Friends

I just need to babble, so I'll be nice and put it behind a cut.
( Move along...these aren't the droids you are looking for... )

Here is a walk down memory lane. This video has all the Doctor Who opening introduction themes, from the first to today, including that horrid movie. It is fun watching how the fonts and styles change over time.

I have to admit, I like the latest theme and style the best!

Sixty-one years ago today, the Nuremburg Tribunals concluded the series of hearings later known as "The Doctors' Trials".

In 1905, in the year of Einstein's Annus Mirabilis, German medicine -- and the German medical establishment -- were considered the pinnacle of human ability. American physicians and American medical schools aspired to German heights. The founders of many major fields of medicine were of German nationality. In medicine, as in physics, many of the leaders and best were German; and to be a serious scholar, one had to be fluent in German.

Just forty years later -- no more than two generations, no more than the span of a single physician's career -- Einstein had fled to America. Millions of his fellows who had been unable to flee were dead. Germany itself had been reduced to wreckage and plunged into darkness from end to end; the Eastern portion would not truly emerge for another forty years. And twenty German physicians -- many of them once leaders in German medicine -- stood trial for their role in the orchestration of unspeakable horror. Seven of them were ultimately hanged.

But the deeper truth that everyone understood, then and now, was that the physicians who stood trial were, in many senses, simply scapegoats. Certainly they had personally committed and were personally responsible for horrible atrocities. But the few who were actually brought before the court could not alone have possibly have committed the systematic, national-scale abuses, atrocities, and horrors that were the terrible legacy of the German regime first elected to power in 1932. Those put on trial might have been the leaders; but they could not have done what they did without followers. Without countless hundreds -- thousands -- of other physicians, nurses, and other staff willing to obey orders. Willing to cooperate.

And the entire regime could have never come to power without at least the acceptance of the professional classes. No foreign power imposed the National Socialist German Worker's Party upon the German republic. No invading army forced the German people to make the them the largest party in Germany's Reichstag in 1932. And in the now-hindsighted inevitable spiral downwards that would end in unspeakable darkness, there was no concerted resistance among physicians against what were even then manifestly obvious progression. In fact, there was very much the opposite. The physicians tried -- and executed -- for their crimes were simply the figures at the top of a very large pyramid. They could not possibly have forced German medicine and the German medical establishment to have perpetrated the horrors it was a part of -- unless the vast majority of that establishment was at least unwilling to resist. Unwilling to rise up. Unwilling to fight.

Even after sixty years, the breathtaking moral fall of the German medical establishment is stunning in it's scope. Stunning how the same system, the same individuals, who once were hailed as the brightest of humanity's light, the best examples of human potential, could within a single generation abet, acquiesce, and even aid some of the greatest atrocity and horror ever seen, a barbarian's slaughter with metered, engineered precision. Trying to understand how that happened -- what they were thinking, how they justified their own actions to themselves, what seeds within their desires and thoughts and judgements ultimately blossomed into a harvest of death that in the end consumed themselves as well -- holds many important lessons.

Lessons which remain important, even -- especially -- today.

I am without internet at home until mid-September.

Until then, I can bring my laptop to the library to use their free wireless, but I have many things going on in the evening and can't always take the extra hour or so to play catch-up when I could be doing lots of other things... like exercising, remodeling, helping friends, etc.

(I do not have internet access at work.)

So, I am staying pretty much on top of your entries, but I can't always take the time to comment. Sorry about that. Do know that I AM reading and I DO care about you.

Speaking of exercising, I'm still losing weight. I bought new jeans last Saturday. :) I am eight pounds closer to my goal weight, for a total loss of 42 pounds. (I'm 76 pounds away from my goal weight, for what it's worth.)

-=-

I have lots and lots of pictures to share from the various, awesome weekends I've had lately, but those stories and pictures will simply have to wait until I have internet at home again.

-=-

I started a second job last night. Hooray for more money!

Go to Wikipedia and enter your date of birth.
Then pick four events, three births, two deaths, and one holiday.

