Motorcycle Safety from Cracked.com

Cracked Topics: Motorcycle Safety

I'm tempted to pull the pic & put it here, but it's probably all over the internet already, so you'll see it soon enough. Worth the click, though.

From the article:

Just The Facts

1. A motorbike is the bare minimum number of parts required for an engine to reach lethal velocities.
2. As opposed to regular vehicles, motorbikes use the rider to protect themselves.
3. Donorcycles were invented by an aging industrialist to ensure a constant supply of replacement organs. He got all he'd ever need within a year and continues to sell them simply because it's funny.

My favorite part? The helmet is labeled: "Identifying feature preservation device (saves valuable paramedic time)."

Esther Dances

I don't know where she got this from. The other two don't dance like this. It's cute, though, and the kid has great taste in music.




That's Duane Jarvis's "Drive Back to You," by the way.

Another:




This is Waylon's version of "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line."

Like I said, good taste in music. She got it from me, of course. You might notice (or might not) that she ends both videos by coming in for a kiss. That is how sweet that child is. I am so glad I had her last. If I'd had the sweet, easygoing, easy-nursing baby who would fall asleep on her own after I laid her down slightly awake first and the colicky nipple biter or the suck-all-day-long multi-puker after, I would not have survived. I'd have been completely unprepared.

Why Obama is not a Socialist, and why what he is is much more dangerous.

First of all, let me be very clear here. When I speak of Socialists, I mean Marxists. Karl Marx of course was the progenitor of Socialism as a school of philosophy. The modern political movement that likes to call itself Socialism (or sometimes Communism) is a discrete entity from real Socialism. The Russian Revolution came during Marx's twilight years, and he thought they were idiots.

And so:

It is common to call President Obama a Socialist. He is not.

Why is Obama not a Socialist? To put it simply: Socialism is the takeover of the government by the workers. What Obama is doing with our country is a takeover of the workers by the government. Far from being the apple of Karl Marx's eye, he's doing exactly what Marx accused Captialism of doing--he is using the power of the state to take advantage of the proletariat.

Karl Marx's ultimate vision was one of a simple, direct democracy. Communism would be an outgrowth of Socialism. A true Socialist uprising could not and would not take place until Capitalism had run its course, creating enough wealth. Marx realized that Socialism would never be a revenue-generator like Capitalism. It was not intended to be. Socialism would be where the workers turned their efforts toward leveling the playing field for others of their own class. (My opinion that this philosophy shows a basic lack of understanding of human nature has not changed with gaining a greater understanding of Marx and his teachings.)

Surely you have heard "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." That's Marxist Socialism there. It's a damn good way to live life, not that far from what Jesus preached (thus the common, erroneous, liberal claim that Jesus was surely a Socialist). What those trying to force a bastardized version of Socialism upon this country fail to realize is that, in both Marx's view and in Jesus's view, this arrangement must be entered into voluntarily in order for it to work. Indeed, we can see that on a small scale it can sometimes work. There are a very few communes in existence today wherein people live out the Socialist ideal. Again, though, they are doing it voluntarily and are freely committed to the ideal. Socialism can never work as something that is thrust upon people. Thus the ultimate downfall of the USSR.

I do realize that Obama has Socialst connections. I do not think these people have a good understanding of Marxist Socialism, even if they proclaim themselves Marxists. That said, you can see Marx's poor view of religion being brought to light in Obama's pragmatic use of God. He is definitely using it as a tool for his own ends, much as Marx considered religion to be merely a way to reinforce social roles. Again, however, this isn't really Marxism but rather a propagation of what, in Marx's view, was one of the worst aspects of Capitalism. Perhaps this whole administration is Obama's way of attempting to pave the way for a true workers' revolt and overthrow of Capitalism.

Frankly, I don't think he's that smart.

So, if Obama is not a Socialist, what is he? He is a Utilitarian.

