Shopping and Education

I went to the supermarket to buy cucumbers.
Don’t sneer, I sometimes do
They were 81c each
They had a special -- two for $2.
I asked the seller if it wasn’t a mistake
She saw no problem.
I did.

Don't shoot, I am only trying to help!

Slowing down I turned the band. A car was standing on the shoulder of the road, a young woman lying on the ground next to it, another, standing above her, was waving frantically. I slammed on the break. Leaving my nine years old daughter in the car, my wife and I ran to see if we could help.

The woman on the ground was having a seizure. I turned her to her side, sent my wife to bring a blanket from the car, and send her mother, the waving woman, to park her car out of harm’s way. Nobody else stopped. The mother called 911.

I cleared the girl’s airway; my wife taking down notes on the time and pattern of the seizure (a necessary information for an investigating doctor). A police car arrived and stopped a few yards away.

“Who are you?” the policeman asked.

“I saw the woman on the ground, and stopped to see if I can help. That’s my car over there” I said, pointing to my car 20 yards away.

“Who is that woman?” the policeman asked, pointing at my wife.

“She is my wife.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” the policeman ordered.

“I am a train paramedic, and she is a registered nurse. The woman is suffering a seizure. We should wait until the ambulance arrives.”

“Are you arguing with me? I told you to fuck off,” the policeman raised his voice.

“OK, we are leaving. Here are my notes for the doctor,” my wife said, trying to hand the policeman her notes.

The woman on the grounds was having another fit, the mother was trying to give her water – which can be fatal in this situation – and the policeman’s hand was moving towards his holster.

Having just seen the recent videos of police shooting unarmed people, I raised my hands and stepped backward. “Don’s shoot,” I said. We are leaving.

The mother was begging for help. But it was not the job of the policeman. He only made sure we entered our car and did not return.

“Why was he shouting at you?” my daughter asked when we entered the car.

“Because we were trying to help,” I said.

“But what’s wrong with trying to help,” she would not let go.

Somehow, without thinking, regretting my words as they came out of my mouth, I said, “In America, trying to help, disturbs law and order.” What else could I say?

My daughter looked back at the policeman, who was still standing away from the girl on the ground, not bothering to look at her. “So why don’t we go somewhere else?” my daughter asked.

"Just stay away from the police, and all will be fine," I lied.

“Let’s have lunch,” my wife intervened.

We drove away.

ICU: where your financials are examined before your injuries

My daughter’s friend crashed his new sports car. He drove at night, and had three passengers with him – to violations of the Connecticut traffic law, as he is under eighteen. He also drove well over the speed limit. There is no doubt that he, and those in the car with him must be taught a lesson. But first they needed to be treated.

They were taken to ICU, three with private medical care, one without. The girl without, one of two daughters to a single mother, suffered the heaviest injuries. It was not for the doctors to teach them a lesson for their reckless behavior; the doctors’ job was simply to punish her for not having a private insurance.

The three others were admitted, arranged in private rooms, and immediately attended to. One of the guys suffered only minor, superficial injuries, yet the three of them underwent comprehensive tests, many unnecessary, each bringing the hospital thousands of dollars.

Six hours later, the uninsured girl was still sitting on a chair, waiting in the corridor. Not once had she been attended, her pulse taken, the risk of internal injuries assessed.

In America, this is all most people know, and such reality is taken as Force Majeure. After all, shouldn’t the rich be given priority over the poor? Can it be any other way? But it does not have to be like this.

The USA is the sixth medical system I have lived in. In the other five, too, I had private medical insurance. The private insurance guaranteed better rooms, when they were available, allowing me to choose my doctor and the clinic. But in time of emergency, it made no difference. Priority was based on injury and health, and on not on financial wellbeing. But over there, injured people are still patients – and people – not clients.

The arguments about the medical system in the USA: republican vs. democrats, Obamacare, are all missing the point. A culture that worships money more than life cannot provide good care to its population. Poor healthcare is merely a symptom.

Memorial Day, a Great Tradition That Should Be Abolished

On the day we are called to remember those who died serving the country, we walk dogs in the park, enjoying the sunny weather; we get a higher, nearly ghostly, view of the world from top of ferris wheels, and we spend on hotdogs and carnival food.

