So we care what the people think?

President Obama decided he would insert himself into the naming issue of the Washington Redskins that continues to show up from time to time.  This time he claims "I don't know whether our attachment to a particular name should override the real legitimate concerns that people have about these things," he said in the interview, which was conducted Friday at The White House.

As I have previously discussed about this issue, this is a topic this seems to show up when we need a diversion from say real issues, but this being the President and all, I will listen up.  Afterall, if he is concerned about what people think about issues, perhaps we should look at recent polling on Obamacare, or even the Affordable Care Act - which is showing itself to be anything but affordable for the average family.

According to some families, the ACA is thought to be a bad idea by 44 percent of those polled versus just 31 percent of those who thought it was a good idea.  The numbers are even more drastic, 45 to 23 when you ask whether or not the ACA will have a positive impact on the nation's health care.  So...if it is really polling you want Mr. President, let's have that conversation, but your signature achievement would end up getting turned over - probably as quickly as the Redskins are doing this year with their turn over issues.

As usual the President seems more interested in being a celebrity President than a leader President.  Another sad day for the American populace.

Bad Behavior

 Back to school parties can be bad, especially when high school age kids mix alcohol, drugs, and who knows what else.  The Albany Times Union reported that several teens got the great idea that they would break into an ex-NFL players home and use it as a personal party pad for the weekend.  The problem, other than breaking in and using it for a personal party pad, was that they decided to post pictures and other evidence on Facebook and Twitter because when committing a crime, there is nothing better than self-disclosure.

Personally, I am happy they did it because now we can skip the mea culpas about "not my fault" and I didn’t mean to when they really mean, they didn’t mean to get caught BS.  This type of behavior is exactly what Brian Holloway called it: "a migrating mass of absurd ideas and entitlement."  That's right, this behavior happened, not because it is okay, but because the kids feel entitled and parents are more likely to lash out at the person trying to correct their child's behavior than they are at their kid who they apparently have skipped parenting for the past sixteen to eighteen years.

Instead of parents showing up with their child to help clean up the property, Holloway has reported multiple parents have threatened to press charges against him, sue him, or firebomb he and his family after he reported what their children had already reported via Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Is this a joke?

Your kid breaks into someone else's house.  They are obviously underage, yet still probably engaged in drugs, alcohol, and potentially date rape when you read some tweets about roofies and being unable to wake up young women.  Your kid tweets about all of the above and you are mad that someone says, you shouldn't out my kid?  Really?!?

Hey, better idea...raise your kids to have a clue.  Help them learn a little respect for not only their over inflated egos, but for other people's property.  Instead, you are worried your kid won't make it into college now.  Maybe college and being around more drugs and alcohol isn't quite the right place for your temperamental child whose value system is pretty poor anyway.

While the students' behavior was bad, in general, it is the defensiveness of these moronic parents that is worse.  How can we grow as a society when parents defend the actions of these wannabe parasites who think the world will just show up and deliver to them?  For those parents who think this is okay, you should be glad Mr. Holloway is trying to help get them on the straight and narrow.  Some folks wouldn't go the route of education and helping them like Holloway is with his Help Me Save 300 Initiative.  Some folks would use force - deadly force - to stop this.  Whose side is the law on when it comes to defending yourself and your property.  What happens if it isn't Holloway's home, but that of George Zimmerman?

Since some of these parents are so eager to go to court to save their precious Johnny's reputation, I hope Mr. Holloway follows suit and not only presses criminal charges, but engages in his own civil suit against these parents who think this type of behavior is acceptable.  I would love to be on THAT jury.  It isn't often that the defendant puts the evidence against himself or herself out there for all to see, but in this case, how much easier could the case be?

In the meantime, instead of expressing gratitude and appreciation, your anger is funny.  Now that you are ready to play mamma and papa bear to your little wayward cub, you want everyone to be nice to your little bear cub.  I am guessing you are the same mamma and papa bear who were busy yelling at teachers to let Johnny retake his chem test because he was caught cheating, but you thought that was okay....a youthful mistake because instead of teaching valuing ethics and integrity, you taught how important 401(k) and BMWs were.  I am guessing you were the same parent yelling at coaches and referees when Johnny couldn't catch the ball as if it were their fault, Johnny thought he could just do those moves like they do on the Wii football game.

You clearly went into CYA mode when you decided that it was a good idea to delete that evidence against little Johnny, despite the fact it had already been posted and screenshots had been nabbed.  Much more important to deny, deny, deny than take Mr. Holloway up on his offer to help clean up his place.  Smooth move Ex Lax!  I realize your poor little one shouldn't be exposed to the idea of cleaning up urine soaked carpets, but maybe they shouldn't have been exposed to urine soaked carpets to begin with.

