Well, it's Friday, and there's news to throw away. Not only are all of Asheboro's "right people" sobbing in their watered-down beer (FNB traded as low as 45 CENTS/share today), but (in the wake of the Sleazely administration's "reform") the Mental Health Association of North Carolina has gone belly-up (regular readers will remember that I've blogged about the Mental Health Association before).
Meanwhile, after my lovely experience as a grunt-doc in Hillary's village, and the ensuing almost twelve-year-old professional nightmare (although I am humbled & honored to still be standing - and Googlable - as Greensboro's best example of why no one should believe John Robinson or Ed Cone - or blog) . . . an ordeal that neither Slick Willie nor Lady Macbeth nor any of their do-gooding minions/sycophants cared anything about stopping or fixing (of course there was that uber-distracting problem with the First-Hound-Dog's zipper), we-the-People get to watch Bill's daughter play American princess on the Hudson this weekend.
Rumor has it that the gluten-free cake alone will cost over $11,000.
Of course, in the wake of Obamacare (the current First Lady and her First-daughter are currently enjoying their umpteenth vacation in Spain - reserving 30 rooms in a five-star hotel), $11,000 won't buy very many jacked-up insurance policies for the children thrown off their parents' policies, so I suppose we lowly plebes shouldn't quibble.
It's really our fault that we didn't understand, you know. It wasn't all for THE children. It was all for THEIR children. A mere typo.
It's like I said at Joe's earlier this week. Sometimes I think that way back in 1998, I fell down and hit my head and have been in a coma . . . dreaming this CRAP up.
I'm sorry people. I know I'm supposed to be all bunnies and sunflowers for Chelsea. Her life, while privileged, has most certainly not been easy sandwiched between the only two ego-monsters on the planet who could put John & Lizzie Edwards to shame. But I just cannot dredge up the fuzzies or the yellow out of the muck & mire I fell into . . . once upon a time . . . a long ago and not-so-far-away . . . when I did my part for my village - at the urging of her Mom and Dad.
Evening Update: While I'm at it, let me just say that I'm swearing off the Andy & Opie re-runs for good. But on the bright side, the best comment I've seen in a long while was left on WXII's story:
So. "Good things are coming", and happy days are here again. I would say more, but I think I just saw a pig fly by my window and I have to go check it out.
I think I'll go hunt some lipstick in case they catch the pig;)
Friday, July 30, 2010
Is That Nero's Fiddle . . .
. . . I hear? Translation for the lowly plebes: Uncle Sam (who is not amused) has crashed FNB's party and is being invited to stay . . . as "match-maker" for a shot-gun wedding as yet-to-be-arranged (deposits are insured to $250,000).
Oh woe is me, how the mighty "right people" of Asheboro have fallen! Let us partake of spirits at ye Fetid Pork Loin, and drown our many sorrows that sprang from the loins of greed.
Oh woe is me, how the mighty "right people" of Asheboro have fallen! Let us partake of spirits at ye Fetid Pork Loin, and drown our many sorrows that sprang from the loins of greed.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
On Dr. Mary Johnson, "Non-profit" Physician Employees And/Or Government Programs, Sexual Discrimination And "Due Process" - Randolph Hospital/Asheboro Style
Debates over at Dr. Guarino's blog have provided me with a whole lot of material over the last few days. Pertaining to my July 26th Post [Hello Roch. Hello Ed (Cone). Hello John Robinson. Dr. Mary Johnson Here. Still Standing in the Greensboro, North Carolina Blogosphere as a Living Example of WHY NO ONE SHOULD BLOG], there's a discussion going on over there right now about the "right" of senior Greensboro police officers . . . who sexually-harassed subordinates and were suspended (not fired) for their conduct unbecoming . . . to show up with ambulance-chasers at the Guilford County Courthouse and sue the city into oblivion for their pain and suffering.
Contrasting and comparing how Randolph Hospital executives regarded and rewarded certain physician behaviors back in the day, during the course of the thread, I shared an experience from the "happy times" in Asheboro.
(You'll note that in trying to keep things simple and on-point in subsequent litigation . . . in other words, focused on all the different ways my contracts were breached and I was done DIRTY . . . I did not allege sexual discrimination in the very disperate ways that Dr. Juberg and I were treated. But make NO mistake. There were different rules for the good-ole-boys and the hometown girl.)
You see, what Randolph Hospital executives valued MOST had nothing to do with charity or good medicine or duty or the best interests of patients, but instead was all and only about how much MONEY you could make for them.
Moving on along in Joe's discussion, the following is an excerpt from another comment (slightly modified this morning for publication here) that this "crazy woman" (as you comb through the Google caches, Roch I picked that one especially for you), left further on down in the thread . . . it's about the concept of "non-profit" physician employees/Federal public servants and "due process" (in other words, a Constitutional point about what was done to me in Asheboro).
I am replying to a young lady named Karen - who must be learning her debate tactics at the knees of Mr. Smith-Jr. and/or Mr. Martin (as, among other things, she alleges that I cannot complete sentences):
I am, in fact, VERY familiar the with 14th Amendment. And the 5th. And the 6th.
And, as I indicated, NONE of them apparently applied to a doctor in state and Federal public service working for a "non-profit" in Asheboro who was fired without a hearing or due process or recourse or review for saving a child's life.
Based on your statements here, I'm supposing you would agree that a physician recruited back to her hometown with taxpayer-dollars to serve-the-under served might have a "property interest" in her job/practice? Yes?
You might also extrapolate that, as a citizen defrauded of fair restitution for the loss of said property interests by perjury/contempt/fraud in a civil action, might have good reason to be pissed off and want to see the CRIME prosecuted?
Because nobody in government oversight or law enforcement cared in 1998. They didn't care in 2003, or 2005. They don't care now (pssst . . . Roch doesn't either but it's a secret).
I hope all of that was "succinct" enough for Mr. Cone. (One of the hoops I've had to endlessly jump through over the years has been to keep it very short and simple for the local journalists - in the hope I might "hook" one someday.)
Back in the day, being a "valued employee" and "partner" in hometown charitable ventures with Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin was just . . . so . . . you know, after twelve years of BULLSHIT I've endured as they tried to cover it all up and get out on the cheap, I really don't have a word for it.
But I do know (Ed, Roch, Sue, John, etc.), that I just ain't progressive enough to "get over it" or "move on along".
Wait, I DO have a word: It was THEFT. Government-sanctioned/sponsored THEFT. Of a LIFE.
Is that short and succinct enough for you?
Contrasting and comparing how Randolph Hospital executives regarded and rewarded certain physician behaviors back in the day, during the course of the thread, I shared an experience from the "happy times" in Asheboro.
(You'll note that in trying to keep things simple and on-point in subsequent litigation . . . in other words, focused on all the different ways my contracts were breached and I was done DIRTY . . . I did not allege sexual discrimination in the very disperate ways that Dr. Juberg and I were treated. But make NO mistake. There were different rules for the good-ole-boys and the hometown girl.)
You see, what Randolph Hospital executives valued MOST had nothing to do with charity or good medicine or duty or the best interests of patients, but instead was all and only about how much MONEY you could make for them.
Moving on along in Joe's discussion, the following is an excerpt from another comment (slightly modified this morning for publication here) that this "crazy woman" (as you comb through the Google caches, Roch I picked that one especially for you), left further on down in the thread . . . it's about the concept of "non-profit" physician employees/Federal public servants and "due process" (in other words, a Constitutional point about what was done to me in Asheboro).
