October 5, 2014

Just binge- watched Transparent...WOW!!!

Now I am pissed because there are no more new ones

October 4, 2014

Dallas is fretting over "what happened that night at the er".

Anyone who has ever been to an er at night pretty much knows what happened.

Our youngest son was a sports guy, and we have spent lots of time in ers waiting for an injury to be attended to.

Once, there was a kid next to us who had cried for so long that no sound came out anymore. He and his frazzled Mom took turns tending to the ugly gash and bloody rag on his head, and the blood that dripped (more like streamed) down his arm and off his elbow. She patiently moved their stuff as the "mop guy" mopped up the bloody floor at least 3 times. This little guy was about 7 or 8 years old.

They were there when we arrived at midnight. Our son woke up with palpitations so fierce that I could see his heart beating. He was a strong 15 year old, but it scared the life out of me. He was having trouble breathing too.

There was an elderly lady who was wincing every few minutes as she sat slumped in a chair along the opposite wall..

In total, there were about 50 people waiting to be seen

There were two nurses visible to us.

The little boy was seen a few minutes before we were.

We waited 4 hours to be seen, and they ended up admitting our son and a cardiologist fitted him with a holter monitor in the morning

Emergency rooms are chaotic, and a patient..a foreign patient with rather vague symptoms can easily fall through the cracks.

October 4, 2014

Because most Americans are so removed from sickness & death

we (as a society) do not know what happens in extremis.

When a person dies, their muscles let down, and their bodily fluids exit the body..feces, urine, etc.

Before their death, when they are unable to control their muscles, they will need to be cleaned up.

This is why medical people and family members are more likely to get infected, and why casual contact is less of a problem.

In the extremely poor areas of Africa where this is now an epidemic, there are few (if any) sewage treatment facilities, and raw sewage is in the streets.. dirt streets..in puddles. People are barefoot or wear rubber flip flops. When they walk through this slop, they are contaminated. They track it into their homes, and then children and family members are exposed.

Living rough, involves minor injuries that provide pathways into their bodies.

In everyday life in the US, people do not routinely come into contact with other people's "fluids".. When was the last time a coworker/friend/acquaintance shit on your floor or threw up on you?

There IS the "sex thing", but someone who is violently ill, is also less than likely to be an ideal sex partner. And anyone with active ebola is not going to be hanging out at bars, .looking to pick someone up.

As a Mom, I can tell you that I have been up-close & personal with some pretty vile "bodily fluid experiences" with our kids, but rarely, if ever with anyone else's kids.

Ebola is a personal experience between family members, and then in final desperation, with medical professionals. What is different this time, is that it has now moved beyond the village, and outsiders are exposed because of the total lack of sanitation.

No one wants to see their loved ones die, so they WILL do whatever they think is necessary in that desperate time, even if it is a useless effort, and even if they spread the disease because they do not understand how this spreads.

The fact that it has a 21 day incubation period is another problem because people may think they have escaped it, but have not, and by the time they are desperately ill, they have spread it to others.

We can try to abate the epidemics as they arise, but a better way would be to step up the sanitation and living conditions in areas that are prone to this disease.

Another helpful thing would be to make sure that people did not have to eat bush-meat.. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/how-the-ebola-virus-got-its-name-and-how-we-caught-it-from-animals-9770193.html

October 3, 2014

When Mom ran the Secret Service

First of all, I DID see her testimony and it pretty much left me thinking "why on earth was she put in that position anyway?".

and then I started remembering all the "stuff" that has gone on (and probably still does) within the agency.

It is still considered to be a macho...male dominion. Sure, they do have women agents and employees, but the aura of the organization is male....bad-boy frat guy male.

The story about "wheels-up-rings-off" flights to exotic lands, where they routinely (some of them) frequented brothels, got drunk and routinely misbehaved, brought it into focus for me.

There is a cadre of agents who are probably pretty senior by now, who like to party, and many of them probably do not even like the Obamas all that much. (see papers given to Romney campaign story). They do their jobs minimally, and keep their fingers crossed that nothing too bad ever happens. They bide their time until their retirement perks kick in, and from time to time get to guard a president they like.

This group probably saw red when "Mom" was put in charge in March of 2013, and may have set out to discredit her and eliminate her.

As director, she had the responsibility to change behaviors that the ones committing them did not want changed.

She was probably never present at any of the incidents that have recently come to light, and may have only had reports about them. Anyone who has ever written an incident report knows how to write them in a manner that either downplays or amplifies a situation. The "whistleblowers" seemed very eager to see that Jason Chaffetz got the information they should have been sending to their boss..."MOM".. I don;t think they did it that way because they thought she could not handle the job.. I think they did it to prove that she was incapable of doing the job. They probably liked things the way they were..loose & free...and secret..(until a hooker blabs).

It's not surprising to me that she is now gone, and that the interim replacement is a man who was "one of the guys"..a former footballer, a guy who was in charge on the night the Salahis showed up for dinner.

my $.02