Read the handwritten ER doctor’s note that’s gone viral on ReddiT

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Read the handwritten ER doctor’s note that’s gone viral on Reddi

Read more: http://medcitynews.com/2013/02/read-the-handwritten-er-doctors-note-thats-gone-viral-on-reddit/#ixzz2XK0uzLIq

February 13, 2013 9:35 am by Deanna Pogorelc | 74 Comments

Computers might be able to take over some of what a doctor does, but they sure can’t do this.

Last week, Reddit user mcharb13 posted a photo of a handwritten note from a doctor that he said has changed his life. It’s a condolence note that was sent to his father by an emergency room physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital who had treated his mother, he told the Huffington Post. His mother had breast cancer and died several hours after being taken to the ER.

In the note, the doctor explains that this is the first such note she’s written in 20 years of ER work (the name of the doctor was omitted from the photo, but Redditors seemed to think it was a female, based on the handwriting.)

“Our encounters are typically hurried and do not always allow for more personal interaction,” she wrote. “However, in your case, I felt a special connection to your wife, who was so engaging and cheerful in spite of her illness and trouble breathing.”

The note struck a chord with at least 2.1 million people and prompted more than 1,300 of them to leave comments. Many of the comments have come from people who have also lost parents, and many have come from physicians as well.

One said:

They don’t train us how to deal with the human element of our job very well. Most react by developing a deep callus over their hearts. Some of us are down-right evil in how jaded we’ve become. I’m sure other healthcare workers can testify. So, it is a true testament to your parents relationship for this to pierce beneath that callus. Whatever they were doing, apparently, they were doing it right. It sounds like you have a couple of great parents. Copy them.

Another wrote:

I pray to God that when I make it as a trauma surgeon, I do not become desensitized to the sometimes inevitable loss of life of my fellow man or woman, nor desensitized to the joy of saving or helping to improve the quality of life of my patients.

It’s a reminder that, even in the digital age, bedside manner and compassion go a long way.

[Photo from Reddit user mcharb13]

Read more: http://medcitynews.com/2013/02/read-the-handwritten-er-doctors-note-thats-gone-viral-on-reddit/#ixzz2XK14Op1m

IRS scandal needs more than a scapegoat

The attacks on our freedoms go deeper still...

IRS scandal needs more than a scapegoat

By Rand Paul, Special to CNN

updated 12:16 PM EDT, Thu May 16, 2013

source: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/16/opinion/rand-paul-irs-scandal/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

Editor's note: Rand Paul, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky

Editor's note: Rand Paul, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky.

Editor's note: Rand Paul, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky.

(CNN) -- The Internal Revenue Service has admitted that it targeted groups with "tea party" or "patriot" in their names. We've since learned that a wider array of groups concerned about spending, debt, high taxes, government growth, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights -- basically any conservative or libertarian issue you can name -- was targeted.

President Obama said Monday that he was "outraged" over the IRS' behavior. He said that those responsible should be held "fully accountable." I wonder when that will happen?

On Wednesday, the president requested and received the resignation of Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller -- but that is not enough. The executive branch has been aware of this scandal for nearly two years and now, only as a result of massive public pressure, the administration has found a scapegoat.




Rand Paul

The president did not announce that Miller was responsible, and we still don't know who came up with the idea to target the tea party. We have not been told whether Obama administration officials knew about the discrimination and if they allowed it to continue when they found out. Forcing out Miller is not the end of this scandal.

Holding the guilty parties accountable is just the first step. But if the handling of the attack in Benghazi, Libya, is any indication, there are no guarantees this will happen.

The IRS is under the president's jurisdiction. He needs to fully recognize the gravity of these charges.

The IRS targeting citizens for political reasons is not simply another Washington scandal. At issue is something that strikes at the very heart of who we are as a people, what we believe as Americans and what this country has always stood for.

Bachmann: IRS scandal 'troubling' IRS acting commissioner forced out Rumsfeld: Scandals are perfect storm

The First Amendment was written to protect many different types of expression. But the Founding Fathers' primary concern -- and a first principle for every generation of Americans that followed -- was the protection of political speech. Apparently, the IRS was even targeting people who criticized how the country was being run.

Protecting citizens' right to speak out against their government has always been an integral part of what separates us from tyrannical regimes. What the IRS did is how the KGB used to target dissidents. It is how they deal with troublemakers in China.

It is not how we treat American citizens. Our Constitution guarantees it.

This week, I introduced a Senate Resolution condemning the IRS' actions and calling for a full investigation into how the agency infringed upon the First Amendment rights of those targeted.

Democrats put a hold on my resolution.

