Tag: right thing

Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness

Dr. Seuss's dilemma fish. I don't think it's from a book, but it expresses the roiling seas I'm feeling.

I’ve been quite grumpy today. And I am using grumpy quite euphemistically here.

I think it’s because of this election season. To be truthful, and I work deliberately to be intellectually honest, I think this part of the presidential election cycle always throw off my balance. Although within these current throes, it seems qualitatively different.

I don’t remember an election that I so fully did not (1) understand why anyone would vote for one of the candidates, and also did not (2) understand why people who I love would vote for one of the candidates (the one I am not supporting).

The second part there is the root of what troubles me. Not about the people I love, because I love them. Yet I’m struck by how good people support the unsupportable.

I wonder if they think that my choice is deplorable. This wraps me in pretzels and crimps my fine gold chain and makes me feel like the inside out alien pig that was a transporter fail in Galaxy Quest. Ir was gross. It squealed. It exploded.

It makes me ask: If my candidate was as bad as theirs, would I leave my political party behind? Would I accept my candidate’s crimes and misdemeanors because they serve my greater political purpose? Especially if my political goals were tightly aligned with my moral and ethical beliefs?

And, if my answer is “Yes,” and my candidate is an awful human who endangers not only our democracy but also the foundation of our country–these self-evident truths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness–am I just twisting my core beliefs for greasy political expediency? I use the word greasy on purpose. Yuck.

Last, is my political negative, the ones who I love, asking the same questions about me?

Dear lord, I sure hope so.

Posted on by docthink 7

Inaccessible = Unacceptable

Sign at the metro station telling people who need an elevator to call some body to get them a shuttle bus. But not from this station. MAD!

Dear Metro,

I hope it’s okay that I call you “Metro,” since you have so many names. We call you the train, subway and, when we want to get most official, WMATA.

What is the name that we can call you that will get your attention?

Because if I had your attention, you would know that I am not shocked. I am not appalled. I am not sickened. No, I am angry, with the shutdown of the elevator at my stop.

Do you have any idea that this is the stop for the National Rehabilitation Hospital? For the Washington VA Hospital? For the Washington Hospital Center? Did you know that these major hospitals serve many people who use wheelchairs. That they need to use their wheelchairs to get to their appointments, their therapy sessions, their chemotherapy?

So when you shut down the elevator at the station that serves these hospitals, you are seriously impacting the people trying to access services they need.

I get that the elevator needs to be “improved.” I can even accept that to switch out an elevator takes four months.

Okay, I can barely accept that. If you were building it new, it wouldn’t take four months, would it? And if it takes four months, why is the first month building the walls around it to close it? I only ask because I haven’t seen anybody working on it. But there’s green painted plywood blocking it.

But I’m thinking if I’m in a wheelchair and I have an appointment to see my doctor and I get to the station, I’m stuck. I can’t get out of the station. I have to call a random number on the flyer to transport me from another stop. And I have to get back on the train and go to that other stop.

Do you think that’s okay? Do you think that pasting a paper sign over a “wet floor” stanchion is decent notice? Do you think it’s cool to require somebody to call a number for a ride? Don’t you think that the shuttle should be waiting at the stop? Which stop, you ask? How about all immediately surrounding stops?

This makes me mad because the person in the wheelchair is already put upon by the fact that the elevator is on one side of the tracks. So if you’re coming from the campus side, you need to roll another half mile to get to the elevator. You know, the elevator that’s out of service for four months

Seriously, WMATA, is there any way you could make it harder for folks who need an elevator to get to or from your platform? It’s like you want to fail. Like you want to turn people away. Your accommodation accommodates only in the abstract. In practice you suck. You are not coming within a western state of complying with the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. From 1990. I was there when it was signed. By the President.

The subway could–theoretically–be a way for people with disabilities be more independent. Not this subway. Not at this time.

Please fix this most soonest.</rant>
Sincerely,
DocThink

#unsuckdcmetro

Posted on by docthink 0

The Truth To Set You Free

A statue of Thomas Jefferson in front of piles of bricks. Each with the name of a person he owned. ugh.

I was buoyant to be part of the preview crowd at the soon to open Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum, as it slowly grew into it’s stacked corona on the Mall, grew on me. My companions in line said the same thing.

You can read more on the Museum here, here and here. This is not a review, though.

This is some raw thinkings delivered by a museum that riled me raw. After the party.