I am replying to a young lady named Karen - who must be learning her debate tactics at the knees of Mr. Smith-Jr. and/or Mr. Martin (as, among other things, she alleges that I cannot complete sentences):
I am, in fact, VERY familiar the with 14th Amendment. And the 5th. And the 6th.
And, as I indicated, NONE of them apparently applied to a doctor in state and Federal public service working for a "non-profit" in Asheboro who was fired without a hearing or due process or recourse or review for saving a child's life.
Based on your statements here, I'm supposing you would agree that a physician recruited back to her hometown with taxpayer-dollars to serve-the-under served might have a "property interest" in her job/practice? Yes?
You might also extrapolate that, as a citizen defrauded of fair restitution for the loss of said property interests by perjury/contempt/fraud in a civil action, might have good reason to be pissed off and want to see the CRIME prosecuted?
Because nobody in government oversight or law enforcement cared in 1998. They didn't care in 2003, or 2005. They don't care now (pssst . . . Roch doesn't either but it's a secret).
I hope all of that was "succinct" enough for Mr. Cone. (One of the hoops I've had to endlessly jump through over the years has been to keep it very short and simple for the local journalists - in the hope I might "hook" one someday.)
Back in the day, being a "valued employee" and "partner" in hometown charitable ventures with Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin was just . . . so . . . you know, after twelve years of BULLSHIT I've endured as they tried to cover it all up and get out on the cheap, I really don't have a word for it.
But I do know (Ed, Roch, Sue, John, etc.), that I just ain't progressive enough to "get over it" or "move on along".
Wait, I DO have a word: It was THEFT. Government-sanctioned/sponsored THEFT. Of a LIFE.
Is that short and succinct enough for you?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
You Gotta Know That The North Carolina Adminstrative Office Of The Courts . . .
. . . doesn't . . . read . . . blogs.
And that's clearly too-damned-bad for North Carolina's "ordinary" victims of crime.
And that's clearly too-damned-bad for North Carolina's "ordinary" victims of crime.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Hello Roch. Hello Ed (Cone). Hello John Robinson. Dr. Mary Johnson Here. Still Standing In The Greensboro, North Carolina Blogosphere As A Living Example Of Why NO ONE SHOULD BLOG
It was an interesting weekend in the local blogosphere. And it's kind of ironic. Because when I am on-call in the far-Eastern, 106-in-the-shade-yesterday hinterlands and "business" is slow, I actually have lots of time to blog.
(When you think about it, I owe the opportunity to skewer Randolph Hospital for what they did to me TO Randolph Hospital.)
And blog I did . . . alas, most of that was about jumping through the hoops again for We 101 Curator, Roch Smith, Jr.
Roch's oh-so-"smart" throw-away comments here there and everywhere have done a lot of damage over the years.
Alas, like Jeff Martin's pass-word protected treatises (after I would not back down when he crossed all lines), Mr. Smith-Jr.'s comments have long been soaked in malice and very careless with (and/or just plain ignorant of) the facts that were once sworn & filed at the Asheboro Courthouse (you can't miss it - our Confederate soldier faces not-so-defiantly South).
Roch . . . who was NOT there when it all first happened (just like our local journalists were not there - and government officials like Shirley Sherrod were not there) . . . and who has ZERO first-hand knowledge . . . and who hasn't done ANY research at the Courthouse, has the annoying habit of misrepresenting his "expertise" on the subject of Dr. Mary Johnson . . . . not to mention the law as it is practiced in North Carolina as opposed to the way it is written.
Dr. Mary's patience is worn thin - on several fronts. And unlike Sam Spagnola, local legal genius, she actually has a very good case for libel.
(Even the Randolph County District Attorneys handling the cyber-stalking-case-they-threw-under-the-bus said so. But it's their modus operandi to try and turf everything back to civil Court - no matter how corrupt it may be - so you have to take what that crowd says with a grain of salt.)
I put Roch on notice at Cone's. And in true same-old-crap-different-day fashion, when the "gotcha's" are turned, Roch cannot admit that he's been wrong (for a very long time) . . . or that it's pure-deep-blue hypocrisy to preach about the right-of-the-public-to-have-full-&-unimpeded-access-to-public-records, yet sneer & spit at me/my case . . . or that's he's not nearly the expert he claims to be . . . or that his partisan MALICE got the best of him yet again.
While at Cone's this morning (I've cut WAY down on the Word Up - it keeps the stomach settled and the blood pressure down), I had the opportunity to peruse another one of Ed's "in-depth" commentaries (this time of the banking crisis).
And low & behold, in the comments there, I actually found a pearl of wisdom that describes why, as a physician, I found myself on the wrong end of so much ugly (disguised as "charity") in my hometown of Asheboro (of course, since it was "justcorbly" doing the noble pontificating, you have to edit the digs against GW out).
It's in blue because it's just so darned "progressive".
But, how can you quantify the willingness of people to lie, cheat and steal? Given enough people like that, they can wreak a lot of havoc. It seems to me that much of what brought on the financial collapse of 2008 . . . was unethical behavior by people with a lot of money and a desire to have even more money. Worse yet, some of them thought that if it made them money, it had to be OK.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep . . . that BEAUTIFULLY sums up this former-public-servant-in-the Clinton-administration's experience with Bob Morrison, his left-hand man, Steven Eblin and all of the "right-honorables" on Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors. It's all about medical economics, stupid (never mind that many of the decisions these men made made were stupid . . . and thoughtless . . . and amoral . . . and illegal).
Right and wrong did not matter as long as these good-ole-boys could make (or save) a buck.
While I'm at here, and since I am now resolved to do everything I can to see Barack Obama (and as many Democrats as he can take with him) peacefully ousted from the White House come 2012 (in a way I wasn't until Roch worked his magic this weekend), I thought I'd offer up some talking points from the perspective of someone who just doesn't buy that George W. Bush is to blame for everything wrong with our world today.
If you want to really LOOK at the carelessness and the greed that ultimately gifted us with both 9/11 (and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan & Iraq) AND the banking crisis/blown-out bubbles and our our almost-there-depression . . . you need look no further than the high-flying administration of William Jefferson "It's the Economy, Stupid/I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman" Clinton . . . who will be staging what our salivating MSM is already calling the "wedding-of-the-century" for his daughter later this week.
Estimates I heard over the weekend put the cost of the wedding (on a right-people-worthy estate on the shores of the Hudson) at around two million dollars.
Public service has been very, very good to Bill & Hill.
In stark contrast, Dr. Mary (who has yet to see any of the dreams-she-dreamed-when-she-came-home-at-a-time-when-she-was-only-a-little-older-than-Chelsea-is-now come true) was a grunt-doc on Daddy-Bill's front lines in healthcare . . . she staffed "the village" where people don't get 2 million dollar weddings . . . and lived in the America where people can only look at Lizzie's house from the outside gate.
Indeed, since her debut here in 2005 . . . speaking inconvenient truths like this to power . . . Smith-Jr./Cone/the rest-of-Blogsboro's-progressive-"team" have worked overtime to keep Dr. Mary in her little blogging box . . . because her story very aptly demonstrates that passing over 2000 pages of new, very-expensive, incomprehensible-even-to-those-who-passed-it healthcare legislation (which includes throwing even more money at the Federal program that threw Dr. Mary to the dogs) didn't make any sense at all . . . if we cannot and/or will not enforce the (far simpler) laws we already had in place.
Dr. Mary's case against Randolph Hospital . . . a tale of piss-poor medico-legal oversight and ZERO local/state/Federal enforcement . . . actually proved that Obamacare IS doomed to fail even before it passed.
(And we couldn't have that story getting out to influence the masses BEFORE "reform" passed!)
