The cable channel announced on Friday the start of a series, "American Candidate," designed to pick a TV-endorsed potential president.  [...]

At first glance, the idea of using a television show to select a potential presidential candidate sounds positively, incredibly, embarassingly stupid.  At second glance, too.

The article notes that a similar kind of show is already underway in Venezuela.  Perhaps that will be of comfort to some.  I don't know, though.

I think part of why my initial reaction is to balk at the idea of using an "American Idol"/"Survivor" kind of concept to pick a potential presidential candidate is because our entire election system sometimes seems to be so much of a joke anyway, and there's no way this would actually help to alleviate that any. From the enormous amounts of money raised to fund our campaigns, to the constant "ooh!  See what we dug up on this one?" from both opponents and the media, to the yearly attempts to explain the Electoral Collage and so on.  For a country that is supposed to be the Last Great Superpower (tm), we sometimes just come off looking silly.

So, into this already glurpy mix steps FX, and their intent to make the 2004 election even more of a spectacle that it already is.  The basic concept is that they'll start with a selection of potential potential-candidates (since there's no guarantee that the winner will actually go on to actually run in the election), and then traipse them around the country to "patriotic" locations and have them engage in competitions so that they can display their views, their skills and their ability to look good on camera.  Some of the potential potential-candidates will be "voted off" each week until a grand finale to take place around July 4th, when FX will hold a "convention" of sorts, and the last three candidates will compete to be the winner.  After that, they're on their own.

FX has stated that they will not be providing the winner with any campaign funds and will make sure that all financial aspects of the show conform to election law.  Now if we could just get the political parties to do that, we might get somewhere.  At any rate, the cable network acknolwedges that as a part of the media, they cannot actually run anyone as a candidate, which is why they won't guarantee that the winner will actually run.

Somthing I realized, though, as I was thinking about all of this.  In some ways, this might not be such a bad method for picking potential candidates.  You start off with a fairly large pool of people who are interested, and the you essentially take money out of the equation.  With the show, the contestants will all have an equal shot at proving themselves worthy at each stage of the game up until they're voted off.  Someone who comes from a family with very little money has the opportunity to get the same exposure for his or her qualifications, capabilities and views as, well, someone from a family as rich as the Bushes. To me, that part of it is actually a fairly appealing concept.

I've often thought that one of the biggest problems with our electoral system is that whoever can raise the most money really does have the best chance of winning.  And just because they may have a larger pool of funds to draw from, it doesn't necessarily follow that they have more supporters.  It could just be that their supporters can afford to make donations at the legal maximun (and probably have some good accountants or lawyers who can help them find ways around those limits as well -- and yes, that applies to the wealthiest candidates of ALL parties). 

Doing something like what the show is doing helps take much of that advantage away - and its possible that by the time the show is done, the winner will be popular enough with the voting public that they could actually have a chance at really competing with the big boys.  Most likely, they won't get a big enough boost from the show to actually have a shot at winning the presidency, but it could make them enough of an issue that the main candidates have to stop sniping at each other long enough to deal with other issues.  Personally, I think a campaign that actually dealt with issues in general would be a nice change of pace.

So, part of me still feels that the show itself would be an embarassment, but part of me thinks it could actually have some value.  It's going to take a lot more thought before I can make up my mind, but it might almost be worth risking a few snickers from overseas if it helps refocus the campaign here on more tangible issues and away from the "gotcha!" mentality our campaigns seems to be run on now.

West Wing starts strongly at Emmys. The West Wing has won two awards as the prestigious Emmys get under way at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium. [BBC News | Front Page]

I was actually kind of disappointed with the "success" of The West Wing at the Emmy's this evening.  It ended up going home with four awards: Best Supporting Actor (John Spencer as Leo McGarrety), Best Supporting Actress (Stockard Channing as the First Lady), Best Actress (Alison Janney as CJ Craig) and Best Drama.

I admit I'm a fan of the show.  I enjoy it, and I do think Aaron Sorkin does some great writing - since I have more of a liberal bent than a conservative one, I tend to agree with a lot (though not all) of what is said - and the acting is strong.

It's just not a show I find compelling to watch.  If I miss an episode, it's more of an "oh well" than the "goddamned motherfucking sonofabitch" that pops out when I realize I've missed a new episode of "Law and Order". There's a certain kind of remoteness that seems to exist between the audience and the characters - rather than caring that much about what happens to them, I more-or-less just observe them. 