Utilitarianism is a political philosophy (which has, unfortunately, infected the medical field as well) explained most simply as advocating "the greatest good for the largest number of people."

Dr Cox, my philosophy professor, said people tend to like Utilitarianism because of this stated goal. It sure does sound warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Being that most of my readers are, as I myself am, conservative/libertarian, you will all undoubtedly see the obvious problem. The greatest good for the largest number of people has inherent an expectation of stomping the hell out of the rights of minority groups. All together now boys and girls: What's the smallest minority? That's right, the individual.

Utilitarianism is a sort of collectivism. What's sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander. And the duck and the drake and the pullet and the rooster and the squirrel, rabbit, deer, etc etc.

Like Marxism, it had at its heart the elevation of the quality of life for the lower classes. Unlike Marxism, at its heart it is an hedonistic philosophy. What is right? What is good. It is a consequentialist philosophy (the ends justify the means).

Now, I could explain this in my own words, but I'm going to be momentarily lazy and quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Bentham's view was surprising to many at the time at least in part because he viewed the moral quality of an action to be determined instrumentally. It isn't so much that there is a particular kind of action that is intrinsically wrong; actions that are wrong are wrong simply in virtue of their effects, thus, instrumentally wrong. This cut against the view that there are some actions that by their very nature are just wrong, regardless of their effects. Some may be wrong because they are ‘unnatural’ — and, again, Bentham would dismiss this as a legitimate criterion. Some may be wrong because they violate liberty, or autonomy. Again, Bentham would view liberty and autonomy as good — but good instrumentally, not intrinsically. Thus, any action deemed wrong due to a violation of autonomy is derivatively wrong on instrumental grounds as well. This is interesting in moral philosophy — as it is far removed from the Kantian approach to moral evaluation as well as from natural law approaches. It is also interesting in terms of political philosophy and social policy. On Bentham's view the law is not monolithic and immutable. Since effects of a given policy may change, the moral quality of the policy may change as well. Nancy Rosenblum noted that for Bentham one doesn't simply decide on good laws and leave it at that: “Lawmaking must be recognized as a continual process in response to diverse and changing desires that require adjustment.” (Rosenblum, 9). A law that is good at one point in time may be a bad law at some other point in time. Thus, lawmakers have to be sensitive to changing social circumstances. To be fair to Bentham's critics, of course, they are free to agree with him that this is the case in many situations, just not all — and that there is still a subset of laws that reflect the fact that some actions just are intrinsically wrong regardless of consequences. Bentham is in the much more difficult position of arguing that effects are all there are to moral evaluation of action and policy.

(From The History of Utilitarianism, an all-around good read.)

Jeremy Bentham, by the by, is the father of Utilitarianism as a political philosophy.

If you pay close attention, you will see that much of modern Progressivism/Liberalism is in fact Utilitarianism. Thus the concept of the Constitution as a "living document" that must needs change with time. Note Bentham's belief that liberty and autonomy aren't inherent virtues. Basically, they are good but only to the extent that they produce good outcomes.

Sound familiar? I thought so.

Moving beyond Bentham, we come to John Stuart Mill. He was a student of Bentham's and a fan of the philosophy of Utilitarianism, but sought to make it more, well, utilitarian (in the "able to be utilized" sense of the word). He also felt Bentham was too egalitarian in his appreciation of pleasure. Mill, in other words, sought to rank pleasures according to their worth. Of course, we all tend to do this. I consider the pleasure of a good book to rank ahead of just anything. Of course, in Mill's view of Utilitarianism, I don't get to make that choice. None of us do. No, there must be others, who have experienced a wide variety of pleasures, to rank them for us and tell us what pleasure is more worthwhile than what other pleasure.

Again, sound familiar?

Moreover, Mill had a similar view of rights as did Bentham and as do most modern liberals (quoting from the same article as before):

Like Bentham, Mill sought to use utilitarianism to inform law and social policy. The aim of increasing happiness underlies his arguments for women's suffrage and free speech. We can be said to have certain rights, then — but those rights are underwritten by utility. If one can show that a purported right or duty is harmful, then one has shown that it is not genuine.

