The city on Wednesday recorded its first murder in more than two years when a man stabbed his father to death and attempted suicide, police said. Around 6 p.m., officers from the Kennesaw Police Department responded to a call of a stabbing at a home on Confederate Trail. Upon arrival, the officers found two men lying unconscious on a bedroom floor. The men were father and son, Robert Messina, 62, and Brian Messina, 33. Investigators say the elder Messina had been fatally stabbed several times with a knife.
According to Kennesaw Police Department spokesman Officer Scott Luther, the younger Messina lived at the home with his parents. His mother was at work at the time of the slaying.
Wednesday's stabbing sent shock waves through the quiet residential neighborhood. The motive for the attack is unclear, but what seems clear is that Messina stabbed his father before attempting to overdose on pills and slashing his own wrists.
Wuss. Everyone in town has a firearm and you chose pills?
"It appears they got into an argument of some kind, but we're not sure what it was about," Luther said.
The Messinas moved into their home around late January or early February, according to neighbors in the single-street subdivision. Luther said neighbors reported no problems with the Messinas. They said the Messinas, as well as the rest of the neighborhood, remains relatively quiet.
"He was a quiet man."
There has not been a murder within the city limits of Kennesaw since July 4, 2004, when three roommates got into a fight and two of them beat the third to death. "Any kind of homicide is a shock to us," Luther said. "It is not something we look forward to or plan for."
Kennesaw mayor Leonard Church attributes the city's low murder rate to two things. About 30 years ago, Kennesaw passed an ordinance requiring every head of household to own a firearm. The law is not strictly enforced, but Church said knowing that law is on the books has likely kept many criminals from preying on families there. "That law has absolutely something to do with the low crime," Church said. "It's that and a great police force."
Church said he could not estimate how many Kennesaw residents own a firearm because Cobb County issues firearms permits.
#1
A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said on Friday.
CONVICTED gang rapist Bilal Skaf has no friends in jail and is at risk of being killed by other prisoners, a Sydney court has been told.
Skaf and an associate, who can be referred to only as AA, were convicted in the NSW Supreme Court in April over the August 2000 pack rape of a 16-year-old girl in Greenacre's Gosling Park, in Sydney's west.
During the pair's sentencing submissions today, Skaf's lawyer, Peter Zahra SC asked acting Justice Jane Mathews to take into account that his client, already serving a 28-year sentence for other offences, was approaching nearly six years in custody. He said Skaf, who has been convicted twice of the Gosling Park attack, had "no friends" in prison and faced "onerous" and "very dangerous" conditions. "There are prisoners that want to kill him - and they are not from any particular ethnic group," Mr Zahra said.
Ran afoul of the prison pecking order, did he?
AA's lawyer Matthew Johnston said his 22-year-old client should have the opportunity to participate in educational programs inside jail, which would "certainly go to his prospects of rehabilitation".
Acting Justice Mathews said she would sentence the pair within the next two weeks, but did not fix a date.
Skaf, now 24, was convicted in 2002 on two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent in company, while AA was found guilty of being an accessary before the fact. They were among up to 14 men allegedly involved in the attack.
Skaf made NSW legal history when he was sentenced to a record 55 years in jail for leading a string of vicious gang rapes - including the Gosling Park attack - in 2000. But the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in 2004 quashed Skaf and AA's convictions over the Gosling Park attack and ordered a retrial after it was revealed that, during the trial, two jurors conducted their own investigations at the scene of the rape.
Skaf remained behind bars while awaiting retrial, with his sentence for other sex offences having been reduced to a maximum 28 years on appeal. AA's overturned conviction and a subsequent appeal resulted in his jail term for the same series of attacks being reduced from 32 to 19 years.
#1
I don't want him to be killed, I just want him to be at the receiving end of a "pack rape".
I'm normally very shocked by sexual predation in jails, since it actually targets the most vulnerable prisoners (most often white teens without real criminal background, who are preyed upon by organized ethnic gangs), but in this case, I'll more than gladly make an exception.
I can't wait to hear he's got aids, or had all his teeth knocked out so he could perform oral sex without risking biting his Master...