This made me giggle a bit.

http://www.notafishinglure.com/SinCity.html

What if the Disney Princess' went all Sin City? It's actually quite cool!

There is an image artifact to the left of the Sun in this SoHO image from a week ago.
I first thought this was a hoax, but it does appear on the official NASA website.
However, I should point out that this artifact does not appear at all in the previous or subsequent images, or in the images from the other SoHO cameras in operation at the same time.

So the question rephrased is: What could have happened to make SoHO return a single image that looks something like a monstrous dark comet for a brief period of time?

Pictures from the Cybernet picnic, fun at the beach and other Summer activities have now been posted to our Flickr account.

Enjoy!

The "most" romantic thing? I don't know how to measure diverse romantic gestures against each other. One strong candidate was when I had an old fashioned looking brass napkin ring engraved with "Union Pacific" to give to an ex-girlfriend. She had hung out to do tech-stuff while I was practicing and performing in the musical Mack & Mabel. One of the things that happens in the play is that Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand end up sleeping together on the train from NY to California. Mabel insists that he's got to put a ring on her... "When two people get married, even for just one night, there's got to be a ring!" and he does so, while protesting: "But Mabel, a Union Pacific napkin ring? It's foolish!". This was a bit of dialog she had repeated back with some amusement on several occasions. A few years later, I visited with her again, in a more platonic fashion, and gave her the napkin ring as a token of friendship and memories.

I recently bought a book of Disney stories, thought I'd share the pretty pictures from the Ariel story. Please follow this link. It directs to my TLM site. :D

Yesterday, I went to Cedar Point with scrummycat and unixmule. What a fabulous day! Good company. Perfect weather (a bit overcast in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, with a high around 77). The crowds weren’t bad – we just had one long wait for a ride (1½ hours for Maverick, and we timed the ride for right after lunch so our food would digest while we waited). Even decent food (Yay, for Outback on the way home, and even the overpriced salad at Chick Fil A for lunch was pretty good).

Ride Tally:
Raptor – twice!
Magnum – three times, and never more than a 10 minute wait!
Maverick – even more awesome than I remembered
Sky Hawk – just fun
Cork Screw – ah, the nostalgia
Iron Dragon – good choice for future first big coaster for Marcus
Carousel – nice wind down ride before hitting the road

Not bad considering we got there around 10:30am and left at 5pm. We were going to go on MaxAir (which I’ve never been on), but it wasn't working when we swung by there. Better that than Raptor. Yay, Cedar Point!

After work, the education team (missing Rick, Akbour, and mzrowan ) went to a local Afghan restaurant (They serve Afghan food, not bed coverings) for dinner. I had an appetizer which I split with dbang , and something that was essentially Chicken Tikka Masala, except with a more Afghan presentation of the rice. It was great. I recommend it to anyone. The other food there looked and smelled fine as well. We did have a minor disruption on the way in as they didn't want us to bring bags or brief-cases into the dining area, and appeared to want to check them for explosive devices. The conversation was very entertaining, and frequently touched on Camelot & Mosaic. I liked the people in this group when I interviewed, but my general appreciation and affection for them has been increasing. I work with great people.

After dinner, I went back to the office to pick up my computer and to verify where the i Sebastiani post-Pennsic dinner was. To my surprise it was at the Bertucci's at Alewife station... where my car was parked. So I caught the subway and went in to visit for a while. I was getting very sleepy, so I was more in listening mode than anything else, but the people there were people that I love, so it was great. To my pleasant surprise Anne of Framlingham and Karl, and their two children were there. multigeek  and spouse were there. eclecticmagpie  was there. Christian was there. pamelina  was there sitting next to me, but the conversation with her didn't really veer away from how dissapointed she was with the actual Camelot structures, so I tuned her out pretty quickly... this was a happy evening. These are the people I mainly talked to. The Kobayashis, Fritz, Ian, Crystal (and a friend of hers named Noel) were also there but mainly out of easy conversation range. All of the talk was so positive, and there is such shared affection with everyone there that this was a shining splendid moment in my life.

