Hubris

Julian Assange is a not so nice product of Australia who has gained notoriety  by hacking into various web sites, downloading the contents and, after cherry picking the product publishing the information for all the world to see. Almost nothing he has raided and published is noteworthy, in fact most of it is inconsequential email and low level reports, but there is usually enough titillating data to thrill the general public and always enough dirty laundry to embarrass the originator. Assange has made a name for himself, by persuading others (such as the hapless US Army private Bradley Manning, who had access only to Confidential files)  to raid those files and accounts and sending them forward to Assange for his profit and emotional thrill.

The narcissistic Assange put himself into self imposed exile and for a while hid out in Sweden. While there he allegedly sexually attacked at least two women before moving on to England and when England decided to honor an arrest warrant he sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy where he has been for several years. I'm sure his self aggrandizing personality must wear greatly on the Ecuadorians but they are stuck with him since they did grant him asylum and he will not leave in the face of certain arrest, transport to Sweden and,if guilty, several years in prison. There is truth for Ecuador is the adage that "no good deed every go unpunished".

True to Assange's self indulgence he is now asking for other people (who are probably lessor individuals in his eyes) to donate money for the creation of a life size statue of, who else, Julian Assange. In his proposal Assange says that the statue will be shipped around the word and displayed for all to admire his "bravery" and (my words) "self indulgence".

At the moment the world is awash in narcissistic personalities and we don't need an individual who most likely believes that he is more important than our own resident team of self important administrators. So if you get a request from the fugitive Mr. Assange for money to make himself more visible, please decline!

Toxic People

After gainful employment for almost fifty years I took my last retirement from work and dedicated my life to My Lady and our family. But the world has a way of intruding and my wife was working as an Emergency Manager for the county and was concerned about me being at “loose ends” while she was at work. So in an act of self preservation she suggested that I become a mediator. Why she settled on that occupation I don’t know, but after some initial reluctance I took the training and now, a decade later I’m a contented practicing mediator.

What I do is work with people, businesses and institutions that are caught in a crisis situation and help them resolve the issue to the satisfaction of all parties. The state I live in has recognized my ability and in addition to maintaining a private practice I am certified and approved to practice within the judiciary of the state and help reduce the number of cases that go to trial, it costs both the state and the parties a lot less money to use my services.

I quickly learned that a large part of mediation is knowing that the people at the table are just people. Each person comes to the table with an individual viewpoint and biases and outlook on life that influence how they see events and react to situations. Most of the people I work with sincerely want to resolve the issue and get on with life. But there is a percentage, small but ever present, that have personalities that make my work interesting, challenging and occasionally wondering why I didn’t bring a club to the mediation.

A large percentage of mediators in the U.S. are either attorneys or have trained in the psychological sciences. My background is engineering and management so I bring a somewhat pragmatic skill set to the table. Without stepping on the toes of any of the soft scientists who love to classify and quantify people I see the problem people I work with in four broad categories. Fortunately, for my own sanity, these people are only a small part of the many clients I work with, but each and every one of us can occasionally show parts of our persona that can be said to fit within one (or more) of these categories.

Most common are the self centered personalities, who believe that they are “the only important one”. These are people who can’t understand the other fellows’ viewpoint, since, in their mind, the only opinion that counts are the opinion they have. When challenged they generally go on the offensive and behave in a generally unsocial way.

A second group is those I personally label as “weird”, they are usually emotionally unstable people who are personally affronted by anything that challenges their opinion and almost always react in a somewhat bizarre manner. I have had individuals threaten harm to themselves, pets and inanimate objects if they don’t get their way.

A sub set of the weird ones is the person that sees everything and everyone as the enemy and is always living in a defensive mode. Life, to them is an eternal “me versus them” battle that makes life for those who have to live or deal with them a constant battle. My soft science friends often use the pejorative “paranoid” when discussing them.

Fortunately for my mental health the last group I occasional have to work with are the Predators, people who have absolutely no empathy for anyone else and who take great personal satisfaction in making life difficult for anyone who enters their sphere. They are emotionally destructive to all who come in contact with them and are often physically dangerous people.

Clients I deal with who exhibit these traits (or combinations of them) certainly do make my practice challenging and certainly interesting in the way they perceive events and issues. Solutions to their issues often need to be innovative, and their attorneys, while they may mutter and shake their head will usually compliment me for resolving an issue they could not find a legal solution for.

