This nation has given itself over to the cult of celebrity, and IDIOTS are leading our way. The Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves.
Michael Moore is NOT a healthcare expert. He's a Hollywood film-maker. Of bad/boring films.
Once upon a time, I used to watch Oprah Winfrey. In her younger days, she pushed limits and challenged authority/the status quo. These days . . . well . . . let me just say that anyone who equates not being let into a Hermes store after hours with racism has some serious Riellity issues.
But then came a lawsuit by some Texas cattlemen accusing Oprah of "libeling" them and their industry . . . after she said she was "stopped cold" from eating hamburger anymore (obviously, it was a temporary affliction) while doing a show on "Mad Cow".
While defending that lawsuit, Oprah withdrew into a shell of her former self. I knew her pain and felt sorry for her . . . and cringed at the change. She filled the void by chasing glitz and endorsing woo and ogling celebrity . . . by reading fluff, passing easy judgments and ultimately choosing Presidents. In the process, she became what she once despised.
She became the cattlemen.
How do I get there, you ask?
A few years back, a girls school in South Africa that Oprah had funded into being was thrown into the spotlight when allegations of sexual abuse erupted.
Oprah went into full damage-control mode (much as she did when she ripped author, James Fey, into a "Million Little Pieces") and pulled out all the stops in terms of deflecting her own accountability for what happened at the school (thus protecting her deep pockets).
You would've thought she was a Randolph Hospital Board member.
Anyway, in pulling out all the stops, while meeting with angry/disillusioned parents of the girls (and in a subsequent press conference) Oprah made some fairly nasty remarks about the school's (now former) headmistress, Nomvuyo Mzamane.
Entertainment & ad industry executives have always marveled at Oprah's ability to "make" people. But being able to "make" them means you can also "break" them.
Mzamane, who came to the school with impressive credentials, has said she was unable to find work because of Winfrey's comments.
Mzamane, a mere guppy in the accountability food chain that led to uber-shark Oprah, fought back, suing Lady O for defamation:
Mzamane accused Winfrey of suggesting she was not trustworthy through comments about the need for new leadership and remarks such as "I thought she cared about the girls of South Africa," according to the October 2008 lawsuit.
Oprah's lawyers (talk about a job that would have you set for life) argued that Oprah was merely expressing an opinion. The problem with that argument is that in this instance, Oprah was not just a citizen, she was an employer, and what Oprah said about Mzamane (that she had been purposefully clueless about what was going on right under her nose) could have been just as easily said about Oprah.
A Philadelphia judge has refused to dismiss Mzamane's case, and it will proceed to trial on the merits:
"The implication that (Mzamane) was aware of abuse by the dorm parents and did not react accordingly is capable of defamatory meaning as it ascribes conduct which would render her unfit for her profession as an educator," (Judge Edwardo) Robreno wrote in the 128-page opinion.
And I am loving it.
Now some bloggers in our local ether have criticized me for taking situations and making them "all about me". It's certainly a whole lot easier than addressing the facts, doing anything to fix what's wrong, or confronting/acknowledging their own hypocrisy. We all view the world through our own prisms of experience. And here's how mine (which dates back to Hillary's "village") relates to Oprah's current tale of woe . . .
After I was fired (once again, for defying the threats of clueless/greedy executives higher up in the hospital food chain . . . threats that were based the BOGUS, TRUMPED-UP MUSINGS of a very entitled VIP dentist . . . threats that, if heeded, might have resulted in the death of an infant), I sued "non-profit" Randolph Medical Associates (as opposed to its "parent company" Randolph Hospital) . . .
. . . the same "non-profit" Randolph Medical Associates that had entered into an agreement with the Federal government that wound up bringing two Pediatricians to Asheboro . . . by sealing the medical-school-loan-repayment-for-service-deal that John Edwards used to advocate as a way to save healthcare.
But when push came to shove and I needed the Feds to enforce ALL of the terms of that agreement, the Feds dived under their desks in Atlanta, Bethesda and Washington.
Oversight of the "non-profit's" actions . . . and of the program itself was non-existent.
Still is. And guess what? It's not going to be fixed by the bad reform bill that Michael Moore wants the President & Democratic leadership to bully through.
In filing the lawsuit, my original intent was to secure the fiscal means (i.e. compensatory damages) to re-establish my practice (the one RMA had absorbed & basically handed over to Kathleen Riley) as a private enterprise in Asheboro, and persuade Dr. Laurie Anderson to stay in Asheboro (because let's be clear, there was NO WAY she was going to remain with RMA for any length of time) and join me.
One of my original legal claims was slander. For in attempting to defend the decision to fire me, as he/Steve Eblin pulled every dirty trick in the book to shut me up, Randolph Hospital's CEO, Bob Morrison, told parents and colleagues who questioned his actions that I was "not a team player".
It was a stupid thing to do. In this case, Bob was Oprah.
Now, in Bob's book, team players are apparently the kind of physicians who would have hung up the phone when they were awakened in the middle of the night (by a terrified nurse asking them to help a patient-not-even-their-own) . . . rolled over and gone back to sleep.
In Bob's book, and in Randolph Hospital's book, team players let babies die.
So, in this case, not being a team player was actually a good thing. And it's absolutely true that I don't play on such teams.
But that's NOT what Bob was meaning to infer/imply to the people he was trying to pacify. Mary was "difficult". Mary was "disruptive". Mary was "a little wacky". And it was very professionally damaging to me.
And despite my ultimate legal "win" (after three years of what can only be described as HELL), Bob's myth has persisted to this day. The micro-managing nimnuls running RMA held Mary Johnson to impossible standards of scrutiny & behavior that no other physician at RMA or Randolph Hospital has ever been held (for instance, at approximately the same time Bob was burying the case-against-the Cone-owned-Neonatologist-wannabe . . . and trashing me . . . he was harboring an Obstetrician who had aborted his own out-of-wedlock child).