I went home, and watched some of the ballgame in which Dice-K got his 15th win, and then Denise and the kids got home from (food after Piper's Soccer Camp?) and we watched "Countdown with Keith Olbermann". On this show it was announced that MSNBC will be filling their weeknight 9-10PM slot with a new show with Rachel Maddow. She's great. Too bad I don't have enough time in my life to watch her show, unless I drop something else. It starts September 8th.

And then, to sleep, perchance to dream.

This morning:
- Ballerina in a Business Suit - On the subway, I sat across from a woman who looked like a ballerina in a grey wool business pants-suit. She had the hair pulled back, she had the posture, she had a certain neutral facial expression, but she was dressed for business (except for shoes that looked like something ballet slippers). I got off the train, walked to the office, and got in the elevator. Moments later she got in the elevator too. So I asked her, and she confirmed that she had been a ballerina for quite a few years.

Most of the people who come to us are the those whom no one else will help; and those no one else *can* help.




In truth, most babies do not require hospital births. Most deliveries can be safely managed at home by well-trained midwives. For a variety of complex reasons, most Americans deliver their babies at hospitals instead. But most of those hospital births are entirely routine, requiring no special intervention by pediatricians to help the baby after birth.

The heart of the Wash U medical center system is the massive complex on the eastern edge of Forest Park. The white tower of Children's; the great, block-long monolith of Barnes-Jewish South; the new Shriner's children's rehabilitation Hospital under construction; the forest of other clinical and research towers that fill the rest of the vast campus. With regards to technology and capability, the hospitals of the Kingshighway campus is far and away the most advanced and most capable hospital in the Wash U/BJC network. They are among the most advanced and capable hospital complexes in the world. But the vast majority of babies don't and will never need the super-specialized services centered on the Kingshighway campus. For the residents of St. Louis' western suburbs, where the majority of St. Louis' professionals and wealthy live, there are multiple other hospitals in the BJC network closer to home. Hospitals which also provide far more creature comforts than Barnes Jewish South itself does....

On the Kingshighway campus, there is a stark division between pediatric and adult medical services. In terms of medical care, in terms of technology; in terms of equipment and medical facilities, both are state-of-the-art. Both are as modern as billions of dollars of capital investment can make them, capable of supporting medicine at it's very farthest edge. The difference comes in "creature comforts", so to speak. The current St. Louis Children's Hospital -- the third building to bear that name -- was only just over twenty years old to start with when Wash U decided to gut the entire thing down to steel and concrete, floor by floor, and build it entirely anew from inside out. And to strap phase after phase of new expansions and extensions to the core towers while they were at it. The result is a Children's Hospital inside which the "oldest" parts are less than five years old and many sections still have new carpet smell. It was also a hospital built not just state-of-the-art but cheerful and comfy as well, with nearly all-private rooms (although still capable of double-bedding in the event of surging medical need), fold-out beds for parents, sunlit atriums and rooftop gardens.

In contrast, Barnes Jewish South, the thousand-bed plus adult hospital in which Labor and Delivery is based, is more... functional, so to speak. A friend of mine once described the exterior of Barnes Jewish South as something from the Gotham set of a Batman movie, and the interiors have the same stark feel. The technology and capability is every bit the equal of Children's. But the creature comforts are, well, more Motel 6 than Marriott. In contrast to other BJC hospitals in the wealthier western suburbs, Barnes Jewish South has fewer of the creature comforts and little luxuries that make a hotel or a hospital room cozier and warmer. Barnes Jewish South sits admist the economically disadvantaged eastern urban sectors of St. Louis. Serves a population which largely doesn't have the money to afford their own health care, let alone private rooms with hardwood floors or catered meals ordered from a menu. People who *can* afford those things choose to have their babies at Missouri Baptist Medical Center or Progress West, shiny hospitals staffed by the same Wash U faculty who serve Barnes Jewish, but where you can get Starbucks in your hospital room and webcamera views of the nursery. Even the physicians and scientists who work on the Kingshighway campus -- who work at Barnes Jewish itself -- for the creature comforts almost always choose to have their babies at MoBab instead.