Let's all hope for Karmic justice.
Btw, my recollection of that sordid stuff is pretty hazy (there was two separate major strings of gangrapes, one lebanese, and later on, one pakistanese IIRC), but... isn't he the one (him or an associate) who made phony terrorist threats while in jail, claiming that if "all muslim prisoners weren't freed from australian jails", then the country would be brought into submission by bombings?
At the time, it perplexed me, not because of this pathetic threat, but because it was so revealing on the worldview of Moderate Muslims(Tm).
#4
Also what is new here? Rapers have never been popular between "honest thieves" and still less when, like this guy, they raped an underaged girl.
Why should this guy get better protection than any other raper?
#6
Rapers have never been popular between "honest thieves"
In France, rapists are called "pointeurs" and are not liked, BUT, they do constitute a large part of prisoners, especially among the young ones (think "Youths"); I'm not sure at all, but I think that about 40% or more of criminal cases handled by justice are gangrapes or rapes.
So, when you're from the "right" ethnic/religious background and are a rapist, it is really not a big deal, and you're not in danger, I'd venture... you're in good company, and with friends from the 'hood (about 2/3 muslim in french jails, at least over 50%, over 80% in big cities jails; the Economistr had an article saying that there was 9x more convicts in french jail with at least an migrant parent than with "ethnic" french ones).
Of course, it's a different story for child abusers who are put in protected segragated section (but, again, there's a real hypocrisy, as many gangrapes in the projects are made upon teens aged 13, 14, 15 years, and I've seen in my local newspaper 2-3 weeks backs a short story about an attempted rape by a group of 15-16 years old on a 12 years girl, and this was not the first story like that at all).
#7
Well, gee, since he's such a tough little man according to his Wiki, it should be no problem that the other guys don't like him.
He's just torked that he's gonna be the catcher and not the pitcher, that's all. Can't have a Lion of IslamTM in that position, nope, not at all, no way.
Who often have daughters. Another case of artificial justice trying to displace consent justice among the governed. When the elites poo-poo penalties for hideous crimes all in the name of enlightenment without the consent of the govern, the old 'Godfather' means of justice often resurface. The responses already posted observe the value they hold ‘hand slapping’ punishment for such crimes. Remember vigilantism is often the product of a government/authority that can’t or won’t carry out its responsibility.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney was a no-show this week in the U.S. House, as WSB Washington Correspondent Jamie Dupree reports that the Georgia Democrat missed all four days of legislative business and every vote on the House floor as well. Can we all agree that a vote without McKinney's input is at least one vote more in favor of America
McKinney's office offered no comment as to why the Congresswoman did not return to Washington after Tuesday's primary election, where she was forced into an August 8th runoff against Hank Johnson. pouting?
Also left unanswered Thursday night was whether McKinney would be back at the U.S. Capitol next week. The House has one more week of work before a scheduled August break.
McKinney missed 19 votes over four days on the House floor, including an attempted override of President Bush's veto of a bill dealing with embryonic stem cell research, a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and a bill designed to prevent federal courts from ruling on the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Georgia Democrat has missed nearly 11 percent of the 393 recorded votes in the U.S. House so far in 2006. that 11% is known as "the productive period"
According to the Congressional Record, McKinney did have official permission to miss votes on Monday and Tuesday of this week, what is known as a "Leave of Absence." There was no notice of any request being granted for Wednesday's session of the House.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 11:18 ||
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#7
In other Georgia election news, I note that my friend garnered 21% of all votes cast in the GA-6 primary. He ran unopposed in the Dem primary, and he still got nearly 16,000 people to come out and vote for him anyway, and he received about 5,000 more votes than the GOP challenger.
Rough totals:
GOP incumbent: 47,000
GOP challenger: 10,000
Dem unopposed: 16,000
Here are the politicians who voted against ThursdayÂ’s pro-Israel resolution; the full record is here: Final Vote Results for Roll Call 391. (Hat tip: Mark/tf.)