As I told a good friend-who-I-am-itching-to-blog-about this past week (in response to his inquires about a mid-life change-of-direction), STAY-the-hell away from medicine . . . STAY far, far away . . .
. . . because as it stands, we in the medical realm are drifting blindly in a deep sea of uncertainty for the next two years . . . waiting to see if Obama stays in office for another term . . . because if he does . . . and unless what has been done cannot be undone . . . this is what we have to look forward to.
So, for benefit of all the Bush-haters and Obama-zombies out there (at least I don't have to deal with the Edwards-groupies any more), allow this Pediatrician to share her hard-earned take on your heroes, Bill and Hillary Clinton:
In the wake of the cold war's "end", the Clinton administration slashed military budgets and R&D (if you will recall, Bill & Hill, pretty much "loathed" the military) . . . let our intelligence-gathering systems turn to crap (it still blows the-mind-our-Roch-would-have-you-believe-is-feeble that Lady Macbeth is now our Secretary-of-State) . . . AND deregulated the banks in a fashion that paled in comparison to anything poor Dubya might have ever imagined (much less might have accomplished in the poisonous, power-hungry political environment that ensued after a whole lot of people conveniently forgot where they once stood). Bill never met a CEO he couldn't suck-up to.
There are not any really big leaps to make here. A good many of the seeds intertwining and mutating to produce the flower that is our world today were planted by the Clintons. But it's ALL the GOP's fault. Yeah, right.
I'm gonna wrap this puppy up with a summation for Sam Spagnola . . . who, despite having a law degree, has repeatedly stated that he cannot grasp my reasons for turning to the blogosphere:
First and foremost, I'm not trying to "retry" the original case. For all-practical-purposes-save-the-financial-compensation-that-might-have-rebuilt-what-they-destroyed, I WON that round - as Randolph Hospital could not run away fast enough from my lawsuit (and the filings that Roch Smith Jr. has never seen) . . . or their own despicable, lower-than-low SLAPP suit.
No, Sam. I've got a different case now. As a former public servant brought to Asheboro with Federal money and a licensed-physician-charged-with-duties-that-our-state-has-not-seen-fit-to-protect, what I want is for the Randolph County District Attorney to REFER the-case-alleging-crimes-with-NO-statute-of limitations to the North Carolina Attorney General's office . . . you know, the CRIMINAL complaint that Republican (let's just say I'm colorblind now) Garland Yates has REFUSED to allow me to swear out to a magistrate since it was first brought to his attention in 2003 . . . detailing the CRIMES that he has REFUSED to instruct the Asheboro PD or Randolph County Sheriff's office to properly investigate.
And I want the NCAG to prosecute the MULTIPLE FELONIES aggressively and with all of the passion of a Governor's administration that says it really cares about ethics.
I would not be human if I did not want Randolph Hospital to SWEAT when confronted with the possible loss of its non-profit status, JCAHO accreditation, Certificates-of-Need and Federal funding . . . as I have sweated bullets over my finances and my mortgage.
And if Randolph Hospital does not want that case to be fully prosecuted . . . or to sweat over the aforementioned losses . . . then they and their high-dollar-paid-subsidized-by-the-taxpayer lawyers need to OWN UP and plead the case down to some misdemeanors for the "non-profit" executives who LIED OVER AND OVER AGAIN TO EVERYBODY . . . executives who hid their dirty deeds behind charity and privilege and privacy . . . executives who, for ALL of almost twelve years, have determinedly and methodically and maliciously pretended that what happened did not happen and that I do not exist.
And, as CONDITION of that plea-deal, the hospital that let these LIARS do whatever they wanted (without-so-much-as-blinking-an-eye) could then pay appropriate RESTITUTION (note to the utterly-clueless, doctor-hating Roch Smith Jr., it's NOT less-than-one-year's public service salary) to the Pediatrician whose practice Randolph destroyed & absorbed as their own . . . the home-grown doctor whose reputation & good name they smeared . . . the physician-with-mad-skills whose promising career they derailed . . . the woman whose personal/home life they turned to crap . . .
. . . because they've KNOWN their executives were liars since at least 2003 - if not before.
ANY plea-bargain would also include Randolph Hospital publicly apologizing to the Pediatrician . . . like Roy Cooper apologized to the Duke boys . . . or there would be NO DEAL.
Because, you see, it's NEVER been just about the money.
Any deal would also include a move by the AG's office to sponsor legislation that protected medical whistle-blowers from the kind of living hell I have endured . . . or there would be NO DEAL.
Because, you see, it's NEVER been just about the money.
Maybe then the local newspapers that have played deaf, dumb and blind for so long would pick up this story of LOCAL PUBLIC CORRUPTION and run with it. What a concept.
And if ALL of that happened, then Dr. Mary would probably get out of Roch's and Cone's (both Ed's and Moses') hair . . . and off the Internet . . . as she would be able to move on with what's left of her life (without filing any more lawsuits) - a life that was thrown horribly off course twelve years ago . . . because she made a decision (in a matter of minutes in the middle of the night) to defy Mike Bridges' & Steven Eblin's threats and put a dying baby first.
And I'm thinking that, in this era of hope and change and "reform" . . . of ethics and accountability and transparency . . . that even Sam Spagnola and Roch Smith Jr. can finally comprehend that I am WELL within the law to want, expect and yes, EVEN DEMAND these things.
I've paid my damned dues already.
So Roch. Do you wanna make like a Fecund Stench and REALLY get rid of Mary Johnson? NOW is the blogosphere's chance. Take up a cause on behalf of one of your own. STAND for something that you say you stand for . . . get beyond red and blue.
BE relevant. Start locally.
Anything else is hypocrisy.
For as it stands, Dr. J's Housecalls stands as living example of the Greensboro blogosphere's biggest, most spectacular failure. Because I was the first blogger (and unfortunately, the ONLY one still standing) in "Blogsboro" who came here directly (at your invitation) to report a case of public corruption (involving, at least peripherally, the institution that bears Ed Cone's family name), and specifically to ask your collective help in order to right a series of wrongs . . . white-collar crimes that do not have a statute-of-limitations.
It was a novel concept . . . very much in-line with the "citizen journalism" many of Greensboro's most prominent bloggers were promoting.
Yet, in FIVE years, and despite being urged to do so by other bloggers, NONE of the journalists in this blogopshere have looked at a SINGLE document filed with the Court (PROVING my allegations) - or done a single interview.
You've not called for an investigation.
Instead, you've set up every road-block and hurdle imaginable. Made lame excuses. Banned and de-linked.
You've called me crazy.
I'm supposed to "get over it" and "move on". OR BETTER YET, navigate the muck and mire all by myself.
Yeah, that's the ticket for change.
You sneered and laughed and even shared passwords as I was cyber-stalked !?!
Yet I'm the one with no credibility?
And/so I stand here - as a living, blogging example of why NO ONE should believe a word you say . . .
. . . and why no sane person - particularly no sane doctor - should blog.
(When you think about it, I owe the opportunity to skewer Randolph Hospital for what they did to me TO Randolph Hospital.)
And blog I did . . . alas, most of that was about jumping through the hoops again for We 101 Curator, Roch Smith, Jr.
Roch's oh-so-"smart" throw-away comments here there and everywhere have done a lot of damage over the years.
Alas, like Jeff Martin's pass-word protected treatises (after I would not back down when he crossed all lines), Mr. Smith-Jr.'s comments have long been soaked in malice and very careless with (and/or just plain ignorant of) the facts that were once sworn & filed at the Asheboro Courthouse (you can't miss it - our Confederate soldier faces not-so-defiantly South).
