Nanny and Ninny City: Land of 1,000 Insane Regulations

Today I drove to Manhattan with some visiting relatives. I hate driving into the city because it is always such a hassle to find a parking spot, but the upside of being there is the ability to tour grand museums and sample food prepared by master chefs.

My visitors brought kids and we all decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is an amazing place filled with inspiring works of art; some of the pieces date back 6,000 years and there are huge rooms filled with paintings by such masters as Van Gogh and Degas.

After finally finding a parking place that was only a 10 minute walk from the museum, we nearly ran to its entrance as 1/2 of our party desperately needed a bathroom. While the others were using the facilities, I went to pay the entrance fees.

At the Metropolitan Museum of art, visitors have to wear a small pin that indicates they paid admission.  A child's fare is far cheaper than that of an adult and being in the company of 2 newly turned teenagers, I paid for 3 adults and 2 kids.  To my surprise, I received only 3 pins. When I asked about the 2 additional pins, I was informed that it is museum policy to restrict these pins to only adults because children can place such pins into their mouths and choke on them. I tried reassuring the clerk at the front desk that these kids and too old for such concerns, but he remained firm and told me that he is not comfortable endangering the lives of innocent kids.

Not wanting to see the disappointment on my nieces faces, I searched for a way to overcome his idiotic obstructionism. The guy I was dealing with seemed to be in his early 20's and I looked around for someone else who was wiser and better capable of handling responsibility, to attempt reasoning with.  I found an intelligent appearing older woman who was sitting behind a whole bowl of these pins, showed her my receipt for 5 admission tickets and told her that I would like 2 more pins for the teen girls. Kids under 12 qualify for the reduced fare, and my nieces are 10 and 11, respectively.  With a pleasant smile, she said that she cannot in good conscience give such pins to these girls for fear of a lawsuit, but instead offered me a family friendly paper flyer to give to them instead of a pin. I should have asked her if she feared a lawsuit based on age discrimination or perhaps one resulting from the possibility that someone might choke on this flyer, but I just shook my head in disbelief and quietly left.

NYC is has truly become a place of insane regulations taken to insane extremes. In the Summer, I cannot swim or even wet my feet at any of the public beaches because the residents of NYC are too dumb and helpless to enjoy the water without the benevolent presence of a lifeguard. At 5 PM, lifeguards go home and legions of fat park-security guards roam the beaches whistling at anyone who dares to approach the water. Any argument, even from someone dressed in rolled up pants so that he might enjoy walking in ankle deep water, will result in a call for police intervention and further threats. As someone who works during the day and can only come to the beach after 5, I am regulated to sit on the sand and stare longingly at the cooling water that lies beyond my reach.  Now in museums, teenagers cannot be trusted to wear a pin, because they might for some inexplicable reason start choking on these pins.


Here is a photo of this unforgivably super dangerous and deceptively appetizing pin.

What's next? Will there be a civil servant watching me in the bathroom stall for fear of something or other?

Enough.

Please, leave us alone with these needless nanny rules and stop treating everyone as if he is some blithering idiot.

Violence in Pleasantville.

I often have unpleasant interactions with patients in NYC. It is just one of those things that you expect to happen in an urban hospital. I see alcoholics who swear and cuss at everyone close enough for their blurry eyes to make out, drug addicts who threaten to go crazy if they don't get their drugs, and people infected with AIDS and hepatitis who hurl their body fluids at the nurses to make their point. Lets not even mention the paranoid schizophrenics that stab people with their forks, but somehow I have less animosity towards them because I feel that their excuse for lack of self control is more legitimate than the others that I mentioned earlier.

This week, I had another such pleasant interaction with a young man admitted for pain. His pain has been ongoing for years and he mentioned being to more emergency rooms than he could count. I checked his past records and saw numerous normal x-rays, cat scans, and lab tests.  These same studies were repeated during this latest visit, and were once again completely normal. However, he has already gotten some morphine and wanted more of it. His behavior was classic for someone seeking drugs. 