Winonans don’t pay $15 to hear politicians speak. They did pay $15 Tuesday night to hear comedian Al Franken at Winona State University’s Somsen Auditorium. But the former “Saturday Night Live” performer didn’t come to Winona to visit Levee Park. Franken was here to stump for Tim Walz, a teacher turned politician from Mankato, Minn., running against six-term incumbent Rep. Gil Gutknecht in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.
Dressed in blue jeans and sneakers, Franken got a standing ovation before saying a word. “I’ve been campaigning for a number of candidates,” Franken said. “There’s none better than Tim.”
Franken quickly segued into the kind of humor that has given him legions of fans as well as detractors. “I hate the Republicans,” Franken said. “I hate the Republicans who think they own the flag.”
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006 00:00 ||
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Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said today that his decision to travel to Iowa in September was designed to help Democrats in the midterm elections, not to explore his own future political ambitions. “Basically, my rule has been that if I can help in the 06 cycle, then I'm going to do it,” Obama said in an interview. “The only reason not to do it would be the symbolism of Iowa, which probably wasn't a good reason for us not to help out.”
Obama will make his Iowa debut at Sen. Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry. The venue is among the most sought-after platforms in Democratic politics, a rural fairground south of Des Moines that has hosted Bill Clinton three times and a string of prospective presidential hopefuls over the years. “I think there is a lot of curiosity about him,” Harkin said of his junior colleague in the Senate. "He will excite people and motivate people.”
Until now, Obama has taken great care to steer clear of Iowa, the state that traditionally launches the race for the White House. But accepting the invitation to appear on Harkin's high-profile stage Sept. 17 underscores the notion that Obama is not intent on tamping down speculation about his interest in the 2008 campaign.
Obama said no greater significance should be drawn from his trip to Iowa. He said Harkin extended the invitation and he accepted, just as he has done for other Democratic colleagues. "I've already been to 30 states," he said, including the bordering states of Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri and Illinois. "Why not Iowa?"
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006 00:00 ||
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Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said today that his decision to travel to Iowa in September was designed to help Democrats in the midterm elections,
The only thing they could have done to harm their efforts more in Iowa and the midwest would be to have sent Bill Clinton. Go for it donks!
Democrats are in trouble in Michigan where the re-election chances of Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Sen. Debbie Stabenow are slipping in one of the weakest state economies in the nation. Mrs. Granholm is in worse shape than Mrs. Stabenow, but both have fallen below 50 percent in the latest polls in a political environment turned sour for their party, especially among Democratic blue-collar voters who have suffered the most from massive auto industry layoffs and an unemployment rate that has hit 7 percent.
Late last month a Michigan EPIC/MRA poll of likely voters showed Republican gubernatorial challenger Dick DeVos was leading Mrs. Granholm by 48 percent to 40 percent. That not only foreshadows a likely comeback for the GOP in the Statehouse but has raised fears among the Stabenow campaign's high command that she could be caught in the undertow of an anti-incumbent tide in the state.
Mrs. Granholm's deepening economic troubles are bad enough, signaling the GOP may well pick up several Democratic governorships to offset expected losses in New York and elsewhere. But Mrs. Stabenow's race, which has been overlooked by the pundits, could well be the sleeper of the 2006 midterm elections. She won in a squeaker in 2000 but has since been one of the least effective senators in Washington, passing no major legislation of her own and taking no proactive leadership role in behalf of Michigan's failing economy. Mrs. Stabenow has been one of the most invisible Democrats in the Senate. Knowlegis, a government management group that ranks lawmakers' legislative effectiveness, places the senator near the bottom of their Senate list at No. 95. But heading into this year, Republicans seemed unable to find a strong candidate to challenge Mrs. Stabenow. Their hopes seemed centered on the Rev. Keith Butler, a former Detroit city councilman who does not have the political heft needed to finance and run a competitive campaign.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Glad to see the tide finally may be turning in my home state. Unfortunately those of us raised around the auto industry tend to have parents or friends that still believe that job of gov't is to provide jobs, this is one way the democrats have been so successful up til now. That, and Detroit w/a big black population that always votes demmy no matter how much it usually fails to help them.
