Notwithstanding all the pennant-waving and car-flag-flying of the Black ‘n Gold, as a nurse, I need to draw a line in the sand when it comes to people actually getting hurt.  I’ve always been one to cheer for the poor unfortunate injured player, who may spend anywhere from a few moments to over 10 minutes laid out on the grass, when he finally gets up either of his own power or with the help of the trainers and medics.

For some reason, injury is a great leveler.  It doesn’t matter if the player is on your own team, or the opposition, and it makes no difference whether or not the opposition is the most hated “rival” in all of the sport.  Somehow, the fact that a player, another human being, has been injured (regardless of the severity) brings out the humanity in us spectators that want to see that person recover and return to play.

That is, it should bring out the humanity in all of us.  I do know of a couple of “die-hard” Steeler fans who I have heard derogatory comments directly from them when an opposition player was injured.  One even went so far as to say he hoped the injured player would “die”.  Though I’m certain that the NFL and every other major sport has their so-called “fans” who delight in the harm caused to opposing players, I like to think such people are the minority.  In any case, to such people I’d say: wait until YOU’RE in that situation of being injured somehow, and see if anyone else cares.  What goes around, comes around.

Now with that little bit out of the way, it filled me with some sense of righteous indignation when I saw the reports of Steelers linebacker James Harrison being fined $75,000 for a helmet-tackle to Cleveland Browns’ receiver Mohamed Massaquoi, that resulted in Massaquoi suffering a concussion during the October 17th game.

Looking at the multiplicity of replays on every news channel from ESPN to the local news, there is no doubt that Harrison deliberately launched himself helmet-first into Massaquoi.  The fact that the officials didn’t flag him for that play is of little consequence to the fact that Massaquoi suffered a concussion for a needless tackle, when arm contact would have been just as effective, and much more safe.

Now, before anyone starts whining that I’m some kind of wuss for not understanding the game, I know full well and accept the fact that football is a contact sport, there are hard-hitting tackles that take place, and there is an element of risk involved, people can get injured under the safest of playing.  But the point I’m making is that every player should obviously know those risks, and purposely take it upon themselves to play the game as hard as they can, while at the same time making every attempt to avoid injury to themselves and those they’re hitting as much as possible (which I understand is not always easy or possible).

But the difference here is that Harrison’s tackle in question wasn’t a case of “whoops, I tripped on someone else and flew head first”, nor was it a case of “sorry, I didn’t mean to wail you with my helmet.”  The video evidence is clear: Harrison deliberately intended to head-butt Massaquoi.  It’s THAT type of playing that should be dealt with harshly.

Harrison himself seems to make no apology for the hit and the subsequent injury.  After the game, the AP quoted him as saying:

"I don’t want to injure anybody… There’s a big difference between being hurt and being injured. You get hurt, you shake it off and come back the next series or the next game. I try to hurt people."

- James Harrison, Linebacker, Pittsburgh Steelers

Harrison was later quoted on Sirius/XM radio as saying:

"How can I continue to play this game the way that I’ve been taught to play this game since I was 10 years old?… And now you’re telling me that everything that they’ve taught me from that time on, for the last 20-plus years, is not the way you’re supposed to play the game any more? If that’s the case I can’t play by those rules. You’re handicapping me."

- James Harrison, as quoted on Sirius/XM Radio

In other words, Harrison deliberately goes out of his way in the games he plays to knock opposing players out of the game, by whatever means he can muster.  It also seems that he never learned the actual difference between the words “hurt” and “injure” since he seems to think there’s a “big difference” between the two.  I’d like Harrison to join me in the ER some time, I’ll show him example after example that there’s actually LITTLE difference between “hurt” and “injure”.  No matter what word you choose to use to describe it, trauma to the human body is still trauma, and still requires time and interventions in order to heal.

I’d also like to know what series of “geniuses” taught Harrison how to play with such utter disregard for other players that he feels he is “handicapped” if he actually plays safely.  Coaches that teach young players that the only good hit is a hard bone-crunching hit, should not only be ashamed of themselves, they should be fired from their positions, whether they’re volunteers or not.

So, Harrison got fined, and for a while it looked like he was playing the “I’m taking my marbles and going home” baby game by threatening to retire… a foregone conclusion that he wouldn’t, since he’d have to pay back some of the $20 million the team gave him upfront for his fat contract last year.

But go figure, just like “Steeler Nation” comes out and supports QB Ben Roethlisberger despite alleged misdeeds of a sexual nature in the off-season, whining that a 4-game suspension somehow wasn’t fair, it seems lots of Steeler fans are aghast at the prospect of one of their players getting a $75,000 hit, again crying foul and swearing on Facebook and other social networking sites against the league.

Personally, I think $75,000 is chump change in exchange for the whacking that Massaquoi got.  Am I the only one in Pittsburgh who feels that Harrison got off LIGHT?  For a player who’s worth a $51.2 million, six-year contract (from April 2009), $75 grand is a parking ticket.

Did anyone seem to forget Harrison’s deliberate pouncing of Titans QB Vince Young in September for which he was fined $5,000 by the league?  Or the $5,000 fine last season for unnecessary roughness from a late hit on Bengals tackle Andrew Whitworth? Or the $20,000 fine he drew in 2008 for criticizing a roughing-the-passer penalty against him?

Need we continue to go back further into his “20-plus” year history of playing football, and dig up how many other times he’s deliberately injured and whacked out opposing players?  Would we see such a long history of malicious and selfish behaviour that even the staunchest supporter of Harrison would begin crying for Tomlin to start reigning him in?

Speaking of Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, he seriously needs to get over his bad case of “two-faced-itis”.  In one breath he praises Harrison for making the hits he does, and with the next breath tries to suck up to the league by coming out in support of tougher penalties for violent hits.  Make up your mind, Mike.  Many of us would love to be able to have it both ways, but rarely (if ever) can we live comfortably with diametrically opposed positions at the same time… or did you forget that little quote in a very famous book that goes, “what fellowship does light have with darkness?”

Let’s look at Harrison’s injurious behavior another way.  If each menacing, deliberate, malicious slam to another player on the field were a drunk driving accident, Harrison would not just have had his license permanently revoked; he’d be in prison serving a long sentence for the utter mayhem he’d caused to innocent drivers and pedestrians.  Maybe the NFL should start looking at Harrison and his type of player in that regard.  One serious injury (and make NO mistake: a concussion is a serious injury to anyone, not just football players) gets you slapped with a fine.  Two gets you a bigger fine.  Three gets you suspended for the season (yes, the season).  Four “strikes”, and you’re out of the NFL, and too bad if you have to pay back contract monies to your team.  Such a structure should be standard in the NFL.  Then there would be no doubt and no question in anyone’s mind, players need to follow the rules.  Just like in society and anywhere else in life, follow the rules, you’ll be fine.  Disregard the rules, and you’re out.

In my view, James Harrison and his kind in the NFL are not an asset, they are a menace.  They shouldn’t be fined: they should be kicked out of the league.  If he was taught to play the game so roughly that injuries are something to give little thought to, what is he teaching the young generation of football players who look up to the pros and idolize them as stars to emulate?  Our children don’t need to be idolizing and emulating people like James Harrison… they need to be learning how NOT to be like Harrison, and how to play the game safely and well.