You should be glad Holloway is trying to parent your child since you gave up on the task so long ago, but my real question is, who is going to parent you?

 

9/11 - Twelve years later...

Today is always a raw day for me, but this year I have a distraction with the new job.  In the meantime, the Dallas Morning News posted the following that I had written for their Voices section:

Are you waving your flag? Today is Sept. 11, and I wave the flag today out of respect for my first-responder brothers in New York who died that morning racing up steps when others were running away.

 

Twelve years ago, I responded to the Pentagon after a unit from the fire department reported a plane down and heavy black smoke. I had a front-row seat to hundreds of deaths that day.

I’m a paramedic by both profession and avocation, so I’m not squeamish. When death happens, the talking heads talk and most of us watch, but not everyone. Some people act.

 

I have watched 9/11 be used by this group or that to make their political cases — for a bigger Transportation Security Administration, a more heavy-handed National Security Agency, for protections for Muslims, or whatever cause célèbre.

 

I watch as members of the media fall all over themselves to cover these machinations, and I think about a comment a friend made recently: We slobber all over the charismatic — the great stories — but not the good stories where people are doing important work without making it a show. It’s the workhorse vs. show horse argument.

 

Thirty years ago, when three homeless men in Dallas died after sleeping in large trash bins, many were horrified. But rather than lamenting their deaths and going about his own life, Jerry Hill, an Episcopalian priest, started asking how to help the homeless.

 

His was not a mission for cameras and applause, but he kept going anyway. Again and again, he kept going because he wanted to provide a safe place for those who were left behind on the street. He wanted no accolades or honors, but rather to provide a shelter where he could show his care for his brothers.

 

Like the fire service that works as a unit and as your second family, Hill enlisted the assistance of businessmen, other clergy and the community at large for what became the Austin Street Shelter. He built a team that consisted of people trying to make a positive difference. The shelter might be considered a testimony to one man’s quest to do a little good.

 

The apple, of course, doesn’t fall far from the tree. Hill’s son, Marty, is just as involved in the community. He is developing a center to help women with addictions.

In both cases I think of the race — or marathon — these men are running, trying to outpace such overwhelming forces.

 

When I think of 9/11, I think of Jerry and Marty Hill. I also think of Bob Schiavone, a former New York firefighter who now manages high school programs for adults in Los Angeles. The flag he waves is for the challenges he is fighting today, and he does so quietly, respectfully.

 

These men remind me of former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said, “Do a little bit of good wherever you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

 

When you wave flags this week, I hope you will think about how you can be of service to your community. What tragedy, big or small, can you help lessen?  There are flags to be waved, but they should wave with dignity for the races yet to be run, races in your community.

 

Are you up for it?

For now, I hope those lost will be mourned and remembered and that we are each up for the next task at hand.

Season of Hypocrisy

My my my what a playoff loss does to a team's fans, or fan, I guess I should say.  As in The Washington Post's Courtland Milloy.  Mr. Milloy who over the past eight weeks has had no interest in ruining the Washington Redskin's success while they went seven and zero to secure a playoff spot has now seemingly found the need to pounce on the issue of the team name after their loss, calling it bad karma for a racist moniker.

Yet, for some reason, it seems Mr. Milloy didn't have time to mention it when the season was ongoing and the team was winning, now with a playoff loss, he says "Washington’s professional football team has raked up one disappointing season after another since 1992 — the year D.C. resident Suzan Harjo became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to change the team’s disparaging name" - a lawsuit he seems unwilling to admit she lost.  Nonetheless, Mr. Milloy is a champion of civil rights issues.

He likes to complains about why the GOP is so white (predominantly racist) or why blacks don't play baseball (not enough resurces).  He even complains about Denzel Washington's kissing in the movie Flight (apparently his heart wasn't into it kissing a white woman).

I have to wonder if he concerns himself with any other significant issues other than the racism he seems to see to justify his rampant reverse racism.  I note he has not come running to the defense of Irishmen everywhere concerned about Notre Dame's use of the fighting Irish symbol, nor is he concerned about white men with black women in movies.  His articles are inbstead the usual drivel...the GOP are white and therefore racists, despite the fact that it was President Lincoln who signed the Emancipation Proclamation and it was the religious beliefs of Republicans in the mid 19th century that brought about the abolition of slavery.  His "Democratic" Party fought vigorously to continue the subjugation of men, even to the modern day when Klansmen United States Senator Robert Byrd worked against equal rights for all men.

