Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Been visiting Parkway Rest Stop…

… and, there is good news and bad news.

The good news is that, like Jim, I’m 20% white trash:

I am 22% White Trash.
Not at all White Trashy!

I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. . I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box.

The bad news is that some moron doctor working for the government categorically states “All U.S. adults could be overweight in 40 years” because… she says so. Teresa, who’s posting at PRS while Jim’s on vacation on a Bermuda cruise, asks When was the last time All US Adults did the same thing?, which is indeed a good question, but that’s not the bad news.

The bad news is that according to the Reuters article, there is such a thing as the federal government’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Yet another bureaucracy that once installed will never disappear.

Now excuse me while I go read Steve‘s book.

Speaking of Steve, he has a very good post Tisha B’Av Starts Tomorrow.

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From the BBC: English hospitals ‘infested with vermin’

Government-provided healthcare fails again:
Hospitals ‘infested with vermin’

The cleanliness of most NHS hospitals in England is threatened by frequent invasions of rats, fleas, bedbugs, flies and cockroaches, a report claims.

Figures released by the Conservatives show that 70% of NHS Trusts brought in the pest controllers at least 50 times between January 2006 and March 2008.

It’s one thing if the exterminators are there for regular maintenance. It’s another thing altogether when it’s because the hospital is invaded by the critters.

That’s bad enough. Cause for alarm:

Vermin were found in wards, clinics and even operating theatres. A patients’ group said the situation was revolting.

But health chiefs played down fears the infestations could lead to disease.

Excuse me?? Vermin in the operating room, and the bureaucrats are “playing down fears” it could lead to disease?? This is what we’re talking about:

VERMIN IN HOSPITALS:
Maggots in a patient’s slippers
Fleas in a neonatal unit
Sterile store infested with mice
Mouse droppings in a clinic
Wasp nest in A&E

A&E stands for accident and emergency (not the American cable TV channel). Among the other repugnant creatures found in Britain’s socialist hospitals are mice, silverfish, beetles, and bureaucrats.

Biased BBC notes how the dirt gets mentioned last.

Rats.

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GM’s message to Tim Blair

Tim Blair has been diagnosed with cancer and has a difficult battle ahead of him.

GM Roper urges him to fight on,

This coming February 6th will be the 2nd anniversary of my surgery and I count myself two years in full remission as the CT scan and P.E.T. scan following surgery were both clean. But I didn’t do it by myself. I had God in my corner, my family, my friends, my readers and my medical staff. They all pulled me through and what ever comes for you (or for me for that matter) we can never overlook their kindnesses and generosity expressed through their love, their skill, their knowledge and their caring for another human being.

Hang in there, a good attitude and a determination to “Fight On” is more critical than you can ever imagine. We are all pulling for you and don’t ever forget that.

You must go read the rest of GM’s post.

GM Roper was my podcast guest last September. You can listen to the podcast here

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Female Genital Mutilation destroys lives in Britain

Warning: Post may not be suitable for work
due to graphic descriptions of FGM procedures

Let me make myself clear on this:

I do not care whether this is a tribal, religious, and/or cultural tradition at all, the practice of female genital mutilation is a barbaric custom that must be stopped.
Again, I don’t want the issue clouded by any kind of ethnic/religious bias. THE PRACTICE ITSELF must be condemned.

Additionally, I must stress again that FGM is a social custom, not a religious practice, which has been reiterated in this MEMRI video.

The UK’s Daily Mail has a well-researched article on FGM that you should read,
The unspeakable practice of female circumcision that’s destroying young women’s lives in Britain

Most people will be unfamiliar with this practice, which involves removing part or all of the clitoris, the surrounding labia (the outer part of the vagina) and sometimes the sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual blood.

It is carried out for a variety of cultural reasons. Such is the secrecy that surrounds the practice that even those aware that it occurs in large swathes of Africa and Asia will be shocked to learn that it is prevalent in Britain.

During a highly disturbing, four-month investigation, however, we uncovered evidence that thousands of British-African girls, in towns and cities throughout the country, have been forcibly “cut”.

By conservative estimates, 66,000 women and girls living in Britain have been mutilated. This figure, accepted by the Metropolitan Police, came in a report by a volunteer organisation funded by the Department of Health and carried out with academics from the London School of Tropical Hygiene and the City University.

The article states that political correctness rears its cowardly head, again:

The Met team also educates regional police forces about FGM, and speaks to mosques, community groups and local authorities.

Usually their visits are well-received, but we found that at least one London council declined to publish material highlighting the suffering and danger the practice causes – for fear of offending ethnic African residents.