Though I’d think that opinion on this issue from other players in the NFL may be more subtle for various reasons, I did come across a quote from Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.  When he was told that Harrison was contemplating retirement over the issue, he joked,

“I’d love to for him to retire.  If he retired, it would make me very happy."

- Tom Brady, Quarterback, New England Patriots

Now believe me, I’m no Patriots fan… but I’m with you there, Tom.

Some really cool ones I’ve checked out recently:

www.adrive.com:  offering 50GB of free storage, or for $6.95/month, that same level of storage with bells & whistles including FTP, WebDAV access, and additional goodies.

www.icloud.com:  offers a “virtual computer” operating system from within a browser window.  Free 3GB storage space with WebDAV (but apparently not FTP), but offers 100GB with another 100GB of backup for $39.99/year.

Windows Live SkyDrive:  offers MSN/Windows Live members 25GB free storage.  No native WebDAV or FTP, only accessible from a browser interface… unless, of course, you download third-party WebDAV enablers for your SkyDrive.

Now, I know that there are others out there, but my basic rule of thumb was this:  if you ain’t payin’ for it, it’s probably not secure.  Not like I’d EVER entrust such things as financial data, tax forms, etc., to off-site storage, no matter how secure they claim to be, I don’t see anything wrong with using such storage sites to store non-critically secure files, personal music & videos, etc.  And while I’m not a big fan of P2P stuff and “stealing” er, downloading something for free from multi-user shared sites, I don’t see anything amiss with using such offload sites for storing and accessing your personal media files.

With the iPhone (don’t get me started) and Windows Mobile (excuse me, “Windows Phone”) so prevalent these days, more needs to be done to incorporate offsite storage sites into the mobile environment.  Kinoma did some of this with their “iDisk” applet in Kinoma Play (I don’t think it’s available in the free version) but it’s limited to the Apple Me subscribers’ iDisk, and to some other common WebDAV systems (iCloud works with this, but ADrive doesn’t).  Resco Explorer, as well as Total Commander, have FTP access built in, and shame on Resco for not making Explorer 2010 with WebDAV capabilities, which their freeware competitor Total Commander does (as a plug-in).  But someone out there needs to keep this going, and not just drop this concept off, since I think the use of offsite storage, whether paid or free, will continue to grow in the future, as more mobile users get added to the total number utilizing their mobile devices and laptops for increased storage needs.  And let’s not forget about the newer mini “netbooks” that don’t come with massive GB of storage to begin with, and don’t have CD/DVD drives anyway.  People who use netbooks (like my wife) need to have access to large amounts of relatively secure, consistent offsite storage that’s quick and easily accessible.

Is there ever enough?  Someday there may be, but for now, I’m still looking for that one single all-in-one offsite storage solution that incorporates FTP, WebDAV, mobile, and browser access, has lots of storage, and is pretty cheap.

Who’s got it?

This past Wednesday (12/9) I came across a story that got me pretty fired up.  Slot this one in the “geez, I don’t have to give anyone else respect” category.

It seems that very recently, a Jewish bride and her father were arrested by Arab “Waqf” police patroling the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  My slight level of disgust over Jews being arrested by Arabs, turned to anger when I read that the reason they were arrested: the father allegedly “moved his lips” whilst on the Temple Mount, and his daughter was allegedly “nodding” her head.

As if that wasn’t enough, my anger about the issue turned to outright jaw-dropping horror when I read and realised that it was Israeli lawmakers who were responsible for the problem in the first place, by passing a law in 1973 prohibiting Jews from making overt and corporate gestures of prayer on the Temple Mount.  Incidentally, there is no prohibition against Muslims visiting the Temple Mount, and praying there any time they want.

To put this in American perspective, this situation would be like Congress passing a law prohibiting Christians from praying anywhere within 500 yards of the White House or the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.  If such a law were imposed here, I’d pretty much feel safe in guaranteeing that every congressman and senator who voted for such a measure would be forcibly kicked out of office the very next day.  It’s a shame the Israelis haven’t done the same thing, since it seems counterproductive to me that Jews would restrict Jews from praying at THE holiest site in Judiasm.

But I digress.

This specific incident centres on one Mahmoud Hativ, a Waqf policeman patrolling the site, who claims to have seen the father “muttering prayers” and the bride “nodding her head.”  Anyone who’s read even the slightest amount of news on Israel/Arab conflicts can figure out the rest — they were stopped, accosted, arrested, held against their will for several hours, forced to sign a “confession”, and finally let go – but only after more Arab policemen taunted and mocked the young bride-to-be.

Now, passing aside the remote possibility that this father was actually praying silently, there’s an even more plausible, and actually logical, explanation.  The father was moving his lips – because he was TALKING.  He was there with his daughter and his son (who as a tour guide at the site was showing them various archelogical points), and it’s illogical to assume that the three of them would be walking around the Mount without saying a word to each other.  Hativ’s insistence that he SAW the man moving his lips, does nothing for any supposed evidence that he was actually praying, versus simply making comments on what his son was showing him at the time.  It was out of sheer coincidence and “luck” as it were, that Hativ just happened to notice the man’s lips move, and upon obviously picking him out as a Jew, figured he’d have some fun with it by falsely accusing him of praying.  Gee, thanks — remind me to never trust another Arab again if they’re all like that (fortunately they’re not).

But maybe these days, the nabbing of Jews ascending the Temple Mount for supposedly “praying” everytime they open their mouths to so much as breathe, is the Waqf equivalent to the highway patrol’s habit of using the last couple of days each month to “manhunt” for speeders on the highway, in order to make sure they’ve fulfilled their quota of speeding tickets before the month ends.

It seems like Mahmoud Hativ is just another mindless thug, strung along like a puppet at the hands of a larger Arab, dare I say, “Palestinian” (as if there ever really was such a thing) consipiracy.

Delving a bit more into this issue, I read of one Amr Moussa, Arab League Secretary-General, who earlier this year, claimed that Jewish prayers at the Temple Mount were “a serious blow to the holiness of the site.”  He inisisted that under international law, Jews and Christians are forbidden from praying at the Temple Mount.

First of all, I would like Mr Moussa to show me chapter and verse.  Shut me up, and actually show me where this international law is, that states non-Muslims are actually prohibited from praying in any way, shape, or form, at the Mount.  Then, for Mr Moussa, and the Waqf policemen, I’d recommend a course in “Basic English for Dummies”, since their wild misinterpretation of any such law on the books makes me wonder what else they’re misinterpreting.  Hopefully it’s not the owner’s manual to his car.  Maybe misinterpretation runs in families, and his wife misinterprets dinner recipes… “OK Amr, it says ’1/2 cup of water’, so if I fill the bowl with water, that would make it better, yes?”

I suppose Mr Moussa never got the concept that international sites, like the Temple Mount, are supposed to be enjoyed by INTERNATIONAL visitors… no matter what their religion is.  And unless I missed something in the last couple of thousand years, it’s pretty well been proven and upheld that prayer is a fundamental human right, regardless of the religious belief of the person praying.  I don’t see the UN security forces at the New York City headquarters, forcibly keeping Arabs out or telling them they can’t pee in the toilets inside the building, which is another “fundamental right”.  Oh, but if Arabs were subjected to that treatment, that would be discrimination, and would cause an international incident.  So why is it not the same for Jews and Christians wanting to pray at the Temple Mount?

