Sorry, Louisiana. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this state is in fact backwards, close minded, and bigoted. As someone who is not originally from this state, I have first hand experience dealing with life as an unwelcome outsider.
What am I posting about? Perhaps you've heard it on the national news, something Louisiana has been good at over the last few years. A justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell, from Tangipahoa Parish would not issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.
In an interview, he unknowingly revealed his bigotry in a very open manner. His own definition of racism was that racists hate black people and treat black people differently than everyone else. He claimed that in this case, he didn't do that. He also stated that his reason had to do with the offspring.
Okay. Uh. Yeah, you did treat them differently. You may marry black couples in your own house, but a couple is a couple. Race shouldn't be an issue. Offspring shouldn't be an issue.
So yes, Louisiana, I'm sorry, but this state is backwards, close minded, and bigoted.
My own experience has been similar. I moved here a few years ago. I'm a white male. One would think integrating into every day life in Louisiana would be a breeze. Well, it wasn't.
Since moving here, I've never felt so unwelcome or so out of place. If you're not "one of them," you're treated like an outsider. Even though I was actually born in a large city in a state traditionally seen as a southern state, I'm viewed as a northerner here. My political views are not represented by my elected officials. In fact, many of my political views have been what has isolated me even further. I'm not a redneck. I don't do crawfish boils or spicy food, aside from gumbo. I don't listen to country music. I'm not an avid church goer. People like me are treated as though we have the plague.
But Dailymindjob, didn't Louisiana elect an Indian-American governor?
Yes, and that can easily be explained.
Had Bobby Jindal kept his real first name, Piyush, he probably wouldn't have garnered much support from the southern right wing organizations. Had Bobby Jindal not converted to a Christian faith, he would have been an outcast like me. Bobby Jindal actually has huge support from southern right wing faith based organizations like the Louisiana Family Forum, a group with a purely religious-right agenda. What got Bobby Jindal elected was the fact that next to his name on the ballot, there was a capital R, not a D. Down here, an Indian republican is a damn sight better than any democrat. It's also why we have blue dog democrats down here and not liberal democrats.
Bobby Jindal's sentiment that the JP in question should get the boot must sit uneasy with the right wing racists down here.
I've had colleagues ask me about the area because they are interested in practicing here. I turn them away. I describe Louisiana in the same way I just did for you. It's going to take decades for Louisiana's reputation to become, well, reputable.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Crazy Talk From The Right: Indoctrination
Over the last eight years, subjects like prayer in school and intelligent design have been pushed into the education curriculum by right wing zealots, but when Barack Obama wants to give a 20 minute speech to our nation's youth, the same folks throw a temper tantrum.
This must mean one kind of indoctrination must be better than another. But that's only if you indulge the paranoia that Obama's speech is some form of indoctrination. It only rings true if the speech itself was somehow political. Even in its original form prior to the edits, the speech was not political. Asking to help is not partisan unless you twist it into something with your own corrupt paranoia.
But let's be serious about this for a moment. It has nothing to do with the content of the speech. The speech is a straw man. Has nothing to do with the root of the problem.
Even prior to day one of this administration, the right wing nuts out there had their minds made up. Doesn't matter what Obama does. Whatever it is, they don't trust it. Whatever he says, they don't like it. Doesn't matter if it's good for our country. It came from a liberal, so it must be bad, even if it's good.
Indoctrination...not a new talking point.
Of all the paranoid comments I read and hear from the nuts on the right, indoctrination is up in the top five. The entire education system to these nuts is just one giant liberal brainwashing machine. It's really one gigantic paranoid delusion. Liberal media. Liberal schools. Liberals, liberals, liberals. So what if a few professors have more liberal curriculums? I can name some local profs in political science and economics who run their own conservative slanted web sites. Guilty as charged? The beauty of a solid education is how it provides the critical thinking skills which allow us to make up our own minds in the face of conflicting information.
Can't go to college. Those damn college professors are gonna fill your mind full of liberal nonsense.
Where will you end up without a college education? A high school diploma is not enough anymore. In order to compete in the job market, you've got to acquire an advanced degree.
