Daily Ramblings:
It's Always A Good Time ...05/04/2005 08:57:15 pm
... for some good news. Why not wallow in several bits of it all at once?
Of-course, the capture of Abu Farraj al-Libbi ranks as a very sweet thing indeed, since he's considered to be Al Qaeda's current operational commander. It's a salutary reminder also that the former operational commander, Khalid Sheik Mohammed (who planned the September 11th attack) has been rotting in an undisclosed location since March of 2003. In the absence of a high profile trial, appearances on the Today show and a teary interview with Barbara Walters, it's easy to forget that this depraved monster is in fact in custody. (By the way, is it not notable how these holy warriors who send others out to die, and supposedly crave martyrdom themselves, are being captured alive with such regularity? How hard is it exactly to achieve martyrdom when you're surrounded by people pointing guns at you? All you have to do is refuse to put your own gun down. That's obviously just a bit too much to ask of these guys. Ramzi Binalshibh being another example. How long before Osama comes out with his hands up and his pants wet?)
And, though much of the media focuses on the glass-half-empty angle of some unfilled cabinet positions, Iraq now has a new government based on the democratic election results of this past January. They can be cut some slack for their tardiness. Decades of being subject to torture, rape and murder for expressing one's opinion can affect a people's temperament and mindset, after all.
“You all know the heavy legacy inherited by this government. We are afflicted by corruption, lack of services, unemployment and mass graves,” [new Prime Minister] al-Jaafari told lawmakers after taking the oath of office before the National Assembly. “I would like to tell the widows and orphans ... your sacrifices have not gone in vain.”
Here's to that sentiment.
And so, less than 4 years after 3,000 Americans were killed by Islamic terrorists, the response of the United States has been to sacrifice its own best and bravest to remove tyranny and foster democracy for approximately 50 million Muslims. History will look at this in many ways as a strange and blessed time, when the old rules of conquest and annihilation were suspended by the nation wielding the world's greatest power, in favor of a humane (though also self-serving) prescription of liberty in their stead. Who knows how long this stage will last?
On the domestic front, firefighter Donald Herbert, brain-damaged while fighting a fire in 1995, suddenly asked to talk to his wife after being essentially unable to communicate for all of these years. He apparently was under the impression that he had been incommunicado for only about 3 months. After spending 14 hours talking to relatives, he fell asleep for 30 hours and the future progress of his condition is of-course unknown.
Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years.
"It's almost unheard of after 10 years," she said, "but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don't understand why.""We don't understand why" - laudable honesty from that doctor - but of-course what choice does she have? It occurred to me that while we can total up the number of times that doctors, by being wrong, cause injury (just count the successful malpractice suits), no one likely keeps numbers on the number of times they are happily wrong.
You know, those times we all remember when Uncle Albert was given 6 months to live ... but was still going strong 5 years later. When the prognosis was bad ... but the patient uncooperatively got better instead. I have personal experience of that kind of thing, and I have no doubt that a whole lot of other people do too. One's reaction to such an experience is abject relief and gratitude to one's Deity. It would seem uncouth to declare your doctor an idiot or a charlatan, on the basis that you're healthy and alive when he thought you ought to be deathly ill or actually dead.
So, I say, take the known figures on how often doctors make mistakes, and double them, at the least.
And spare one more thought for Terri Schiavo and her wounded family.
OK - one bit of bad news, from the increasingly indispensable New York Sun. It seems that some individuals have been visiting big urban hospitals in the United States, describing themselves falsely as "inspectors for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations," and demanding all kinds of information from the employees. A bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security was issued on April 22nd, warning hospital staff of these potential terrorism planners.
Although the department said it knows of no specific terrorist plot, the bulletin said: "These most recent nationwide impersonations are more noteworthy when seen in the broader context with similar incidents which have occurred from October 2004 to February 2005." The letter went on to detail a series of incidents in that period in which people were caught taking unauthorized pictures of hospitals, asking for hospital blueprints, requesting information about the whereabouts of medicines that would be used in biological attacks, and inquiring about the institutions' capacity for cardiac care, trauma care, helicopter access, and private rooms.
The New York Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul Browne, said the department's Operation Nexus sent a warning to city hospitals after foreign nationals, falsely claiming to be hospital inspectors, asked to survey hospitals' inventory. He said the incidents, though they did not represent a specific or credible threat, raised the concern that the fake inspectors were trying to gain access to radioactive materials, which are stored in hospitals and could be used to build a dirty bomb.
Well, to get back to the good news, here's one person at least that the hospital staff do not have to watch out for:
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