Exploding testicles? Detachable penises? Apophallation (biting it off)?
It's the
In nursing we're supposed to use these things called "nursing diagnoses" which are simply generalities of symptoms. For example, Fluid Volume Excess is a nursing diagnosis which points out the symptom of the patient having too much fluid somewhere (CHF, Ascites, Cardiac Tamponade, etc.).
They drill these things into you in nursing school, and you promptly toss them once you hit the floor as a nurse. Like unions, nursing diagnoses served a purpose once, but now they are crusty soot that only gum up the works. They only thing they're good for is feeding the publishing industry.
Why there are so many books about a useless list can probably only be answered by those thrilling people who love to write books about HIPPA.
At any rate, one official nursing diagnosis is Energy Field Disturbance, and I'll give you one guess who made that one up.
Yup, t'was those Therapeutic/Quantum Touch kookadoodles.
I've posted about them before.
Surprisingly, according to my site meter thingy that's one of my most visited posts, second only to the one I did on the Illinois Enema Bandit.
How did Energy Field Disturbance get on the list in the first place?
Sarah Glazer does a good job of sorting it all out in this article. She traces the quackery of therapeutic touch through a philosophical lens:
The themes of societal oppression (in this case, doctors' domination of nurses), scientific relativism, and the inhumanity of modern science echo throughout a 1995 essay by Jean Watson, a former president of the National League of Nursing and professor of nursing at the University of Colorado, a hotbed of therapeutic touch. Watson sees nursing's evolution "into its own postmodern paradigm" as a way of returning the profession to its historical roots as a caring profession and turning away from strict rationalist approaches. Citing Derrida's and Foucault's insistence that claims to knowledge are really claims to power, Watson comes to the nihilistic conclusion that since "there is no one way of knowing, being, and experiencing reality" and since "the rationalist model does not fit," any way of describing reality is as good as any other.
The Hubble Space Telescope turns 17 and still brings us gorgeous views like this of the Carina Nebula.
Get lost in it with this awesome zoomable image!
Also, start packing: earth-like planet found (via).
Now here it is, your url of the day:
Jose Guadalupe Posada Collection
Pope Benedict has decreed Limbo to be null and void.
Why? Because Limbo is “only a theological hypothesis” and not a “definitive truth of the faith”.
I'm sorry, there's a difference??
From Slate:
Though the Vatican has effectively done an about-face, it won't directly state that limbo never existed. Instead, it says that official church dogma never included the concept and that limbo remains a "possible theological hypothesis." Why the hemming and hawing? The church can't admit to going against hundreds of years of theological interpretation. Such a reversal would be a sign of error. And since the Roman Catholic Church is imbued with the Holy Spirit, it can never be wrong.
What the hell is this? The Month of Great Writers Dying??
Now David Halbertam has died - killed in a car crash.
The topics he covered were vast, and his writing brilliant.
The writing world will now be anemic for a quite a while.
The massacre at Virginia Tech was a tragedy and it was undeniably newsworthy. But was it worth the orgasmic news media frenzy? No. It should've been front-page stuff for several days in Virginia and for only one day for the rest of America.
The question is: what benefit, what single benefit, does this media frenzy provide?
Nothing. Not a thing.
Lionel Shriver in the Washington Post writes,
Even more than these gruesomely gratuitous incidents themselves, I have come to dread the campus shooting's ritual media aftermath -- a secondary wave of atrocity, all conducted under the guise of grief, soul-searching concern and an ostensible determination to ensure that no demented loner ever opens fire on his classmates again. Yet the bloated photographs on front pages, the repeating loops of interviews on cable news, the postings of warped creative writing assignments on the Web, and perhaps above all the airing of Cho's self-pitying, quasi-messianic video clips on every network all help ensure that similar incidents will indeed recur -- and soon.
We feel that these individuals and groups, especially Dr. Steger and Chief Flinchum, have borne the brunt of unwarranted criticism by members of the media.
