Day: October 21, 2024

Ever Have One Of Those Days?

You know the kind of day I mean….bad medical news, bad financial news, job loss, auto repair and on and one…..

But this guy had a day to remember….

The Kentucky man’s body had made it as far as the operating room where they were to harvest his organs when Natasha Miller says she realized a problem: The dead donor wasn’t dead. It was October 2021, and she had been tasked with preserving the donated organs for transplantation. But the man who was to supply those organs was “moving around—kind of thrashing,” she tells NPR of that day at Baptist Health hospital in Richmond, Ky. “And then when we went over there, you could see he had tears coming down. He was crying visibly.” The procedure did not move forward—the two doctors who were to remove the organs backed out, and Miller describes a “very chaotic” and upsetting scene. More on what allegedly happened, and the fallout:

  • “TJ”Hoover II. They were told the 36-year-old had overdosed and was brain dead. Rhorer says that as he was being taken to the OR, she saw his eyes open. “He was tracking. His eyes were tracking us,” she tells WKYT. “We were told it was just reflexes, just a normal thing. Who are we to question the medical system?” Rhorer is now Hoover’s caretaker.
  • What Miller says she heard: Miller worked for Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) and says that when the case coordinator called KODA to discuss the situation, the coordinator was allegedly told to “find another doctor to do it.” Miller recalled the coordinator responded, “‘There is no one else.’ She’s crying—the coordinator—because she’s getting yelled at.”
  • From another KODA employee: Nyckoletta Martin, who also worked as an organ preservationist for KODA, wasn’t present in the OR, but says she had read the case notes, and found them concerning. Prior to harvesting, cardiac catheterization is carried out to evaluate the health of the heart. Per the case notes, “The donor had woken up during his procedure that morning for a cardiac catheterization. And he was thrashing around on the table,” Martin says.
  • KODA’s stance: “No one at KODA has ever been pressured to collect organs from any living patient,” it said in a statement. “KODA does not recover organs from living patients. KODA has never pressured its team members to do so.”
  • An investigation: Martin shared her concerns via a letter to the US House Energy and Commerce Committee, which in September held a hearing on organ procurement organizations. The Kentucky state attorney general’s office says the allegations are being reviewed. The federal Health Resources and Services Administration is said to be investigating as well.

All I could say after reading this report was….”HOLY CRAP”!

Anything to add?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Lessons In Foreign Policy

I have been working in the arena of international relations for many many years and I have watched the policies of the US go down the toilet since 1975…..and they just keep getting worse and since GW onward it has been a complete disaster.

These ten lessons are what many of us have watched take shape since those days…sad to say our policies in the Middle East have been the most f*cked up….

Enough Already by Scott Horton is a must-read for anyone who wants to know the truth about US foreign policy in the Middle East for the last 35 years. Horton starts his exposé with the 9/11 tragedy, and then details all the terror wars up until today. Among all the facts and figures, Horton teaches ten important lessons. Each chapter focuses on a specific country, but these lessons are woven throughout each.

Lesson 1—The US is Not Loyal to Its Allies

“If you want to know who America’s next enemy is, look at who we are funding right now.”—Dave Smith

I used to think this statement was an oversimplification, but it is deadly accurate. Our government routinely makes allies only to turn around and attack them years later. One clear example is what would become al Qaeda. In the 1980s, the US armed Afghan resistance fighters to oppose Russia in Afghanistan. After 9/11, al Qaeda became the archenemy of the US. Then, about ten years later, they started arming them again to fight in Iraq and in Syria.

In Afghanistan, the US supported the Taliban during the Clinton administration. Then multiple presidents fought a 20-year war against them only to give full control of Afghanistan back to the Taliban in 2021.

The US followed the same pattern with Iraq. The US armed them against Iran during the 1980s. They supported Hussein all the way to Iraq War I in 1990. Then they bombed and sanctioned the country until they captured him in 2003 and had him executed.

Lesson 2—The US Prolongs Wars

Without US involvement in the Middle East, both sides in a conflict would be similar in strength and have less resources to continue. In the Yemen War, the US sends arms to Saudi Arabia, who then sends them to their allies in Yemen to fight the Houthis, even though the Houthis “won” years ago. Take the US out of the equation and the Saudi’s allies wouldn’t be able to continue the war.

The same thing happened in Somalia when the US armed Ethiopian forces to invade. Continued US support incentivized the Ethiopian groups to continue fighting after it started. Outside the Middle East, this lesson played out the exact same way in the Ukraine-Russia war. Plus, the US stopped peace negotiations between Zelensky and Putin through their proxy Boris Johnson.

(there are 8 more lessons)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/ten-lessons-us-foreign-policy-enough-already

The US needs to turn over a new leaf and go back to being the voice of reason in the world…..we started losing our way in 1992 and the decline has never slowed down.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”