So, I told him that he would not receive any more narcotics unless I found a justified reason to administer such medications, and he went ballistic. He tore up the room, damaged expensive medical equipment and made a few decorative changes to the nearby walls. The police arrived, he calmed down and to my surprise, no one wanted to bring up charges against him. None of the administrators, nor the hospital police thought it would be appropriate to have him arrested.  If you account for everything destroyed, it would likely be in the range of 20,000 dollars.

 sarc/ No matter, our taxes will pay for it. /sarc.

Why am I so unsettled after this encounter when I had countless similar other encounters? It became obvious to me that the idea of personal responsibility is dead in this culture. Maybe not in the rural mid-west, but certainly here in NYC and many other big cities.  We have become a nation of destroyers and we will self-destruct.  

One other item worth mentioning: The violent young man, the police, and the administrator were all black. Someone could say that race had nothing to do with the way this incident was handled, but then there is that whole George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin spectacle going on now.

Forward @(*&#^*&%!

As our nation's economy stands on the edge of the abyss, Obama gives his executive order: FORWARD!

Read more here and here.

Maybe it's time to pause and think.

Who Let The Dogs Out?

Apparently, at a recent Democratic presidential campaign fundraiser dozens of dogs were seen running away from the kitchen. Those attending the fundraiser, wound up eating a hastily ordered pizza.

ASPCA members are suspected in arranging this canine getaway.  The department of justice officials are now considering charging them with domestic terrorism and hate crimes.

According to an unidentified official source, Bo was eaten by the ravenous Obamas and a search is underway for a substitute dog.
...they're still hungry.

The following are some of the comments seen on this topic at Hotair.com


-"If I had a dog, he would look like the one Obama ate."-George Zimmerman


-Now I know why Bo needed to fly on a separate plane.

The Zimmerman Trial

"We think that society should be moral and rational, and that people should do the right thing. But that's not what it is. It's an insane braying donkey's laugh as the thieves, large and small, rob the people blind and then muscle them into a lynch mob to go after some handy victim."

The latest from the Sultan Knish. Our world has gotten ugly, and it will get uglier still.

The state of things.

Another quote from the Sultan Knish.

"Welcome to Utopia. Keep your shiv in your left pocket and your identification papers in your right. The surveillance cameras are watching, taxes are going up, protests have closed off three major streets, there will be no meat or petrol for the next week, if you want to pick up some black market brandy, you'll need some Renminbis. No one takes dollars or euros anymore except the gov stores and they don't have anything but a few basic staples. Your leg hurts but it's still another month before you can see a doctor. The election will be in a week, but there are only two parties, left and lefter. Both promise to fight for the people, but if you get attacked again on the way home, you'll have to fight for yourself."

Good times...

More Thoughts on Obamascare

This morning, I read an excellent analysis of the free lunch mentality that is being used to promote many government programs, including the affordable scare shaft. That reading inspired me to write my own post on the topic of universal health care in America.

People who are inspired to work in healthcare are often compassionate and self giving individuals. These are the values that society attributes to doctors and medical training institutions have reinforced this view at least as far back as the days of Hippocrates. This view of doctors is further perpetuated through television shows that display dedicated doctors performing herculean resuscitation attempts on the dying. Consider the movie - I am Legend, where a doctor stayed behind while his family was evacuated because he felt obligated to continue helping the victims of a new plague, and needed to remain in the epicenter. This is what society expects from doctors and it is what doctors, to some extent, expect from themselves and their colleagues. However, there comes a point when one has had enough of all this idealism and it typically occurs while most doctors are still in training, during their residency years.