To my surprise I recently ran across a book by a retired FBI agent who talked about the same personality types, their threat to other individuals and how to deal with them if you are unlucky enough to live or work with them. I recommend that you borrow, or buy this book: 

           Dangerous Personalities by Joe Navarro.

It's a good read and might give you insight into your own safety while dealing with the world and its variegated population. 

Moral Turpitude

The media is atwitter with the release of a 500 page report from the Senate Intelligence Committee that describes actions by the US intelligence community in the period shortly after 9/11. By design the report only talks about events and actions the occurred during the Bush administration and does not address numerous equally reprehensible actions that were taken by subsequent Democratic administrations since that time. Since the report was issued by only the Democratic majority of the committee it's easy to suppose that there is more than just a little politics behind the report.

The 500 page report has in excess of 38,000 footnotes for an average of 76 footnotes for each page. As an author I know that that a good way to confuse the reader is to litter a document with footnotes and get them lost in the minutia of your argument. Authors who are unable to state their case clearly depend on footnotes to confuse the focus of their debate and to overwhelm the reader with (often) extraneous information,

That being said the report reveals, to no one's surprise, that the US did in a number of cases apply physical and emotional torture to individuals in an effort to obtain information. I don't care if they were successful or not ... this country has always portrayed itself as a defender of freedom and a moral bellwether for others to admire and follow. And for a brief period of time we failed and now we have to recognize that fact and return to the founders position that these United States are a "shining city" for others to admire.

I can only hope that a moment of moral failure is just that, a moment in time that we as a country regret and will not allow to occur again.

The Unidentified

Every day Law Enforcement receives reports from people who are concerned about a friend or relative how has gone “missing”. It’s  hard to disappear, particularly in today’s culture of personal identification, data tracking and governmental oversight. So in the vast majority of cases the missing person is soon found and balance is restored to the social order. At the same time each and every day there are bodies, or bits and pieces of bodies, found and never identified. You would think that identifying a found body would be somewhat easy, but people who are trying to hide someone they have killed can be innovative in making it difficult for law enforcement to identify the body. I recently read that there is a minimum of 40,000 unidentified bodies and cold cases at any moment in the United States, and there are indications that that figure might be too small by as much as 50 percent.

Americans believe that success is largely due to hard work and the many law and order shows that litter the networks supports that belief. When was the last time you watched one of those shows and seen them admit that they had failed and the case had gone dead? But in real life cases do go cold and law enforcement is inundated by fresh cases with higher priority and ultimately a large percentage of missing person cases are put aside, filed away and finally forgotten. Too many families and friends never know what happened to their friend and too many morgues have unidentified cases languishing in their files. There is a bureaucratic disconnect in merging reports of missing persons and bodies found elsewhere. Police, medical examiners and coroners do not have a well developed and linked reporting system and are often reluctant to share information.

But in a society that has grown up on TV crime and reality shows there is a (relatively) large and articulate audience that has a desire to link the missing in one jurisdiction and the found elsewhere and to provide closure to families and solutions for law enforcement. They have three weapons they bring to bear on solving this problem; Public records, usually found via the Internet, an empathic drive to solve a problem and the grit to override the initial reluctance of many in law enforcement (and administration) to recognize that a “civilian” can solve a case they have given up on.

I don’t know if I have the ability to expend the time and energy it takes to link together disparate bits a data and develop a coherent case. But I have to admire the people who spend their own resources to close long dead cold cases and bring families back together again. If you want to learn more search the Internet; NamUs, Doe Network and Websleuths are good places to start.

A Tale of Two Cultures

Texas is a study in extremes, climate, people and the social culture are variables that continue to surprise people as they travel across the state.

Two Texas sized incidents illustrate my point.

Texas City is located in the Houston metro area and is an industrialized, unionized city with about forty thousand residents. Mason County, on the other hand is located in central Texas, is mainly agriculture and has a population of around four thousand people. And that explains the different events that happened recently.

Earlier this year four pit bulls in Texas City broke through a fence and killed the neighbors beagle. That's a terrible thing to have happen and the neighbor was almost certainly upset when their pet was killed by the owners dogs. Rather than apologizing for the event and making restitution, the pit bull owner has now sued the neighbor for "failing to securely confine and restrict the beagle". In short she wants to be paid for her failure to keep her dogs from invading the neighbors property and causing the death of the beagle. In my mind the owner is a perfect example of the "gimme society" that the politicians are trying to encourage with their blatant disregard of humanity and common sense.