In truth, I will admit that there is some good to be had of this philosophy. The same paragraph from which I have just quoted goes on to discuss Mill's support of women's suffrage and belief in the education of women, certainly an unusual stance in his time.

However, the problems with Utilitarianism as a political philosophy are manifest. I will go into this another time. My biggest issue with Utilitarianism can be illustrated with what Dr Cox called the lifeboat problem: you are in a lifeboat that is at capacity. You see a person in the water. Do you rescue him, thus running the risk of endangering those already in the lifeboat, or do you ignore his pleas for help on the justification that it is of more benefit to those in the lifeboat, and he might well die anyway?

Or, from a more topical standpoint: is it right to deny healthcare to an elderly person because for the same amount you could provide X number of vaccinations to younger people? (Some day soon, I promise you I will do an entry on the ethical implications of public healthcare. It won't be pretty.)

So you see that, far from being a Socialist wishing to give power to the people, as it were, Obama is rather a Utilitarian. This is evident in his assertion during the campaign that although he recognized that lower tax rates on the "upper class" actually increase overall tax revenue, he would nevertheless seek to reform the system in the opposite direction in order to increase its fairness. Fairness is a concept beloved of Utilitarians, Liberals, and three-year-olds.

However, it is not his Utilitarian leanings that give me the most concern. Though I do not believe it is his necessarily his overarching philosophy, Obama puts me strongly in mind of Thomas Hobbes. I tend to call Hobbes a Statist, though I am not confident that's the most correct term I could use. However, allow me to explain:

In Hobbes's view, the natural state of human beings is no different than that of animals. On our own we are completely amoral (notice I do not say immoral) and will conduct war against one another. We would rape and pillage and take advantage of those weaker than we, making any sort of civilization impossible. In order to prevent this, we must voluntarily subject ourselves to government. The only government which does not run the risk of dissolution in civil war is one with absolute power. (Again, history has proven this to be false, but reality never gets in the way of a good philosophy.) Make no mistake, Hobbes sees personal liberty as a bad thing, and even as a possible assailant to civilization itself.

Again, I'll get lazy for a moment and quote the SEP:

When people mutually covenant each to the others to obey a common authority, they have established what Hobbes calls “sovereignty by institution”. When, threatened by a conqueror, they covenant for protection by promising obedience, they have established “sovereignty by acquisition”. These are equally legitimate ways of establishing sovereignty, according to Hobbes, and their underlying motivation is the same—namely fear—whether of one's fellows or of a conqueror. The social covenant involves both the renunciation or transfer of right and the authorization of the sovereign power. Political legitimacy depends not on how a government came to power, but only on whether it can effectively protect those who have consented to obey it; political obligation ends when protection ceases.

It must be said that Hobbes' view that a regime's legitimacy depends only upon its ability to impart stability to the people under it is hardly unheard of these days. (I'm thinking of my Pysch prof in my first semester who said that we should have left Saddam Hussein alone, because sure he was horrible to his people, but at least it was peaceful horror.) Indeed, much of the "Why should I care about Iran?" crowd undoubtedly is a fan of this theory!

Moreover, in Hobbes's mind, there should be no limits to the power of the government to govern its people. (Really, you should read the article on Hobbes. It's scary shit. And familiar.) This is necessary to prevent a descent into anarchy, where every man will look out for himself. You get the feeling he and Ayn Rand would not get along, eh? Basically, Hobbes advocates totalitarianism. To wit: "Similarly, to impose limitation on the authority of the government is to invite irresoluble disputes over whether it has overstepped those limits."