Suddenly trailing in the polls, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman is enlisting the help of former President Clinton, the man he criticized in 1998 for "disgraceful behavior" in a sex scandal with a White House intern. Clinton and Lieberman are scheduled to campaign together in Connecticut on Monday as the three-term lawmaker struggles against challenger Ned Lamont, a multimillionaire businessman who has questioned his rival's Democratic credentials and assailed his support for the Iraq war.
A new poll released Thursday showed that Lieberman has lost ground to Lamont and is narrowly trailing him for the first time in their race. Lamont had support from 51 percent and Lieberman from 47 percent of likely Democratic voters in the latest Quinnipiac University poll — a slight Lamont lead given the survey's error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The primary is Aug. 8 — summer vacation season — when turnout in Connecticut primaries is typically about 25 percent of registered voters. Lieberman is arguably the most vulnerable incumbent senator in a primary.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2006 00:00 ||
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On the theory that "confusion to our enemies" is a worthy objective in itself, which of the following scenarios is better?
1. Lieberman beats out Lamont in the primary, coasts to re-election in November. Kossacks fall to fighting among themselves over who's to blame for the loss. Dozens of op-eds appear on how the Kos Kiddies are big hat, no cattle within the Democratic Party.
2. Lamont wins the low-turnout primary. Kos celebrates his first win. Prominent Dems line up behind Lamont, urge Lieberman to drop his independent bid for the sake of party unity, begin whispering not-so-subtle antisemitic whispering campaign. Lieberman stubbornly sticks to his guns, the Republican candidate goes low-profile, Lieberman wins in November and (payback is a Hillary!) tells the Dems to go stuff it, he'll caucus with the Trunks. Dozens of op-eds appear on how there's no place in the Dem Party for moderates now that the Kossacks have taken over.
3. Lamont wins the low-turnout primary. Kos celebrates his first win. Prominent Dems line up behind Lamont, urge Lieberman to drop his independent bid for the sake of party unity. Joe falls on his sword. Republican wins in November as Connecticut voters are repelled by Kossack moonbattery.
Discuss.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 9:09 Comments ||
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#5
no. 3
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2006 9:15 Comments ||
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Partly number 2, though I think Lieberman will end up caucusing with Dems (he';s still a social liberal after all), while his position on the GWOT is (hopefully) hardened.
3. Lamont wins the low-turnout primary. Kos celebrates his first win. Prominent Dems line up behind Lamont, urge Lieberman to drop his independent bid for the sake of party unity. Joe falls on his sword. Lamont wins in November as Connecticut voters demonstrate how deep their blue streak runs. Before inauguration Lamont demonstrates to any rationsal person what a horses putussi he is. But he goes on to run for the Donk Presidential nomination wiht Kos support. Ends up on ticket as VP nominee. Donks decimated in 2008 election dissolve in bitter recriminations as Republican party splits into libertatrian and conservative parties absorbing donks adrift.
Posted by: BA ||
07/21/2006 10:56 Comments ||
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how about an option 4
the primary is close - loser demands a recount, then a lawsuit, then another recount, then the initial results overturned and another lawsuit followed by another recount, then another recount than another lawsuit
Texas City is hard by Galveston.
TEXAS CITY - Bomb experts Thursday used one explosive to destroy another, purposely setting off a blast and a small fire in an apartment unit already damaged after a homemade substance exploded and killed tenant Matthew Robert Rugo, 21.
Just why Rugo and roommate Curtis Jetton, who survived the Wednesday afternoon blast with minor burns, mixed a chemical substance similar to one that FBI experts said has been used by Middle East suicide bombers remained a mystery after the pair's apartment was rendered safe enough to enter, Texas City Police Chief Robert Burby said.
Federal, state and local bomb experts said the mixture Rugo and Jetton created was too dangerous to remove from the pair's Lakeview Apartments unit, so they ordered hundreds of people to evacuate the 304-unit complex and the neighboring 132-unit Oaks apartment complex around 11 a.m. Thursday.
Federal and local officials said they believe the substance was peroxide-based and similar to TATP, organic peroxide and a primary high explosive. It takes the form of a white crystalline powder with a distinctive acrid smell and has been described as a weapon of choice for suicide bombers.