Someday I’ll visit Israel.  And if at that time, the Temple Mount is still controlled by Arabs, I’ll still visit it.  And I’ll stand on the site, and in reverence to the God who put His house there, I’ll pray.  And whether I pray in my head, or with my mouth, in English, Polish, or in Hebrew, will be immaterial.  And I’d defy any Arab policeman to try to stop me from a fundamental human right to reach out to his deity, no matter where he is.  My congressman and senator, my ambassador, my president (whoever he/she may be at that time), and the UN would all hear about any Arab attempt to stop me from my fundamental human right.

I’d love to be able to organise a trip to Israel.  It would bring traditional and Messianic Jews, as well as Christians who love and pray for the Jews, together from various countries – the U.S., Canada, the UK and various European countries, Australia… heck, anyone fitting the above description from anywhere in the world.  Our primary purpose would be to visit the Temple Mount and pray… loudly.  In such a situation, I’d love to see what Mahmoud Hativ and the rest of his Waqf buddies would do with hundreds, or even thousands, of Christians and Jews at and surrounding the entire Temple Mount area, all praying in their native language, all asking for God’s intervention and blessing on behalf of Israel.  Would some overzealous Arab policeman start shoving, acosting, detaining, or (gasp) shooting at the crowd?  Hmm… what a major international incident that could be, which would no doubt rapidly turn world opinion (justifiably) against the Arab “Palestinians”.

More likely, however, I could see a different outcome (especially with a large crowd of Christians around).  The tide of corporate prayer, Jew and Gentile together, would turn to the “conversion” of those Arab policemen, and ultimately the conversion of all Arabs everywhere.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if those Waqf policemen trying to keep the “peace” on the truly international site that they ridiculously believe is theirs alone, would be rushed by Messianic Jews and Christians laying hands on them and praying over them, and those Arabs becoming “convicted” and accepting the true God?

A dream?  Maybe.  The more Israeli/Arab conflict news I read, the more it seems like the mass conversion of hundreds or thousands of Muslims to a Judeo-Christian form of belief would seem radically fictitious.  But then again, God can do anything, right?

The bottom line here is that until Messiah comes, the Temple Mount area is a truly international site, to be visited, utilized, enjoyed, and revered, by people of every nation.  It’s not just for one religion to squander and keep for themselves.  Likewise, prayer at such a revered site is not just reserved for one person or one religion, but is to be enjoyed as a right to all people, regardless of religion.  I suppose that even those drafters of that 1973 law forgot about that, and certainly the Muslims are willing to take any tiny opening of the door to shove their feet in.  This isn’t just a “tsk, tsk, it shouldn’t be that way”… this issue is a “it cannot be allowed to be.”

Jews of Israel, Jews of the Diaspora, Christians everywhere, visit the Temple Mount, revere its holiness.  Worship.  Pray.  Don’t let the Arabs stop you.  Don’t let anyone stop you.  It’s your right to pray.

If they can pray there, so can you.  Don’t let ANYONE tell you otherwise.

If my life these days seems like one of those “Groundhog Day” whirlwind tours, it’s probably because it’s pretty much come to that. Between work, school, home, etc., there’s a certain mundane-ness to it all that makes focusing on the minutiae all the more “enjoyable.”

For example… I have been a Windows Mobile device user for many years, enduring the occasional need to press the soft-reset button in stride, because – after all – it’s a Windows device. Not that I don’t take pleasure in the tiny problems occasionally had by Mac users, say, for example, one of my co-workers whose Macbook has been trashed for several months, and despite Apple’s seemingly pristine record of excellence in computing, she just can’t seem to get anyone at Apple to own up to the fact that her machine is a lemon and needs replaced at no cost. That Apple would do that, is a commendable concept. That Apple will laugh in her face and say, “too bad, it’s your problem”, is stark reality.

But I digress.

Recently, I traded in my old WinMo 6.1 device for a new HTC Pure, sporting WinMo 6.5. Nice device. Sometimes. But I’ve gotten around the fact that it has no “D-pad” like its predecessors, and like what AT&T has done with the bloatware. All of it. Everywhere.

The fact that AT&T is not the only wireless carrier out there to have a majority of its “smartphone” devices in the Windows Mobile category, apparently means nothing, however, to the vast array of pocket-protector-loving geeks who have completely ignored this VAST segment of the industry, to concentrate on the minority who have the Apple/AT&T “iPhone”, making iPhone apps for just about everything from weather forecasts to radio station fetchers to connections direct to God. Now I’m a loyal AT&T customer, proudly repeating the mantra, “but they’re ROLLOVER minutes!!”, but AT&T, computer geeks, and perhaps even the Pope, need to get over the “iPhone” obsession and stop pandering to the few thousand people who actually still own & use an iPhone, and start making apps compatible with WinMo devices, proudly owned by about, oh, a few MILLION people around the world.

This iPhone mania reached a climax recently when Starbucks, a personal favourite of mine, recently developed and offered a free iPhone app. OK, so it’s a neat idea to be able to open the app and find the nearest store, check and reload your Starbucks card balance, and even use your device like an electronic Starbucks card. But… it’s for the iPhone. And for months, WinMo device users have been suggesting an app for WinMo. It doesn’t look like anyone at Starbucks is even considering crossing this app to the other platforms.

Hmmm… so what else has me thinking when I’m doing something else? Speaking of wireless carriers, let’s focus on the highly annoying “coverage map” war between Verizon and AT&T.

First off, let’s get something straight. VERIZON WIRELESS IS A LYING SACK OF… well, you can figure out the rest. There isn’t ONE person I work with, or have social relations with, who has anything good to say about Verizon Wireless… including, apparently, the FCC, who’s hot on the trail of Verizon for charging up to $350.00 to smartphone users for cancellation fees (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aO_NvCgzmq8A). Recalling from personal experience with Verizon Wireless, there has hardly ever been a time where the month-to-month bill amount was the same. There was most often some “hidden” fee, some extra charge, some “accidental” something-or-other access, that Verizon just didn’t want to do anything about. It still happens today. A fellow nurse recently complained that his son accidentally hit the mobile web button on his phone, realised what he did, and within seconds shut the phone off. For his little encounter, the dad/nurse was rewarded with an extra $30+ on his bill, which he argued his way up three (count ‘em, THREE) “manager” levels to get reversed. The very next month, even though this time NO ONE hit any accidental buttons, there was the $30+ fee again, and there was the oh-so-understanding customer service agent on the other end of the line (who incidentally, spoke English about as well as an Emperor penguin) insisting that “someone” accessed the Mobile Web, and that the fee must remain. To this day (some months later), so says my fellow nurse, the fee hasn’t been reversed… and hasn’t been paid.

Now, squeaky-clean honest-Abe Verizon is using the holiday season to “convince” America that it has the better 3G network through the annoying “There’s A Map For That” ad campaign. Though it’s pretty well-known that AT&T’s 3G network footprint is actually smaller than some other carriers (including Verizon) the problem here isn’t the size of the network (for me, no big deal, since no matter where I go in my daily travels, I’m always in a 3G area), it’s the implication that areas on the map they show of AT&T’s coverage that isn’t in blue, isn’t covered – at all. Obviously, that’s not true, but the genius marketing Punjabs at Verizon want you to think so.