The scariest part of this all is that, according to Hobbes, the government reserves the right to define a word. That is the apex of its power. Insisting that a certain functional definition be applied to words is another beloved pet of the Left. Remember how, during the primaries, some fussed over whether Obama was "black enough"? And of course Clarence Thomas isn't truly black. Feminism is also defined very stringently by some. Hope and change are words co-opted by the current administration. Racism now equals being against Obama. (To be perfectly fair, the attempt to define words strictly in order to suit oneself is pretty near universal amongst politicians.)

Mind you, I am not a philosophical egoist. I don't fetishize Ayn Rand (or even consider her a philosopher, frankly). I am quite firmly Kantian in my beliefs. A desire to protect the rights of the individual is, I believe, inherent in Kant's philosophy, as it demands we never treat others merely as the means to an end. (Which, frankly, Utilitarianism does pretty much constantly.)

Obama does not, from what I have seen of his actions and heard of his speeches, have any concern for the individual. He will of course claim to be for the little guy...but anyone with one eye and half a brain can see the fallacy of that.

Just for the record

I really don't give a rat's ass that Michael Jackson is dead. I think it goes without saying that I didn't know him personally. I didn't like his music (I'm listening to the Charlie Daniels Band right now, if that gives you a clue). Even back when his biggest scandal was repeatedly grabbing his crotch, I found him incredibly distasteful.

So the fact that it's all over Facebook right now, and the message boards I belong to, and StumbleUpon just further erodes my scant remaining faith in humanity.

We're so easily distracted from what actually matters in the world, aren't we?

Old San Antonio

A post about Retro photos/advertisements at Mama Drama prompted me to look for vintage photos of San Antonio on the 'Net. I found a few to share:

This is a Rambler dealership on San Pedro, photo from the 1960s.

The website I found it on says the site is now a Valero gas station.

Of course, if you know San Antonio, you know the words "Valero gas station" and "San Pedro Avenue" don't exactly narrow things down much. San Pedro is one of those streets that runs from downtown all the way to near the airport.

Most of the dealerships these days are on the far north part of San Pedro. For some reason I want to place this closer to downtown. Probably because it reminds me very strongly of a few buildings near downtown on both Broadway and McCullough (McCullough runs parallel to San Pedro for pretty much its whole length; only Main Ave. separates them).

This is the Alamo Travelodge on Broadway. A postcard of it from the 1970s, to be exact.

It's not too far from my church (St Mark's).

The building is now a sort of pea green, and though there's technically still a restaurant there (at least, I think it's still in business), it's not one I'd want to set foot in. The entire thing is rather downmarket now; I believe they rent rooms by the week and basically attract a lot of vagrants. There was a fire there a year or so ago.


This one comes with its own caption, which is partially cut off. The year is 1971. So you have the Tower of the Americas that is so iconic of the city these days. But other than that, the skyline looks pretty empty. What surprises me is the Marriott Riverwalk (the white building just to the left of the Tower). I didn't realize it was that old. My mother said she thinks it was built for Hemisfair '68.

That's my thing. If I could go back in time for anything, I'd want to see Hemisfair '68. It changed the face of San Antonio as we know it. Hemisfair Plaza is still there, of course, but you can't go into most of the buildings.

This is the Greyhound bus station on St. Mary's. Looks to be '50s vintage. This is also right by St. Mark's. That big building is the Gunter Hotel (used to be the Günther; guess they gave up getting people to pronounce it correctly!).

I can't read that sign to the far right of the photo. But there's a parking lot and a Bill Miller's there now.

There's also another high rise very close to the Gunter, including a parking garage. (In fact, the Gunter's own parking garage was apparently added after this.) This photo fascinates me because it looks so clean.

Joske's from the 1950s. I don't remember Joske's very well. I'm pretty sure they closed before I was old enough to possibly remember them. This is them getting ready for Christmas, obviously. They're legendary for their window displays.

This building is like a who's who of failed department stores. First there was Joske's. Then Foley's. Then Dillard's. (The latter two only used two of the floors; it's something like a 5-storey building.) Now it's awaiting its rebirth as a multi-use facility. Which means, basically, that it's going to be subdivided even further.