Up in Mason County a local rancher acquired a beagle mix dog from the animal pound and about four months later the dog proved that good deeds are worth while. The rancher was experiencing chest pains and difficulty breathing and the ambulance crew decided to transport him to the nearest hospital, about ninety minutes away. About twenty miles into the run the ambulance was flagged down and told that there was a dog riding on the side step of the ambulance.

The dog, named Buddy, had decided that his owner/companion was important enough to him to justify the dangerous ride on the ambulance step. Rather than kicking the dog off, to fend for himself the crew brought Buddy inside to be with his owner and informed the hospital by radio what had happened. To its credit the hospital admitted both owner and dog and both are now reported to be safely (and happily) home.

Culture does indeed make a difference and I'll take the culture of Mason County Texas over the culture of Texas City any time.

The Sporting Life

I’m not a football fan; in fact I don’t follow sports at all. I always have something better, or more challenging to do when sporting events try to intrude in my life. I occasionally watch a game of the sport de jour because the channel  has preempted a more thoughtful show in order to pander to their potential sales audience. I also don’t know the first thing about “Fantasy Football”, and frankly can’t care less about that. I don’t gamble on sports events, and I don’t talk sports at the water cooler, in short I’m not part of the audience the sporting industry depends on.

All of that is by way of introduction to my thoughts on the latest “NFL scandal”. This isn't a scandal at all. The hoopla is being whipped up by people who know and care nothing about football, instead it is being driven by people who want a very lucrative business (the NFL) to feel a deep sense of guilt and give money to their cause.  In short, there is no “domestic violence epidemic” in the NFL, statistics show that it’s a universal social problem but the truth doesn't help drive the agenda being pushed by people with their own agenda.

Domestic violence is not an NFL problem it’s a cultural problem with a particular group of NFL players.  When you read their histories, or charge sheets, you quickly find they usually grew up in families that had poor or no male role models. Penury and abuse were constants in their lives, and they never knew there is a better way. Many of them were desperately poor as kids, shunned education and if not for their athletic ability, wouldn’t be making more than minimum wage. At least one player apparently was involved in some gang activity before he played football and it appears that he was unable to shed his history and upbringing when he reached success in the football world It may be that he didn't want to rise above his origins but the end result is that he now sits in jail awaiting trial for several murders. All of which happened after he signed a very lucrative contract with a professional team. What we don’t see is this kind of behavior among players who grew up in traditional families with strong male role models.

The NFL (and other major league sports) are aware of this problem and offer all sorts of social services to new players. The National Basketball League has problems with a similar player demographic and also offers the same type of program for new players. In addition all pro sports teams have very experienced investigators. The teams know a lot about these young men who are coming in to the sport. Not everything, but a lot. What they do with that information is problematic, but apparently they don’t use the data wisely; perhaps the profit factor is what drives them the most. The new found wealth allows these kids, which is what most of them are, to engage in irresponsible life styles. With no cultural background and no experience handling large amounts of money they tend to live dangerously, father children they have no interest in and ignore social constraints they should be aware of as members of society. They just spent like drunken sailors and have plenty of help from hangers on that wouldn't even talk to them if they weren't famous and wealthy.

I don’t think that the players involved should be banned for life as so many people seem to think is appropriate. If convicted, they should serve whatever punishment is meted out and then be allowed to resume their lives. The idea of prison is supposed to be punishment and rehabilitation. It is a separate discussion whether rehabilitation works or not and I’m not interested in having such a discussion. (My personal experience has given me many and varied lessons in that arena) The voices calling for suspensions and banning and the suspensions and banning being handed out by the NFL are a panic reaction to the media dog pile. Most of which is coming from people who never watch the NFL or have much interest in it other than trying to win concessions and money out of the league. Their shrill cries are mostly based not on criminal convictions, but upon allegations. And I’m not comfortable with that.