More at the link, plus a picture. Dead guy had been arrested before, for things like robbery. Otherwise there's no known connection to any terrorist or criminal groups. I suggest a certain amount of salt on the nature of the explosive. In previous reports we've seen how initial judgments can be wildly inaccurate.
#3
"He had turned himself around, he was a really good guy," Elizondo said. "He was doing real good."
Since he found Islam.
I just made that last part up but it fits with this and other similar sounding stories so well I thought i'd add it. Not that all Muslims are terrorists but dag nab it the majority of terrorists do seem to be Muslims.
Not that all idiots are muslims but dag nab it the majority of Muslims seem to sound like idiots lately.
#6
Asked about a televised report that Rugo and Jetton may have been part of a four-member local anarchist group, Burby said late Thursday: "I have nothing to substantiate that and I don't know where that came from."
Apartment managers said Rugo's mother leased the unit for her son in January but Jetton was not on the lease.
Whaddya think, Sarge?
What do I think, Muldoon? Notify the Loser Squad. Let them figure it out.
U.S. and German scientists on Thursday launched a two-year project to decipher the genetic code of the Neanderthal, a feat they hope will help deepen understanding of how modern humans' brains evolved.
Neanderthals were a species that lived in Europe and western Asia from more than 200,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. Scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology are teaming up a company in Connecticut to map the genome, or DNA code.
"The Neanderthal is the closest relative to the modern human, and we believe that by sequencing the Neanderthal we can learn a lot," said Michael Egholm, a vice president at 454 Life Sciences Corp. of Branford, Conn., which will use its high-speed sequencing technology in the project.
There are no firm answers yet about how humans picked up key traits such as walking upright and developing complex language. Neanderthals are believed to have been relatively sophisticated, but lacking in humans' higher reasoning functions.
The Neanderthal project follows scientists' achievement last year in deciphering the DNA of the chimpanzee, our closest living relative. That genome map produced a long list of DNA differences between humans and chimps and some hints about which differences might be crucial.
The chimp genome "led to literally too many questions, there were 35 million differences between us and chimpanzees -- that's too much to figure out," Jonathan Rothberg, 454's chairman, said in a telephone interview.
"By having Neanderthal, we'll really be able to home in on the small percentage of differences that gave us higher cognitive abilities," he said. "Neanderthal is going to open the box. It's not going to answer the question, but it's going to tell where to look to understand all of those higher cognitive functions."
Over two years, the scientists aim to reconstruct a draft of the 3 billion building blocks of the Neanderthal genome -- working with fossil samples from several individuals.
They face the complication of working with 40,000-year-old samples, and of filtering out microbial DNA that contaminated them after death.
Only about 5 percent of the DNA in the samples is actually Neanderthal DNA, Egholm estimated, but he and Rothberg said pilot experiments had convinced them that the decoding was feasible.
At the Max Planck Institute, the project also involves Svante Paabo, who nine years ago participated in a pioneering, though smaller-scale, DNA test on a Neanderthal sample.
That study suggested that Neanderthals and humans split from a common ancestor a half-million years ago and backed the theory that Neanderthals were an evolutionary dead end.
The new project will help in understanding how characteristics unique to humans evolved and "will also identify those genetic changes that enabled modern humans to leave Africa and rapidly spread around the world," Paabo said in a statement Thursday.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Industrial giant Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) Friday said second-quarter earnings rose, and the company raised its outlook for the full year. The heavy equipment maker reported a profit of $1.046 billion, or $1.52 a share, compared with $760 million, or $1.08 a share, a year earlier. Sales rose 13 percent to $10.605 billion, the company said.
Rachel Corrie shares remain flat
Analysts, on average, expected the Peoria, Illinois-based company to report earnings of $1.42 a share on sales of $9.74 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. Caterpillar stock has risen about 20 percent this year through Thursday's close, outperforming its peers on the S&P machinery subindex , which are up, on average, about 10 percent. Caterpillar trades at about 11.7 times estimated 2007 earnings, a slight discount to its peers on the index, which trade, on average, closer to 12 times estimated 2007 earnings.