Mary, you see, was supposed to cope with every broken promise . . . and take every sling and arrow in her back . . . please every parent no matter what they wanted . . . not to mention clean up every dump . . . with a smile on her face and then say, "Please, Sir, May I have some more?"
To witness the myth . . . and the damage that carries through to this day . . . one need look no further than the libelous musings of Roch Smith, Jr. or Jeff Martin (aka "Fecund Stench") right here in the local blogosphere.
Bob's remarks, and the actions of at least one of his now long-gone (like the Obstetrician, like the Neonatologist-wannabe) underlings, made it IMPOSSIBLE for me to find work locally or even in adjoining towns. Recruiters told me (and later Dr. Anderson) that we should "give up" on North Carolina altogether!?!
Getting over it and moving on meant giving up on my home.
The harder I fought, the more the myth grew . . . even as I successfully turned to Locums work as a way to make a living and not give up completely on my home. It stands to reason that "difficult", "disruptive", "wacky" people would not be able to make that transition work . . . or enjoy the success at it that I have.
But let's get back to my original lawsuit and the slander, claim. I wish I had had Judge Edwardo Robreno hearing my case. But I was in a Randolph County Courtroom. And in a Randolph County Courtroom, the good-old-boys rule. The claim for slander was summarily dismissed. The judge "didn't think" that what Bob did (as my employer and CEO of the hospital where I had privileges) rose to the level of slander.
"Your Pediatrician . . . the woman to who you entrust the care of your children . . . is not a team player." No (insert sarcasm). Not that wasn't damaging at all.
However, the other claims were allowed to proceed.
And that invited a SLAPP-suit. Bob & company were going to take Mary Johnson down (these days, that's a job for cyber-stalking bloggers).
And the rest is history.
The really, really beautiful thing about this mess now (if there is a beautiful thing in this to be found) is that, as a former employee of the wholly-owned affiliate of "non-profit" Randolph Hospital . . . as a patient who was surgically mauled there as a child (and again as an adult) but who came home anyway . . . as a home-grown doctor who was used, abused and thrown away like so much garbage (reward for standing up to threats and saving a life) . . . as a public servant who was sued for telling the truth to the government I served . . . and as an "ordinary", "wrong-people" litigant ultimately swindled out of everything I worked so hard to build by as-yet-uninvestigated/unprosecuted-perjury . . . I can now openly express my opinion about the two-bit Band Aid station whose gutless, rubber-stamp Board of Directors & Corporate Membership (who are now apparently afraid of being identified) allowed two third-rate hospital executives to lie, cheat and steal their way through a cover-up . . . and gave them phat raises for doing it.
You see, I've earned that opinion. And it's truth I can more than defend. With hard, black & white evidence. It's why I have not been sued again despite six years on the Internet trying to get someone in a position-of-oversight to care. None of the lying, cheating, and/or negligent principles in this mess (a good many of them lawyers) want this thing in Court.
I really don't either. But right now it's looking like that's where we're gonna wind up.
It's time to facilitate some social change.
I've marvelled and brooded this week over what journalists think is important. The idiot-known-as-Michael Moore is on CNN telling the American public to vote for what he admits is a bad healthcare bill because that's what his socialisto hero, President Barack Obama needs to remain viable in office. Meanwhile, a scantily-clad Rielle Hunter (who has arguably done everything wrong that a woman could do wrong) can babble adolescent woo-speak . . . drape the poor, unfortunate "love child" of Johnny Reid Edwards as a prop over her bare belly (the emotional equivalent of child abuse) . . . and be splattered all over the front page of every Internet news site on the planet.
But Dr. Mary Johnson, daughter of a school-teacher, Pediatrician who came home and did everything right (and paid a very high personal price for it), is sneered at and spat upon by so-called "reporters" who dismiss her story as "too old" or not "relevant" to the corruption of the current day . . .
. . . when it actually could not be more relevant to how we got to where we are.
And OBTW, I'm supposed to feel sorry for Ruffin Poole . . . the ex-"go-to-guy" for ex-Governor Sleazely. I'm supposed to buy that the baby-faced lawyer who controlled all access to his boss is just a pawn in a bigger game.
From one pawn to another, Ruffin. Boo-hoo. Start squealing.
In my post on Rielle Hunter, I quoted a Mother commenting on the N&O's better-late-than-never coverage of the Edwards fiasco. I've mused over that quote quite a bit since putting the post up. It might as well have been my Mom, the first grade school-teacher who gave thirty years of her life to Asheboro . . . only to see Asheboro's "right people" literally piss on the hopes and dreams of her daughter:
I'm sorry I encouraged my daughter to go to a good college and then into medical school. Now she's working like a dog to make her residency, when all she had to do was get pregnant by some rich guy and she'd have a guaranteed payday for life.
And/so, in the end, this fight is hardly only about me. This fight is about that nameless naive newbie, still in residency who has yet to hit the cold cruel world full of liars with MBA's & law degrees, and sleazeball politicians, and utterly-clueless celebrities standing ready to devalue her labor . . . reduce her to indentured servitude . . . minimize her hard work & sacrifice . . . use her like a pawn to their own selfish/entitled ends . . . slander & libel her good name . . . and irrevocably alter the options she will have in her future.
Judge Edwardo Robreno got this one right. And I hope the lowly Nomvuyo Mzamane kicks Oprah Winfrey's giant, heavily air-brushed ass.
3/23 Update:
Well, that was fast. Case can move forward. Oprah settles case.
I, for one, am sorry to hear that. I would have enjoyed the show.