Roch . . . who was NOT there when it all first happened (just like our local journalists were not there - and government officials like Shirley Sherrod were not there) . . . and who has ZERO first-hand knowledge . . . and who hasn't done ANY research at the Courthouse, has the annoying habit of misrepresenting his "expertise" on the subject of Dr. Mary Johnson . . . . not to mention the law as it is practiced in North Carolina as opposed to the way it is written.
Dr. Mary's patience is worn thin - on several fronts. And unlike Sam Spagnola, local legal genius, she actually has a very good case for libel.
(Even the Randolph County District Attorneys handling the cyber-stalking-case-they-threw-under-the-bus said so. But it's their modus operandi to try and turf everything back to civil Court - no matter how corrupt it may be - so you have to take what that crowd says with a grain of salt.)
I put Roch on notice at Cone's. And in true same-old-crap-different-day fashion, when the "gotcha's" are turned, Roch cannot admit that he's been wrong (for a very long time) . . . or that it's pure-deep-blue hypocrisy to preach about the right-of-the-public-to-have-full-&-unimpeded-access-to-public-records, yet sneer & spit at me/my case . . . or that's he's not nearly the expert he claims to be . . . or that his partisan MALICE got the best of him yet again.
While at Cone's this morning (I've cut WAY down on the Word Up - it keeps the stomach settled and the blood pressure down), I had the opportunity to peruse another one of Ed's "in-depth" commentaries (this time of the banking crisis).
And low & behold, in the comments there, I actually found a pearl of wisdom that describes why, as a physician, I found myself on the wrong end of so much ugly (disguised as "charity") in my hometown of Asheboro (of course, since it was "justcorbly" doing the noble pontificating, you have to edit the digs against GW out).
It's in blue because it's just so darned "progressive".
But, how can you quantify the willingness of people to lie, cheat and steal? Given enough people like that, they can wreak a lot of havoc. It seems to me that much of what brought on the financial collapse of 2008 . . . was unethical behavior by people with a lot of money and a desire to have even more money. Worse yet, some of them thought that if it made them money, it had to be OK.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep . . . that BEAUTIFULLY sums up this former-public-servant-in-the Clinton-administration's experience with Bob Morrison, his left-hand man, Steven Eblin and all of the "right-honorables" on Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors. It's all about medical economics, stupid (never mind that many of the decisions these men made made were stupid . . . and thoughtless . . . and amoral . . . and illegal).
Right and wrong did not matter as long as these good-ole-boys could make (or save) a buck.
While I'm at here, and since I am now resolved to do everything I can to see Barack Obama (and as many Democrats as he can take with him) peacefully ousted from the White House come 2012 (in a way I wasn't until Roch worked his magic this weekend), I thought I'd offer up some talking points from the perspective of someone who just doesn't buy that George W. Bush is to blame for everything wrong with our world today.
If you want to really LOOK at the carelessness and the greed that ultimately gifted us with both 9/11 (and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan & Iraq) AND the banking crisis/blown-out bubbles and our our almost-there-depression . . . you need look no further than the high-flying administration of William Jefferson "It's the Economy, Stupid/I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman" Clinton . . . who will be staging what our salivating MSM is already calling the "wedding-of-the-century" for his daughter later this week.
Estimates I heard over the weekend put the cost of the wedding (on a right-people-worthy estate on the shores of the Hudson) at around two million dollars.
Public service has been very, very good to Bill & Hill.
In stark contrast, Dr. Mary (who has yet to see any of the dreams-she-dreamed-when-she-came-home-at-a-time-when-she-was-only-a-little-older-than-Chelsea-is-now come true) was a grunt-doc on Daddy-Bill's front lines in healthcare . . . she staffed "the village" where people don't get 2 million dollar weddings . . . and lived in the America where people can only look at Lizzie's house from the outside gate.
Indeed, since her debut here in 2005 . . . speaking inconvenient truths like this to power . . . Smith-Jr./Cone/the rest-of-Blogsboro's-progressive-"team" have worked overtime to keep Dr. Mary in her little blogging box . . . because her story very aptly demonstrates that passing over 2000 pages of new, very-expensive, incomprehensible-even-to-those-who-passed-it healthcare legislation (which includes throwing even more money at the Federal program that threw Dr. Mary to the dogs) didn't make any sense at all . . . if we cannot and/or will not enforce the (far simpler) laws we already had in place.
Dr. Mary's case against Randolph Hospital . . . a tale of piss-poor medico-legal oversight and ZERO local/state/Federal enforcement . . . actually proved that Obamacare IS doomed to fail even before it passed.
(And we couldn't have that story getting out to influence the masses BEFORE "reform" passed!)
As I told a good friend-who-I-am-itching-to-blog-about this past week (in response to his inquires about a mid-life change-of-direction), STAY-the-hell away from medicine . . . STAY far, far away . . .
. . . because as it stands, we in the medical realm are drifting blindly in a deep sea of uncertainty for the next two years . . . waiting to see if Obama stays in office for another term . . . because if he does . . . and unless what has been done cannot be undone . . . this is what we have to look forward to.
So, for benefit of all the Bush-haters and Obama-zombies out there (at least I don't have to deal with the Edwards-groupies any more), allow this Pediatrician to share her hard-earned take on your heroes, Bill and Hillary Clinton:
In the wake of the cold war's "end", the Clinton administration slashed military budgets and R&D (if you will recall, Bill & Hill, pretty much "loathed" the military) . . . let our intelligence-gathering systems turn to crap (it still blows the-mind-our-Roch-would-have-you-believe-is-feeble that Lady Macbeth is now our Secretary-of-State) . . . AND deregulated the banks in a fashion that paled in comparison to anything poor Dubya might have ever imagined (much less might have accomplished in the poisonous, power-hungry political environment that ensued after a whole lot of people conveniently forgot where they once stood). Bill never met a CEO he couldn't suck-up to.
There are not any really big leaps to make here. A good many of the seeds intertwining and mutating to produce the flower that is our world today were planted by the Clintons. But it's ALL the GOP's fault. Yeah, right.
I'm gonna wrap this puppy up with a summation for Sam Spagnola . . . who, despite having a law degree, has repeatedly stated that he cannot grasp my reasons for turning to the blogosphere:
First and foremost, I'm not trying to "retry" the original case. For all-practical-purposes-save-the-financial-compensation-that-might-have-rebuilt-what-they-destroyed, I WON that round - as Randolph Hospital could not run away fast enough from my lawsuit (and the filings that Roch Smith Jr. has never seen) . . . or their own despicable, lower-than-low SLAPP suit.
No, Sam. I've got a different case now. As a former public servant brought to Asheboro with Federal money and a licensed-physician-charged-with-duties-that-our-state-has-not-seen-fit-to-protect, what I want is for the Randolph County District Attorney to REFER the-case-alleging-crimes-with-NO-statute-of limitations to the North Carolina Attorney General's office . . . you know, the CRIMINAL complaint that Republican (let's just say I'm colorblind now) Garland Yates has REFUSED to allow me to swear out to a magistrate since it was first brought to his attention in 2003 . . . detailing the CRIMES that he has REFUSED to instruct the Asheboro PD or Randolph County Sheriff's office to properly investigate.
And I want the NCAG to prosecute the MULTIPLE FELONIES aggressively and with all of the passion of a Governor's administration that says it really cares about ethics.
I would not be human if I did not want Randolph Hospital to SWEAT when confronted with the possible loss of its non-profit status, JCAHO accreditation, Certificates-of-Need and Federal funding . . . as I have sweated bullets over my finances and my mortgage.