The alternative:
This is how we become the United States of Stupid. Want an entire country convinced that they don't need schooling? Want an entire country that doesn't believe in science? Want to fall behind every other country with regards to technology? That'd do it.
If this speech is part of the liberal indoctrination, flourishing stupidity is the GOP equivalent.
Reminds me of Kathy Bates in The Waterboy. Everything is the work of the Devil. No book learnin' for her boy. Well folks, that character was nuts.
What are you going to do without a college education? Do you want to get a good high paying job? Well then, get yourself an education or expect to have a job with your name on your shirt.
Don't believe me? Then why, as a parent, would you deny your child an entire day of learning just because of a 20 minute speech? Keeping your kid home from school is simply not a good decision as a parent. It sends the wrong message. In fact, it sends the exact opposite message the President will convey in his speech. Poor kids.
Want another example of GOP indoctrination? Read my post on how the local airport plays the National Anthem multiple times a day. Blind patriotism anyone? Want a real Hitler Youth comparison? That's the ticket. Anyone remember how the Jews were portrayed? Disreputable. Evil. Jews were supposed to be ruining the Aryan way of life via the press and intellectual influence, among numerous other things. Liberals have become the new Jew. For years, liberals were called fascists. When confronted with the accusation, we countered with historical facts comparing fascist policies to Bush policy, not Clinton policy. Now that Bush is gone, it seems all the right wingers can come up with is to spin the fascism card back in the other direction one more time. Do they plan on exterminating liberals? From the rhetoric we've already heard, that's not much of a stretch for some leading right wing voices.
Chew on that for a while. Then decide who should be more paranoid.
This must mean one kind of indoctrination must be better than another. But that's only if you indulge the paranoia that Obama's speech is some form of indoctrination. It only rings true if the speech itself was somehow political. Even in its original form prior to the edits, the speech was not political. Asking to help is not partisan unless you twist it into something with your own corrupt paranoia.
But let's be serious about this for a moment. It has nothing to do with the content of the speech. The speech is a straw man. Has nothing to do with the root of the problem.
Even prior to day one of this administration, the right wing nuts out there had their minds made up. Doesn't matter what Obama does. Whatever it is, they don't trust it. Whatever he says, they don't like it. Doesn't matter if it's good for our country. It came from a liberal, so it must be bad, even if it's good.
Indoctrination...not a new talking point.
Of all the paranoid comments I read and hear from the nuts on the right, indoctrination is up in the top five. The entire education system to these nuts is just one giant liberal brainwashing machine. It's really one gigantic paranoid delusion. Liberal media. Liberal schools. Liberals, liberals, liberals. So what if a few professors have more liberal curriculums? I can name some local profs in political science and economics who run their own conservative slanted web sites. Guilty as charged? The beauty of a solid education is how it provides the critical thinking skills which allow us to make up our own minds in the face of conflicting information.
Can't go to college. Those damn college professors are gonna fill your mind full of liberal nonsense.
Where will you end up without a college education? A high school diploma is not enough anymore. In order to compete in the job market, you've got to acquire an advanced degree.
The alternative:
This is how we become the United States of Stupid. Want an entire country convinced that they don't need schooling? Want an entire country that doesn't believe in science? Want to fall behind every other country with regards to technology? That'd do it.
If this speech is part of the liberal indoctrination, flourishing stupidity is the GOP equivalent.
Reminds me of Kathy Bates in The Waterboy. Everything is the work of the Devil. No book learnin' for her boy. Well folks, that character was nuts.
What are you going to do without a college education? Do you want to get a good high paying job? Well then, get yourself an education or expect to have a job with your name on your shirt.
Don't believe me? Then why, as a parent, would you deny your child an entire day of learning just because of a 20 minute speech? Keeping your kid home from school is simply not a good decision as a parent. It sends the wrong message. In fact, it sends the exact opposite message the President will convey in his speech. Poor kids.