Certainly in this sensitized day and age, my own college writing — including a short story called ''Cain Rose Up'' and the novel RAGE — would have raised red flags, and I'm certain someone would have tabbed me as mentally ill because of them...
and
Essentially there's no story here, except for a paranoid a--hole who went DEFCON-1.
Just published, The Children of Hurin is apparently one of the lost tales Tolkien worked on before LOTR.
Adam Tolkien at Amazon:
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Húrin, the earliest versions of which date back to the end of the First World War, became the dominant story in my grandfather's later work on Middle-earth. When The Lord of the Rings was finished, he rewrote and greatly enlarged it, but was unable to bring it to a finished form. In the story, the brief and passionate lives of Túrin and his sister Niënor are caught up in a great war between the immortal Elves and Morgoth, the first Dark Lord; for they are cursed as the children of Húrin, the only man to have defied Morgoth to his face. This tragic tale of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, and of a huge wingless dragon of fire, might have been a story to rival The Lord of the Rings in popularity had it been published then, and though it has been glimpsed through other Tolkien books, this is the first time it has been presented in a way that it can be properly appreciated in its own right.
A few selections from Kurt Vonnegut's final book, A Man Without A Country:
While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, their powerful political connections or great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.
So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
And on the subject of books: Our daily news sources, newspapers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books do we learn what's really going on.
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
Here is a lesson in creative writing.
First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
After any major tragedy the press stumble all over themselves to maddening and embarrassing lengths. The Virginia Tech massacre is no different.
Maddening:
Reporter - We understand there were two different areas where shots were fired.
Official - Yes, there are two.
Reporter - So were there two different shooters?
Official - We only know of one, but the investigation is ongoing.
Reporter - So you can't rule out two different shooters?
Official - We don't know yet.
Reporter - So you don't know if there were two?
Official - I just said we don't know. The investigation is ongoing.
Reporter - O.K., let's just assume there were two...
Embarrassing:
Reporter - After you knew about the first shooting, why didn't you lock down the campus?
Official - The initial response found what appeared to be an isolated incident.
Reporter - Yes, but then another shooting broke out later. Why didn't you get everyone off campus after the first shooting?
Official - Uh, I just answered that.
Reporter - Yes, but why didn't you shut down the entire city?
Official - What?!
Reporter - There was a shooting. You're responsible for the safety of the students. Why didn't you shut down the campus, the city, and the state?
And so it goes.
I've watched three or four interviews with the president of VT and they've all gone the way of the second example above. I mean, sure, if there was some sort of gross negligence in protecting people then by all means the press should expose that, but they are going overboard with the attempts to blame someone.
The tragedy was the fault of one gun-crazy madman.
I've turned off the TV, but when I turn it on tomorrow morning I'm pretty sure I'll be treated to a story (with "experts"!) about how dangerous my kids' schools are right now and what little is being done to protect them from Korean madmen with guns.
Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://www.tvobscurities.com/
But there are unwritten rules in multicultural America. One of them is that tolerance of public bigotry is correlated with how much power and authority the bigot has. So a poor urban black guy who routinely calls women “hos” is not subject to widespread disapproval. In fact an entire music industry is structured to pander to his hatred of women and gays. But when you have power or come close to power, and when you are not a member of a minority yourself, the rules change.
Even though Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" is news parody, a fact that its host is the first to point out, why is John Stewart one of the sharpest interviewers on American television?
Take his interview several weeks ago with John Bolton, former U.S. U.N. ambassador, in which he roundly took Bolton to task for his historical ignorance...
In discussing the Executive Administration's love of secrecy and imperialism Stewart pointed out how President Lincoln made it a point to surround himself with people on all sides of the political fence in order to obtain a greater viewpoint on issues. Bolton, in full Wilford Brimley scowl, dismissed this first as historically incorrect and second as improper.