And if Randolph Hospital does not want that case to be fully prosecuted . . . or to sweat over the aforementioned losses . . . then they and their high-dollar-paid-subsidized-by-the-taxpayer lawyers need to OWN UP and plead the case down to some misdemeanors for the "non-profit" executives who LIED OVER AND OVER AGAIN TO EVERYBODY . . . executives who hid their dirty deeds behind charity and privilege and privacy . . . executives who, for ALL of almost twelve years, have determinedly and methodically and maliciously pretended that what happened did not happen and that I do not exist.
And, as CONDITION of that plea-deal, the hospital that let these LIARS do whatever they wanted (without-so-much-as-blinking-an-eye) could then pay appropriate RESTITUTION (note to the utterly-clueless, doctor-hating Roch Smith Jr., it's NOT less-than-one-year's public service salary) to the Pediatrician whose practice Randolph destroyed & absorbed as their own . . . the home-grown doctor whose reputation & good name they smeared . . . the physician-with-mad-skills whose promising career they derailed . . . the woman whose personal/home life they turned to crap . . .
. . . because they've KNOWN their executives were liars since at least 2003 - if not before.
ANY plea-bargain would also include Randolph Hospital publicly apologizing to the Pediatrician . . . like Roy Cooper apologized to the Duke boys . . . or there would be NO DEAL.
Because, you see, it's NEVER been just about the money.
Any deal would also include a move by the AG's office to sponsor legislation that protected medical whistle-blowers from the kind of living hell I have endured . . . or there would be NO DEAL.
Because, you see, it's NEVER been just about the money.
Maybe then the local newspapers that have played deaf, dumb and blind for so long would pick up this story of LOCAL PUBLIC CORRUPTION and run with it. What a concept.
And if ALL of that happened, then Dr. Mary would probably get out of Roch's and Cone's (both Ed's and Moses') hair . . . and off the Internet . . . as she would be able to move on with what's left of her life (without filing any more lawsuits) - a life that was thrown horribly off course twelve years ago . . . because she made a decision (in a matter of minutes in the middle of the night) to defy Mike Bridges' & Steven Eblin's threats and put a dying baby first.
And I'm thinking that, in this era of hope and change and "reform" . . . of ethics and accountability and transparency . . . that even Sam Spagnola and Roch Smith Jr. can finally comprehend that I am WELL within the law to want, expect and yes, EVEN DEMAND these things.
I've paid my damned dues already.
So Roch. Do you wanna make like a Fecund Stench and REALLY get rid of Mary Johnson? NOW is the blogosphere's chance. Take up a cause on behalf of one of your own. STAND for something that you say you stand for . . . get beyond red and blue.
BE relevant. Start locally.
Anything else is hypocrisy.
For as it stands, Dr. J's Housecalls stands as living example of the Greensboro blogosphere's biggest, most spectacular failure. Because I was the first blogger (and unfortunately, the ONLY one still standing) in "Blogsboro" who came here directly (at your invitation) to report a case of public corruption (involving, at least peripherally, the institution that bears Ed Cone's family name), and specifically to ask your collective help in order to right a series of wrongs . . . white-collar crimes that do not have a statute-of-limitations.
It was a novel concept . . . very much in-line with the "citizen journalism" many of Greensboro's most prominent bloggers were promoting.
Yet, in FIVE years, and despite being urged to do so by other bloggers, NONE of the journalists in this blogopshere have looked at a SINGLE document filed with the Court (PROVING my allegations) - or done a single interview.
You've not called for an investigation.
Instead, you've set up every road-block and hurdle imaginable. Made lame excuses. Banned and de-linked.
You've called me crazy.
I'm supposed to "get over it" and "move on". OR BETTER YET, navigate the muck and mire all by myself.
Yeah, that's the ticket for change.
You sneered and laughed and even shared passwords as I was cyber-stalked !?!
Yet I'm the one with no credibility?
And/so I stand here - as a living, blogging example of why NO ONE should believe a word you say . . .
. . . and why no sane person - particularly no sane doctor - should blog.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Dear Roch, Having Re-Stated My Purpose In The Piedmont-Triad Blogosphere, Allow Me To Make A Few Suggestions To "Fact-Checkers" Really Interesed In The Truth
Friday night, prompted by mis-stated "facts" in this thread courtesy of We 101 Curator, Roch Smith, Jr., I re-stated my purpose in the blogosphere (for those few like him with incredibly-thick skulls - or exoskeltons as the case may be).
As I said in the thread, I'm still waiting to hear from our resident "fact-checker" if he supports perjury, contempt, fraud and the tax-payer-funded professional destruction of a good doctor's life in her hometown for doing her duty.
And if he does not support such things, and if he cannot be HELPFUL to her cause, then perhaps he needs to shut his damned mouth, and CEASE & DESIST WITH THE SNARKY/FALSE THROWAWAY COMMENTS, and let the good doctor wage the fight as she sees fit.
Mr. Smith-Jr. does tend to get on my last nerve. (For anyone who objects to my occasional use of flowery verbiage in sparring with him . . . after you've been through TWELVE YEARS of the kind of medico-legal/jurisdictional/bureaucratic BS I have . . . and spent FIVE YEARS in the blogosphere being poked and prodded and insulted by the supposedly progressive & enlightened citizen journalists who populate it . . . come talk to me, and let me know how you've fared with your prose.)
I slept on the original retort, and decided to expound a little bit the following morning. I've modified & amended the comment I left at Joe's slightly for "top-levelling" or "up-grading" or whatever-the-hell-Dr. Sue-calls-it here.
This is directed to Roch . . . whose "research" on my case consisted of spending a few hours on online newspaper accounts a few years back . . . not-to-mention teaming up with Sam Spagnola to taunt & ridicule (Spag, who, as a lawyer and "reform" candidate, seems quite content that this particular local doctor/ex-public servant fell through every gaping hole of oversight in his precious/corrupt legal system).
And before Spag shows ups to insist that he STILL doesn't understand why I am here: I came to the blogosphere, in part, in the hope that people would start talking about the hows and whys of what happened to me . . . and perhaps mobilize/organize to change it . . . for me and all of the other "little" people who have been run over by the big dawgs.
Roch, if you are really interested in the truth (and I've always known that in my case you were not - it has always and only been about discrediting a conservative voice that is a threat to you/Cone/your niche), I would suggest that you start by trotting down to the Randolph County courthouse and ask the Clerk-of-Court for ALL of the filings in BOTH cases [there were actually two - my original lawsuit against the practice (RMA) and Randolph Hospital's despicable SLAPP suit].
Things being the way they are, I'd actually be surprised if those files haven't been "misplaced" or lost by now.
You see, what's in them is kind of dicey for the hospital.
No problem. I have copies stored in safe place(s) - including original signatures on sworn documents packed with bold-faced lies.
And that's a good thing because (as even Spag can tell you), perjury has no statute of limitations in North Carolina. That's because it subverts the cause of justice - even though Garland Yates & company clearly do not care.
I ain't "right people".
And when you do trot down to the Courthouse, look at all of the SWORN answers that were filed in the interrogatories/discovery (SWORN meaning that someone would theoretically be held accountable) . . . particularly the letters sent by parents questioning my termination and pleading-to-deaf-ears for my reinstatement, and the recommendation letters from colleagues (most of them already online) . . . letters sent BEFORE I spent over a decade waging a very ugly/dirty fight for justice . . . and BEFORE, as arguably Randolph County's most prolific blogger, I took on other online projects - like opposing the annexation of Dave's Mountain and championing the local church folk who opposed the alcohol referendum - people like my own Mother who were getting run over by all of the well-funded "right people" - as if they were ancient Christians in a booze-soaked lion's den.