Caterpillar, official bulldozer supplier of Rantburg Heavy Industries. Accept no subsitute.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/21/2006 10:16 ||
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Dammit Steve...post a no drinking warning before your comments...Rachel Corrie shares remain flat. Now I have to go change my shirt...
#2
Into the battles, making cages rattle
There's a pain that's inside us and we're letting it out
Charge right in, we dare to fail
No one is giving in, always we live to win
A hunger turns and burns inside of all of us
And it will not be denied
Bulldozer feeds upon the weaker as they fall
Bulldozer crushes all
--Machine Head, "The Ballad of Rachel Corrie""Israeli D-9 Fight Song" "Bulldozer"
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 12:20 Comments ||
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#3
There's also the Rachel Corrie Memorial iPod Playlist to consider:
Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company, "Caterpillar"
Jennifer Gentle, "Caterpillar Song"
Drive-By Truckers, "Bulldozers and Dirt"
The Scientifics, "My Bulldozer"
Iggy Pop, "Bulldozer"
Mojo Watson, "Run Rachel Run"
Donuts, "Caterpillar Blood"
Dave Matthews Band, "Crush"
Bruce Springsteen, "Crush On You"
Champ, "Squashed"
Badly Drawn Boy, "Rachel's Flat"
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 12:29 Comments ||
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PEORIA, Ill. - The Board of Directors of Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) today voted to increase the quarterly cash dividend by five cents to thirty cents ($0.30) per share of common stock, payable August 19, 2006, to stockholders of record at the close of business on July 20, 2006. The $0.30 dividend is an increase of 20 percent over the previous rate of $0.25 per share.
"Caterpillar expects 2006 to be its third consecutive year of record results, and today's announcement reflects the Board of Directors' confidence in Caterpillar's long-term outlook," said Caterpillar Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Owens. "Our 6 Sigma process focus is enabling us to leverage our strong leadership position and grow our businesses while creating even greater operating cash flow. We're pleased to be able to reward our stockholders with another significant increase. Our future is bright, and all Caterpillar employees are focused on delivering even better results over the next few years." Including the announcement today, Caterpillar's cash dividend has tripled since 1996.
God I love the smell of diesel fuel and brick/mortar dust in the morning.
by Pamela R. Winnick, Wall Street Journal This story fits in with Dr. Steve's commentary in the discussion thread on the NOLA doctors charged with snuffing patients during Hurricane Katrina.
A medical resident--we called her "Dr. Death"--at the Intensive Care Unit at Long Island's North Shore Hospital chased us down the hallway. "Your husband wants to die," she told my mother, again. Just minutes before I had asked her to leave us alone.
"He can't even talk," I reminded her.
"He motioned with his hands when we tried to put in the feeding tube," she said.
Not exactly informed consent, I pointed out as we turned our backs on her and walked down the hallway, trying to avert our eyes from the other patients in the ICU that night, each of them at various points in the so-called "twilight zone" between life and death.
Afflicted with asbestos-related lung cancer, my father, Louis Winnick, was rushed into the ICU in late May after a blood clot nearly killed him. The next day, my husband and I raced to New York from Pittsburgh. I packed enough work and knitting for what might be an extended stay, but I also put in a suit for what I was certain would be my father's imminent funeral. Still, he wasn't dead yet. And we had no intention of precipitating the inevitable.
"Dr. Death" was just one of several. A new resident appeared the next day, this one a bit more diplomatic but again urging us to allow my father to "die with dignity." And the next day came yet another, who opened with the words, "We're getting mixed messages from your family," before I shut him up. I've written extensively about practice of bioethics--which, for the most part, I do not find especially ethical--but never did I dream that our moral compass had gone this far askew. My father, 85, was heading ineluctably toward death. Though unconscious, his brain, as far as anyone could tell, had not been touched by either the cancer or the blood clot. He was not in a "persistent vegetative state" (itself a phrase subject to broad interpretation), that magic point at which family members are required to pull the plug--or risk the accusation that they are right-wing Christians.
I complained about all the death-with-dignity pressure to my father's doctor, an Orthodox Jew, who said that his religion forbids the termination of care but that he would be perfectly willing to "look the other way" if we wanted my father to die. We didn't. Then a light bulb went off in my head. We could devise a strategy to fend off the death-happy residents: We would tell them we were Orthodox Jews.