The other issue here is the quality of the network. When I used to have Verizon service (the worst couple of years of my life), there wasn’t a day that went by that over 75% of my calls dropped – and I even tested this wonderful “can you hear me now” capability several times by sitting in plain view of and close proximity to a Verizon tower, while the person I was calling was doing the same with another Verizon tower – and sure enough, each time we did this, the calls still dropped. Verizon’s network, though it may be “vast”, sucks in terms of quality. Verizon needs to butt-kick their specticle-clad geek-face and send him up a few towers and improve their backhaul to their core network. My 3G Internet speed on AT&T streaks past my friend’s brand-new Droid phone on his Verizon network… I’m listening to song #2 in an online playlist, and his Droid is still loading the freakin’ page. Verizon needs to stop lying to America about how wonderful they are, while all the time on the back page of their bills, they’re stealing dollars and cents every month from the vast majority of subscribers, many of whom are either too ignorant or too shy to complain, and thus, Verizon gets away with theft, cheating, lying… and if spending millions of stolen money to tout trashily-slow 3G Internet was a capital crime, we could add murder to that list, too.

Minutiae just isn’t what it used to be.

Recently, I’ve been receiving forwards from a friend, Jim, whom we met in person at the Laura Branigan Spirit Of Love Memorial Gathering in New York this year, who (thankfully) had the foresight to ask whether my wife and I wanted to be added to his “forward” mail list.  This morning, after reviewing for my Nursing Research class this afternoon, I happened upon one of Jim’s recent forwards.  I don’t know who authored this write-up, but my kippa is off to whoever it was, since it’s one of the most interesting and down-to-earth explanations of why God (or G-d for my more Orthodox bretheren) DOES INDEED exist.

A man went to a barber shop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed.  As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation.  They talked about so many things and various subjects.  When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: “I don’t believe that God exists.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the customer.

“Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn’t exist.  Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people?  Would there be abandoned children?   If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain.  I can’t imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.”

The customer thought for a moment, but didn’t respond because he didn’t want to start an argument.  The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.

Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard.  He looked dirty and unkempt.  The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: “You know what? Barbers do not exist.”

“How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber.  “I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!”

“No!” the customer exclaimed.  “Barbers don’t exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside.”

“Ah, but barbers DO exist!  That’s what happens when people do not come to me.”

“Exactly!” affirmed the customer.  “That’s the point!  God, too, DOES exist!  That’s what happens when people do not go to Him and don’t look to Him for help.  That’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.”

Now, for those who aren’t Messianic, if only someone would come up with something Judeo-specific for Yeshua (Jesus)…

It’s no wonder, then, that I’ve subscribed for some time to IsraelNationalNews.com – not the “official” Israeli news channel of Kol Israel, but certainly one of the more “orthodox” in terms of Judaism and the desire to see all Jews (hopefully of whatever stripe or “denomination”) emigrate to Israel (in Hebrew, “aliyah”).  Though if they knew that a professed Messianic Jew were reading the news and opinion updates, perhaps they’d feel a bit differently about me.

Over the last several months, I’ve seen a disturbing trend in the number of stories regarding the interference of the Obama administration into the affairs of the Jewish state.  Beyond the typical “what we would expect” nagging of Israeli officials to come to the “peace table” by seemingly everyone in the Obama administration from Obama himself to minor assistant deputy secretaries, is the slightly more-than-occasional comment from Obama and his lap-dog Hillary Clinton regarding Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.  These have taken the form of subtle-as-a-broken-leg “hints” that Israel needs to freeze building, to Obama’s so-called “promise” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to gain positive relations with the US president in exchange for specific commitments to stop further building in Israeli areas (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26671.html).  Effectively, what has been said here is “stop building, and I’ll be your friend… though this was most directly said from those wonderful “unnamed senior officials” – ostensibly so Obama himself can practice the time-honored tradition of “I didn’t say that”.

But what Obama did say more directly – in stark contrast to comments and denials during his election campaign – was “hey, guess what?  I’m not only America’s first black president, I’m its first Muslim president.”  What he can’t deny any further is his appearance at Cairo University in June 2009, where he finally admitted a Muslim heritage, and even quoted the Koran.  But beyond those seemingly mute references to give a subtle jab to Jews, came the most horrific correlation between Jews and so-called “Palestinians”: in that he in one breath mentions the suffering of six million European Jews at the hands of a Nazi regime, and in the next breath mentions the suffering of “Palestinians”.

For the record, comment number one, about the Jews:

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

Then, directly after that, comment number two, about the “Palestinians”:

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

Let’s focus on that again.  A Holocaust, suffering by six million Jews.  INNOCENT Jews.  People who were persecuted just because of what specific ethnicity they were born into.  That, being made to sound as equally reprehensible as “suffering” by so-called “Palestinians”… a suffering which they brought upon themselves as a whole because they decided to declare and conduct an open war of aggression against the Jews, on the VERY DAY (May 15, 1948) that Israel was declared a nation.  In fact, going back further than that, this aggression on the part of Arabs in the area was begun “officially” in November 1947, when the UN voted in favour of the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine, and the creation of a state in the Middle East to be governed by Jews as their ancestral homeland.

As if that wasn’t enough, July brought about the strongest criticism of Israel by Obama and Clinton, in the form of “demands” that Israel stop building in parts of Jerusalem, which mirrored earlier demands to halt “natural growth” building in areas of the country including Judea and Samaria.  Israeli PM Netanyahu, for his part, seemed (thankfully) to draw the line with Obama here, stating that Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem is “not up for debate,” clarifying that both Jews and Arabs are equally able to obtain building permission in any part of the capital city.  Before a Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu implied that the U.S. demand was racist, and stated, “Imagine what would happen if Jews were forbidden to live or to buy apartments in certain parts of London, New York, Paris or Rome. There would be an international outcry.”

The concept that Barack Obama, a self-proclaimed Muslim by heritage, can tell Jews in their own country where they can and cannot live and build, is both racist and laughable.  Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, during a visit to Israel earlier this year, made a wonderful comparison in response to the administration’s demand.  “My question is how would the government of the United States feel if Prime Minister Netanyahu began to dictate which people could live in the Bronx, which ones could live in Manhattan, which could live in Queens, and say, ‘We only allow certain people to live in those neighborhoods,’” he said. “How would that go over? It wouldn’t go over very well… The position that our government has taken recently is far more harsh [than the previous administration], even halting peace talks until there is compliance with these demands,” he noted. “I’m not sure where we would get the authority to demand of the Israelis what they should do in their own country… We have no right to dictate and outright tell another country what it should or shouldn’t do. Heck, we don’t do that with North Korea!”

No wonder he’s touted as the leading Republican presidential candidate for 2012.  At least HE understands one principle that Obama wouldn’t know as long-time (and recently disavowed for publicity’s sake) congregant of radical black and clearly anti-Semitic minister Jeremiah Wright; a principle outlined by God himself when speaking to Abraham, the father of the Jews:

“I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you…” (Genesis 12:3)

Americans should be outraged by Obama’s demands to a traditional friend, and let us not forget, the ONLY real democracy in the Middle East.  Americans should be equally as outraged at Hillary Clinton, whose blatant statements and actions against Israel and her sovereignty culminated in the deliberate snub of Israel during the High Holiday season of Rosh HaShana, which occurs around the time of the Muslim holiday of Eid il-Fitr, or the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan.  The website for the US Consulate in Jerusalem featured Eid il-Fitr greetings from Clinton, as well as from Barack Obama and Consul General Daniel Rubinstein – but there were no greetings to Jews for their High Holiday season.  At least Obama had publicised a short video greeting for Rosh HaShana (over whitehouse.gov, now on YouTube).  But for a politician who spent so much political currency to become a senator from a state housing a very large and vocal Jewish presence, Clinton’s anti-Israel statements and actions are a clear sign of her anti-Semitism, even setting her at odds with her husband’s activities while he was president in the late 1990’s.