Translation: I've made some enemies.
Enemies just like a former "friend"-turned cyber-stalker, Jeff Martin (aka Fecund Stench) . . . who in his ire and pathology, was not above posting LIBEL online (and who may yet answer for it) . . . from people who just might have some fairly ugly ulterior motives. He did it in order to get his jollies (at my expense) and deflect attention away from the despicable things he said about and did to other bloggers . . . things that I still maintain were criminal . . . things that you & Cone said were no big deal.
The DA's office and a Randolph County judge threw me under the bus on that one (again). Big surprise.
The LIBEL Martin/Fec posted earlier this year (which you have publicly alluded on other occasions implied that I was some kind of terrorizing banshee at Randolph Medical Associates) included e-mails from anonymous contributors and was posted under password (most likely because Martin KNEW he had crossed all reasonable lines). . . moreover, these were allegations that were NEVER presented in discovery by the hospital - or vetted by ANYBODY prior to Maritn posting them at Via De Malchance as "the truth".
(Great journalistic technique.)
In FACT (if you care to check) the hospital presented peer review & personnel files that were basically EMPTY of ANYTHING that would have justified doing what they did to me.
And that's because what they did to me was all about shutting me up - about this.
(Of course, despite the primary-care crisis, in our "right-to-work" state, the Bobber and his left-hand-man really didn't need a good reason. The "dime-a-dozen" doctor "ain't special", and for all that she was a "valued employee" and a "partner" in Randolph Hospital's noble endeavors to "serve" the poor & under-served, she might as well have been cleaning the toilets at Asheboro Elastic.)
The things Eblin & Morrison did present were trumped-up and twisted (like a complaint from an uber-entitled "right person" dentist who wanted me to immediately drop what I was doing for a battered/homeless Mother/her children and tend to her needs over the phone - it was CLASSIC mill-town Asheboro).
In stark contrast, take a look at Dr. Mary's filings . . . not-to-mention the FALSE answers that Randolph Hospital filed in their own *&^%$#@! SLAPP-suit . . . and you might understand what the hospital did not want in an open Courtroom - in front of a jury or (horrors!) reporters . . . and why the hospital was so desperate to settle . . . albeit on a PACK OF LIES . . . something that you cannot seem to get through your THICKEST-OF-THICK skull.
Why don't you ask some of the right-honorable community leaders who served on Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors (whose names, just like the IRS returns & financial information that were withheld, are supposedly a matter of public record - public records being something you care so much about) why, in all of twelve years, NOT ONE of them has questioned what their executives did - intially or during/after litigation? Why didn't ANY of them ask to hear from someone other than Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin about what happened one night at their hospital while they were all asleep?
Why didn't a Pediatrician recruited home with state and Federal dollars merit ANY KIND of fair hearing or due process before the rug was pulled out from under her - before mincemeat was made of her life?
While you're at it Roch, you might want to give the North Carolina Medical Board a call and ask them WHY IN GOD'S NAME (in the twelve years since Dr. Mary first reported what Randolph Hospital did to their noble glass-house) haven't they legislated something . . . ANYTHING . . . to protect medical whistle-blowers?
Ditto for JCAHO (the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospital Organizations) and DHHS (the Department of Health and Human Services) - both organizations, as my Granddaddy used to say, that, in terms of oversight, are as useless as tits on a boar-hog.
And after that, maybe you could call the North Carolina Attorney General's office and ask them WHY IN GOD'S NAME hasn't Roy Cooper (or our new Queen-of-Ethics, Bev Perdue) done ANYTHING to give doctors/other public servants a way to by-pass pandering/disinterested/inbred District Attorney's and directly report corruption to his office? Why doesn't the NC Attorney General have jurisdiction over non-profits when they break the law - in ANY venue?
Didn't the NCAG learn ANYTHING from the Nifong debacle?
In short, Roch, as a fact-checker, YOU'VE GOT NOTHING. But for five years, you've done everything you possibly could to tear me to pieces and humiliate me online - because you cannot get past blue and red.
At this point, Dr. Mary (a former public servant and practicing physician whose reputation is tied to her livelihood) is DONE, and you would be wise to take Jaycee's point about the legal consequences of what flows from your mouth and your keyboard to heart.
While I certainly know what it's like to be "the white farmer" pleading my case to disinterested bureaucrats, in this instance, you're Vilseck/the NAACAP/the White House and I'm Shirley Sherrod.
Except that I NEVER turned anyone away based on their color or background, and we're twelve years into this BS as opposed to just three days.
Now, dear readers, despite the attempts of stalwart truth-seeking bloggers like Mr. Smith-Jr. to convince you she's "batshit crazy" or "criminally-insane" (massive distortions of the truth - but our Roch is SO LOW he'll stoop to any gutterball tactic in order to discredit an opponent) for fighting for so long and so hard, Dr. Mary is, in fact, NOT delusional enough to believe that Mr. Smith-Jr. will actually dry the blue-tinted spittle dripping off his chin long enough to make the effort to check the facts covered in dust at the Asheboro Courthouse . . . facts that (as someone who wants you to think he has the chops for investigative journalism) Roch has never been interested enough before to pop down and look at . . . much less encourage a local or state newspaper/TV outlet to investigate . . .
. . . as Joe Guarino (a doctor himself) and others have done.
And that's mostly because the facts do not reflect well on the Big Blues whose every word Roch has fawned over the years on while claiming political "independence" . . . the Clintons, Hunt, Sleazely, Edwards, Cooper, Marshall, Perdue, and (of course) Obama.
Besides, in Roch's book, all doctors are "rich" and selfish and need to shut-up and fall in a neat socialized line behind the utterly-clueless Barack Obama. And/so, the self-admitted child-of-a-borderline-Mother-with-sociopathicic-tendencies-who-goes-by-the-name-of-Fecund-Stench (and his new-found friends) are gonna be Roch Smith Jr.'s primary "source" for the truth . . . well, apart from reading archived news articles from the Greensboro News & Record (I'm wondering if Fiensilver himself wrote the articles - or if he was already gone - I cannot remember) . . . articles that reported a settlement but did not begin to tell the story.
(As for Roch's notions about what Obama's brand of healthcare reform will accomplish . . . you really just have to love it.)
Of course, we all know how adept John Robinson & company are at investigative journalism.
Even Roch himself admits it (albeit far too little . . . far too late).
But in Roch Smith, Jr.'s book (not to mention Greensboro's premiere journalist-blogger, Edward Cone-of-the-Moses-Cone-Healthcare-System-Cones - the Moses Cone Healthcare System being the then-employers of the Neonatology-wannabe I rescued that fateful night), the rules of fair play and due process . . . the notions of common decency and courtesy . . . and the letter-of-the-law . . . do not apply to Dr. Mary Johnson.
NO MATTER how "relevant" Dr. Mary's story may be to how this country wound up in the crapper, hope and change and especially reform are not for her.
So make no mistake, these suggestions are going to fall on deaf/disinterested ears. But it's not going to stop our Roch from playing dirty - as he did at Joe's on Friday night.
I ask that you please remember that the next time Mr. Smith, Jr. lobs a dirty bomb in my direction.
And please understand that Roch's hypocrisy . . . as well the hypocrisy of some of his compatriots on the bluer end of the local blogging spectrum . . . is the primary reason their own arguments/rhetoric about anything will fall on deaf ears here.
For if these people really did care about what they say they care about - then this "homegirl" would not still be in their echo-chamber of a blogosphere trying to find the right "hook" or angle to get the public attention on her case that would get it where it should have been sent back in 2003 . . . or fielding the latest lamest-of-lame excuse as to why my happiness is less important than that of the patients I've served honorably, conscientiously and well since finishing my Pediatric residency in 1994.