Want another example of GOP indoctrination? Read my post on how the local airport plays the National Anthem multiple times a day. Blind patriotism anyone? Want a real Hitler Youth comparison? That's the ticket. Anyone remember how the Jews were portrayed? Disreputable. Evil. Jews were supposed to be ruining the Aryan way of life via the press and intellectual influence, among numerous other things. Liberals have become the new Jew. For years, liberals were called fascists. When confronted with the accusation, we countered with historical facts comparing fascist policies to Bush policy, not Clinton policy. Now that Bush is gone, it seems all the right wingers can come up with is to spin the fascism card back in the other direction one more time. Do they plan on exterminating liberals? From the rhetoric we've already heard, that's not much of a stretch for some leading right wing voices.
Chew on that for a while. Then decide who should be more paranoid.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
David Gergen Gets It Oh So Very Wrong
Anderson Cooper is hosting a special on CNN with a panel of familiar CNN faces. At one point, Dr. Sanjay Gupta began discussing tort reform and defensive medicine. Then David Gergen followed up with his own example of what an ENT he talked to calls defensive medicine.
Here's the problem. The example is an absurd one. Unfortunately, Dr. Gupta didn't speak up to point out how asinine the example was. Like an episode of House, the example had that far fetched medical practice sound to it. I'm sure physicians everywhere groaned in disbelief, just as they do when watching House.
I don't know what ENT David Gergen spoke to about defensive medicine, but physicians I work with don't order tests just because the patient asks for them to be done. I certainly don't bend over backwards to appease a patient asking for a test just for the sole purpose of getting the test done.
Let's use the example Gergen gave us.
Patient X comes in and asks for an MRI. Doctor gives the patient the MRI, afraid that the patient will sue him or her for not providing the investigation the patient asked for.
That's not evidence based medicine. If your doctor gives in to that sort of thing, he or she is not a good doctor and cannot seem to muster up the sense to explain to the patient why they do not need the MRI. The patient did not go to medical school. The patient, no matter how informed, cannot just snap their fingers and order any test they'd like.
Here's how the situation should have been handled. Communication! The ENT should have asked the patient why they wanted the MRI. Then, after listening to the patient's own reasoning, the physician should have explained what an MRI would tell them and whether or not the reason is really justified.
An MRI is a peculiar example to use because the patient is not exposed to radiation. Let's twist the story a bit and show you how doctors really behave when it comes to patients who demand tests that could do a little more harm.
Instead of an MRI, let's say the patient is asking for a CT or a chest x-ray. If there is no justification for the test, the doctor is going to expose the patient to an unnecessary dose of radiation. That's malpractice. That's bad medicine. That is something they could be sued for, not denying the patient the CT.
Let's go a little further because the next example is a more common form of defensive medicine. A mother brings her child in to the pediatrician. The child has a cold and the mother says she wants antibiotics. The physician has determined the infection is viral. Antibiotics would not treat the viral infection.
Here are the choices the physician has at this point.
1. Deny the patient antibiotics because it's not evidence based medicine. Tell the mother to treat symptoms, have the child rest, and drink plenty of fluids. No lawsuit.
2. Give the child antibiotics to make the mother happy because they know unhappy mothers tend to complain and want the magic pill to make the infection go away. To avoid confrontation, the physician practices some defensive medicine. It's a bad practice and paves the way for superbugs resistant to antibiotics. Lawsuit.
There are other options if the physician feels the mother is confrontational. Those other options are not relevant to this discussion, although again, an open line of communication would have been the best course of action.
In clinics across America, physicians have regular conversations about the overuse of antibiotics and the rise of bacterial resistance to those antibiotics. Superbugs are the last troublesome obstacle we want to face. Just because a patient demands antibiotics is no reason for a physician to throw those concerns out the window.
Let's give an example of defensive medicine that is also evidence based. For the sake of clarity and understanding, let me skip some of the jargon and clinical details and just go for the basics.
Let's say a patient presents with a set of symptoms. The physician recognizes these symptoms and orders the tests to confirm the diagnosis he or she already suspects. However, these symptoms could also be a sign of a malignancy, something that if missed, could result in a much worse situation for the patient. If missed and the malignancy were to progress to the point where outcomes vary tremendously (surgery, removal, and recovery vs metastatic disease and palliative care for example), you've got a lawsuit on your hands. The physician orders the initial tests for the most likely diagnosis and will probably order the other investigation soon to make sure cancer is not the underlying cause.