The party was awesome. There was a DJ and a hype man. Their day jobs are providing security at other Smithsonian properties on the mall. Tonight, they were party starters. They spun tunes-opening with Celebrate by Kool and the Gang which made me all nostalgic for my Sibling’s wedding as her new brother-in-law loosened his tie from his tux and pranced around the dance floor with a bottle of champagne in each hand–and asked the crowd (which was huge given there are just 200 employees and this was a family event, but the more the merrier when you’re celebrating) to hand dance and Wobble.

The dips and finger foods were generous, but the exhibits beckoned. That’s why we were here. I took the elevator down a few stories to a deep cavern which leads visitors through American history via the lens of African Americans. You follow an ascending ramp back up to the main floor. There is much to see and feel and think about as you walk the corridor.

There was part of one wall that told the horror story of families broken up on the auction block. In particular, the  curators related the story of a woman who was being put up for sale who refused to let them take her child. Take her child away from her. Out of her arms. This was her baby.

As she screamed and held the baby dear, she was lashed by a whip. Still, she held on to her sweet child. And, still, she was beaten by the people who were going to sell her. And sell her child. And the bastards wrenched her heart, her precious baby, from her arms. This horror was depicted in an ink drawing.

As I turned away from the canvas, I saw a man. He was a father. His skin was the same shade as the mother in the drawing. The woman who was for sale. He was holding his sweet baby in his arms. I can’t stop thinking about him and his family, and the woman and her family from hundreds of years ago. And thinking about progress and the journey that we are still on as a country and as a people.

My mind is racing and boiling and roiling and recoiling. And thinking. More thinking.

Posted on by docthink 0

Abetting the Deplorable

A rain spattered windshield at DCA. You can see the tower.

I hate taking cabs. Really I hate taking cabs by myself. Really I don’t like a stranger driving me home.

The stranger that picks me up at the airport after a late flight. The stranger that is surprised that a nice Doc like me lives in my neighborhood and wonders if I don’t feel scared and asks how do I like living as a minority?

This is the script that more than one white cab driver recited. I get in the cab, tell them my address and the quickest way there and then they start talking some racist shit like I’m in their bigoted white people club just waiting for the safety of their cab to go all KKK with them.

And I just look out the window while trying not to respond in a way that will either encourage him or insult him. The former because I want him to stop. The latter because he is driving me home and it’s dark and I don’t want to be dumped. This was especially terrifying before we had cell phones. I felt vulnerable. Oh hell, I was scared that he’d force me out on the sidewalk in front of the cemetery on Lincoln Road. I’d be a ways from home without much chance of another cab coming by. They didn’t want to take me home, to my nice middle-class neighborhood, in the first place. And don’t call me ridiculous because anyone who easily and safely spouts dehumanizing and vile comments could just be bilious enough to do something else hateful.

So I wouldn’t say anything to offend the racist in his rant. And I likely made it seem that I, at least, didn’t disagree with him. But I did. And when he pulled up in front of my house, the blue one with the white picket fence that was even brighter under the reflection of the street lamp in front, I would get out of the car as fast as I could. I learned to keep my roller bag small and next to me in the back seat so I didn’t have to wait for the intolerant asshat to open his trunk. I wanted to be away from him and his ilk as fast as I could.

I always felt complicit, though. I felt like I should have told him that I wasn’t a member of his intolerant club. That his racist insinuations–or sometimes a full rant–were deplorable. Instead, I learned to interrupt him as soon as he brought up his surprise at my address. I’d tell him how lucky I was to live in such a wonderful neighborhood with such terrific neighbors.

We are the company that we keep.

Posted on by docthink 0

What So Proudly We Hailed?

Ft._Henry_bombardement_1814

Are you a patriot? Are you a real American? What does that mean?

Different things to different people, of course. This is #Amurrica. Home of the free and the brave. And of the diverse set of opinions that make us so interesting–if not highly functional.

Back to the home of the brave, some are braver than others. So there’s this professional football player that sat out the Star Spangled Banner for the entire pre-season. And just recently, it was noticed. I decided against tracking down the source of this Nile, I think it’s not germane to the tale-but I bet there’s a story there, too.

So, anyway, the athlete, who gets paid bring-your-team-to-the-Superbowl-but-not-actually-win-it wages, gets in big PR (that’s public relations, also known as yelled at on TV, Facebook and internet newspapers. Likely also in print newspapers, but are you actually physically reading them? I thought not.) trouble. People are saying that he is disrespecting veterans who have fought and died for this country. And there’s some people saying they fought and died just for this type of protest. It’s been noisy. And full of emotion.