We have learned that some officials knew about these indiscretions long before the recent denials. We wanted to investigate to find out who knew what, when, and for how long.

We have learned that some tea party groups had unduly long wait times for tax-exempt status. Some eventually withdrew their applications out of frustration.

In my home state of Kentucky, a 9/12 group filed for 501(c)(4) status in December of 2010. It received its first correspondence almost immediately, saying there would be a determination within 90 days.

Fourteen months later, the IRS requested answers to 30 questions with sub-bullets -- 88 total separate inquiries -- and gave only a two-week period to comply.

The Kentucky 9/12 Project's Eric Wilson estimated that it would have taken 5,000 pages to respond.

Eventually, the IRS granted granted this group tax-exempt status -- after well over a year. We wanted to find out why they had to wait. We wanted to find out what groups, and how many, might have been victims of political discrimination.

We wanted to ask for an independent authority to investigate and seek criminal charges against those who were involved in targeting Americans for their political views. We wanted to determine if the White House was aware and failed to take action.

This is not about Republican vs. Democrat or conservative vs. liberal. It is about arrogant and unrestrained government vs. the rule of law. Imagine if the IRS had targeted liberal or progressive groups under the Bush administration. The First Amendment cannot be renegotiated depending on which party holds power.

The power to tax is the power to destroy. These allegations concerning the IRS remind us yet again of the inherently destructive nature of leviathan. With Obamacare adding staff and hundreds of millions to the budget of the IRS, the new and intrusive powers granted to our nation's revenue collection service were worrisome enough. We should use this recent abuse of power as an opportunity to rein them in.

Each congressman and senator, and even the president, took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. It is now upon us to determine if the IRS intentionally trampled the First Amendment rights of Americans who dared to dissent.

Another Sad Day...

How very sad.

Last rhinos in Mozambique killed by poachers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/mozambique/10028738/Last-rhinos-in-Mozambique-killed-by-poachers.html

The last known rhinoceroses in Mozambique have been wiped out by poachers apparently working in cahoots with the game rangers responsible for protecting them, it has emerged.

Wildlife authorities believe the poachers were able to track the rhinoceroses with the help of game rangers working in the Limpopo National Park Photo: GETTY IMAGES

By Aislinn Laing, Johannesburg

7:46PM BST 30 Apr 2013

The 15 threatened animals were shot dead for their horns last month in the Mozambican part of Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which also covers South Africa and Zimbabwe.

They were thought to be the last of an estimated 300 that roamed through the special conservation area when it was established as "the world's greatest animal kingdom" in a treaty signed by the three countries' then presidents in 2002.

The latest deaths, and Mozambique's failure to tackle poaching, has prompted threats by South Africa to re-erect fences between their reserves.

Wildlife authorities believe the poachers were able to track the rhinoceroses with the help of game rangers working in the Limpopo National Park, as the Mozambican side of the reserve is known.

A total of 30 rangers are due in court in the coming weeks, charged with collusion in the creatures' deaths, according to the park's administrators.

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Conservationists say the poorly-paid rangers were vulnerable to corruption by organised poaching gangs, who target rhinoceroses for their horns which are prized in Asia for their reputed aphrodisiac and cancer-curing properties.

The trade in rhino horn has seen the numbers of rhino killed spiral in recent years. Over the border in Kruger, the South African part of the transfrontier park, 180 have been killed so far this year, out of a national total of 249. Last year, 668 rhino were poached in South Africa, a 50 per cent increase over the previous year.

Kelvin Alie, from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the fact that the rangers may have been turned while working on such an important conservation initiative "speaks volumes about the deadly intent of the wildlife trade".

"They will stop at nothing to get to their quarry," he said. "It is tragic beyond tears that we learn game rangers have now become the enemy in the fight to protect rhino from being poached for their horns."

A spokesman for South Africa's environment minister said she would be meeting her Mozambican counterpart in the coming weeks amid concerns that the country is not pulling its weight in the battle against poaching.

"Clearly the open fence agreement has become an open season for poachers," Albi Modise said. "Rangers in the Kruger National Park are engaged in daily battles with Mozambican poachers."

Dr Jo Shaw, from the World Wide Fund for Nature, said the rhinoceroses had probably crossed into Mozambique from Kruger.

Whereas killing a rhino in South Africa can attract stricter punishments than killing a person, in Mozambique offenders generally escape with a fine if they are prosecuted at all.

"Rhinos being killed in Kruger are mostly by Mozambican poachers who then move the horns out through their airports and seaports," she said. "With huge governance and corruption issues in Mozambique, it's a huge challenge." 

Whoops...wrong house??

I wonder how much money was wasted in this endeavor...anyone care to venture a guess???