It just doesn't fly.
As I said in the thread, I'm still waiting to hear from our resident "fact-checker" if he supports perjury, contempt, fraud and the tax-payer-funded professional destruction of a good doctor's life in her hometown for doing her duty.
And if he does not support such things, and if he cannot be HELPFUL to her cause, then perhaps he needs to shut his damned mouth, and CEASE & DESIST WITH THE SNARKY/FALSE THROWAWAY COMMENTS, and let the good doctor wage the fight as she sees fit.
Mr. Smith-Jr. does tend to get on my last nerve. (For anyone who objects to my occasional use of flowery verbiage in sparring with him . . . after you've been through TWELVE YEARS of the kind of medico-legal/jurisdictional/bureaucratic BS I have . . . and spent FIVE YEARS in the blogosphere being poked and prodded and insulted by the supposedly progressive & enlightened citizen journalists who populate it . . . come talk to me, and let me know how you've fared with your prose.)
I slept on the original retort, and decided to expound a little bit the following morning. I've modified & amended the comment I left at Joe's slightly for "top-levelling" or "up-grading" or whatever-the-hell-Dr. Sue-calls-it here.
This is directed to Roch . . . whose "research" on my case consisted of spending a few hours on online newspaper accounts a few years back . . . not-to-mention teaming up with Sam Spagnola to taunt & ridicule (Spag, who, as a lawyer and "reform" candidate, seems quite content that this particular local doctor/ex-public servant fell through every gaping hole of oversight in his precious/corrupt legal system).
And before Spag shows ups to insist that he STILL doesn't understand why I am here: I came to the blogosphere, in part, in the hope that people would start talking about the hows and whys of what happened to me . . . and perhaps mobilize/organize to change it . . . for me and all of the other "little" people who have been run over by the big dawgs.
Roch, if you are really interested in the truth (and I've always known that in my case you were not - it has always and only been about discrediting a conservative voice that is a threat to you/Cone/your niche), I would suggest that you start by trotting down to the Randolph County courthouse and ask the Clerk-of-Court for ALL of the filings in BOTH cases [there were actually two - my original lawsuit against the practice (RMA) and Randolph Hospital's despicable SLAPP suit].
Things being the way they are, I'd actually be surprised if those files haven't been "misplaced" or lost by now.
You see, what's in them is kind of dicey for the hospital.
No problem. I have copies stored in safe place(s) - including original signatures on sworn documents packed with bold-faced lies.
And that's a good thing because (as even Spag can tell you), perjury has no statute of limitations in North Carolina. That's because it subverts the cause of justice - even though Garland Yates & company clearly do not care.
I ain't "right people".
And when you do trot down to the Courthouse, look at all of the SWORN answers that were filed in the interrogatories/discovery (SWORN meaning that someone would theoretically be held accountable) . . . particularly the letters sent by parents questioning my termination and pleading-to-deaf-ears for my reinstatement, and the recommendation letters from colleagues (most of them already online) . . . letters sent BEFORE I spent over a decade waging a very ugly/dirty fight for justice . . . and BEFORE, as arguably Randolph County's most prolific blogger, I took on other online projects - like opposing the annexation of Dave's Mountain and championing the local church folk who opposed the alcohol referendum - people like my own Mother who were getting run over by all of the well-funded "right people" - as if they were ancient Christians in a booze-soaked lion's den.
Translation: I've made some enemies.
Enemies just like a former "friend"-turned cyber-stalker, Jeff Martin (aka Fecund Stench) . . . who in his ire and pathology, was not above posting LIBEL online (and who may yet answer for it) . . . from people who just might have some fairly ugly ulterior motives. He did it in order to get his jollies (at my expense) and deflect attention away from the despicable things he said about and did to other bloggers . . . things that I still maintain were criminal . . . things that you & Cone said were no big deal.
The DA's office and a Randolph County judge threw me under the bus on that one (again). Big surprise.
The LIBEL Martin/Fec posted earlier this year (which you have publicly alluded on other occasions implied that I was some kind of terrorizing banshee at Randolph Medical Associates) included e-mails from anonymous contributors and was posted under password (most likely because Martin KNEW he had crossed all reasonable lines). . . moreover, these were allegations that were NEVER presented in discovery by the hospital - or vetted by ANYBODY prior to Maritn posting them at Via De Malchance as "the truth".
(Great journalistic technique.)
In FACT (if you care to check) the hospital presented peer review & personnel files that were basically EMPTY of ANYTHING that would have justified doing what they did to me.
And that's because what they did to me was all about shutting me up - about this.
(Of course, despite the primary-care crisis, in our "right-to-work" state, the Bobber and his left-hand-man really didn't need a good reason. The "dime-a-dozen" doctor "ain't special", and for all that she was a "valued employee" and a "partner" in Randolph Hospital's noble endeavors to "serve" the poor & under-served, she might as well have been cleaning the toilets at Asheboro Elastic.)
The things Eblin & Morrison did present were trumped-up and twisted (like a complaint from an uber-entitled "right person" dentist who wanted me to immediately drop what I was doing for a battered/homeless Mother/her children and tend to her needs over the phone - it was CLASSIC mill-town Asheboro).
In stark contrast, take a look at Dr. Mary's filings . . . not-to-mention the FALSE answers that Randolph Hospital filed in their own *&^%$#@! SLAPP-suit . . . and you might understand what the hospital did not want in an open Courtroom - in front of a jury or (horrors!) reporters . . . and why the hospital was so desperate to settle . . . albeit on a PACK OF LIES . . . something that you cannot seem to get through your THICKEST-OF-THICK skull.
Why don't you ask some of the right-honorable community leaders who served on Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors (whose names, just like the IRS returns & financial information that were withheld, are supposedly a matter of public record - public records being something you care so much about) why, in all of twelve years, NOT ONE of them has questioned what their executives did - intially or during/after litigation? Why didn't ANY of them ask to hear from someone other than Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin about what happened one night at their hospital while they were all asleep?
Why didn't a Pediatrician recruited home with state and Federal dollars merit ANY KIND of fair hearing or due process before the rug was pulled out from under her - before mincemeat was made of her life?
While you're at it Roch, you might want to give the North Carolina Medical Board a call and ask them WHY IN GOD'S NAME (in the twelve years since Dr. Mary first reported what Randolph Hospital did to their noble glass-house) haven't they legislated something . . . ANYTHING . . . to protect medical whistle-blowers?
Ditto for JCAHO (the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospital Organizations) and DHHS (the Department of Health and Human Services) - both organizations, as my Granddaddy used to say, that, in terms of oversight, are as useless as tits on a boar-hog.
And after that, maybe you could call the North Carolina Attorney General's office and ask them WHY IN GOD'S NAME hasn't Roy Cooper (or our new Queen-of-Ethics, Bev Perdue) done ANYTHING to give doctors/other public servants a way to by-pass pandering/disinterested/inbred District Attorney's and directly report corruption to his office? Why doesn't the NC Attorney General have jurisdiction over non-profits when they break the law - in ANY venue?
Didn't the NCAG learn ANYTHING from the Nifong debacle?
In short, Roch, as a fact-checker, YOU'VE GOT NOTHING. But for five years, you've done everything you possibly could to tear me to pieces and humiliate me online - because you cannot get past blue and red.
At this point, Dr. Mary (a former public servant and practicing physician whose reputation is tied to her livelihood) is DONE, and you would be wise to take Jaycee's point about the legal consequences of what flows from your mouth and your keyboard to heart.