Foley's resurrected the old Joske's Christmas displays for a while when I was a kid, and I remember those letters even though it was closed. They auctioned them off in like '89 or so to benefit the local public television station. They brought a pretty penny, as I recall.

This is the oldest photo here. Alamo Plaza from 1926. It's hard for me to get my bearings, because it looks radically different from what I'm used to. That circular island...I'm lost.

There's also no Rivercenter Mall in that photo.

There is the Emily Morgan hotel, though. I think that's the Emily Morgan. There are two hotels right near the Alamo, and I'm a horrible person because I always get them confused.

If I remember my local history correctly, this was before the Daughters of the Republic of Texas cobbled together money to buy the Alamo. It was just sort of sitting there, empty & presumably moldering, for quite some time.

I saved this one for last because it is just so out there compared to what's there now. This is just north of Loop 1604 during the 1950s. Near Retama Park (the racetrack). There was nothing in that area for a very long time, even after the track was built.

We called 1604 the "death loop" because it is so winding, the lighting is poor, the speed limit is high, and it was pretty remote. Honestly, it's still pretty dangerous, but you've got a lot of white people who moved to San Antonio from God knows where and have a deathly fear of the South Side because brown people live there (I grew up on the southeast side o' town) and so this whole area is now ridiculously overbuilt by people who think it's just groovy to spend more than an hour commuting a very short distance.

My favorite part? They built a HUGE new Circuit City store that opened maybe six months before they went bankrupt & liquidated everything. Hilarious.

I love my city, and I am fascinated by its history. It's an incredibly dynamic place; it changed so much in the seven years I was following my sailor around that I really suffered from cognitive dissonance when I returned.

This is why I cannot stand the President.

20 June, Iran:



21 June, United States:



I cannot have respect for a man who has no problem with a daughter dying in her father's arms in the streets of Tehran because they want their votes to have actual meaning.

Make no mistake, I want Malia and Sasha to remain ignorant of the bloodiness that is this fight. There is no place in it for small children. Neda was a grown woman. She made a choice to take to the streets and risk her life to protest injustice and to demand a sort of democracy.

But here we have the leader of the free world, the DEMOCRATICALLY CHOSEN President of the country that has its whole existence stood for freedom, for individual liberty, for personal choice, and for the willingness to die for these things...And he will not even raise his voice.

I'm not asking us to send troops to Iran. I don't think it would accomplish anything. I just want him to open his mouth and say something of worth.

Like:

"The extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction...It is a tragedy, but it is not negative to have a real opinion movement that tries to break its chains."

or

"It is for Iran now to show the world that the elections have been fair . . . that the repression and the brutality that we have seen in these last few days is not something that is going to be repeated."

or

"Human rights and citizens' rights are inseparable... I, therefore, demand that Iran's leaders allow peaceful demonstrations, allow free reporting of events, stop the use of violence against demonstrators and free imprisoned people."

But I guess we have to rely on Sarkozy, Brown, and Merkel to do that for us. Obama's mouth seems to be full.

Just a quickie.

Over in my left sidebar is this:

<a href="http://iran.whyweprotest.net/"><img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/266065878/iran_bigger_bigger_normal_bigger.jpeg_bigger.jpg" border="0" /><br />

Complete with the little thing to grab code.

It's from Anonymous Iran. Lots of good information over there both on the continuing protests and things we can do over here to show support.

Obama & gay rights.

I've made reference to this magazine cover before, but I had to look it up online to prove to myself I hadn't completely lost it.

The text, in case it is hard for you to read: "Pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, a bill passed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton that says two things: First, that no state need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state, and second that the federal government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states. Sign the Matthew Shepart Act, which was named to honor Shepard and would expand the 1969 federal hate-crimes law to include crimes motivated by a victim's gender identity, or disability. Overturn "don't ask, don't tell," the federal law that prohibits any gay or bisexual person from speaking about any same-sex relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces. Sign the Uniting American Families Act, a bill that would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate discrimination in immigration laws by permitting same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status." (And then it starts over again.)