It is sad that the Washington Post spends so much of its ink on a writer whose only ability seems to be finding racial fault lines in places where they likely would not exist.  The responsibility he seems to show to the issue of race is non existent and that is unfortunate because he demonstrates his only interest is in setting fires, not extinguishing them.  Unfortunate that this is the level of leadership all too often shown, claim racism and stoke a fire until some change is made, which doesnt address any inequity and is disconnected from reality like an apple that has fallen from the tree.  Or in this case, since I am white and I am sure he will claim a racist, the cacao seed falling from the South American evergreen tree.

EMS Rights

Several articles have been posted lately across the United States about EMS organizations demanding that judge's and police organizations hold accountable those people in the public who assault paramedics.  I have no argument with any of these organizations or what they are trying to do, but I would add the caveat that we (a) do have laws against assault, and (b) we signed up for a profession where we don't see people at their best.

Having said that and having worked in a career where on more than one occassion I have worked the ominous forty-eight hour shift consecutively due to overtime, I am appaled by West Midlands Ambulance Service's recent statement on the death of an infant after a delay in EMS response of 41 minutes.  Their statement that their EMS crew having a right to a break misses the point.  A short article on the topic indicates the child went into cardiac arrest shortly after arriving at the hospital - a potentially preventable occurrence in my mind - when you bring into play your physician and nurse partners into the care of the patient.

The "what me worry?" attitude of the NHS's West Midlands Ambulance is scary when you consider this is the same health "service" which is placing hundreds of patients, including infants and children, on a death pathway.  This is not health service at all, but a bureaucratic plan to make life easier for the provider.  It is even scarier for me when I think that this is the same healthcare plan that President Obama wants here in the United States where care is rationed and your end of life becomes an issue not of morality, but of money.

I understand that we all get hungry, we all get tired working the long shifts on the box, but the bottom line is when the bell rings, you go.  I know that in a single shift I worked we had an unconscious inmate who required intubation and aggressive treatment for hyperthermia of unknown origin, followed by a head on MVC which resulted in double traumatic cardiac arrests - my patient ultimately had ROSC secondary to our NEBR resuscitation method and pericardial centesis, and then we had a cardiac arrest following that - all before we were fully restocked on our rig.  Three consecutive patients in a four and a half hour window.  During that time my EMT partner and I had three patients plus managed the accident scene from a MCI perspective until fire arrived.  We ended up with three tubes, two ROSCs out of two cardiac arrests, and an empty stomach.  We had been on calls all day and the accident wasn't even our call, but due to our proximity versus the dispatched unit, we went.  We didn't have a responsibility to go, but we had a moral code to go.

The crew from West Midlands seems to believe that a meal is more important than the next life you can save.  It is scary on more than one level to think that these are emergency responders.  Day one of EMT school I was told have a pen, penlight, stethoscope, and a snack because you know you need the first three for documentation and assessment and you never know when you might need the last one.  West Midlands step up or step off the dance floor.

For the hangover

For those of you who may have overdone it two nights ago and are still nursing the feelings of nausea and headache, I offer you the Red Eye.  It may not be the most appetizing to look at, but sure to help with that over indulgence.

Red Eye
3/4  cup tomato juice
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
dash of Tabasco sauce
cold beer
slice of lemon (or lime)

Mix your tomato juice with the Worcestershire and Tabasco in a tall glass and stir.  Add the beer while stirring to combine and garnish with the lemon or lime.

Enjoy!

Beginning Anew

 

Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. - Mark Twain

Mark Twain may have rightly noted the realities of the New Year, but perhaps not the purpose of having a resolution.  While many of us will quickly fall off our wagons to fight cholesterol, lower our weight, increase our exercise, or be friendlier, I prefer Edith Pierce's words that "we will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

These words give us the hope that we might take the challenge, the opportunity to make for both ourselves and the world a better place.  Like the birth of a new child, a new year is the beginning of possibilities.  The chance to find peace, a little something extra at work or at home, but it does not come without effort.

A New Year requires us to look deep into ourselves to start anew.  We must start the marathon of a year with those steps that are hardest - the first ones.  Those steps which require us to get off the couch and lace up the sneakers, the steps which require us to change the baby's dirty diaper before putting on the newest outfit, the steps which involve us practicing our skills prior to getting on the ambulance or fire engine, or even the steps that ask us to go out in 40 degree temperatures to begin throwing long toss for a Spring baseball season which is still at least ninety days and thirty-five degrees away.

These exercises in stretching our own minds and daily habits may be tough, but they are worth it.  They might cause us to pause in the face of our self created crisis, but we should not.  President Kennedy said crisis written in Chinese is made up of two elements.  One represents danger and the other opportunity.

This being the case, I wish everyone a happy, prosperous, and content New Year!  One filled with the pursuit of those opportunities awaiting all of us.

The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. - G.K. Chesterton