SOURCE

SWAT Raids Home Over Hydroponic Equipment Purchase, Finds Tomatoes and Squash

Activist Post

Did you know that buying hydroponic growing equipment is now being used as probable cause for the government to raid your house? 

Neither did Bob and Addie Harte, a Kansas couple who were raided by SWAT without a warrant last April because the authorities took notice of their purchase of indoor gardening items.

The illegal raid turned up "just six plants -- three tomato plants, one melon plant and two butternut squash plants -- growing in the basement", and now the couple is suing the sheriff's department.

The Associated Press reports:

Two former CIA employees whose Kansashome was fruitlessly searched for marijuana during a two-state drug sweep claim they were illegally targeted, possibly because they had bought indoor growing supplies to raise vegetables.

Adlynn and Robert Harte sued this week to get more information about why sheriff's deputies searched their home in the upscale Kansas City suburb of Leawood last April 20 as part of Operation Constant Gardener.

The things we learn as time passes by...

As time marches slowly by, those who pay attention will notice little snippets of truth that get released, whether intentionally or accidentally, that SHOULD, in theory, change our perception of the truth of certain events.  Many of these news items are relegated to the back section of "national news" sections, or the back page of some API website.  In short, the majority of the public doesn't see them, and is not given the chance to care about them.

Currently there are a plethora of issues that have been blatantly lied about, covered up or disguised as something else.  At least the citizenry of the United States has been told one thing, while the truth was something different.

I think the "underwear bomber" story is still relatively fresh in everyone's minds.  But what if we knew more about the issue?  What if we were to learn the various truths behind the incident?

SOURCE

Bomber involved in plot to attack US-bound jet was working as an informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged

A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and theCIA, it has emerged.

The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker.

The plot, which the White House said on Monday had involved the seizing of an underwear bomb by authorities in the Middle East sometime in the last 10 days, had caused alarm throughout the US.

It has also been linked to a suspected US drone strike in Yemen where two Yemeni members of al-Qaida were killed by a missile attack on their car on Sunday, one of them a senior militant, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso.

But the news that the individual at the heart of the bomb plot was in fact an informer for US intelligence is likely to raise just as many questions as it answers.

Citing US and Yemeni officials, Associated Press reported that the unnamed informant was working under cover for the Saudis and the CIA when he was given the bomb, which was of a new non-metallic type aimed at getting past airport security.

The informant then turned the device over to his handlers and has left Yemen, the officials told the news agency. The LA Times, which first broke the news that the plot had been a "sting operation", said that the bomb plan had also provided the intelligence leads that allowed the strike on Quso.

Earlier John Brennan, Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser and a former CIA official, told ABC's Good Morning America that authorities are "confident that neither the device nor the intended user of this device pose a threat to us".

US officials have said the plot was detected in its early stages and that no American airliner was ever at risk. 

Wounded Knee

History is a fickle agent at best; a slave to those who would write it and their perceptions of events.  No event can occur without coloration, and facts are always subject to interpretation.

With that I am re-blogging a story not often heart; the story of the massacre at Wounded Knee.  It's important that we put this into perspective when reading the story, but it's also important that we learn a lesson from this type of perspective.  That lesson, as far as I am concerned, is that only man can inflict terrible atrocities of this nature upon his fellow man.

http://www.fold3.com/page/1296_lakotathe_massacre_at_wounded_knee/

After Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot feared for the safety of his band, which consisted in large part of widows of the Plains wars and their children. Big Foot himself had been placed on the list of "fomenters of disturbances," and his arrest had been ordered.

He led his band toward Pine Ridge, hoping for the protection of Red Cloud. However, he fell ill from pneumonia on the trip and was forced to travel in the back of a wagon. As they neared Porcupine Creek on December 28, the band saw 4 troops of cavalry approaching. A white flag was immediately run up over Big Foot's wagon. When the two groups met, Big Foot raised up from his bed of blankets to greet Major Samuel Whitside of the Seventh Cavalry. His blankets were stained with blood and blood dripped from his nose as he spoke.

Whitside informed him of his orders to take the band to their camp on Wounded Knee Creek. Big Foot replied that they were going that way, to Pine Ridge. The major wanted to disarm the Indians right then but was dissuaded by his scout John Shangreau, in order to avoid a fight on the spot. They agreed to wait to undertake this until they reached camp. Then, in a moment of sympathy, the major ordered his army ambulance brought forward to accept the ill Minneconjou chief, providing a warmer and more comfortable ride. They then proceeded toward the camp at Wounded Knee Creek, led by two cavalry troops with the other two troops bringing up the rear with their Hotchkiss guns. They reached the camp at twilight.