This kind of attitude incenses Detective Inspector Hamilton. “We are all becoming very culturally sensitive,” she says. “People are a bit frightened of saying ‘You can’t do this here’ because people shoot back with ‘But it’s our culture’.

Among them,

Several leadings Imams have openly condemned the practice. This, though, does not deter its proponents, who maintain that it is their inalienable right to live according to their traditional beliefs and customs, rather than conform to British values. Indeed, some argue that the freedom to carry out FGM is a fundamental principle of our multi-cultural society.

Let’s look at the dictionary definition of inalienable:

not alienable; not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated

FGM is worthy of repudiation, and as civilized people we must repudiate it. The “freedom” to carry out FGM is the “freedom” to carry out (and without the benefit of anesthesia) the following,

  • Remove the clitoral hood with or without removal of part or all of the clitoris.

  • Remove the clitoris together with part or all of the labia minora.

  • Remove part or all of the external genitalia (clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora) and stitching and/or narrowing of the vaginal opening leaving a small hole for urine and menstrual flow

  • Or,
    Pricking, piercing, stretching, or incision of the clitoris and/or labia;
    Cauterization by burning the clitoris and surrounding tissues;
    Incisions to the vaginal wall;
    Scraping (angurya cuts) or cutting (gishiri cuts) of the vagina and surrounding tissues; and
    Introduction of corrosive substances or herbs into the vagina to cause bleeding or for the purpose of tightening or narrowing it.

Now, read that again carefully.

The physical health consequences of FGM are horrendous. The psychosexual and psychological health are equally severe.

Ponder each one of those items and tell me WHO in their right minds would defend the inalienable right to perform any of these barbaric butcherings.

The FGM Education and Networking Project is making great strides in ending this barbaric practice.

UPDATE
Via SC&A, three links to those defending FGM:
Besotted multiculturalist anthropologists defend female genital mutilation
Cultural rights or human rights: the case of female genital mutilation
Healing the wound

Update 2
Genital Mutilation Practice Growing In Britain

(ht/ Pamela)
Previous posts on FGM and female genital mutilation.

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Today’s bunch of hooey

Medieval diets ‘far more healthy’

If they managed to survive plague and pestilence, medieval humans may have enjoyed healthier lifestyles than their descendants today, it has been claimed.

Survive the plague? Hardly. the plague was a death sentence – over 99% of people infected died from it. You didn’t catch the plague and lived through it.

Their low-fat, vegetable-rich diet – washed down by weak ale – was far better for the heart than today’s starchy, processed foods, one GP says.

And while they consumed more they burnt off calories in a workout of 12 hours’ labour, Dr Roger Henderson concludes.

But the Shropshire GP accepts that life for even prosperous peasants was tough.

Tough?

Here’s life in the anarco-syndicalist commune:


How tough was it?

“If you got to 30 in those days you were doing well, past 40 and you were distinctly long in the tooth,” he concedes.

Maybe that would explain the low rates of heart disease, perhaps?
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Seymour

The Anchoress passed a kidney stone so large she named it Seymour. And then the trouble started: she had complication and ended up in the emergency room. We all prayed for her.

I’ve never had a kidney stone, and I’m glad I haven’t. Yes, that is a selfish thought. Kidney stones scare the p*ss out of me.

In the mid-80s The Husband and I lived near where he worked, and since I used to commute to New York, I was out of the house well before it was time for him to get up to go to work. Imagine my alarm when one Spring morning I wake up really early because I was hearing groaning coming from the guest room, and when I called The Husband’s name he didn’t answer.

Now, I’m not the bravest blogger around (or should I say, pre-blogger since the web wasn’t yet), but I jumped out of bed, put on a robe over my pajama as I gathered my courage, and rushed into the guest room. The Husband was grey-pale, bending over in agony over the twin-size bed, unable to speak.

I had never, ever seen him in such a horrible state. That’s the only time when I’ve seen him in such pain. It was awful to see.

I immediately said I’d call an ambulance, but he Did.Not.Want.An.Ambulance. I said nothing, got dressed and told him I was taking him to the hospital. At this point he was so nauseous he was holding a small garbage can on his hands since he knew he wouldn’t make it to the bathroom, so he couldn’t argue.

While I got the car out of the garage and next to the nearest door, he managed to put on a pair of slacks over his pajama and a brand-new very nice pair of shoes. Big mistake, those shoes.

We get to the emergency room which was only 10 minutes away from our house, I stop the car exactly by the entrance, help him get out (while he put down the little garbage can) and walk with him leaning on my shoulder to the nurses’ station. “Kidney stone”, says the nurse just from looking at him.

