gwydion | Jan. 8th, 2014

* The Chris Christie Highway Scandal gets worse. They now have damning emails proving his top aides were involved in grid locking that town to punish its mayor. The lane closures delayed four EMS transports. An old woman died, though it is not yet clear if she would or would not have survived if the Christie Administration wasn't being cruel, petty, and vindictive. Whether or not this lady died for Chris Christie's petty vengeance, clearly any number of people could have if they'd been unlucky enough to have a time critical medical emergency. I know this sort of thing is business as usual in the the mid-Altlantic states. I grew up on the outskirts of Mayor Rizzo's Philadelphia after all and my Jersey born and bred father was active in Pennsylvania politics. I have no illusions about corruption, graft, extortion, and how political sausages get made. (My Father was an honorable man and was strongly anti-graft, embezzlement, and corruption, but there was an awful lot of it to resist and fight. Just saying). Just because this is the way New Jersey politics normally operate doesn't make it okay and I certainly think that this sort of behavior renders a politician unfit for any office, let alone the presidency. It certainly doesn't make it okay anymore than gangs of cops betting innocent people up is never okay, even though that is generally winked at in places like my home city. This is the sort of thing we should be fighting against, not condoning.

While there is no proof one way or another that Christie ordered or didn't order the shutting down of the on ramp, the taint is certainly on him. He picked these people to be his top advisers and if he didn't directly order it, then it was the sort of thing he encouraged to the extent that they felt comfortable not only doing it, but mocking the victims. I honestly suspect he did order it, but I also suspect he was bright enough not to write the order in his official email account. Either way, odds are we'll never know. If he did order it, what does it say about his character that he was willing to sacrifice so many of his supposed friends and takes no responsibility? What does it say about his judgement that he would do such a thing while already planning to run for national office in the near future? If he didn't order it, what does it say about his qualities as a leader and an administrator that this went on anyway? If he didn't order it, what does I say about his judgement that he chose to put people who would do such a thing in positions of power and then fail to supervise them?

I hope that little old lady had friends and family. I hope that they turn up with protest signs and reporters every time he turns up in public with pictures and stories about who she was. I hope the people of New Jersey don't forget what kind of man he is and don't let the rest of us forget either. I think a Christieb presidency would be a disaster for a whole host of reasons, but the particular aspect of his character that this incident exposes is especially dangerous in one given the power to pursue petty revenge against whole states and countries with the full might of the U S military behind him. *Shudder*

And I thought a Romney residency sounded scary. The Republicans just keep surprising me this century with how every time we think we've seen the bottom of the barrel, they find someone worse.

* Re: Two Cases Involving Brain death in the News. Here's my bias: My family has always been realistic about terminal illness and death. We mourn our dead, don't get me wrong, but we never lost our closeness to it. In my family, it is normal to express one's end of life care wishes, and if a situation is not covered in previous conversations and a person can no longer say what they want, the adults get together and discuss what so and so would best want based on expressed wishes. If a person says, "No more surgery" or "no more chemo" we all switch to aggressive pain management and making what time the person has left as wonderful as possible. We do not cling. We weep and then do what needs to be done to make them comfortable. If someone is no longer in there, we grieve and let them die. It isn't cruel; it is what we want for ourselves.

In the case of the woman in Texas being kept alive against her previously expressed wishes and those of her husband and the family so she can serve as an incubator for a fetus? There are no words for my outrage. DNR for an adult should trump anything. In the absence of an advance directive, the husband/wife/family should have the final say. In the case of a minor child, the parents or custodial parent or guardian should have the final say. The state has no business stepping between a family and the person who is no longer their. the State has no business inflicting this agony on a family. The State damned well better be paying every penny of the hospital bill and I think that the State of Texas owes that widower a vast some of money for the extra stress and misery they are inflicting on him to no good purpose.

As to the equally tragic case in California, I think the young girl's family are in deep denial and lying to themselves, but I honestly think they have the right to lie to themselves like that. She was their daughter and they should have the final say in what happens to her. If they need more time, they need more time.

Just as I believe in the right of a family to pull the plug, I believe in the right f the family not to pull the plug. Yes, even if I and my family would chose differently in the same circumstances.

That goes double in a situation where there is a long history of abuse of the community in question by authorities in general and Doctors in particular. In a circumstance where there is a couple of hundred years of abuse by medical authorities, skepticism is a natural response and I think that it behooves medical authorities to be extra careful about consent given the long ugly history in this country of lying to patients and doing horrific things to people without their consent. There should be a high standard in this area anyway. I'm just saying it better be diamond standard when dealing with members of any of the wide variety of communities that have been abused in the recent past. (I felt a similar way about ethics in teaching when I was teaching. Kidnapping to boarding schools is living memory around here and adults had completely reasonable fears about how we were treating their children. I was big on ethical teaching generally, but given the history of truly horrific abuse, I felt that going however many extra miles it took for them and their children to feel safe in our buildings was still not enough, really). Taking away people's agency when it comes to the fate of their children is never okay and it further endangers not just the people having their agency snatched away from them, but scares other people away from getting medical help (or education if it's school situation). How many more people are going to be scared to take their children to the Doctor after they hear what happened to that little girl in California? How many will die or experience unnecessary misery because they are worried the Doctors will take away their control over what happens to them or their children?

* "Explorers hot on the trail of Atahualpa and the Treasure of the Llanganates:" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/ecuador/10517904/Explorers-hot-on-the-trail-of-Atahualpa-and-the-Treasure-of-the-Llanganates.html

* I caught a few hours sleep, then went across to let the bed men in. It was the right bed this time. As I had only seen it in pictures, I miss- estimated how tall it is. Like the rest of the apartment, it is clearly on a scale expecting someone over 6' tall rather than of my size, which is weird, if you consider that this is meant to be an ADA compliant place. I'd already bought a sturdy little step later so I could use the kitchen. I now need it to get into bed. O.o Luckily, I can slide out of bed without the stairs, assuming my legs hold when I land. Ace didn't have the right sort of ladder, though I picked up one anyway. I'll need to check Home Depot or go back to the Coop for another tiny stair if there isn't anything more suitable there. The bed is huge. I will need to measure the 30 gallon and the dressers to see if any of them fit in there at all. I may need to rethink nearly everything. The under bed storage is likely where most of my clothes will need to go the way things are going. The bed is ridiculously comfortable with lots of room for meds and bedside books. I have already picked out where the cats treats are going to live. I am not convinced Mache will be able to get in and out on her own, which is a worry, hence the need to find a sturdy wide stepped ladder she and I can both use safely. While they were building the bed, I sorted more things in the kitchen and bathroom and started organizing fish furniture. I am so tired. I was up late on the document hunt, which proved partially unsuccessful. Sigh.

After a med and cat calming break, Greenwick and I did yet more work on breaking down the kitchen. Then we took a load over in what turned out to be alarmingly high wind. Greenwick painted the bathroom while I set up my bedroom and puttered about sorting and putting things away. The tape measure tells me the bed room situation may not be as bad as I thought it might be. I may end up not being able to use all the drawers on all the things, but the important things likely will fit in there where I can use them.

I still feel rather like Princess and the Pea up there, but I'm thinking about how to make the situation work.

I am too tired for document hunt and bureaucracy and I am running out of time. Fuck!

* A more detailed version of speculations about the Lydney/Vine Rings inspiring Tolkien. "The Inspiration for Tolkien's Ring:" http://www.historytoday.com/lynn-forest-hill/inspiration-tolkiens-ring

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Jan. 8th, 2014

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