This Memorial Day, more veterans will come back to homelessness and joblessness, because those who served the country have done their job, and can go away – nobody cares where, as long as it’s cheap.

This Memorial Day, more of those wounded in battle, who were not lucky enough to suffer fatal wounds, will run out of medical care and insurance, because they were injured outside US territory.

This Memorial Day, those injured in the Boston Marathon will have to find their own money to pay for new limbs – after all their insurance does not cover act of war. Let’s pray that they are reach.

This memorial day, let’s forget the dead and give the money we were planning to spend on celebrating to those who are still alive. They need it more.

If we do, maybe this Memorial Day, will turn the country to a place that those who serve it will be proud to live for, and not only die for.

Guns Don't Kill; Lead Does

If it's not the number of gun in the street that is responsible for the difference, as some would argue, what must we conclude about the people of America?  Then again, should such people be allowed weapons?

If It’s Legal Is It Still a Bribe?

I like our local paper. Mostly it’s harmless; sometimes it’s funny; but occasionally it captures things just the way they are. This was the case last week.

Whether it was carelessness, a blunt political statement, or a dark sense of humor that made the editor put the two articles side by side, the result is sinister: those who give money get regulation bent in their favor. This is true in our local town, in the state, and no doubt in Washington. There it is much worse.

While it might seem natural to those educated in a system whose education policy makers will not dare upset those whose money help them become policy makers in the first place, in most countries this behavior is unlawful. In China it warrants the capital punishment.

There are many moral and sociological reasons why the rich should not be allowed to bend laws in their favor – at least not bluntly and directly. This is an unstoppable slope that leads to a society where the rich are above the law and the poor are slaves – a typical third world country.

As we have seen here in recent years, once a law favors a group, it become easier for group to ensure that future laws will favor them as well, making them richer and even more powerful in their ability to have laws bent in their favor. The number of rich decreases, yet they become more powerful. The poor become poorer, their numbers increase but they are stripped of power. Haven’t we seen it here already?

This was Europe in the 1700s, the place that the father of America escaped from to build a better society. It took 300 years, but now, at last, it seems that the ills of 1700 Europe are catching up. With eyes wide shut we are stepping towards what we escaped from. Will it be too late when we wake up?

CIA Director Resigns

I wonder if it were the Afghans or the Iraqis who complained to the USA that they would not accept to be the target of assassinations by anyone without implacable moral record.

Just Another Anniversary

Once again I have been informed by my medical insurance company that at the anniversary of my policy they will reduce the coverage, while increasing the premium well above inflation.

It is scary to think that the price of insurance per family is the equivalent of a new family car every year. It is even scarier when you realize that even with insurance, my medical expenses in the USA are higher than when I was living in Europe without insurance.

But would you expect any difference, when profit, and not medical care, is the only objective they are measured by?

Let computers do the thinking

I was buying a book on Amazon, and this is the message I got:

When you buy this book now for $48.95 and sell it back later for a $0.45 Amazon.com Gift Card, it could cost you as little as $48.50.

Only a computer can think it's a good deal.  But they do more and more of the thinking for us.

Another One Bites The Dust

Another opportunity for the Internet to become the tool for significant social change has bite the dust, as Twitter announced on Thursday that it will begin deleting users' tweets in countries that require it.

Capitalism – disinterested in social order, tyranny or justice – has won another dollar. Let us keep the social excuses for intervening in countries internal affairs, only to those who don't pay us.

The Arab Spring will be remember as blip in the history of twitter as a company that could change important things, now they are back to changing our consumer behavior, telling us which porn is the best.

Well done twitter. I am logging off.



And the same for the Haiku challenge:

Twitter removes twits
If the state asks. Who is state?
What about freedom?

Europe vs. America

I attended a European American Christmas dinner, and I am still unsure if I prefer the French pretend intellectual depth, or the American pride in their intellectual shallowness. 

 

The latest from Dad (Dictators against discrimination)

UN Flags flew at Half-Mast for Kim Jong-il's Funeral, followed by a moment of silence for the North Korean Dictator, who killed, tortured and starved millions of his own people. The UN spokeswoman said it was merely following the customary protocol upon the deaths of state leaders.

