"What Governments Decide Is Illegal Is Not Always Based On Science" (Subtitled: NO REGRETS)

My Mom and I were talking about my blogging yesterday afternoon - in the car - on the way back from a family outing. 

I've found an amazing ally in this seventy-some-year-old-ex-school-teacher who spent her life watching (and coping with) all the CRAP that passed for small-town-values in Asheboro (courtesy of "the right people") . . . and who has zero use for what the town to which she devoted her entire professional life did to her daughter - because her daughter did the right thing by a patient-not-even-her-own.

You could say that what the government allowed to be done to this Pediatician-in-public-service had nothing to do with medical ethics . . . or the spirit/intent of the law . . . or science.

Where was the right-upstanding Jim Kinlaw when "Miss Johnson's" daughter needed protection from the thugs-in-suits running Randolph Hospital?  Where was Keith Crisco?  Harold Brubaker?  Ray Criscoe?  Chip Womick?

Where are they now?

Mama especially doesn't have a lot of use for the local newspapermen - particularly the ones who are bloggers . . . you know, those enlightened and progressive types, who, despite all of their noble blather about accountability and transparency in government and in medicine, have turned a blind eye to the unethical and illegal shenanigans of Randolph Hospital and what it did to cover the mighty/holy name of Cone.

These people need to be openly called on their hypocrisy from the bully-pulpit.  Indeed, it's part and parcel of the saga now.  And Mama is very proud that she raised a daughter with the guts to do it . . . who doesn't just roll over when these "professionals" pull their pathetic little stunts and call her "crazy" or "stupid".

We also talked about the 2008 Asheboro alcohol referendum . . . and the stand I took against alcohol sales in the community (taking the online backs of Asheboro's "church people") . . . and all of the CRAP I took for it from "the usual suspects" (it foreshadowed what was to come with the cyber-stalking case) . . . and from the community "leaders" who would drape their greed in safety and prosperity. 

I told Mama that I had no regrets.  You see, when Asheboro's teenagers are mowed down in the streets by drunk illegal immigrants in stolen cars - their futures turned to dust, I can mourn that loss and that waste . . . but still lay my head on my pillow at night with a clear conscience . . . because as a citizen and a doctor, I did everything I could to keep the streets they died on a little bit safer.

I'm sorry, Bob, you're a boob.  The reason young doctors don't flock to Asheboro these days has nothing to do with whether or not they can buy booze at the local grocery store.

It seems a British study is finally bearing-out what Asheboro's silly/back-woods church people . . . and this Pediatrician . . . knew all along . . .

. . . alcohol has nothing to do with prosperity.

Tequila-soaked worms are still worms.

OBTW, on that trip back from Burlington, on a Randolph County country two-lane, we encountered a pickup that had crossed the center-lane and was barrelling straight for us.  I steeled myself to swerve and blew my horn, and the pick-up corrected its course.

The driver appeared drunk.