Tonight da Twitterz lit up with a hashtag (this is a way for people to coalesce around a topic or idea on Twitter. I respect that many people do not get Twitter, but please, humor me on this.). There are always trending topics on Twitter. It’s based pretty much on volume of a word or phrase that people are using and which pass through Twitter’s servers. For example, it’s pretty normal for #TheBachelor to trend when people are watching it on TV. It must be on now. The Doc has pretty much no knowledge about this hashtag but I see it weekly. [As an aside, why do they call that kind of show reality TV?]

But back to the point, thousands of people are tagging their posts with #VeteransForKaepernick. Like this one.

And this perspective on the national anthem >>

These are among the many moving and patriotic tweets from veterans across the country. People who served in different wars in different parts of the world and who represent the entire diversity of the U.S. And, no, there is not a consensus among veterans and active duty around the way the football player is protesting against racism in the U.S. That’s #Amurrica, too.

Last, there’s nothing that I could write on this topic that would be more meaningful than this tweet by a vet >>

Yes, that is how a patriot sounds. Thank you for your service, good sir. And thanks for the reminder that we all have a role in making our country better. #AmericansForKaepernick, and, as they say, “Hooah!”

Posted on by docthink 3

All In All Is All We Are

I'm Sorry, handwritten note

There used to be a TV show on when I was a kid called Happy Days. It was a situation comedy about the olden days of the Fifties. I think was a spin-off from a pre-Star Wars film by George Lucas.

So there was this too cool character that was named Fonzie. He was so cool that even more cool than his slick leather motorcycle jacket and perfectly stacked Brylcreemed hair was his title. The Fonz.

The Fonz was very tough, most excellent with the ladies, respectful to the adults and able to extract music from the jukebox in the diner via a well-placed fist. He was also papally infallible. Seriously. He was damn near perfect.

He was so utterly faultless that his vocabulary could not accommodate words that would conflict with that reality. He physically could not say the word wrong or the word sorry if the words preceding those nouns were I am.

This was difficult for The Fonz, because nobody is actually without sin. It just doesn’t work that way. So when an extremely rare occasion of error or omission occurred, he was unable to use his words to express himself.

And yet somehow, without specifically saying, “I was wrong,” or “I am sorry,” it was clear from the context and his emotion that he was admitting his offense and acknowledging his failure. This was because his character was indeed sorry. Not pretending. But for real.

This is in contrast to the parade of non-apologies, abdication of any responsibility for wrong doing, and contortions of language to obscure any rational admission of fault that I have been listening to over the past week.

Why is it so hard for people to admit that they done effed up, when they, as a matter of fact, effed up? Parsing the meaning of the word “is,” is frankly unacceptable. Sorry about how someone feels isn’t the same as being sorry for what you did. Technicalities, skirting of the truth and sleight of hand is skeevy and inauthentic.

Even if he couldn’t say it directly, you knew exactly what The Fonz was saying. That he was wrrrrrrr… and that he was sssrhrrr… He meant it. Be like The Fonz.

Posted on by docthink 0

Close Cover Before Striking

Public handwashing. Not handwringing.

So there’s this interesting new bar and restaurant design. It’s not about tap placement. Well, not  in a traditional view of bar taps, that is.

It’s not about the relative space of standing room to table. It’s not about the frenzy to biergarten-esque shared space. It’s not about $15 craft cocktails with artisanal bitters and homemade tonic. It’s not even about beers that taste like the ripe sweat wrung out of a summer half-marathon runner’s shorts.

Nope. It’s about the john.

In paean to efficiency, privacy and the quagmire of single-sex bathrooms, new joints are opening up with a cluster of individual water closets with toilets and, frequently, baby changing tables, to serve the tail end of customer needs. There are a series of doors, could be two, could be eight, that open into a lobby of sinks, all to better wash one’s hands after doing one’s business.

Gone are the days when The Big Guy and Baby Bear would lament the lack of personal hygiene of their bathroom cohorts. “Doc, the guy DIDN’T WASH HIS HANDS!” (Frankly, I was always pleased to hear this. It made me believe that they were washing theirs.)

Gone because, now, everyone can see the water and soap action of anyone leaving the toilet. I especially like seeing the signs above the sink exhorting employees to do the right thing. Now, we all know. Anyone can see. Hand washing has become more public.

