"Support the Troops" Part 34: The Accreditation Process

Clear the decks, I've been thinking. How is it possible that the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Hospitals did not see what was happening at Walter Reed? Granted, I'm a technological idiot and have trouble navigating the site, but it's a wonder to me that the hospital has received a Gold Standard for service, given the reports last week about the conditions in which our wounded military have been living in. Someone smarter than me should look into this.

Update: I have found a link to the apparent JCAHO survey at the Walter Reed site. As this page makes clear, the whole facility couldn't possibly have been surveyed. This is the Management of the Environment of Care page.
The part that trips me up is that I can't find out if Building 18 is considered part of the overall survey of Walter Reed. It appears so from the JCAHO website. If that's the case, their accreditation should be yanked. Now. If it's not, there doesn't appear to be a separate survey of that building. If that's the case, then it should be done, oh, forever ago. This page discusses the process for assessing a patient's response to care, among many other things, and is probably the most important for purposes of this discussion. I'll see what I can dissect and post more later. Flipping outrage, this is.

Oscar Predictions, Set In Stone

While I could not possibly care less about most of pop culture, I'm gay, and it's in my DNA to be an Oscar whore. That said, here are my Oscar predictions, set in stone, with no editing allowed later. I haven't seen all the movies up for awards, which is causing me to receive letters from the Homosexual Movie Fan Club wanting their membership card returned. That being said, here it is:

BEST PICTURE
"Little Miss Sunshine"

BEST ACTOR
Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
This is tough, because Eddie Murphy has received several awards for "Dreamgirls." But I'm going with Alan Arkin, "Little Miss Sunshine."

BEST ACTRESS
Helen Mirren, "The Queen"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
I would LOVE for Abigail Breslin to win for "Little Miss Sunshine," or Cate Blanchett for "Notes on a Scandal," but I think this is a "Dreamgirls" category, and say that Jennifer Hudson will win.

BEST DIRECTOR
Martin Scorsese, "The Departed"

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"
Funniest. Movie. Ever.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"The Queen"

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
"Cars"

ART DIRECTION
"Pan's Labyrinth"

CINEMATOGRAPHY
"Pan's Labyrinth"

COSTUME DESIGN
"The Queen"

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
"An Inconvenient Truth" (watching the heads explode will be an added bonus)

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
"Two Hands"

ORIGINAL SONG
"I Need To Wake Up" from "An Inconvenient Truth"

We'll find out tonight. However you watch, enjoy the show.

Bush's Poodle Pisses On His Leg

From the BBC via MSNBC: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's strongest ally in the Iraq war, is announcing the pullout of British troops from Iraq. It's over, baby. The only ones who don't know that are Bush and Cheney.

The One Where the Head of Middle America Explodes

The Republicans in the Senate refused to allow a DEBATE about the Iraq war. Just a flipping debate. They say that to do so would not support the troops. You see those yellow ribbons on cars all over the country, "Support the Troops." Let's talk about supporting the troops, and see what happens to the heads of middle america when they see this story.

From the Washington Post, a Pulitzer-worthy story in two parts, came out Sunday and today. This is part 1 and this is part 2. This story is about the medical care practically across the street from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the premier medical facility for injured veterans. The issue is that as medical technology has advanced, allowing people injured in war to live through it, and the number of people living through war injuries has overwhelmed the VA system. The building where these people are cared for is molded, busting out, criminally undermaintained. There are numerous, horrendous, deplorable examples all throughout the articles, but:

..."Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from prescription drugs and alcohol, which is sold on post, are part of the narrative here."

..."Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, said in an interview last week that a major reason outpatients stay so long, a change from the days when injured soldiers were discharged as quickly as possible, is that the Army wants to be able to hang on to as many soldiers as it can, "because this is the first time this country has fought a war for so long with an all-volunteer force since the Revolution."

So they want them to stick around, so they can be sent back. Read on.

"...A reconnaissance and land-navigation expert, Shannon was so disoriented that he couldn't even find north. Holding the map, he stumbled around outside the hospital, sliding against walls and trying to keep himself upright, he said. He asked anyone he found for directions."

"...Shannon, who wears an eye patch and a visible skull implant, said he had to prove he had served in Iraq when he tried to get a free uniform to replace the bloody one left behind on a medic's stretcher. When he finally tracked down the supply clerk, he discovered the problem: His name was mistakenly left off the "GWOT list" -- the list of "Global War on Terrorism" patients with priority funding from the Defense Department. He brought his Purple Heart to the clerk to prove he was in Iraq."