Is domestic violence wrong? Of course it is. Should Ray Rice, a thug who beat his girl friend and then married her so she couldn’t testify be sent to prison for some period of time? Yes. Should he be forever more banned from making money in the only way he is capable of doing so? I don’t think so and I think if you asked his wife, she’d agree with me. Do you think she’d be better off if she was married to Ray Rice and he was working at Walmart? Keep in mind that she married him after the assault and battery in the elevator. Sure, it would be satisfying emotionally to ban him forever, but would it be fair? The dynamic is slightly different with another player who is accused of child abuse, in my mind he should not be allowed unsupervised visits with any of his children. That’s pretty clear, but does anyone think that any of them will be better off he can’t play football after this case is settled one way or the other? Of course he has yet to have his day in court and if I were his lawyer I would strongly advise him to not make any public statements. The more he tries to explain and justify his child abuse, the worse he looks. That however is his problem, not mine. These are very emotionally laden issues, but that doesn't mean that people should react with emotion and not with their brains.

All of which makes me glad that I have absolutely no interest in sports and can live my life trying to respect the world I inhabit and those who share it with me.

Theater of the Absurd

Last week the media reported that the Federal Reserve Board believes the reason for the poor economy is that people are “hoarding money” rather than spending every cent they make and overusing their credit cards.

Really!

After six years of an inept administration that has put the economy close to negative growth figures and with consumer spending almost at standstill they still believe that all we need to do is spend more money and tax the other guy. Our economic problems have nothing to do with high taxation rates, inordinate health care expenses for people and businesses or escalating consumer prices for food and energy. The Fed is on record as saying the fault is ours because we aren’t spending enough money.

The Fed and the economist elite fail to understand that Americans have been abused by their decisions to cheapen the dollar by issuing tons of fiat money that has only devalued the money people work so hard to earn. So many jobs have been lost as a result those recent attempts by the administration to create minimum wage jobs have flopped.

The cost of basic goods and utilities such as food, electricity and fuel are nearly double a decade ago yet average household income has sunk to 1967 levels and there is no end in sight to the misery a series of bad decisions by an administration that doesn’t believe Americans are capable of thinking. The result of all those decisions is that people are not able to save money, they are running hard just to keep up with cost, and they are certainly not hoarding! I’ve come to believe that the term “hoarding” and similar pejoratives so freely used by the administration are merely a means to stigmatize certain behaviors they don’t understand.

Come to think of it … don’t be surprised if someday in the future a government representative knocks on your door, enters without cause and inventories your food cupboard to assure that you have no more than a weeks worth of basic food. Any over that amount will be confiscated since your are “Hoarding”.  

Just an airplane ride away

In the late 1980's I was heavily involved with the Ambulance and Rescue Services in Northern Virginia and was a part time lecturer at the Georgetown School of Medicine. The recent outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa reminded me of a previous Ebola event that did (despite counter claims) spread to the U.S., although it did not directly impact any humans.

To explain ... one of the vectors for the distribution of the virus is the Green Monkey, a species that easily mimics human response and is often used for medical research. At that time thousands of monkeys were imported annually from Africa and one of the large importers of the beasts was located just outside Reston VA.. Shortly after a delivery of a monkey shipment some of the animals started to die of a hemorrhagic type disease that  looks suspiciously like an Ebola outbreak in (if I remember correctly) Zaire.

Needless to say there was an immediate and closely guarded medical emergency response that kept the media out of the information loop and caused the authorities to euthanize all the monkeys as the only possible solution to prevent the disease from occurring in the human population of the U.S. As a senior EMS officer I was told that there was a problem at the primate facility and that regional medical groups should be alert for several specific medical symptoms. If we found anyone displaying those symptoms we should isolate and inform. We were not told that there was a potential for an Ebola outbreak, but we were made very aware that it was serious medical emergency.

I didn't really get a good appreciation for Ebola as a disease until the mid 90's when I ran across a book by Richard Preston called "The Hot Zone", which described an Ebola event and discussed the Reston Ebola Scare. It was afterwards determined that the disease the monkeys had was a mutated version of Ebola that was not as infectious as the original strain, but it was still a potential danger to humans. In that instance we lucked out. I can only hope we will continue to be aware, responsive and safe from this mobile disease with a high mortality rate that is only a plane flight away from reaching our shores.

If you want to learn more about Ebola, as a disease, a good starting point would be read "The Hot Zone". I guarantee it is the most frightening book you will ever read.