There are, however, many patients who *don't* have the option of going to the nicer hospitals out west. Barnes Jewish may not have wood-paneled cabinets and luxury showers in the hospital rooms, but it *will* accept you for care -- whether you can pay or not. Single teen mothers with mouths full of rotten and missing teeth. Women whose stumble into the emergency room with a baby half-hanging out is the very first time they've sought medical attention during the entire pregnancy. Mothers with bodies literally rotting from medical conditions they couldn't get access to reliable health care to treat. Mothers living in shelters, under highway underpasses, or even prison. Mothers arriving in labor with urine drug screens lit up like christmas trees. Mothers with several other children in tow, all by different fathers, none of them involved. (In this popuation, it seems fathers are very rarely involved. In fact, it's more of a surprise than not when there *is* a father actually present at the delivery.) Mothers who can't afford food, milk, or formula for their babies. Mothers who don't have transportation to the few medical clinics that will actually see their babies for follow-up. Mothers who are an active threat to their own babies, by drug abuse or histories of neglect or worse, and the whole three-ring circus of affidavits, court orders, and other foderall involved in trying desperately to get babies into homes where they'll actually get taken care of. Just the other day, we had one crack-using mother who defiantly declared that if we kept taking her babies away from her for drug abuse and neglect, she'd just keep having babies until she got to keep one. Even if she had already lost parental rights to ten previous children.

In this population that comprises more than half our patients, as much of our time is spent battling through "social" problems as medical; and the stories and challenges are alternatively frustrating, sickening, and heart-breaking. A population where we constantly scramble to try to make vastly overstretched and burdened social support services try to cover and keep tabs on far too many children. The clinics are overcrowded; the support programs all have waiting lists; even the mothers who want to try their hardest can't get the basic child assistance other industrialized nations take for granted; and too many of our mothers simply don't care. Despite herculean efforts, sometimes, horribly, the babies born to our care slip through the cracks. End up weeks or months later rushed into the emergency room at next-door Children's Hospital victims of neglect or abuse, dying or dead. And those failures constantly haunt our ever-too-busy scramblings.

But the urban poor are not the only population we serve. Barnes Jewish South doesn't just serve the uninsured and poorly insured other hospitals would rather not help. Barnes Jewish South -- flagship adult hospital of Wash U School of Medicine -- also serves the mothers that other hospitals *can't* help. The creature comforts might be a bit thin, but the technology and medical capability are the most advanced medical science is capable of. The vast majority of mothers will never need the super-specialized capabilities found only at the nation's leading academic medical centers. In this part of the country, the unfortunate few who *do*, all come to Barnes Jewish South. From every community and hospital in a two-hundred mile-plus radius, by ambulance and helicopter, the most threatened and most complex pregnancies are brought to Barnes Jewish South for management, with our pediatrics teams and the entire arsenal of Children's Hospital standing by.

Pregnant mothers with critical heart failure. With out-of-control seizures. With severe head bleeds and Ob/Gyns setting up to do a emergency c-section right in the adult Neuro ICU itself (and us Peds teams prepared to resucitate the baby right next to them). That's just a slice of the kinds of patients we serve. Actually, that was all just from my last night on call. All in addition to mother after mother in labor weeks -- even months -- too early. Mothers with babies diagnosed before birth with critical birth defects. Mothers with babies for whom we plan to do surgery on the moment they are born -- or even *before* they are born. Both the adult physicians at Barnes Jewish and the pediatricians at Children's, together as members of the Wash U community, routinely care for the sickest patients medical science can help. It's what we do. When things go horribly wrong, we don't refer the patient somewhere else. There's nowhere else to refer *to*. It's us or nothing, win or die. In contrast to the great arc of world-class medical centers along the Chicago-Detroit-Cleveland-Pittsburgh axis, we're pretty much alone down here. And so the other major population we serve on Labor and Delivery are the mothers who come from all over the vast swath of the southern Midwest because we are the only hospital that offers them and their unborn child a chance. Far too often, tragically, even our best is not enough.