"...One amputee, a senior enlisted man who asked not to be identified because he is back on active duty, said he received orders to report to a base in Germany as he sat drooling in his wheelchair in a haze of medication. "I went to Medhold many times in my wheelchair to fix it, but no one there could help me," he said."

Had enough? Too bad, read on.

"...The soldier, Cpl. Jeremy Harper, returned from Iraq with PTSD after seeing three buddies die. He kept his room dark, refused his combat medals and always seemed heavily medicated, said people who knew him. According to his mother, Harper was drunkenly wandering the lobby of the Mologne House on New Year's Eve 2004, looking for a ride home to West Virginia. The next morning he was found dead in his room. An autopsy showed alcohol poisoning, she said."

"...Bomb blasts are the most common cause of injury in Iraq, and nearly 60 percent of the blast victims also suffer from traumatic brain injury, according to Walter Reed's studies, which explains why some at Mologne House wander the hallways trying to remember their room numbers."

That's enough, read the articles. Most of these guys are suffering from their wounds, including PTSD and traumatic brain injury, while naviagating the bullshit of the system, living in a mice- and roach-infested shithole. If this was a nursing home where your grandmother lived, it'd be shut down.

But Republicans aren't the only ones at fault here. Where the fuck are the Democrats screaming about this injustice? Where's the investigation? Why isn't the head of the VA hauled in front of Congress and demanded his resignation in abject humiliation? Where the hell is my party on this?

THIS is how we Support the Troops. Everyone get your putty knives out. Cleaning the mess of the exploded heads of middle america will be ugly.

Update at 7 p.m. MST: Joe Scarborough is leading with Britney's shaved head. I really hate these people. CORRECTION: Not leading, but that was the intro tonight.

Those Pesky Iranians

Don't allow shiny objects to distract you. Steve Clemons has a tutorial on the 2003 offer from Iran to the US to calm things down in the Middle East, that included nuclear transparency and intervention in Iraq. If you recall, we turned them down. See this post for more on that. Steve's tutorial breaks down some of the key players in this not-reported-on bombshell of a mess.

John Bolton, US Ambassador to the UN; Zalmay Khalilzad, former Envoy to Afghanistan, former Ambassador to Iraq. Nominated to be Bolton's replacement at the UN; Stephen Hadley, now National Security Adviser, former assistant to Condoleezza Rice, who held that job before becoming Secretary of State. None of these are small fishes in the large pond of geo-politics. Anyway. Read the tutorial.

Because, last week, Secretary of State Rice said that she had no clue that an overture was sent from the Iranians. None, nada. She's the SOS forgawdsakes. How could she NOT know? Funny you should ask.

How? Because it apparently went to Karl Rove. Karl has a long and (more and more) sordid history in Washington. This also went through Republican Congressman Bob Ney, who just went to prison for his role in the Abramoff scandal.

I realize it's more Inside Baseball. However, this is shit that matters. We're dancing on the edge of the abyss with Iran, making not-so-subtle threats and moving carrier groups to the Gulf (why else would we make a Navy guy head of CentCom, which is based in the desert? But I digress). What average people hear on their local evening news is the same lines said by the same people every day, until they expect that war will occur.

Don't let shiny objects distract you. There's a possibility that we could have avoided so many military and civilian deaths, but for the dumbfuckery of political operatives in the White House. No wonder the world loves us.

The Foreign Minister of Dumbfuckistan

This story has been all over liberal blogs, and for good reason. But John Edwards, former and current candidate for President, hired a couple of bloggers to assist his campaign. A good thing, considering how 'new media' and the internets tubes proved so important in the midterms, and will shape a lot of the '08 elections. He hired Shakespeares sister and Amanda at Pandagon (which is down for repairs at this writing).
But the Foreign Minister of Dumbfuckistan, Bill Donahue of the Catholic League (I will not link, if you're interested, Google his name for his greatest hits), who gets air time all over cable news outlets for reasons passing my understanding, who has some choice things to say about gays, victims of pedophilia, etc., started bitching about these two, because they've posted in the past about the backwards attitudes of the Catholic church on HIV and condoms, on abortion, on birth control. So, our Foreign Minister of Dumbfuckistan, Mr. Donahue, freaked out all over national television, and before you knew it, aides to Dumbfuckistan were coming out of the walls. The two resigned from the Edwards campaign, to keep the focus on Edwards and his campaign rather than themselves.

That's the background, but the story continues, because lemming followers of our Foreign Minister to Dumbfuckistan wrote letters to the bloggers. Ugly letters. One was written by a photographer for National Geographic, for chrissakes. Anyway, god love him, Jesus' General writes letters to those shitbags of liberty who wrote the bloggers. Don't be drinking liquids while reading his posts, unless you have windex for your monitor. An excerpt:

Dear Mr. De Leone,

I'm very intrigued by your email to Amanda Marcotte--especially the part where you invite her to suck your "LONG COCK ASSHOLE." That sounds like a very interesting piece of anatomy. Can you send pictures? Is it the result of some horrible industrial accident? Or are you simply describing the length of your rectum in a rather colorful and alluring manner?