Will America wake up to the brow-beating and political anti-Semitic game-playing the White House is engaged in?  Only time will tell… but if Obama and his cronies continue on this path, it won’t just be Israel that the Obama regime is toying with – it’ll be America’s physical, moral, and financial health, as well.  Maybe that’ll be enough to make him a lame duck come 2012.

But occasionally, I catch up with things, and hopefully someone out there in the vast expanse of the Internet universe will someday read and chuckle… somewhat like the hopes that NASA have of some intelligent life form somewhere in the universe finding the gold record on the Voyager (or whichever spacecraft houses it), playing it on some cosmic phonograph, and getting a chuckle that we human putzes had the foresight to not send a CD.  Maybe the next spacecraft will include an iPod with an MP3 recorded by President Obama.

But not every blog entry by every blogger can be either funny or can appeal to a mass, worldwide audience.  And so it is with this one.  Specifically, I’m going to spout off for a bit about something that I’ve seen as an affront to our local children, particularly those who play in the Scottdale (PA) Soccer Club.

All this has to do with one Duane Huffman, who (until now) has been the president of the Scottdale Soccer Club (or SSC as I’ll refer to it).  My daughter has been a member for the past couple of years, and in that time, my wife and I, and many parents (at least those who chose not to turn a blind eye) have seen and have been disappointed in the actions and performance (or lack thereof) of Huffman as president, U-10 division coach, and referee coordinator.

Though I could write a novelette about the missteps, miscommunications, outright head-turning on problems and arisen issues under Huffman’s tenure that would give Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors a run for its money, I will call specific attention to why I and I believe many other parents were shocked and disgusted with the end-of-season tournament on Saturday, May 30, specifically the U-10 division (in which my daughter participated).

The first problem we noted was that the referees (U-13 or older players) were calling large numbers of penalties in each of the games I witnessed, noting that they were all “offside” penalties.  The problem with this is that all season long in the U-10 division, we had not seen any offside penalties called.  In conversations, including one with my daughter’s very adept and competent coach (whom I applaud for his and his wife’s efforts throughout the season), I discovered that the U-10 teams weren’t even being taught this penalty and the skills to avoid it, as this was more of a U-13 division lesson.  For the referees to call this penalty wasn’t fair to the players, who were visibly confused, obviously wondering why the game was being stopped and what they had done wrong.  Yet Huffman, who also coordinated the referees, and coaches a U-10 team, clearly knew this was happening and obviously condoned it.

I won’t dwell too much on the skills (or lack thereof) of the referees chosen for these tournament games, except to note one of whom called as “no goal” a ball that clearly went across the goal line, hitting the back of the net in the process of it falling to the ground before the goalie tapped the ball back into the field.  Each game in the tournament was to have two referees, and they all did – except one, which was my daughter’s team’s last game which (I contend not coincidentally) was against Huffman’s team which would have determined who would have come in second place in the tournament.  This was the only game in which only one referee was on the field.  I charge that this was a deliberate act of unsportsmanlike conduct at the least, and outright cheating at the worst, on Huffman’s part that his team’s last game would be shorted a referee, which could well have determined the outcome of the game… which to some degree, it did, as the sole referee made clearly “questionable” calls and missed specific play action that served to favor Huffman’s team.  Even if the shorting of a referee would have been due to one having to leave early, I doubt that anyone, parents, players, or coaches (except for Huffman obviously) would have objected if the game was postponed for 15 minutes to allow the other ongoing game to finish, so that each of the remaining two games could play with the same number of referees that the earlier-played games had had.

The final insult took place at the award ceremony.  In every past season, every team got something, whether it was a trophy or a medal, depending on their finishing rank during tournament play.  Before the ceremony, our team’s coach was told that they would be receiving nothing, since they didn’t win first or second place.  Our children were very upset – my daughter was to the point of tears.  Though I didn’t initially want to confront Huffman with the problems we’d seen and heard of during tournament play, this last insult to our children was simply too much and I confronted him about this.  I only hope that the number of parents who overheard our discussion are just as disgusted as I am with Huffman’s outright lie that it was supposedly the trophy maker’s fault that there were no medals and that he would “try” to get them and distribute them to the teams.

There are several problems with Huffman’s statement.  First, I personally checked with the trophy maker (my wife and I had a good working relationship with him from our own orders in years past for an exotic car club) and confirmed that while medals were ordered, they were for the younger division’s tournament, for such achievements as “longest kick”, “fastest runner”, etc. Nothing else except 1^st and 2^nd place trophies was ordered for the U-10 and U-13 divisions.  Second, Huffman had all season to order these awards and ensure their delivery; there is no excuse for not having ordered medals in the first place, or for blaming the trophy maker for something that was obviously not the trophy maker’s fault.  Third, even if we should believe Huffman’s claim that he would “try” to get them and distribute them to the teams, he made no mention of this during the awards ceremony.  No parent at that ceremony could claim that Huffman said “I’m sorry your kids aren’t getting medals, I’ll try to get them out to you later” – because he made no public apology, no public claim that there was an ordering error, and no offer to rectify the situation.  He simply awarded his own team second place, and Juan Rodriguez’s team first place.

Each parent pays $45.00 per child per season for the children to participate.  A pure estimate based on the number of divisions, teams, and participants, would add up to approximately $8,000 in revenue this season alone.  With all this, and the fundraising that took place earlier in the season, did the SSC not have enough money to buy medallions (even plastic ones) for the other teams in the tournament?  Given that coaches and others volunteer unpaid (and most likely pay for some things out of their own pockets), the photographer gets paid by the orders for which families pay, that the grass was barely cut this season, and that Fox’s Pizza (who supplies the end-of-season pizza party) probably supplies the food at less than retail (or they should, given that they get free advertising for their efforts), I think that parents would do well to wonder where the rest of the money goes, and exactly why our children needed to be left with the feeling that if they didn’t win first or second place, their efforts didn’t matter.  Huffman’s flippant ignorance this effort and his arrogance at not even apologizing to parents, is totally inexcusable.  His actions not only angered parents and coaches, but worst yet, confused and disappointed our children, many of whom only wanted to go out there and play, have fun, and be acknowledged for their efforts.

The whole purpose of the SSC, the overarching reason parents enroll their children in the program, is not simply to get kids out and exercising, it’s not to teach them how to just win games so they can be travelling team stars, it’s not even just to teach them the game.  They should be learning teamwork, how to play fairly, consistently, and by the rules, and how to win with humility and how to lose with grace.  All these aspects are what our children need to succeed in live, and officers and volunteers should recuse themselves from participation in the club if they don’t believe in these principles and/or if they don’t want to teach and model these ideals.

We enrolled our child in the Outward basketball league that was sponsored over the winter by a local church, Pennsville Baptist; and the difference between the Christian-centeredness in that program and the secular-centeredness of the SSC aside, there was much more of the “learn the game, play fair, winning isn’t everything” attitude in the Outward program than I’d seen in several seasons at SSC.