At the camp, the Indians were carefully counted; there were 120 men and 230 women and children. Major Whitside decided to wait until morning to disarm the band. They were assigned a camp site just to the south of the cavalry camp, given rations, and provided with several tents as there was a shortage of tepee covers. A stove was provided for Big Foot's tent and the doctor was sent to give aid to the chief. To guarantee against escape from the camp, two troops of cavalry were posted around the Indian tents and the Hotchkiss guns were placed on the top of a rise overlooking the camp. The guns were aimed directly at the lodges.

During the night the rest of the Seventh Cavalry marched in and set up north of Major Whitside's troops. Two more Hotchkiss guns were placed beside the two already aimed at the lodges. Colonel John Forsyth took over command of the operation and informed Major Whitside that he had orders to take the band to the railroad to be shipped to a military prison in Omaha.

In the morning a bugle call awakened the camp and the men were told to come to the center of the camp for a talk. After the talk they would move to Pine Ridge. Big Foot was brought out and seated before his tent. The older men of the band gathered around him. Hardtack was issued for breakfast. Then the Indians were informed that they would be disarmed. They stacked their guns in the center, but the soldiers were not satisfied. The soldiers went through the tents, bringing out bundles and tearing them open, throwing knives, axes, and tent stakes into the pile. Then they ordered searches of the individual warriors. The Indians became very angry but only one spoke out, the medicine man, Yellow Bird. He danced a few steps of the Ghost Dance and chanted in Sioux, telling the Indians that the bullets would not hurt them, they would go right by.

The search found only two rifles, one brand new, belonging to a young man named Black Coyote. He raised it over his head and cried out that he had spent much money for the rifle and that it belonged to him. Black Coyote was deaf and therefore did not respond promptly to the demands of the soldiers. He would have been convinced to put it down by the Sioux, but that option was not possible. He was grabbed by the soldiers and spun around. Then a shot was heard; its source is not clear but it began the killing. The only arms the Indians had were what they could grab from the pile. When the Hotchkiss guns opened up, shrapnel shredded the lodges, killing men, women and children, indiscriminately. They tried to run but were shot down "like buffalo," women and children alike.

When the mass insanity of the soldiers ended, 153 dead were counted, including Big Foot; but many of the wounded had crawled off to die alone. One estimate place the final death toll at 350 Indian men, women and children. Twenty-five soldiers died and 39 were wounded, most by their own shrapnel and bullets. The wounded soldiers were started back to the Pine Ridge agency. Then a detail of soldiers went over the battlefield, gathering up any Indians that were still alive and placing them in wagons. As a blizzard was approaching, the dead were left where they had fallen. The wagons with the wounded arrived at Pine Ridge after dark. They contained only 4 Sioux men and 47 women and children. These people were left outside in wagons in the bitter cold while a search was made for housing for them. Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches removed and hay scattered over the floor as bedding for the wounded Sioux. As they were brought in, those who were conscious could see the Christmas decorations hanging from the rafters.

After the blizzard a burial party returned to the battlefield, they found the bodies including that of Big Foot, frozen into contorted shapes.

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . . the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
---- Black Elk

Many of the injured died of exposure in the freezing weather, and several days after the incident the dead were strewn as far as approximately two to five miles away from the original site. By mid-afternoon on December 29, 1890 the indiscriminate slaughter ceased. Nearly three-hundred men (including Chief Big Foot), women, and children -- old and young -- were dead on the frosty banks of Wounded Knee Creek. Twenty-nine soldiers also died in the melee, but it is believed that most of the military causalities were a result of "friendly" crossfire that occurred during the fighting frenzy. Twenty-three soldiers from the Seventh Calvary were later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the slaughter of defenseless Indians at Wounded Knee.

The wounded and dying were taken to a makeshift hospital in the Pine Ridge Episcopal Church. Ironically, above the pulpit hung a Christmas banner which read:
Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men

A blizzard swept over the countryside the night of December 29, and when it cleared days later, the valley was strewn with frozen, contorted dead bodies. A burial party returned to the site on New Years Day, 1891. The bodies of the slain were pulled from beneath the heavy snow and thrown into a single burial pit. It was reported that four infants were found still alive, wrapped in their deceased mothers shawls.
While only 150 bodies were interred in the mass grave, Lakotas estimate that twice as many Indians perished that brutal morning in 1890 -- on a reservation supposedly protected by two treaties.

Created by bgill 20 Jun 2007

What will make me happy?

I've been thinking lately.  I've been thinking about those things that truly make me happy.  I've realized that it's not things that I want.  It's not influence.  It's certainly not power.    It's not money.  It's not sex.

So what makes me truly happy?

I think it is giving and generosity to those that have never seen it before.  I think that it is peace.  And I think that it is you.