And what about your email address, "poppylongnthick?" Are you a priest?

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Seriously. Don't drink and read.

BREAKING: Anna Nicole Is Alive; She's Britney Spears

So, CNN is ALL over the Britney Spears rehab/not rehab, shaved head/tatoo thing; not to mention, every incremental piece of Anna Nicole's whateverstupidthingishappening. Man, that's some important news. They keep running the JUST IN graphic to show you that they KNOW breaking news. Meanwhile, there were back to back explosions in Iraq today, killing at least 8 people. And it's still early. Also, how how many soldiers have died? 3133. We have had the label of Shitbags of Liberty for the punditocracy. Maybe it's time to label CNN the Shitbags of Media, eh?

Delaying the Shitstorm

George Tenet's book has been delayed. Word on the internets is that it's not finished. I think that may be partially true. I think the other part is the White House is vetting it and simultaneously figuring how to spin it. Either way, it's now April 30, 2007. Operation TenetUnderTheBus Watch continues...

Testing, testing...

I've been held hostage for days by blogger. This is a test to see if it's operational. Here's hoping...

American Idolatry

Keith Olbermann has regular conversations about this show, with no small amount of snark, and Joe Scarborough has to talk about it almost daily, and Larry King has serious (seriously lost his career, but I digress) discussions with them regularly as well. It's almost become its own industry.

Maybe it's just me being too serious and overmedicated. But I have some observations about this show.

There is no other show that comes to mind that is dedicated to not just ridiculing, but holding in abject contempt, people's dreams. It is destination television for the cruel among us to ridicule to the point of obvious pain. There is a coda in our society that you can't amount to anything above trash unless you're a celebrity. These people, however bad they may be, see that as their ticket out of their misery. And people watch and laugh at their attempt to bring their dreams out of the primordial muck of their existence to become that celebrity. That means there's a cruel streak running deep in our country that is really disturbing.

I hate reality television in all forms, but I admit to watching the first season of the Apprentice. There are a gazillion others; there's an entire industry borne of becoming a reality television contestant. Survivor is another popular one. However judgmental I am about these other shows, and however popular they are with the average viewer, they don't approach the disquieting pile-on of laughing at someone's dream. We all have dreams. You didn't grow up saying you were going to be a janitor, or an accountant, or a burger-flipper. You had something you wanted to do with your life. You wound up with something else to do as work, but there is a dream inside of everyone that never really left us when we left childhood.

The packaging that is done by the producers to make the really bad look *really bad* only perpetuates my point. It's just alarming to me to see how much a freak show in modern times resembles the freak show circuses that came to small towns during the depression. And no one feels shame for it.

When I was younger, I correlated the two following statements: A half a billion people watched Wheel of Fortune, and George H.W. Bush was president. Today, gazillions of people watch American Idol and laugh at people's attempts to better their lives, and we're stuck in two wars and about to enter a third. It's no coincidence.

Why You Should Care About the NASA Scandal

Oh wait, you shouldn't....never mind.

Unless you care about the gazillions in the budget to fund this agency, and it's public humiliation that's been on teevee all day long. There's that.

User Error or Hostage-Taking?

I vote for user error, but I was held hostage by Blogger for several days. Yes, I'm fighting the new version, and will hold out as long as I can.

Anyway, a few loose ends: my health is fine, for the most part. The ultrasound came back fine, and I won't have to sell my house and leave the country, at least for awhile. But I have to say, making that decision changed my life. So if I do become sick, I have a plan to make it okay.

The Plame trial is getting more press each day, and Firedoglake is the place to be, as I've bleated constantly.

The yahoo Republicans filibustered a vote on the "surge" for Iraq this week, with a Republican sponsor of the bill voting for the filibuster. I wonder if he's looking for a new staff. Brilliant move (not so much). And Chuck Hagel, Presidential contender from the Republican side, is considering a career selling shoes. After blasting everyone on the committee last week about the wrongheadedness of the surge, he told them if they don't step up, like the American people want, they should go sell shoes. Well, he's in on the filibuster. Me, I prefer New Balance shoes, Chuck.

And this was done with almost no notice. It seems that Dear Leader has increased his powers within the country:

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

And, saddest of all, Molly Ivins has died. Rest in peace, Molly. You are needed now more than ever, and will be so, so missed.