Of course, the clear text is: What will he do for you first?

The answer, of course? Not much of anything.

In fact, here's your Moment of Zen for the day:



The caption: "Gay rights activists protest last month outside a fundraiser in Beverly Hills attended by President Obama."

I mean, really, how can you NOT love that photo, however you feel about gay rights? What right-winger do you suppose they borrowed them from?

Now, those of you who know me know that I support darn near everything on the cover of that magazine. But I have a question for homosexuals:

Did y'all really believe him? REALLY? You thought this guy was going to put GLBT issues at the forefront of his presidency? That a man who said, OFTEN, that he was against gay marriage was going to work to repeal DoMA?

All you're going to get is excuses. And talk.

Really, given that this is a man who is apparently a-OK with the pathetic excuse for an election in Iran, homosexuals have no reason to hope. When the dude's OK with people being beaten, the foreign press being confined to their hotels, etc etc etc, what's a little discrimination between friends, eh?

Enjoy that sick leave. It's all you're getting.

Gone Green.

Nope, I'm not turning into an eco-nutcase on y'all. I've turned the blog green for the time being because green is the color of the opposition in Iran.

Not only do I have no respect left for the President, I have no hope of ever respecting him again. It would cost NOTHING to say "We have grave concerns about the legitimacy of the election in Iran and urge a full, transparent, and honest recount in the presence of international election monitors."

Yeah, we all know any recount is likely to be bogus, and that no less stellar a personage than Jimmy Carter has already signed off on the fairness of at least one questionable election. But it would be something.

Something other than, you know, pretending that a country where women are arrested for fingernail polish and men are beaten for "Western" hair cuts has fair and honest elections and freedom of speech.

But then, what do we expect from the man who ignored the anniversary of the Tiannamen Square protests?

Wordless Wednesday: A Picture from back in February

Why

I was reading NurseK's blog late last night and she linked to this post by Midwest Woman (whose blog, quite honestly, I have never read before) which contained this choice quote:

Read a comment yesterday...treat and street, admit and forget. Move the meat, move the product.

This was Nurse K's comment. Midwest Woman went on to (sorta) jump NurseK's shit, or bitch about ER nurses, or whine about her job, or something:

The meat is tainted and the product defective.
12 hours of trying not to let their life stories burrow under your skin. 12 hours of enduring families acting out all their dysfunctions on you. 12 hours of knowing that after all your effort, there will be a part of them broken that we can't fix. 12 hours away with memories of some of these people painfully tattoed on your heart hidden away.
Admit and forget....what a concept.

Honestly, I'm still not sure exactly what her point was; my reading comprehension skills drop off a cliff when there are no paragraphs.

I commented there, but I want to make a post here because what I said then plays a lot into where I am in my life right now. And that, just to be clear for everyone is: I'm a pre-nursing student at San Antonio College. Which means that I intend to be an RN, but I'm still slogging through my prerequisites. I have to take two more BIO courses to even be able to apply to nursing school. But I'm working my way there slowly. I really have no dog in this particular fight, though (ER nurses vs. floor nurses).

This is only my experience.

I've alluded before to the military medicine system and the shortcomings inherent therein. It's about the worst of what ER nurses have to deal with. Although in theory you can get an urgent appointment within 48 hours, in practice it was more like three weeks. So if you had anything that needed treatment within the next month or so, you went to the ER even if it wasn't anything close to an emergency.

For me, this was things like being in pain for burst cysts (the sort of thing they told me I had to come in for, but wouldn't actually do anything about once I was there), food poisoning that was really morning sickness (I've got a good excuse for that one, I swear), back pain when I couldn't stand up straight anymore, the occasional intestinal virus, etc. For my ex-husband, it was pneumonia, bronchitis, asthmatic bronchitis. For our kids it was fevers I couldn't get to come down.