The data was there; three in five folks have observed others not washing their hands after peeing or pooping. And one in four people don’t use soap. Eww.

So now, given the public commons for handwashing, there’s a new way to publicly shame people. Guys, women are watching. Women, we all know. Watch your fellow patrons leave the water closet and see if you can make them wash their hands with your disapproving eyes.

Frankly, you should have been doing this all along. Just wash your hands!

Posted on by docthink 0

Don’t Be Mad With Science

Trinity College Library in Dublin. A spiral staircase to the books.

Cancer is an awful scourge that makes people we love suffer. The rat-bastard disease rips people we love out of our lives. Stupid cancer makes people into angels when we aren’t ready to let them go, when we should be with them. Nobody likes cancer. It makes people worried. And sad. And mad. And scared.

Charlatans and money grubbers who prey on the fears and hopes of people with cancer–and I’m including family and almost-family as having cancer because cancer is a “we” disease–those cons suck almost as much as cancer sucks. Maybe more.

Cancer is indiscriminate. It doesn’t select hosts based on age, gender, race, religion, income, social status or whether you prefer the Yankees or the Red Sox. The predators actually do focus on the victims. The saddest. The most fearful. Those who are desperate. Maybe they are worse than cancer. They have intention.

I read a NYT piece about drug companies that are selling their wares directly to sick people. The author of the article was triggered by the sunny promises of a better cancer through, in this case, immunotherapy. I get how gutted the surviving spouse felt by seeing the skewed promises of a therapy that might help a little. Or maybe not at all. And to the grieving family, I am so very sorry for their loss and the “cheery” reminder of their anguish via a TV commercial during a sporting event.

I am in riotous agreement that the direct to patient marketing of drugs is ugly. It sells us solutions that many of us do not have the ability to evaluate. And it interrupts the relationship with caregivers.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, people who knew me well, and some who knew me less well, would nod and smile and opine about my internet research learning all the ins and outs of the disease and the treatment. I couldn’t share the nod. Instead I shook my head.

Like my two weeks on the internet would make me know more than a board certified oncologist and otolaryngologist who were professors at the medical school? I dunno. Didn’t make sense to me. I made the decision that my medical team was as good as I could get, given the hand I was dealt.

I decided to trust the experts.

Now, if I thought they were bozos, I would not. But then why would they be my doctors? I live in a major city. I have choices–including five major cancer treatment centers. My guys were smart, compassionate and great communicators. They presented options. I asked a bunch of questions. The Spouse asked plenty. Even the Big Guy chimed in. I quickly made a choice of treatment that made sense. This was really hard because the cancer made no sense, making the sense-making itself inimical.  And dammit, Jim, I’m DocThink not Doctor of Medicine. I studied as best I could, and then selected their recommendation. I threw in with them.

For me, it turned out okay. For my friend K, it didn’t. For my friend T, it did. For my other K friend, we’re thinking it will. For my MIL, no. For my Dad, yes (it wasn’t C that took him). For M, yup. I’m sure that you can add your own set of initials to the tally.

But here’s my thing. Looking at the comments on the NYT post disparaging the blood-sucking, players-of-people’s-worst-fears-for-money drug companies, there is a significant thread of people hating ANY cancer treatment. Chemo = bad. Radiation = criminal. Surgery = butchery. Immunotherapy = mumbo jumbo.

But these therapies have worked for many of us. Either getting rid of the shitty cancer, or giving people time in months or years with their families. I am terrified that people will reject the expertise of people–doctors, nurses, scientists–who are trained and committed to curing or, if that’s not possible, ameliorating cancer.

My doc told me that he had three goals for my treatment. 1. Keeping me alive. 2. Ensuring the best quality of life. 3. Making me look as good as possible. In that order. He did all three. He presented me a novel treatment that would not have been in the internet results. But he had a robot and he wasn’t afraid to use it. And I believed in him, as he believed in me.

The science and the practitioners aren’t the bad guys. They’re not perfect. They’re the first responders, fighting the terrorism of cancer with us. Not against us. Let’s call out anyone who’s taking advantage of us, but let’s not put a single blanket of shame on the entire medical profession. We can trust science, and verify as well as we can. And may the odds be ever in your favor.

Posted on by docthink 3

Framing or Taming Fears

A frightening site. A post coitus demon sitting in a blown out building overlooking the East Side. For those of you who don't know, this is from Ghostbusters.