God v. gods

Political correctness has overcome common sense in our American culture. Any individual can proclaim their “feelings are hurt” over a self perceived slight and society rolls over and lets the complainant force his feelings onto the social body. As a man I can’t tell a lady that she looks good without the risk of being accused of sexism, racism and hatred of women. If I protest I’m told that by protesting I am proving the charge since, obviously I should accept the accusation and punishment without protest because that’s what the accuser wants others to do.

The PC culture has become so insistent and intrusive that finally other minds are starting to question the wisdom of allowing small minds with an agenda to direct the progress of society. A Federal Court in New York, the bastion of PC, recently denied a suit by a group of atheists who claimed they were discriminated against by the existence of a small cross that is on display at the recently opened 9 /11 museum. The cross was dug out of the ruins of the buildings and is a small part of the steel fabric of the building that survived the collapse. The plaintiffs stated that they became “physically ill” and “emotionally offended” by the display. They asked for “immediate injunctive relief” and a permanent removal of the display. The judge in his dismissal of the suit stated that there is nothing in the Constitution or laws of the land that assure individual feelings can’t be hurt and that people can state their desires but should not object when others ignore those desires.

Atheists have made a religious culture out of their objection to any religious culture to the point where the military was requested to allow the Chaplains Corp to accept atheists as chaplains. The irony of that demand is not seen by the practitioners of atheism.

My particular belief system is reflected by the small denomination I belong to and I don’t particularly care what others think, while I might find issues with how others see their position in life and their role in the great wonder of life I also believe that they have a right to practice their belief in peace. I only ask that they allow others to do the same.

One supreme god or small gods that inhabit all things are something I’m comfortable with. After all, its your way of explaining your world and conversing with the powers that influence your behavior. So if you worship in a highly structured manner or converse with your deity privately it’s ok with me. Maybe in my lifetime we will return to a social spirit that says it’s alright to believe in things that others do not believe in.

The Right Decision

As a Mediator I have lots of contact with judges, lawyers and cops and I respect their opinions on many matters. In my experience they are usually straight up and hardworking in their job and believe that the justice system works more often than it fails. The past few days have seen lots of comments from my friends about the Supreme Court decision that forbids law enforcement from looking at your cell phone without a search warrant.  The Justices concluded that an invesigator can’t even look at your phone directory without a warrant.

The media, as usual found a number of people who wept bitter tears over the fact that investigators couldn’t search through an individuals private data without approval and that this meant “the end of law enforcement as we know it”.  When I first heard that argument my reaction was to call “bull shit” and wonder why the talking head on the TV couldn't  remember our Constitutional privacy rights that are central to our society. With those thoughts in mind I roamed the internet reading the thoughts of people who operate our justice system across the country.  I also listened carefully to the comments of the people I work with in the system and without exception all of them feel that the decision of the Court was right and proper.

My personal observation is that people who are engaged in protecting and maintaining society are usually more aware of the fragility of our social order and the importance of protecting the individual and collective rights of our Constitution. Those who would change our society to fit their own concepts of the social structure are in for a rude surprise if they think that the justice system agrees with them.

Principles...A Statement

My Father watched his friends die in WW I,

I watched my friends die in Korea and Vietnam,

The flag they all died for was the U.S. Flag,

My Grandparents on both sides of the family were immigrants and the first thing they did was to integrate into the American culture since they were now Americans living in America…not the Old Country. (Even before they took the oath of allegiance they knew they were Americans.)

In Texas, not long ago, a student raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole, another student took it down. For that simple act of American patriotism he was expelled from school. When I read about that I had to wonder at the logic of those who punish a young adult for protecting the flag of his country while letting a fellow student get away with raising an alien flag over U.S. territory.

In California kids in a high school were sent home on Cinco de Mayo for wearing shirts with the American flag printed on them. At the same time Hispanic kids at the school were encouraged to wear Mexican flags and iconography as symbols of their heritage! Please explain to me why it is ok for others to celebrate their heritage but wrong for Americans to celebrate our heritage.

Enough is enough.

Let me make this perfectly clear!

THIS  IS MY COUNTRY!  And, because I make this statement DOES  NOT mean I’m, a raciest or against immigration!!!