Lawyers for the Dad (Dictators against discrimination) are now suing the the UN for discrimination against the deceased leaders of Iraq and Iran. “The fact that the N. Korean dictator was not killed in the hand of the UN forces, cannot be considered relevant, and will not be accepted as a valid excuse to justify the discrimination against Kim's his Libyan and Iraqi peers,” said the spokesman for the organization.

Human right legal experts believe that an out-of court settlement, which will include the permanent placement of the dictators' statues in the UN assembly hall, is likely to be reached soon.

When liberal views go unchecked

Unchecked liberalism eventually goes out of control and destroy itself: Hitler, rose to power democratically; Until recently, unchecked liberal views allowed undemocratic movements to flourish in Europe. What does it mean to the US today?

Are you ready?

The sound of children playing in the playground, arguing, shouting, laughing, tells us that they are all having a good time chasing each other, climbing and hiding. All of a sudden all sound stops. Then, a loud scream shutters the silence. It takes five minutes before an adult reaches the scene to find a circle of children standing over a child lying on the ground, apparently unconscious. The children seem unsure what to do. Some are poking the child on the ground hoping for some response. There is none. Others are calling their parents on their cells. Someone suggests calling 911. 

Accidents happen. They are unavoidable part of life, and its folly to believe otherwise. So while we try to keep our children safe and teach them how to avoid danger, it’s also our responsibility to prepare them for times when things do go wrong. Because it has been shown many times that a capable young child can save other’s life. Often, first-aid and emergency training is the difference between saving life and death. 

However, first-aid training for children is uncommon in America, where parents and authorities alike behave as if it’s better to protect the fragility of children and spare them the mental inconvenience of facing unpleasant reality, than to rely on their resilience and prepare them for emergency situations. This attitude of ‘if we don’t think about it, it won’t happen to us’ is nothing but negligence. 

In many countries, minimal-cost first-aid and other emergency courses are available to all by the public emergency services. Children are especially encouraged to take these courses. 

I can vividly remember the half day courses my friends and I used to take every other year to refresh the ABCD of first aid (Airways, Breathing, Circulation, Danger). Extracting the life-sized manikin on which we practiced mouth-to-mouth resuscitation would bring embarrassed giggles; pressing the pressure point in the groin to stop severe bleeding from the lower limbs was always accompanied by pre-pubescent jokes. 

But the material we repeatedly practice in these courses as children became inseparable part of who we are. Only recently a childhood friend who attended these courses, found himself involved in an accident. The dormant, nearly forgotten first-aid skills he’d practiced so many years ago emerged when he needed them most, and he managed to keep an injured person alive until the ambulance arrived, and the medics took over. 

Children today, just like when we were young, will find themselves in dangerous situations. This we cannot avoid. So instead of pretending that emergencies don’t happen, let’s prepare them. Because the more emergency-aware children there are, the safer we and our children will be.

Your Privacy. Do they give a shit?

Publish Post

(image swiatobiektywu)

Why do our privacy watchdogs attack social networks, and once again, let financial institution, whose privacy practices are far worse, get away untouched? 

The other day, I got a letter from a financial institution I have an account with. 

Customer privacy and security have never been more important to us. We want you to know what we're doing to protect your privacy and keep your information secure … Following is a copy of our Privacy Notification.

For a moment I felt reassured to know that they really take my privacy seriously. Wouldn't you be? Well, At least until you read the rest of the letter



PRIVACY POLICY

This Policy explains what the Company does to keep information about you private and secure. … . Please read this Policy carefully.Q. Is information about me shared within your family of companies?
A. Yes. We may share information about you within our family as required or permitted by law. ….

Q. Is information about me shared with service providers and financial companies outside your family of companies?
A. Yes, as permitted by law. ….

Q. Is information about me shared with non-financial companies outside your family of companies?
A. Yes. We may share information about you with companies outside of our family as permitted by law. ….

Q. Is information about me shared in any other ways?
A. Yes. We may also share information about you in other ways, as required or permitted by law. …

Is there anyone they will not share your private information with? In other words, they don't even try to hide that they care about your privacy as long as they don't find an opportunity to make money by not caring about it.

I hope that knowing that your privacy is in such good hands  makes you feel reassured.  And this happens in a society that brainwashes its citizens that socialism takes away your right to privacy.