In that case, the physician is covering his or her ass, but at the same time, understands that cancer is in the list of differential diagnoses. At some point prior to ordering these tests, the physician would have sat down with the patient and discussed his or her concerns and possible diagnoses which warranted the investigations.
Here's the problem. The example is an absurd one. Unfortunately, Dr. Gupta didn't speak up to point out how asinine the example was. Like an episode of House, the example had that far fetched medical practice sound to it. I'm sure physicians everywhere groaned in disbelief, just as they do when watching House.
I don't know what ENT David Gergen spoke to about defensive medicine, but physicians I work with don't order tests just because the patient asks for them to be done. I certainly don't bend over backwards to appease a patient asking for a test just for the sole purpose of getting the test done.
Let's use the example Gergen gave us.
Patient X comes in and asks for an MRI. Doctor gives the patient the MRI, afraid that the patient will sue him or her for not providing the investigation the patient asked for.
That's not evidence based medicine. If your doctor gives in to that sort of thing, he or she is not a good doctor and cannot seem to muster up the sense to explain to the patient why they do not need the MRI. The patient did not go to medical school. The patient, no matter how informed, cannot just snap their fingers and order any test they'd like.
Here's how the situation should have been handled. Communication! The ENT should have asked the patient why they wanted the MRI. Then, after listening to the patient's own reasoning, the physician should have explained what an MRI would tell them and whether or not the reason is really justified.
An MRI is a peculiar example to use because the patient is not exposed to radiation. Let's twist the story a bit and show you how doctors really behave when it comes to patients who demand tests that could do a little more harm.
Instead of an MRI, let's say the patient is asking for a CT or a chest x-ray. If there is no justification for the test, the doctor is going to expose the patient to an unnecessary dose of radiation. That's malpractice. That's bad medicine. That is something they could be sued for, not denying the patient the CT.
Let's go a little further because the next example is a more common form of defensive medicine. A mother brings her child in to the pediatrician. The child has a cold and the mother says she wants antibiotics. The physician has determined the infection is viral. Antibiotics would not treat the viral infection.
Here are the choices the physician has at this point.
1. Deny the patient antibiotics because it's not evidence based medicine. Tell the mother to treat symptoms, have the child rest, and drink plenty of fluids. No lawsuit.
2. Give the child antibiotics to make the mother happy because they know unhappy mothers tend to complain and want the magic pill to make the infection go away. To avoid confrontation, the physician practices some defensive medicine. It's a bad practice and paves the way for superbugs resistant to antibiotics. Lawsuit.
There are other options if the physician feels the mother is confrontational. Those other options are not relevant to this discussion, although again, an open line of communication would have been the best course of action.
In clinics across America, physicians have regular conversations about the overuse of antibiotics and the rise of bacterial resistance to those antibiotics. Superbugs are the last troublesome obstacle we want to face. Just because a patient demands antibiotics is no reason for a physician to throw those concerns out the window.
Let's give an example of defensive medicine that is also evidence based. For the sake of clarity and understanding, let me skip some of the jargon and clinical details and just go for the basics.
Let's say a patient presents with a set of symptoms. The physician recognizes these symptoms and orders the tests to confirm the diagnosis he or she already suspects. However, these symptoms could also be a sign of a malignancy, something that if missed, could result in a much worse situation for the patient. If missed and the malignancy were to progress to the point where outcomes vary tremendously (surgery, removal, and recovery vs metastatic disease and palliative care for example), you've got a lawsuit on your hands. The physician orders the initial tests for the most likely diagnosis and will probably order the other investigation soon to make sure cancer is not the underlying cause.
In that case, the physician is covering his or her ass, but at the same time, understands that cancer is in the list of differential diagnoses. At some point prior to ordering these tests, the physician would have sat down with the patient and discussed his or her concerns and possible diagnoses which warranted the investigations.
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