Every one who wishes to join is welcome here in my country, Welcome, to join with us legally:

1. Get a sponsor! It’s the law!

2.  Get a place to lay your head!

3. Get a job! Isn’t that why you came?

4. Live By OUR Rules!

5. Pay YOUR Taxes!

6.  Learn the LANGUAGE like all previous immigrants have in the past!

We’ve gone so far the other way, listened to politicians who see immigration as a source of willing fools, and treat the citizens of this country as feckless idiots. Because they believe the foolish immigrants (mostly illegally present in our country) will also keep them in office. Americans are told that we must bend over backwards and not offend anyone, while those same politicians allow others to repeatedly offend the very people whose country they are living in.

The American Dream is dying at the hands of politicians who have turned their back on that Dream and think that the Constitution (and the laws that followed) are not for them…the privileged masters of our country.

I will not forget…with every election cycle I WILL affirm that I am an American.

Worthy of his salary

I couldn't write it any better myself. The link below leads to a story of an Air Force B-1 pilot assisting a commercial crew during a medical emergency.

http://www.afspc.af.mil/news1/story.asp?id=123412412

The Downside of Green

In February of this year, a 55-gallon drum of radioactive waste burst open at the nations only nuclear dump in New Mexico.

Investigation into the cause of the accident points to a pet store purchase that went bad.

"It was the wrong kitty litter," says James Conca, a geochemist in Richland, Wash who while not part of the investigation is an expert on nuclear west management. It turns out there's more to cat litter than you think. It can soak up urine, but it's just as good at absorbing radioactive material.

It actually works well both in the home litter box as well as the laboratory or industrial incident. The waste management industry has been using kitty litter for years to soak up liquid waste, dump it into a drum of sludge and it will stabilize volatile radioactive chemicals. The kitty litter acts by preventing the waste from reacting with the environment.

And this is what contractors at Los Alamos National Laboratory were doing as they packed Cold War-era waste for shipment to the dump. But at some point, they decided to make a switch, from clay litter to organic. That might sound nice, you're trying to be green, but the organic kitty litters are, as it says on the label, organic, Organic litter, is made of plant material, which can also be full of chemical compounds that can react with the nuclear waste. Investigators now believe the litter and waste caused the drum to slowly heat up sort of like a slow burn charcoal fire heats up.

Only one drum out of a shipment of about 500 drums overheated, but the threat has required authorities to seal all the remaining drums in larger, pressure proof containers. The road to living green can really be hard at times!

Remember

A Living Wage

I was listening to a news report on NPR regarding raising the minimum wage for fast food workers and other low paid occupations and some idiot being interviewed said "why should someone working for McDonalds in Denmark make $15 an hour and I can't here in the US".  I know that the ignorance of some people sometimes leaves me speechless but my first instinct was to say "because you don't live in Denmark you ". The comment did get me to thinking about "living wages" so I did some checking.

Most minimum wage people here in the US pay little or no income taxes after deductions and even if they did the lowest tax rate is 15%. However if a McDonalds employee in Denmark were to make $15 an hour their lowest tax rate is 45% so that $15 per hour turns into $8.25 take home. Also the social state in Denmark raises the cost of living: gasoline averages $8.55 a gallon, an average pair of Levis cost $145 and the average cost of a Big Mac meal in Denmark is $8.20 USD compared to about $5.75 here.

I guess ignorance is bliss, but if NPR had spent a few minutes checking facts (like I did) I doubt they would ever have broadcast the comments of that concerned "community organizer".

It's all in how you count things

About (mumble, mumble, ahem) years ago I worked for the Veterans Administration and as part of the job I lead the team that designed and implemented an automated claims tracking and control system for veterans benefits. When a claim was received it was entered into our system and as the claim was worked the status of the claim was continually and automatically  updated. At any time it was possible to see just where in the system the claim was, what was holding up processing and who was the responsible individual that had the claim sitting in their inbox.  It replaced a manual system that was replete with errors and that had made it possible for people to manipulate the figures. At first management didn't like it since it showed that it was taking lots of time to complete a claim that they had previously been able to hide from review.

The system was so successful that it is still in use today, although I certainly hope they have updated it over the years since I retired. The medical side of the agency adapted the tracking concept and built their own version in order to track veterans health claims and both systems worked as designed...giving hones and direct answers to requests concerning individual claims status and providing statistical information for management and Congress.