Nurses are the foot soldiers of the ER. Hell, of the entire hospital. We're probably all familiar with the arguments. When you're in the hospital, you will see a doctor for a few minutes once or twice. You will see nurses far more often. They do the bulk of the actual care.

There was a corpsman at the hospital in Virginia...I don't remember his name, and I wish I did. He was a sweetheart. I met him when my oldest daughter was a wee babe. He told me about how his wife had been sure to breast-feed their kids for six whole weeks, because they knew how important it was.

He was also the only corpsman who could reliably get a needle in my arm. Once or twice they had to call him in, which produced one of my favorite lines ever: "Oh, her? I've stuck her plenty of times!"

He always cheered me up. Once when Bobbie was about 10 months old, Rob and I both got knocked down by the stomach bug and went to the ER. We were feverish, puking, dehydrated, etc. (Yeah, now I see I should've stayed home, but meh.) He was put in one bed, I was put in another. This corpsman heard Bobbie fussing, stuck his head in the curtain to say hi, and then took her and walked the floor of the ER with her, showing her off and getting me a couple minutes' rest.

I've been blessed to not have to deal with the ER or hospital much at all here in San Antonio.

I did go to the ER two days in a row when I was losing my baby. I blogged about this some when it happened. It was an ER nurse who was the only one to show any recognition of my humanity Friday night. As usual, I have no name (and here is where I really wish I did, because I'd love to write a letter to her boss and tell him how great she was). I don't think she gave one, and I wasn't wearing my glasses by then, because I didn't want to see. She helped me to go to the bathroom, and when she realized I was covered in blood from the waist down, she went and got hot, wet towels, warm, dry ones, a hospital gown, and a blanket. She got me cleaned up and feeling somewhat human again. She was with me maybe 10 minutes. Maybe. But she did more for me in that ten minutes than anyone else in that hospital did the whole time I was there.

The most recent one: Esther's face swelled up suddenly and abruptly on one side. I took her in to the same ER where I'd gone when I was miscarrying. The triage nurse reassured me I had done the right thing in bringing her in (which was fully appreciated). The nurse we saw when we were put in a room brought her a popsicle to help bring down her fever. Now, think about this a second. Here's a three-year-old girl. Her head hurts. She's hot. She's sick. And then somebody comes in and gives her ice cream! He could've accomplished the same end with ice water, but instead he chose a grape popsicle.

Now, all of those ER nurses dealt with me for a very short amount of time. And all of them did great things for my (and my daughter's) spiritual health as well as our physical health. You don't have to spend 12 hours with someone to do great things for them. You don't have to remember them after they leave you ER to do great things for them. You don't even have to save their lives to do great things for them (though I realize that's the best way to know you've done it).

The good nurses I've dealt with--not just in the ER, though for purposes of this post they're the ones I've talked about--have done much to influence my desire to be a nurse. I've also dealt with some shitty ones, who treated me as defective product (mostly floor nurses, frankly, but by no means all). They influenced me too. I'm going in to nursing as much to help someone else avoid a shitty nurse as to carry on the good work of the wonderful nurses.

It's not the whole story of why I'm going into nursing, but it's part of it.

Rectal Foreign Bodies

This seems to be a favorite subject of the medical blogs I read.

I remember coming across a webpage a couple of years ago that was devoted to the subject, but I failed to bookmark it (or else it was lost in one of the crashes of my bookmarks Firefox used to be prone to).

So I had no way to prove the concrete impaction story I got from there. Until today (God bless you, StumbleUpon):

A 20-year-old man presented to the emergency room complaining of rectal pain. A well-nourished, well-developed man without signs of intoxication was admitted in no apparent distress. Digital examination of the rectum revealed a stony hard mass. Abdominal plain films showed a vertically oriented, low-lying radiopaque object in the rectum. A spherical radiolucency was noted in the upper pole of the mass. A blood alcohol level was negative. No other drug testing was performed.