Why did she do it? Why did she step outside her frilly cravat and black robes for poli-talk. Inappropriate for a sitting Supreme Court Justice. Inappropriate.

First, I know that plenty disagree with me on that last word. But for those of you of the leftward lean, imagine if Justice Scalia had said the same about candidate Obama. There were calls for Justice Alito’s head when he publicly reacted to the President’s State of the Union by reflexively shaking his head no and mouthing, “Not true.” That’s nothing like calling a major party candidate a faker and saying he’ll bring America to ruin. Let’s be intellectually honest here and call the game fairly.

Back to the why. Why did she step so far out? She hasn’t crossed the line this directly into politics before.

Some say it’s because in her eighth decade, she will just say whatever she likes. Others wonder if she is feeling her moniker as The Notorious R.G.B. and was lost in her own importance. Was she careless? It’s hard to think that her remarks were casual, especially because she repeated them before she walked them back and apologized.

I think she was deliberate in her statements. She was in a sit down with the New York Times. It’s as if she sought an opportunity to be on the record. I think it’s because she is afraid. She as much as said so.

I imagine a scenario where she’s feeling that this cycle is very different. That established rules of behavior and decorum of the presidential election process are being flaunted. That even as personal and ugly as elections have become, that there is a new level of debasement. And it is frightening.

I have a hunch that she thinks this is the worst, and most dangerous, election in modern American history. That our democracy, that America, is seriously at risk. I imagine that she felt compelled to do something. She felt remaining silent was an abdication of her oath “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That, if she could, she must use her influence.

I bet she didn’t map out about the true political ramifications of her comments. She played directly into the narrative that scares her. She immediately became the lighting rod for judicial overreach, for confusing the roles in our Constitution, for the out of touch establishment and as the worst of liberals trying to protect their liberalness. By taking the unprecedented steps of directly commenting on an active election, she likely expected to have an impact. But she wasn’t going to have much impact on her own choir, and she riled up the other team.

Justice Ginsburg is a brave person both on the bench and personally. But she blew this because she played outside of her strength. It’s recklessness borne of a growing alarm.

Writing a note to self: Do not act out of fear. Act from the strength of convictions. Yours, not someone else’s.

Posted on by docthink 0

Suck Less

Scrolling through Twitter today I was catching up on Brexit, Benghazi, SCOTUS, Pat Summit and the regular random cat pictures, movie memes and (unfathomable to me) GoT references. Full stop when I saw this video.

I have not been able to stop thinking about it all day.

tl;dr a six year old child actor plays two roles. One, a street urchin. The other a middle or upper middle class child. People react very differently to her, ignoring her when she has a dirty face and stopping to help her when she is clean.

I watch this and wonder not just about how much people suck, but–since I’m a people, too–how much do I suck? Do I see and connect? Or am I blind and indifferent?  What does my pigeon brain see that stops me from being kind?

I’m thinking about the suburban neighbors calling the police to report unaccompanied kids, six and ten, walking down a street to the park–free range. The strangers thought those children should be protected. Then I think about police shooting a twelve year old boy who was playing, just seconds after they rolled up. They couldn’t even be bothered with administering first aid to a little boy, a sixth grader, named Tamir Rice. He had been playing with an airsoft gun. [Baby Bear had an airsoft gun in middle school.]

I’m thinking about the mother with the sleeping babe in the stroller asking downtown office workers for diaper money. People don’t even look at her. We brush past. We wonder why she’s begging. We think that she may buy drugs and not Pampers. We judge her.

Then I remember telling my parents that everyone in D.C., would be happy to help them with the subway. Just ask. I know that those same office workers who can’t see the woman with the stroller would offer my midwestern retiree folks money for subway fare. People would judge them as nice old people.

They had to stop filming the video because the little girl was so hurt. People were mean to her. Truly mean. Just because she had dirty clothes and a sooty face. But when she was clean, they were loving and kind.

She knew she was the same person. She couldn’t endure the contrast, the unfairness, the disparity, the despair. She cried. I cried, too. Not just for the mean, but because her budding soul felt the mean.

I have been thinking about this video all day. I know I am not the good guy in the video. There’s work I need to do to transcend my own bias, my antipathy and my apathy. Baby Bear says we should do things from love. Maybe I wouldn’t have stopped and helped that child. Tomorrow, and the next day and the next and the next and the next next, though, I can.

Nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank

Posted on by docthink 1