When I designed the system we realized that the Achilles heel of all such systems was that if a claim (or request) was not entered when received the system failed to track. We depended on the basic honesty of employees and management to assure a complete and accurate reporting system. And for the most part it has worked. But there is always some individual (or office) that will take advantage of the system for their own ends. It appears that the Director of the VA Hospital in Phoenix did exactly that. She had employees withhold input date from the system in order to make the stats look better than they really are. From what I've read (and heard form friends in the Agency) she did the same thing at two previous hospitals she was assigned to.

Like the IRS employees who were caught cheating on their tax returns and who then received performance bonuses I suspect that this particular Hospital Director will be kicked upstairs to a management position at headquarters. And that all future reports and statistics from the Agency will be doubted by those who care. What was once a fine system has been debased by those who care not how things are, just so long as they look good.

Duty of Care and the media

In 1928 a Mrs. Donoghue was served a bottle of ginger bear at a bar in Paisley Scotland. The bottle contained the well rotted corpse of a snail and Mrs. Donoghue spent several days in hospital. She sued the manufacturer of the bear and the case (which is known in legal legend as the “Paisley Snail” case) was finally decided by the House of Lords in 1932.

Their decision created the modern concept of negligence, by setting out general principles whereby one person would owe another person a duty of care. Before the Paisley Snail decision courts had ruled that there had to be a contractual agreement between the parties in order that a tort action be taken. Since then however courts have generally held for the concept that any one who produces a product owes it to future users to assure that there are no obvious defects or errors and omissions that could negatively impact the user.

While the original concept pertained to goods and manufactured items I’d like to see the concept expanded to thoughts and statements that commentators and writers knowingly issue when they know the statement is untrue. Today if the media lies and demeans me as an individual I can sue for libel, but what if the untruth is a lie directed to the public at large. If the writer (or commentator) knowingly evades the truth, or does not provide an honest and complete version of events should they not be responsible for their product?

Two thousand years ago Marcus Aurelius said “If it’s not right do not do it, If its not true don’t say it”. Those words are just as important today as they were in his day. Perhaps we should apply the concept of Duty of Care to those who try to influence society by distorting or ignoring truth.

Please comment…I’d like to know if my thoughts have merit.

A Thought

I declined the opportunity to watch the annual State of the Union message because it’s my belief that it has become a political event that allows the President to strut and posture his ego before a large and captive audience. As a report to the people and as a governmental policy statement it has become a useless moment in time strictly because is neither reports to the people (the owners of this Republic) or offers an accounting of any governmental activity. Instead of watching the event I spent that evening in amateur radio, listening to people connect and relate around the globe and never once bringing politics into the conversation. It was a refreshing way to spend an evening.

By design, people I work and relate with occupy a wide range of political and social opinions and conversations with them can be active and informative and I learn more by considering their opinions than I do reading about and listening to political creatures and their party positions.  Lately even my liberal friends are expressing doubtful thoughts about the direction politics and party in power are taking the country. For the most part their concerns are that the branches of government are no longer operating as the Founders wished and that the President seems to feel that it is in his interest to run the country by executive action rather than working with the Legislative Branch. In the past 4 years he has issued about 1,000 Presidential Orders that seriously impact on each and every one of us. In contrast the most any previous President seems to have issued is less than 90 such orders over an 8 year period.

I do know that the plethora of executive orders is having a large impact on individual activity and the future direction of the country and my present wish is that the next President starts his administration by cancelling all executive orders issued by his predecessor. In the meantime we should all be aware of the content and scope of the orders that the President is so freely issuing. Interestingly enough the White House is still required to list those orders and a simple Internet search can provide you with reams of reading material. Material that the media seems to think we are too dumb to comprehend or to disinterested to be concerned about.

In theory we are still a republic and as such each of us has a vested interest in the conduct and future of our country…it will make us better citizens if we individually kept an informed eye on the antics of those we have elected.

Ice and political science

The US Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star being sent to the Antarctic to rescue the two ships trapped in the ice sheet, a Russian "research vessel" and the Chinese icebreaker that was sent to rescue them.  Just in case the global warming crowd doesn't know, the Polar Star burns 49.5 gallons of fuel a nautical mile. (Based on a carrying capacity of 1.4 millions gallons and a cruising range of 28,275 nautical miles).

The scientists that believe that the planet is irreversibly warming are now four ships and a helicopter into fossil fuel use trying to extract themselves and their ships from the expanding ice sheet at the bottom of the world. I don’t have enough information about the other ships to even estimate the total amount of carbon being released in the process, but the irony being released is off the charts.