The next night Stewart called historian and recent Lincoln biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, to verify that Bolton had just spoke out of his ass, which she most certainly confirmed. (She ended the call with the wonderful maxim by Lyndon Johnson: "It is better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out, than to have them outside the tent pissing in.")
A point Stewart has been making of late is that secrecy certainly has its place, but to adopt absolute secrecy and dismissal of all other viewpoints rubs our constitution the wrong way. One fine point of this is the current administration's crass attitude that it is not the administration of America, but only the administration of its political base. It's not the first to do this, to be sure, but it is certainly the most polarizing administration in American history. It is an administration that not only ignores the rest of America (and the world) but shows contempt for it.
And based on what? The explanations started out halfway desirable: wanting to shake off all the bureaucratic/political barnacles that impede progress, wanting to be a maverick and leap past all the bickering suits and git 'er done.
But these ambitions later degraded into simple "convictions".
That's the only explanation given now: convictions!
The administration has become so myopic, so conceited that it doesn't even bother with its base anymore. This is the leadership that makes gi-normous! decisions based on what one man believes about things. Let me repeat that: the administration makes life and death decisions based on how a single man "feels"!
That's not Animal Farm, that's Animal Farm with a paranoid schizophrenic Napoleon!
With such a huge disconnect between the administration and the populace can we still be American about things and own our administration? We elected it (at least once), and it's supposed to be ours.
Many of us wanted that maverick in the White House who would brush aside the Washington Way and get things done. Our mistake was in electing the kid who smashes radios to see what's inside instead of hiring a proper electrician. If that kid's gone screwy, what can be done?
Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://welltoldtales.com/
Kurt Vonnegut has moved to Tralfamadore.
I dreamed last night of our descendants a thousand years from now. If there are still human beings on Earth, every one of those human beings will be descended from us - and from everyone who has chosen to reproduce.
In my dream, our descendants are numerous. Some of them are rich, some poor, some likeable, some insufferable. I ask them how humanity, against all odds, managed to keep going for another millennium. They tell me that they and their ancestors did it by preferring life over death for themselves and others at every opportunity, even at the expense of being dishonored. They endure all sorts of insults and humiliations and disappointments without committing suicide or murder. They are also the people who do the insulting and humiliating and disappointing.
I endear myself to them by suggesting a motto they might like to put on their belt buckles or tee shirts. I give them a quotation from that great 19th century moralist and robber baron Jim Fisk.
Jim Fisk uttered his famous words after a particularly disgraceful episode having to do with the Erie Railroad. Fisk had no choice but to find himself contemptible. He thought this over, and then he shrugged and said what we all must learn to say, if we want to go on living much longer: ''Nothing is lost save honor.''
Earth is such a pretty blue and pink and white pearl in the pictures NASA sent me. It looks so clean. You can't see all the hungry, angry Earthlings down there--and the smoke and the sewage and trash and sophisticated weaponry. I flew over Appalachia the other day--at about 500 miles an hour and five miles up. Life is said to be horrible down there in many places, but it looked like the Garden of Eden to me. I was a rich guy, way up in the sky, munching dry-roasted peanuts and sipping gin.
Eden.
"The Earth is our cradle, which we are about to leave," says Arthur C. Clarke. "And the Solar System will be our kindergarten." Most of us will never leave this cradle, of course, unless death turns out to be a form of astronautics.
There is always gin.
Gin.
When I think about my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again. This moment and every moment lasts forever.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.Mass Hysteria. It's fascinating.
One of the more current healthcare hysterias is autism which, according to highly-suspect statistics, 1 out of every 150 kids has.
Ridiculous figures like that open quackery doors wide and also give Big Pharma marketers an orgasm.
Autism has been steeped in controversy for the past decade. Although little or none of the hysteria has any foothold in science, it still cooks up some good fear soup. Mmmm...needs Skeptic-brand salt!
Look at last year's HPV vaccine hysteria. The numbers were abused and fears used.
Charles Mackay would be proud.