I went and parked the car. After I found a parking spot and walked back to the building The Husband was lying on a stretcher in full view of anyone coming into the Emergency Room, wearing only an IV on his arm, a plastic ID bracelet, and one of those little hospital nightgowns with 2 strings that tie on your back. If it weren’t for the sheet they (mercifully) draped over his naughty bits, it would have been a full-nudity situation. The Husband’s 6’4″ and on the hefty side, and those little nightgowns leave nothing to the imagination. I completed the hospital paperwork, and he looked glad to see me as they carted him away for lab tests. I told him I had to go home to call our respective employers so they knew we would be absent, and our parents. Back then in pre-cell phone days I had to go home and call.

When I got back to the Emergency Room I had some trouble finding The Husband, but sure enough, he was still there, heavily medicated. He was still grey but wasn’t groaning. The doctor came over and told me that it was one small kidney stone, said we could go home, gave me a small sieve for when the stone passed, a list of instructions, and told me to call him back when The Husband passed the stone.

But where were his clothes, I asked? The doctor said, “They’re in a bag right next to the bed.” After a pause, he muttered, “There’s no bag,” and disappeared.

I would have left without the clothes – had the hospital been amenable to lending us a sheet for modesty – since the particular trousers were old. But the shoes were new, and The Husband hates shopping for shoes because he wears a size 13 wide and those aren’t easy to find.

It took me over an hour and I canvassed every person – patients included – in the emergency room but found the shoes, along with the clothes.

On the way home, The Husband remembered that we were scheduled to travel to England with his mom and his sister the upcoming Saturday (it was Tuesday), and asked me to leave him home and go on the trip without him. “Out of the question!” I said, before he even finished his sentence.

He passed the kidney stone two days later, recovered immediately and hasn’t had any other occurrences. The trip to the UK was a success and we had a great time.

I’m praying that The Anchoress has as great an outcome.

—————————————————–

Dr. Sanity has the Carnival.

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Death on the sands! Call the nanny state!

Via Huber,
Reason on Line uncovers the scandal: Castles Made of Sand IV: The Revenge — This Time It’s Personal

Is this from The Onion?

Noooo….

The article’s in the New England Journal of Medicine: Sudden Death from Collapsing Sand Holes. Where the NJEM goes, can CNN be far behind?

Or, as a commenter in the Reason post says,

Good thing the New England Journal of Medicine is covering this issue…nothing screams Medicine like people falling into holes…

Here, I’ve invented a cure:

WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING

You can thank me later. Nominations to the Nobel Prize for Medicine are deeply appreciated.

(Later today I’ll go to the beach and photograph one of these lurking dangers as a public service to my readers.)

Update, Saturday June 30:
I did go to the beach that day and photographed, but wasn’t able to post the photos because I was too lazy until today. So here you have them:

Holes to China, or craters of death?

This one has a lethal weapon ready to chew your toes:


I post, you decide.

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Welcome to the Garden Salad State

As if NJ didn’t have enough bureaucrats:
Welcome to the Office of Nutrition and Fitness:

The new office will coordinate the department’s existing obesity prevention programs. There are programs to promote breastfeeding, promote sports and physical activity at all ages, encourage fruit and vegetable consumption, and provide fresh fruits and vegetables to eligible women, children and seniors. The new Office of Nutrition and Fitness is expected to open this summer.

Of course the state’s spending your money faster than you can burn calories:

The $15 million Safe Routes to School program helps communities create safer walkways, bikeways and street crossings near schools. It is part of Governor Jon Corzine’s $74 million initiative to improve pedestrian safety statewide.

but there’s still plenty of opportunity to make a buck or two:

The Academy encourages healthy changes at the community level by training participants and offering mini-grants of up to $10,000 that can be used for such projects as starting walking clubs, creating walking maps, offering swimming lessons or water aerobics, or even starting a community or school garden, for example. So far, 20 communities have received mini-grants.

Garden (Salad) State Launches $2 Million Futile Fat Fight. That’s $2 million just on the ads. Then there’s the bureaucracy. And yes, it’ll cost plenty.

But back to those mini-grants. I’m willing to apply for one and start The Principality Blogger’s Walking, Mapping, Swimming and Gardening Club. I’ll contact the other blogger in the township and see if he’s willing to do the paperwork.

After all, all that walking, mapping, swimming and gardening will be taking up all my time.

Update: NJ resident and dear friend Maria sent me this, asking, “The fittest senior citizens of the world?”

Let’s hope the Office of Nutrition and Fitness doesn’t get any ideas and start promoting ice skaing.

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