The urban poor who no one else will help. The critically ill that no one else *can* help. Constant challenges social, behavioral, financial, and medical -- it's an *excellent* enviroment as a trainee to learn in. One learns best from the hardest of challenges, our patients provide plenty of all of the above, and we will be better prepared -- and better -- physicians and pediatricans for it.





A good friend recently asked me how things were going. When I noted that I was serving on Labor and Delivery at Wash U, she brightened and said, That must be a really happy place.

No. No it isn't.

I've been a member of one or another Unitarian Universalist church for round about ten years now. These churches have included:

• James Reeb UU Congregation, in Madison
  
• Fargo-Moorhead UU church, in Fargo
  
• Eau Claire UU Congregation, in guess where?
  
• Palomar UU Fellowship, in Vista
  

Some of these choices were obvious. Fargo and Eau Claire, respectively, have one UU congregation each. Madison, on the other hand, has three, and San Diego has five or six (if you count the new one they're opening in Temecula). Up to now, the churches I have belonged to have been small, under 200 members. In Madison, even though First Unitarian Society was closer to campus, I made a point of going to James Reeb - not because it was small, not exactly, but because of the emotional connections I found there. James Reeb was the church for the scruffy Unitarians. Besides, some of my SCA friends were members there before I was.

But now, I've made the decision to go to First UU Church of San Diego rather than PUUF (no matter how much that acronym amuses yogaswirl), because it's closer to where I live. I went there on Sunday with eowyns, who apparently felt right at home because her home church in Rhode Island is big, like First Church here. As for me, I tried to like it, and there were likeable things there - notably the hymns, including "Siyahamba" and "Meditation on Breathing" which we have sung at PUUF, and "From all that dwell below the skies," which we used to sing in Eau Claire. What can I say, I find my spiritual home through music.

But it was still a "big church," like First Society in Madison. They didn't call for newcomers to introduce themselves, and they didn't do Joys and Sorrows, and when I was surprised, eowyns leaned over and said, "They couldn't, there'd be too many people to get through." Sadness! Joys and Sorrows - sharing in front of the community those personal marker events that have recently happened in one's life - is one of the best parts of going to a UU fellowship, if you ask me.

So ... it's big, it's unfamiliar, I don't know anyone. What better way to address the situation but to go to a retreat that's coming up, for young adults ages 18 to 35, at this camp? Erik has a gaming thing occupying him that weekend. That way I could meet a few people - say, fifteen - rather than the whole, I don't know, 775 members of the church all at once? Despite my sometime dislike of First Society in Madison, I did once go on a young adult retreat there (though in those days I was closer to the younger end of that demographic, and now I'm closer to the other end). It was the first place I ever encountered Sufi dancing, among other things. It was a pleasant memory.

And then there was a Madison campus ministry (run through First Society) I went to for a while, and the First Church here has similar things housed at both UCSD and SDSU. I guess it's an advantage of a mega church like that, with multiple pastors and staff: that they can specifically reach out to the college communities (though I'm hardly ever an active part of the SDSU community except to go to class and come right home).

So ... I'm trying to be openminded and positive about this new church. We'll see how it goes.

Saturday at 1pm will be high noon for Karen's right side wisdom teeth, and a 2nd molar which was damaged by said wisdom tooth.

I can't wait!

Puck48197 gave me a recommendation for a dentist (it's been a while, as in the Reagan Administration, since my last visit.) Unfortunately, he is out of my insurance plan network. But still, Puck, thank you!

I received my contributor’s copy of this year’s Triangulation anthology in the mail the other day. (Triangulation: Taking Flight) It is very exciting to see my story (”The Reap Assessors”) in it! It’s my second short story sale but due to how these things work out, it’s actually the first story to see print.

Don’t forget to watch for my first sale, “Memory Box”, in the Unspeakable Horror anthology coming from Dark Scribe Press this fall.

(Originally posted at Words Words Words by reesa. Please leave any comments there.)