Medical studies are often abused and misinterpreted, as John Allen Paulos notes:As I've written before (although with a different number), it's been conclusively established that 43.58871563% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Hysteria comes from the greek word for uterus and was used as a description of frigid women in the 19th century. One common treatment back then (per Wikipedia) was "massage of the patient's genitalia by the physician and later vibrators or water sprays to cause orgasm."
"Doctor, I'm gonna need daily appointments!"
I don't think you can cure mass hysteria that way (or even satiate Big Pharma marketers).
However, here are a few tricks all should know:
1) Beat any statistics that come your way to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat.
2) Before jumping on any bandwagon, let it circle the track for a month and then see how many passengers are still on (or alive).
3) Double...wait, TRIPLE check all references (including cavity searches).
4) Throw out all endorsements by any "council", "federation", "association", "group", "society" or any 'official'-sounding gaggle of special-interest geese (especially if they have patriotic-sounding words in their names). They are usually against the very thing their names suggest they're for.
5) Stay away from doctors with vibrators or water sprays (I hope you knew that already).
Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://myspace.com/polkafloyd
I'll just say this about the Imus/Gibson/Richards/etc. racial/prejudice stuff:
If they are all really "good people" who accidentally said "bad things" they "didn't mean", then why didn't they immediately recognize it and immediately apologize instead of doing so only after being called out?
You don't say such things in public unless you think them quite often (and I suspect commonly use in private).
Now here it is, your url of the day:
Virtual Poetry Magnets
Here's another scene from my hilarious reality series, "Nobody's Sick On The Weekend" :
It's 8 p.m. on a Saturday night and I walk into Mr. Falk's room. "Hi! How'ya feelin' tonight? Did you have a good day? Any pain?" I rattle off my usually stuff while hurrying into my assessment. We're short-staffed again. No aide. I've got five more people to see, blood to give, a crazy yeller (as usual), and an admission coming in.
Mr. Falk, always in a good mood, seems a little down tonight. When I ask how far he walked today, that's when it comes out. He didn't.
This is Mr. Falk's thing: he's a rare 70 year old man who has a very strong desire to get better. He doesn't want to be sick. He hates it. Every day he beams with pride in telling me how much he has walked: 10 yards, 30 yards, halfway down the hall...
Why is that rare? Because many people at his age just go with the flow, and the flow of a hospital is slow. Mr. Falk wants to swim!
He's got some serious medical problems. He's scheduled for yet another surgery next week. It's a long haul of sickness but every day he shows he's determined to get better and walk out of this place. He ain't no "poor me" story; screw the bureaucratic pace of the hospital!
So it's Saturday, Easter weekend, and nobody from Physical Therapy came in. "I was hoping to make it to the end of the hallway," Mr. Falk says.
Damn! I look at him. He's got a wound vac, oxygen, a Foley cath, rectal tube, three IV lines... I seriously don't have time for this shit. I can't do it on my own and there's no one to help.
"Do you want to stand up?" I pitifully offer. I half-expect, half-hope he says no and "That's OK, you're too busy. I need to rest."
But his eyes widen and he nods excitedly, "Yes! I would love to stand up!"
Fuck! I get all the tubes and crap in order and help Mr. Falk stand by the side of his bed. He streteches his arms, arches his back, takes deep breaths, does a few knee raises and says, "Oh, that feels sooo good!"
He sits back down then lays back in bed and thanks me.
I arrange all the tubes and crap back to where they were and rush off to see another patient. That took a lot of precious time. I promise myself to congratulate my sorry ass later.
"I hope P.T. comes tomorrow," he says.
I hope P.T. comes tomorrow, too. But they're off.
Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://sexy-witch.blogspot.com/index.html
The other night an evil pharmacist injected a diabolical chemical into all the IV bags and turned the patients in my hospital into flesh-craving, blood-sucking zombies!
With only a penlight, stethescope, and a coffee mug shard I fought my way out of their deadly clutches...
Ok, really it's just Spring Break. No bloginating this week.