Some coach or volunteer may condemn my comments and rush to Huffman’s side in a futile attempt to defend what are clearly indefensible actions, and may well attempt to cloud the issues by whining “why, then, don’t you volunteer”.  However, the issues here have less to do with who has and hasn’t volunteered, and much more to do with “who knows who.” Last fall, I emailed Huffman to volunteer my talents to the woefully inadequate club website.  I never heard a reply – no phone call, no email, no personal contact at a practice or a game saying “hey, thanks for volunteering to work on the website – here’s the info you’ll need.”   And notwithstanding the past and ongoing issues, I’ll still state publicly my offer to volunteer my talents to the club’s website so that parents and visitors can actually use the site for its intended purposes, and not as a laughing-stock of old, outdated information that has little relevance to the current season.

I think the next president of the SSC should be someone who not only knows the game, but has actual business sense, someone who has a passion for our children and their efforts, someone who is committed to proper fiscal management and the principles of consistent fair play and education of our children.  There should also be an independent audit conducted of the Scottdale Soccer Club’s books (if one hasn’t been done already) and for an open and public review of such an audit, so that parents who put out their hard-earned money can see where their collective funds are going.  And finally, the SSC volunteers shouldn’t take my comments as an affront of their appreciated efforts on behalf of the club, to not attempt to rally behind a failed president who (thank God) has stated his intention to step down as of the end of this season — which, when I heard that news, made me feel like breaking open my mutual fund piggy bank, and petitioning the mayor of Scottdale to allow me to pay for a parade to celebrate, with the Southmoreland marching band walking down the street playing “Ding-Dong The Witch Is Dead”.

The volunteers, coaches, and officers of the SSC should commit themselves anew to the overarching principles for which the SSC should be standing; as it is all about and for our children, not about adult politics.

It’s not often I’d jump much into open political wackiness, but during this last several weeks of the Presidential race here in the US, several things seem to be in that “getting away with” category, and most all of them are horribly tilted to the left.

One of my co-workers today, in front of one of my patients, decided to enter into that realm probably best left to the right-leaning conservative FOXNews, or the unashamed left-wing, atheist-loving CNN. She said, while my patient was watching FOXNews, “so who are you going to vote for?” I gave my opinion, and like any good nurse, my “rationales.”

Now, let’s get one thing straight. I’m a conservative-leaning fulfilled Jew who has voted in the past for both sides of the aisle, depending on the candidate and what I felt he or she brought to the table. I like honest criticism of every candidate, but don’t care for the over-tiltedness toward one candidate that seems to pervade certain media outlets.

Given all that, I’m finding it pretty incredibly disgusting to see where the Democrats in general, and candidate Barack Obama in particular along with his seemingly overwhelming Nuremberg rally-like army of spellbound supporters, can seem to get away with everything from below-the-belt mudslinging, double entendre, and Internet crimes.

Take for example (if I were to outline all the examples, we’d be here until Bush leaves office), the latest twist on the Sarah Palin email hacking scandal. Oh yes, I’m sure that by the time it’s all said and done, it’ll be quite a scandal. The latest as of this writing seems to be that the investigation has, for all intents and purposes, been shut down, without so much as a slap on the wrist to erstwhile computer geek turned suspected computer hacker David Kernell, son of – you guessed it – DEMOCRATIC Tennessee state Representative Michael Kernell. My problem with this stems from the fact that the whole hacking shocker seemed to grip the nation with an almost universal “how dare they break the law”… UNTIL… it was disclosed that the prime suspect (and in my opinion, the prime culprit) was the son of a Democrat. So quickly after that, the mood changed… the Obama-engine seemed to kick into overdrive, attempting to cast doubt on the Democratic connection, as well as the irritating little fact that what the kid did is commit a FELONY. Hmm… My question is, who’s putting pressure on the US Attorneys in Tennessee, to have the lock up this investigation so quickly? If this was Denmark, as the phrase infers, we’d have to throw open the windows and kick the fans on high.

And do we even dare to touch the supposed untouchables, the celebrities that everyone loves to look up to and pay so much money to see on the big screens and the small VIEWs? Since when did practically every celeb in Hollywood get sprinkled with the Michelle Obama “cute” fairy-dust, and turn into mindless zombies for Obama? Oh, even Howie Mandell, who I swear looks more like Beelzebub with that skin-head and mini-goatee, had to get into the act at the recent Primetime Emmy Awards, along with other glassy-eyed tux-stuffers such as Beelzebub, er, Howie, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Tommy Smothers, whose little rant seemed smacked more of the hippie peace-ins from his original series’ era, and left me almost expecting to see the ghost of John Lennon coast on the stage while singing “Imagine”. Overall, that bit of Hollywood back-slapping gave me the impression that they were acting on that stage, to the script written by the same Democratic script writers that roll the words on Obama’s teleprompters.

And since when did some columnist from Canada get to weigh in on the Democratic side of the aisle in the USA, in an obvious attempt to stimulate the Obama-zombies’ laugh tracks? Yes, let’s talk about what seems to be Greta Van Susteren’s apparent nemesis, CBC’s own claim to shame, Heather Mallick… who has the look of what many in America have come to know and love about Canadian inbreeding.

As the story goes, Mallick appeared on CBC news on the last day of the Republican National convention, at the same time a UK newspaper published a column of hers, in which she trashed Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska as a “frontier state full of drunks and crazy people”, continuing that she “added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn’t already have sewn up, the white trash vote.” She also likened the Alaska governor’s looks as “a toned-down version of the porn actress look favored by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression.”

Heather, one tip for you… if you’re going to trash someone else’s looks, I’d at least get a publicity picture of yourself that’s… not you. I’m wondering if the hometown in Northern Ontario you came from, which is reportedly smaller than Sarah Palin’s mayorship town, has more in common with “Deliverance” than you’d like to admit. I’ve travelled in Northern Ontario… and personally, after that experience, I’ll stick to Toronto on my next visit.

All this politico seems to be one-sided. I really don’t see the Republicans running off teaching their followers a “bump”-y new version of a salute that any self-respecting Jew should be highly offended with. I don’t see McCain’s speech-writing team handing out scripts for public celebrities and figures to use to trash the opposition. I don’t see Palin supporters rushing to their computers to reset passwords for the email accounts of the DNC members.

So why do the Democrats seem to be getting away with all this?

If you ask me, it’s for much the same reason Adolf was able to get away with so much…

The following are my five weeks of journal entries, which I wrote in “blog” form.  Enjoy, especially the administration of the “Wal-Mart of healthcare.”

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Week One:  “Sink Or Swim”

Tiffany and I started out on the right foot, I think.  From the very outset, I pictured her as a younger, energetic, exuberant nurse with several years of experience and a head full of knowledge, just waiting for it to spill out on me.  I was nearly right.

She is young, 20 years my junior, but that doesn’t seem to faze her.  She was a grad from this hospital’s in-house nursing school, just under two years in her RN.  And she has more of a democratic style to her leadership, especially since she was a relatively new nurse herself, and I wasn’t the only student nurse she’d encountered since she passed her boards.  She seemed relaxed at delegating tasks to the students, and even allowed me to play the RN-mentor role with the in-house nursing school’s students assigned to our patients.