My little ruse worked. During the few days after I announced this faux fact, it was as though an invisible fence had been drawn around my mother, my sister and me. No one dared mutter that hateful phrase "death with dignity."
Though my father was born to an Orthodox Jewish family, he is an avowed atheist who long ago had rejected his parents' ways. As I sat in the ICU, blips on the various screens the only proof that my father was alive, the irony struck me: My father, who had long ago rejected Orthodox Judaism, was now under its protection.
As though to confirm this, there came a series of miracles. Just a week after he was rushed to ICU, my father was pronounced well enough to be moved out of the unit into North Shore's long-term respiratory care unit. A day later he was off the respirator, able to breathe on his own. He still mostly slept, but then he began to awaken for minutes at a time, at first groggy, but soon he was as alert (and funny) as ever. A day later, we walked in to find him sitting upright in a chair, reading the New York Times. . . .
On Father's Day, we packed my father's hospital room: his wife, daughters, grandchildren, each of us regaling him with our successes large and small. "Life's not so bad, after all," the atheist said. I wanted to go back to ICU, find Dr. Death, drag her to my father's room and say: "This is the life you wanted to end." But if I'm really to be a person of faith, I'll have to tackle forgiveness.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 09:32 ||
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A day later, we walked in to find him sitting upright in a chair, reading the New York Times.
#2
I noticed that, too. Irony meter pegged at "off-scale high."
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2006 11:03 Comments ||
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#3
Residents like that wouldn't last very long around me.
Again, there's a difference between euthanasia and hospice care, killing a patient and comfort care. When the situation is truly hopeless, we'll work with families to help make patients comfortable. But that's the families' decision and not ours. It's never ours.
I never, ever want patients and families to worry whether I wear the white coat of a healer or the black hood of an executioner.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2006 11:18 Comments ||
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#4
Steve, every profession has its bad apples. If it's any consolation, yours has fewer than most. Given the temptations available to doctors, that is actually quite a compliment.
Posted by: mac ||
07/21/2006 11:58 Comments ||
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A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by a Casper man against the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives because he did not face any threat of prosecution for wanting his gun rights restored.
Christopher Kegler offered only hypothetical arguments that federal agents would prosecute him if he wanted to own a gun after he had a misdemeanor domestic violence crime deleted from county court records, according to U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson's order on Tuesday.
Kegler's lawsuit, filed in February, deals with issues similar to one filed by Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank in May.
#1
Hmmm...generally policing entities have a law enforcement and crime prevention function. Crime prevention certainly implies an obligation of government disclosure, where a crime can be prevented.
The police agenda has always favored strict gun control, while the informed public recognizes that cops rarely encounter crime in action. It makes sense to enable good citizens to protect themselves.
In America's history, no cop has ever admitted to bearing a private law duty of care to any member of the public. Ergo: buy a gun and protect yourself. The following article has been downloaded numerous times: http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html
The role of police is auxiliary protection while self-defence is a US Code defence, and trumps the self-interested gun control agenda.
Those of you who have yet to be a crime victim, be aware: when you face victimization, cops WILL NOT protect you. Protect yourself; you are all you really have.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
CONVICTED gang rapist Bilal Skaf has no friends in jail and is at risk of being killed by other prisoners, a Sydney court has been told.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney was a no-show this week in the U.S. House, as WSB Washington Correspondent Jamie Dupree reports that the Georgia Democrat missed all four days of legislative business and every vote on the House floor as well. 
Winonans donÂ’t pay $15 to hear politicians speak. They did pay $15 Tuesday night to hear comedian 
Democrats are in trouble in Michigan where the re-election chances of Gov. 
Suddenly trailing in the polls, Democratic Sen. 
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Industrial giant Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) Friday said second-quarter earnings rose, and the company raised its outlook for the full year. The heavy equipment maker reported a profit of $1.046 billion, or $1.52 a share, compared with $760 million, or $1.08 a share, a year earlier. Sales rose 13 percent to $10.605 billion, the company said. 