Upon further questioning, the patient said that approximately 4 hrs earlier he and his boyfriend had been "fooling around." After stirring a batch of concrete mix, the patient laid on his back with his feet against the wall at a 45-degree angle while his boyfriend poured the mixture through a funnel into his rectum. After the concrete mass hardened, it became so painful that he sought medical care.

Under general anesthesia, the anus was dilated and two Foley catheters were inserted alongside the rectal mass to relieve suction. A concrete case of the rectum was delivered without incident. The rectal mucosa was intact with a hyperemic and edematous appearance.

The patient was kept overnight and discharged uneventfully the following morning. The attending physician recommended a psychiatric consultation, but the patient declined.

The linked story has photographs, just in case you've ever decided to know what a concrete cast of an asshole would look like.

The concrete story is the wildest, but there are some funny ones there, including one headlined "Artillery Shell Substantiated" (by, from the looks of it, KevinMD--probably the only blogger whose real name I regularly come across outside of the blogging world, mainly thanks to his occasional columns for USA Today).

Anyway, I am very easily amused at nearly midnight on a Saturday night. I was so happy to find that page again I just had to share it with anyone who might not have seen it yet.

I'm all for kinky sex, but nothing that might land me in the hospital. Thanks to the internet age, I now have a paranoia of becoming blog fodder (er, well, more so than usual).

Radio Silence

Private William Long was killed Monday, by a homegrown terrorist who apparently said he (Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammed) was mad at the US military and that his religion disagreed with our military's actions. (Note that the worldwide Anglican communion is also officially against the war in Iraq, but we're not going around capping people.)

Give Arkansas credit, Muhammed is not just facing murder charges, but also 16 counts of committing a terrorist act.

So there seems little doubt that he's a terrorist. An Islamic extremist, one might say.

The blogosphere has been awash in discussion of this. Talk radio, not so much.

Now, I expect the MSM to ignore this story in favor of the Scott Roeder/George Tiller drama. Nothing quite warms the cockles of the Left's collective heart than a Christian whacking a baby-killer abortionist women's health doctor. (And I do hope Roeder gets nailed to the wall, as he well deserves.) They'll ignore a Muslim committing acts of terror all day long when they have what they consider a juicier story.

But I haven't heard anything from talk radio. I hesitate to say that it hasn't been talked about. But if it has, it's not much. (And if you've heard about it, please drop a comment & let me know!) I expected this to be all Rush and Sean and Glenn are talking about. Hell, I listened to Joe Pags today--ALL of his show--just to see if he'd mention it, and he didn't. And I don't like Pags.

What the hell? Am I not listening to the right people? Or is talk radio letting this story be buried? And if they are, then why the hell are we supporting them?

Cheney & Obama on Gay Marriage: It's not what you've been led to think.

So, Dick Cheney seems to support gay marriage. Or, at least,the handling of the issue on a state level. This can also be interpreted as opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

This is a rather marked difference from Obama's position on gay marriage:

Obama Reiterates Position on Gay Marriage, Opposition to Prop 8 - Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

Wait, which party is the intolerant one again?

Oh, what a waste of time.

This is Bobbie's last week of school.

Today was a movie and popcorn (we actually picked her up early, so she missed out on the movie).

Tomorrow is Afternoon Field Day, which sounds as if it will be a far cry from the two-day PE fest that was Field Day when I was in school. It involves, apparently, a Moon Bounce, "water activities", and pizza.

Wednesday is another movie, this time with ice cream.

Thursday is Morning Field Day, with more water activities, but to my knowledge no Moon Bounce or Pizza. It is also End of Year Party day.

Friday is the most useless of all: an 11:45 a.m. dismissal.

The funny part? I got one of those groovy little letters from the principal earlier this month that included the line "Please join us while we continue to teach through the end of the school year." Um, yeah. Groovy, dude. I totally believe that. I'm sure Bobbie learned a whole bunch from all those Disney films y'all were showing her.