Our work together this week started out as I would have thought: taking a small portion of Tiffany’s 5-patient workload.  But when I finished the day giving my first-ever report as a nurse, I figured that things were going to get interesting.  The next day, I walked in to a “sink-or-swim” situation when Tiffany said, “two patients were just too easy for you.  You’re going to take my whole assignment.”  I could tell she was tossing me in the water, to see what I’d do with it.  I had to up the ante for myself, since Tiffany was clearly keen on delegating an amount of her authority to me.

The approach is considered “immersion”, and it’s the same concept I used on myself when I decided to work in healthcare as an aide while attending school.  In other words, if you really want to learn French, don’t pick up a French language book, live for 6 months in Paris.

Within a few short days, I was already picking up this hospital’s “lingo”, talking the appropriate talk to the other nurses, PT/OT departments, and the residents we needed to encounter.  I found I needed to listen thoroughly, concentrating on not only was being said, but what was written regarding my patients, and be able to translate that information in simple form to patients and family, and more professional form to the other disciplines with which we interacted.

So, will my one-on-one with an enthusiastic young nurse have me emulating that democratic leadership potential?  Stay tuned.

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Week Two: “CLEAR!”

Something inside of me always wanted to yell that out.  I suppose the “ER” TV show subculture made it almost glamourous to shock the crap out of someone, all the while the adrenaline is pumping with the excitement of a do-or-die moment.  Perhaps this vision is simply leftover from my earlier days, as a young 17-year-old when I was struggling with the reality of leaving high school and debating between the passion of nursing school and “safe option” of another field, due primarily to the (seeming) social stigma of male nursing.  Looking back, my decision to sucker in to what was perceived about male nurses was plain stupid.

But coming back to my passion some twenty years later, hasn’t erased or diminished the reality shock potential of what will be after I get that shiny pin on my uniform.  It’s one thing to “practice” nursing practice in school, whilst you’re under the umbrella of the college and all your stupid decisions can be halted by a faculty member or a staff RN.  But when the ball gets firmly put in my hands, and there’s no direct backup, that’s when I think the stress of nursing will finally hit home.  I know that day’s coming soon.

And it’s not like I’m likely to escape any of the pressures that I see nurses face at this hospital.  As a teaching hospital, the staff is constantly surrounded by student nurses, student pharmacists, student doctors, and the list seems to continue on.  I think the ones with the biggest egos are the med students, who by and large have seemed to look down on the nurses as something inferior.  Maybe that’s just my impression as a student nurse, but perhaps that’s just one of the stresses that the “real nurses” (you know, the RN’s) have to deal with.  It seems to me, though, that the nursing staff seem to handle this ever-present invasion of student-whatevers with grace and charm… at least outside the break room.

Perhaps it’s called a “break” room because there, the staff can break down in front of each other, so that patients and visitors don’t see the effect of the pressures they’re under.  If nurses can check their personal lives at the door when they walk in, and not have to deal with personal issues at work, it’d almost be a perfect world.  But personal pressures are just one of many stresses nurses seem to shoulder.  Patient problems, incessant doctors who don’t seem to listen, doting families, unit managers yelling if overtime goes over a constantly-nebulous line… and to boot, the reality that occasionally, and one never seems to know when, we just might have our patients’ very lives in our hands… that’s all a lot to deal with, beyond the spouse or child calling with some issue or other, while you’re trying to work.

I like the fact that Tiffany keeps her sanity partially through pleasant thoughts of one day owning her own organic/health store.  For the most part, she tries to eat fresh and healthy, maintains a health-conscious lifestyle, and regularly “decompresses” even during work time.  Ah, if only I could emulate those habits.  Maybe when school is all done, I’ll have a clearer mind to de-stress in healthy ways like these.

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Week Three:  “You Want Me To Do WHAT?”

There are some people I work with who I know will delegate “charming” jobs to me, and leave me hanging when I need an extra pair of hands.  These people are a major reason why I’m glad I won’t be working my current unit when I start as a GN.  It’s not that I don’t expect to encounter other such people in my career, it’s just I’ve had enough of delegation of “dirty jobs” to “the aide” borne more out of laziness than effective distribution of responsibility.

From a nurse’s perspective, however, delegation looks slightly different.  Since patient assignments are split during a day between those working 8-hour shifts and those working 12, there have been some occasions where prior patient experience and proximity are thrown out the window in favour of expedience and an apparent management phenomenon I can only describe as “spreading the misery.”

The nice thing about this hospital is that there’s always another student nurse floating around, part of a group who aren’t precepting yet.  So when Tiffany and I come in to work, the possibility exists that we’ll have a student to deal with.  And when we’ve been caught up in the misery-spreading, and we have an in-house nursing school student or two, the misery gets spread to them for the more “interesting” tasks.  They’re passing meds, doing patient care, and Tiffany wanted me specifically to double-check their work and shadow them.  So effectively, she delegated some of her responsibilities onto me, and I in turn delegated some onto the in-house nursing school students.

But rarely do I hear at this facility, a foul cry of “you want me to do what?”  For example, I could very easily have gotten myself, a repeat blood pressure on one patient this week who needed to be watched closely.  But I asked the aide covering our assigned patients to get the blood pressure, and without hesitation, he got it within the time I requested for him to repeat it.  There was no “why can’t you do it, you’re the student”, no “I’m too busy for that”.  This aide knew his job and knew it well, which freed my mind up on priorities of the shift, which included a fresh transfer from the ICU that became my first patient to see, someone scheduled for a test, who became my second, and the repeat blood pressure, who became my third.  The last three were “walkie-talkies”, one of whom was ready to discharge.  That patient was number four.

I think it’s the faster pace of a floor like this, with more rapid-fire admissions and discharges, acute patient care and med administration, that is helping me to understand how to quickly prioritise and turn, sometimes on a dime, to effectively manage the care my patients need.

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Week Four:  “TRADITION!”

Someone famous once said, “the old ways are the best ways.”  It was Tevye in my favourite musical Fiddler On The Roof who kept singing the praises of “tradition” all the while that tradition was crumbling around him.  So it seems in medicine, and in particular, in nursing, that old ways, though having their proper place, sometimes need to give way to new “best practices” as our profession progresses.

But with change in the way we’ve done things, come changes in attitude, and conflict between members of what we always hope is a cohesive group.

Take for instance a recent development on this unit, which to some, seemed appallingly small potatoes, but to others (including the unit manager) was an issue that couldn’t be ignored.  It was several days ago when a patient was transferred from this unit to another unit, and according to that unit’s assessment, the patient was found to have deep impressions on both legs from knee-high TED hose placed improperly, and apparently not having been removed for days.  Now, anyone who’s had TED hose on for even one day knows enough of what it’s like to want them off at night.  So, when this issue worked its way through the nursing management, the edict came down that each shift must document TED hose usage on each patient, and when they went on and when they were taken off.  An excellent idea in theory, as it would give a clear indication of any skin issues related to TED hose usage and time on the patient.  But when the unit manager wrote that order on the whiteboard in the nurses’ lounge, some nurses were quick to whine about how that would be so tedious and that they’d quickly forget to chart that, since it’d never been tracked before.

I think to some of the staff who were whining, the issue wasn’t so much that they didn’t want to document additional data for the sake of effective patient care, it was more like they felt that it was an edict, and order handed down, and they had no ownership of the idea.

Perhaps that’s the root of conflict resolution and group communication… to realise that even when the group needs to follow a particular direction, the best way to approach the new concept is to help the group “take ownership”, or feel a part of the change; allow input and discussion about how exactly to implement the change and what positive qualities the change would bring to the group, rather than simply imposing the change on the group without any sense of “I was a part of that.”