Now, given how much I love "Law and Order" and the fact that you really don't get to know the characters on that show well at all, that might sound strange, but "Law and Order" is a plot-driven show.  You don't watch it to get to know the characters or to become involved in their lives.  You watch it to see what this weeks case is going to be about, how they're going to twist it about to surprise you, and to feel a sense of participation in the justice system.  "The West Wing", on the other hand, is almost an entirely character-driven show.  The plots are just there to move the characters from one situation to another so you can see how they deal with whatever live (or Sorkin) decides to throw at them.  The problem is, if you don't really care all that much about the characters, then there's not much to keep your attention.

So seeing the show so heavily lauded this evening was a disappointment.  I think there are many shows that are much more deserving - that do a better job of keeping you interested in the characters, that have more intriguing plots and that actually leave feeling like you've really missed something if you don't catch every episode. 

National Holiday?

All over San Antonio, Texas, United States of America today, people are celebrating "Diez y Seis" - independence day in Mexico.

I'm confused - do they celebrate the Fourth of July in Mexico?

The above entry by Mark Harden of InSane Antonio reminded me of one that that almost always drives me nuts around holiday seasons. We seem to have this feeling of "entitlement" when it comes to holidays, as if we (Americans) believe that all holidays are "fair game" for us to celebrate - whether or not they actually hold any significance for us at all. I have no problem with people who belong to a certain ethnic, cultural or religious group who want to get together with others to celebrate these days that hold meaning for them.  What gets to me are the many people for whom it's basically just another chance to get loaded, or coerce family and friends into spending time together. It's the way it cheapens the actual meaning of the holiday and the disrespect it shows to those for whom it truly is a Holy Day that botheres me the most.

Americans of all stripes have been celebrating St. Patrick's Day for years, even though it's an Irish and Catholic holiday. Here you'll find people who's ancestry traces back to Northern Europe, Africa, China, Mexico, and just about everywhere else, out drinking green beer, talking with fake brogues, singing out of key and claiming to be Irish in order to get a few kisses.  Can you imagine what would happen if someone decided that everyone should celebrate "Juneteenth" and spend a day pretending to be black?  It don't imagine it would go over very well, but that's what we do to the Irish.

A few years back, a new beer holiday sprang up.  I call it a beer holiday because the "push" to celebrate it came mainly from bars, as another way to sell more beer.  That's the Mexican Independence Day.  Interestingly, here in KC, Mexican Independence Day is usually celebrated on the 5th of May -- and is called "Cinco de Mayo".  In Harden's comment, he refers to "Diez y Seis" - which, I believe, would be the 16th of something - and since it's a recent entry, my guess is the 16th of September.  I think that happens to say a lot about just how serious people are about "celebrating" this holiday - it's not even clear what day it should be on.

By far, though, the most egregious example of people glomming onto holidays that they really have no business celebrating have to be Christmas and Easter.  Actually, these holidays have been "glommed" twice - first when Christianity was trying to gain a foothold and made a point of placing as many of the holidays they wanted people to celebrate on days when the Pagans were already celebrating.  They took the familiar days and added new meaning to them.  Now, the secular world is doing its own takeover. 

Christmas has gone from being a time to celebrate the return of the sun and the passing of the "dead" part of the year, to being a celebration of Christ's birth (even though an examination of the stories in the Bible would place His birth sometime in the spring), to a time when we're supposed to be all jolly and nice to each other and trade gifts, but it's not always clear why.  Easter has gone from being a fertility festival (hence the rabbits and eggs), to a celebration of Christ's Resurrection - and now it seems as if the candy and card companies are wanting to turn it into Christmas Jr.; another rather generic "be nice and give gifts" time of year.

Even Halloween has undergone transformation over the years -- from being one of the holiest nights of the year to the old Pagans (and the beginning of their new year), to a night associated with fear and evil (as the Christians tried to strip away the holiness that the Pagans had attributed to the night), to a night when adults dress silly and get drunk and kids dress fun and extort candy from their neighbors.

As you may have noticed, there's a pretty consistant pattern to each of these changes.  At some point, different corporate interests have figured out that there is money to be made by convincing people to celebrate a given holiday - and the best way to get as many people to celebrate it as possible is to promote it in ways that make it more generic - not so much the special provence of any ethnic, cultural or religious group, but something anyone could celebrate.  So, for a day we can be Irish, or happy for the Mexicans, swap gifts in honour of nothing in particular or whatever else the marketers think they can convince us of.  Granted, it would happen so easily if we didn't have a strong streak of materialism and hedonism in this country, but it still seems to be more a matter of marketing over meaning.

What can be done?  Probably the most effective thing is to decide if there's actually a reason for you to celebrate a certain holiday.  If you can't think of a compelling reason to be celebrating it, then you probably don't need to be celebrating it.  At least it's something to think about.