Much of the training occurs in medical centers that cater to the indigent and the poor. There, doctors get to see some really nasty individuals who are hell bent on destroying their lives and don't want to listen to your advice, no matter how nicely you try to speak to them. You risk your life trying to draw blood from a heroin junkie, knowing that if you accidentally stick yourself with that needle you might develop AIDS yourself. In a respiratory isolation room, you try to examine the eyes of an emaciated homeless man, hoping that your mask will protect you from his tuberculous cough. The rewards for such self sacrifice sometimes come in the form of being spit on by an out of control drunkard or verbally abused by either one of the above described lovely individuals, or their family members. We carry on being idealistic crusaders by developing a protective and paternalistic bond to these sick and twisted people and convince ourselves that it is our duty to care for them, because they are so helpless and hopeless. So when the idealistic coat of illusion begins to wear thin, we become labelled as callous.

Another form of abuse all doctors and nurses witness comes in the form of entitled deception. People show up asking for help and they feel that it is their right to have you work for them, without any compensation, because they are sick and must be taken care of. They are often very demanding on the hospital floor, constantly complaining about their food and their tv, and you think to yourself why on earth are they remaining in this hospital room? When time comes to send them home, they won't leave because there is no one to wait on them at home like there is in the hospital. Then you try to work on a solution with a social worker so that they can get a "free" maid at home and they finally agree to leave. Some families drop off their demented parents, and leave for a vacation. By the time you realize that their supposed acute change in mental function most likely occurred over 1 year ago and start trying to reach their family to take them home, they are long gone and unreachable. They will show up about 1 week later and act horrified that you would even consider placing their demented parent in a nursing home. That is not a valid solution for them because "they are so caring"; the reality is that when someone goes to the nursing home, their social security check becomes deposited into that nursing home rather than being left to be spent by the kids. There comes a point when you do not view these free loaders and their free loading families with sympathy. And before you go all teary eyed for the abused and demented elderly, you should realize that their kids were raised this way and most likely mimic their parents from an earlier time. These folks feel an entitlement to their care but hold no obligation to pay for it.

Another group of deceptive freeloaders come in the form of out-of-country visitors. Some fly here to obtain their expensive cancer treatment or a cardiac catherization and as soon as their treatment is done, they fly back to their country. They often do not have a real address and there is no practical way to collect their payment. In several years when they need another procedure, they return and often with a different name and address. We sometimes hear horror stories about some hospital in Mexico where a patient is kept hostage until their bill is fully paid, but there is a good reason for such measures. It would never work in this country because of all our idealistic do-gooders in politics and various forms of administration.

One of the selling points for instituting this affordable health scare shaft, is that it would force people who use medical care but don't currently pay into the system, to pay for it by forcing everyone in this country to contribute. Would it actually accomplish this? Lets consider the above groups and how they would be affected by this legislation. Would it really collect any money from the entitled free-loader who doesn't have a job? No, it wouldn't collect a dime from them, and they will likely be even more demanding than ever. Would obamacare collect anything from tourists who come here for expensive medical procedures? No it wouldn't, and the politicians will not pass any laws to address this problem.

How about the problem that has to do with a legion of lawyers who try to profit from dissatisfied patients. Most of these lawsuits come from communication difficulties between doctors and patients, and considering real world examples I described above, strained communication is the rule rather than an exception. Real professional misconduct rarely gets reported. Often hospitals and insurance companies settle rather than fight off a frivolous suit, because it is cheaper for them. It is a rare case where a doctor will insist on being vindicated in the court, because these doctors also want the nuisance to be over quickly so that they can return to work. Was Tort reform addressed by this healthcare act? No it wasn't.

Proponents of Affordable Care Act claim that it will allow this country to afford its medical expenses by forcing people who do not currently pay for their health care, to pay. That is a lie. The people who scam our hospitals now, will not contribute a dime. The people who pay for their care now, will have to pay even more to afford a myriad of new government agencies that will oversee their prompt payments. The only thing this bill will accomplish is to shift more power and control of our lives into the hands of government bureaucrats, and that was it's only true intention.