My first degree was in communications, so these concepts of group “ownership” were well rooted.  The buzzword “change agent” came along many years later, I believe during the “dot-com” bubble era.  But the concept is the same.  Being able to effectively guide a group of people toward seeing change as a positive direction is definitely a persuasive skill.  Thank God for communications degrees.

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Week Five:  “The ‘U’ Word”

Not every foul word in the English language has four letters.  Take for instance, the “u” word.  Management and administrations all over this country shudder when they think of or hear the word “union” because it invokes such painful feelings for them; negotiations, pay scales, grievances, and the occasional threat of a strike.

But why should it be that way, some would argue.  After all, especially in the last ten years or so, hospitals and other healthcare facilities have been trying to get nurses into more powerful positions.  They’ve encouraged nurses to complete their BSN’s, very often paying for the tuition along the way.  To counter the inter-discipline “power struggles” that sometimes exist between nursing, medicine, and other hospital-based disciplines, administrations have attempted to foster mutual communication between them, using such venues as roundtables, inter-disciplinary committees, and certifications.

Still, many nurses feel their voices aren’t heard, their plight as the first-line of patient care is under-appreciated, and that more is being piled onto them than they can handle and still provide safe, effective patient care.  Unions can, not always do, fill the need of speaking for nurses.

I came from a strong union background, and I married into one as well.  My father-in-law was an international union president for nearly 25 years.  Needless to say, then, I see a lot of merit in unions.  But as union membership and representation has declined over the last 20 years or so, I think the power a union represents has also been diminished.  This perception has not been helped by what I see as weak union administration.  My father-in-law was famous for saying “two heads are better than one – unless both of them are stupid.”  My feeling is that a union is only as strong its local administration.  Weak local presidents, those who have consistently given in to company bullying, who haven’t stood up for their members, and (especially) who have not had the intelligence to do their homework about the companies their members work for so they can negotiate contracts both knowledgeably and realistically, have done more to undermine the union movement than the Hiroshima bomb did to advance nuclear proliferation.

Certainly conglomeration in healthcare hasn’t helped. Unfortunately I’m currently “stuck” in the Pittsburgh, PA area… though my desire is to return to the sunny Delaware Valley and Philadelphia, where my heart is. Regardless, southwestern Pennsylvania has UPMC, a behemoth of a healthcare system. They have gobbled up more hospitals and facilities in western Pennsylvania than any other I’ve seen in recent times, all the while diminishing their staff salaries and lowering the quality of staff healthcare insurance. For this and other reasons (including the fact that my family still blames my father-in-law’s untimely death on inept UPMC nurses and a new resident who couldn’t intubate an elephant without exposing it to staph), I’ve dubbed UPMC with the dubious distinction of being the “Wal-Mart of healthcare.” They don’t seem to care how big they get, and don’t care what smaller, community facilities they destroy in the process. It seems their goal is to be the healthcare monopoly in western Pennsylvania, if that were possible. Many nurses I’ve talked to here at this hospital have adopted the disdain for UPMC that seems to be spreading around healthcare professionals in this area (including many of UPMC’s own employees).

Enter union representation… correct that… enter effective, strong, and intelligent union representation.  If the UPMC staff, with one voice, would stand up and unite under a common union umbrella, the behemoth could be effectively de-clawed, and become one of a number of competitive systems in this area for healthcare delivery.

Nurses, as the cream between the cookie sides of the patient and the physician, need strong representation to have their voices heard, and to practice safe and effective care.  When the nurses have an understanding, compassionate administration above them, that’s well and good.  But when the administration above them is more concerned with the dollars the patient brings in than the care the patient receives, it’s time for a good, strong, and effective union.

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~ NursingGuy

No, this year I’ll only make one:  I resolve to graduate from my RN-program nursing school.

Those who have never been in nursing school or who have never known a nurse VERY well, will no doubt sit there and say, "what kind of resolution is that?  That’s no big deal."  But nurses, their families and close friends will appreciate the fact that nurse training is like military training:  they both are "boot camps"… the only difference is that student nurses don’t get their heads shaved down and they don’t drop and give their instructor "50" every time they answer a question wrong.

And we also have to give credit here to the fact that most people have this impression of nursing students as perky, cute little 18- or 19-year old girls just out of high school, probably still living at home with mommy and daddy, and only need enough spending money that they can get from grant refunds and their part-time job at Hot Topic.

Sorry, I don’t fit the demographic.

So what’s the big deal about a resolution to graduate nursing school?  In the first place, I’m neither 18, nor perky, nor a girl.  I’m one of the growing number of men in nursing, choosing nursing as a profession because it’s what I wanted to do all along — but never did until now.  I did something else for my Bachelor’s degree, and had a decently successful IT career before heeding the calling I ignored since the mid-80′s.  Second, try pulling a full-time, 40+ hour per week hospital job along with a full-time schedule in nursing school, with its lecture time, school laboratory, hospital clinical time, study time, tests, etc. — not the easiest thing in the world.  Add to this, a wife, 9-year-old daughter, 3 cars, a mortgage, and the fact that I’m over 40 (which, thank God, I see a growing number of my generation entering nursing school for the first time), and you have the picture of how hard it has been for me over the last 2+ years.

Granted, I will give credit where credit is due to any nursing student who braves the nursing school boot-camp and makes it out alive with their GN in hand.  But I will give more credit to those such as in my position who have to work full-time and go to school full-time, who are older and have been out of the school environment for 10, 15, 0r 20 years, and are even holding their own and passing.  As the nursing student mantra goes, "C = RN".

And the choice of school makes a difference, too.  Some schools make it harder than it all needs to be.  One school I know of in my local area has turned this into a virtual art form, doing a variety of things to deliberately cause students to fail so they can narrow the field from the 120 they bring in every fall, in an attempt to keep those they believe have the best shot of passing the NCLEX (the "state board" nursing license test), so their pass rate percentages look good and they can continue getting state and federal money for their program.  Other schools take the "let’s work with you to help you understand" approach (such as the school I’ve found) who won’t necessarily hand you a grade, but will go the extra mile to help you learn the concepts and equip you to not just pass the boards, but to be a good entry-level nurse.

This is where I believe the difference is.  Students can fall all over themselves trying so hard to pass tests and memorize things well enough to get a grade, but does that really equip them to make it in the real world where the test is a patient with non-specific symptoms and you have to think on your feet enough to differentiate what you tell the doctor when you call, or if you need to call at all?

I think the best entry-level nurses are those who don’t feel the intense pressure of weekly pencil-and-paper tests, but where their skills are taught, learned, and practiced to the point of near-proficiency.  I have already met enough nursing students from other schools whom I wouldn’t want to see over my hospital bed when I regain consciousness after some accident or other.

Being trained as one of those skills-based, not "book-based" nurses, I can’t wait for this semester to begin (in about a week).  I can’t wait to graduate.  I can’t wait to get out and help people.  Yes, the money’s great, the concept that I have the choice of a job practically anywhere I want is great.  But the opportunity to be a blessing to someone by helping them to recovery… that’s the greatest reward.  And unlike some seasoned nurses who I know that whine about being burned out, maybe when I get "burned out" (if I do), I’ll be ready to retire anyway.

So, this year, I will graduate from nursing school, and I will make a difference.