While I certainly know what it's like to be "the white farmer" pleading my case to disinterested bureaucrats, in this instance, you're Vilseck/the NAACAP/the White House and I'm Shirley Sherrod.
Except that I NEVER turned anyone away based on their color or background, and we're twelve years into this BS as opposed to just three days.
Now, dear readers, despite the attempts of stalwart truth-seeking bloggers like Mr. Smith-Jr. to convince you she's "batshit crazy" or "criminally-insane" (massive distortions of the truth - but our Roch is SO LOW he'll stoop to any gutterball tactic in order to discredit an opponent) for fighting for so long and so hard, Dr. Mary is, in fact, NOT delusional enough to believe that Mr. Smith-Jr. will actually dry the blue-tinted spittle dripping off his chin long enough to make the effort to check the facts covered in dust at the Asheboro Courthouse . . . facts that (as someone who wants you to think he has the chops for investigative journalism) Roch has never been interested enough before to pop down and look at . . . much less encourage a local or state newspaper/TV outlet to investigate . . .
. . . as Joe Guarino (a doctor himself) and others have done.
And that's mostly because the facts do not reflect well on the Big Blues whose every word Roch has fawned over the years on while claiming political "independence" . . . the Clintons, Hunt, Sleazely, Edwards, Cooper, Marshall, Perdue, and (of course) Obama.
Besides, in Roch's book, all doctors are "rich" and selfish and need to shut-up and fall in a neat socialized line behind the utterly-clueless Barack Obama. And/so, the self-admitted child-of-a-borderline-Mother-with-sociopathicic-tendencies-who-goes-by-the-name-of-Fecund-Stench (and his new-found friends) are gonna be Roch Smith Jr.'s primary "source" for the truth . . . well, apart from reading archived news articles from the Greensboro News & Record (I'm wondering if Fiensilver himself wrote the articles - or if he was already gone - I cannot remember) . . . articles that reported a settlement but did not begin to tell the story.
(As for Roch's notions about what Obama's brand of healthcare reform will accomplish . . . you really just have to love it.)
Of course, we all know how adept John Robinson & company are at investigative journalism.
Even Roch himself admits it (albeit far too little . . . far too late).
But in Roch Smith, Jr.'s book (not to mention Greensboro's premiere journalist-blogger, Edward Cone-of-the-Moses-Cone-Healthcare-System-Cones - the Moses Cone Healthcare System being the then-employers of the Neonatology-wannabe I rescued that fateful night), the rules of fair play and due process . . . the notions of common decency and courtesy . . . and the letter-of-the-law . . . do not apply to Dr. Mary Johnson.
NO MATTER how "relevant" Dr. Mary's story may be to how this country wound up in the crapper, hope and change and especially reform are not for her.
So make no mistake, these suggestions are going to fall on deaf/disinterested ears. But it's not going to stop our Roch from playing dirty - as he did at Joe's on Friday night.
I ask that you please remember that the next time Mr. Smith, Jr. lobs a dirty bomb in my direction.
And please understand that Roch's hypocrisy . . . as well the hypocrisy of some of his compatriots on the bluer end of the local blogging spectrum . . . is the primary reason their own arguments/rhetoric about anything will fall on deaf ears here.
For if these people really did care about what they say they care about - then this "homegirl" would not still be in their echo-chamber of a blogosphere trying to find the right "hook" or angle to get the public attention on her case that would get it where it should have been sent back in 2003 . . . or fielding the latest lamest-of-lame excuse as to why my happiness is less important than that of the patients I've served honorably, conscientiously and well since finishing my Pediatric residency in 1994.
It just doesn't fly.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
What Happens When Progressive Bloggers Get What They Wish For?
I am loving this. Really.
Before we get started, I cannot help but flash back to the bad-old days when the progressives in the Greensboro blogosphere were fawning and drooling all over Johnny Reid Edwards. It was a "grass-roots" online effort. North Carolina was gonna be on the map.
Greensboro's well-established-deep-blue bloggers, in particular, were gonna be CONTENDERS! Visions of strategy-sessions in the White House and sleeping in the Lincoln were clearly dancing through their heads. Keyboards regularly had to go into the shop to remove the drool.
Well, they got their national campaign. And we know how that turned out. Their (first) guy is gonna be an Internet porn star sooner or later. Two Americas. Two families. All that jazz.
Flash forward four years. Obama is in the White House . . . after his own "grass-roots" effort - where much of the grunt work was done online. A new era of transparency and accountability was on the horizon.
Bunnies hopped. Does danced. Butterflies and unicorns soared.
As it turns out, now that he's in the White House, Obama doesn't really care for bloggers very much unless he can use them to his own ends. And the MSM has pretty much soured on them/us too ("citizen journalism" having been a huge bust for the N&R).
The ignorant masses didn't turn out to be so ignorant - or easy to manipulate.
As bloggers now converge right and out west, and North Carolina tests the chilly waters, a couple of CNN reporters (CNN being one of the more liberal-leaning news outlets) have suggested that the Sherrod mess may very well be the catalyst for some changes that I daresay a huge majority of the progressive blogging community (a lot of them fairly liberal with flinging the nasties) will not like.
Sherrod has "power" now, you see . . .
. . . and all anonymous bloggers are EVIL.
And Sayeth CNN: "Something's going to have to be done legally."
Now, since I've always signed my name, and I stand by my posts/opinions (you can't say I didn't earn them), and I've had issues all along with people maliciously smearing/libeling what Randolph Hospital left of my good name for sport (often anonymously), I'm kinda enjoying the irony here.
The erosion of liberty always begins with a good intention. Be careful who you wish for Mr. Cone, Mr. Smith-Jr., Ms. Polinsky, et al.
You just might get it.
That one was for my friend, Bubba;)
Before we get started, I cannot help but flash back to the bad-old days when the progressives in the Greensboro blogosphere were fawning and drooling all over Johnny Reid Edwards. It was a "grass-roots" online effort. North Carolina was gonna be on the map.
Greensboro's well-established-deep-blue bloggers, in particular, were gonna be CONTENDERS! Visions of strategy-sessions in the White House and sleeping in the Lincoln were clearly dancing through their heads. Keyboards regularly had to go into the shop to remove the drool.
Well, they got their national campaign. And we know how that turned out. Their (first) guy is gonna be an Internet porn star sooner or later. Two Americas. Two families. All that jazz.
Flash forward four years. Obama is in the White House . . . after his own "grass-roots" effort - where much of the grunt work was done online. A new era of transparency and accountability was on the horizon.
Bunnies hopped. Does danced. Butterflies and unicorns soared.
As it turns out, now that he's in the White House, Obama doesn't really care for bloggers very much unless he can use them to his own ends. And the MSM has pretty much soured on them/us too ("citizen journalism" having been a huge bust for the N&R).
The ignorant masses didn't turn out to be so ignorant - or easy to manipulate.
As bloggers now converge right and out west, and North Carolina tests the chilly waters, a couple of CNN reporters (CNN being one of the more liberal-leaning news outlets) have suggested that the Sherrod mess may very well be the catalyst for some changes that I daresay a huge majority of the progressive blogging community (a lot of them fairly liberal with flinging the nasties) will not like.
Sherrod has "power" now, you see . . .
. . . and all anonymous bloggers are EVIL.
And Sayeth CNN: "Something's going to have to be done legally."
Now, since I've always signed my name, and I stand by my posts/opinions (you can't say I didn't earn them), and I've had issues all along with people maliciously smearing/libeling what Randolph Hospital left of my good name for sport (often anonymously), I'm kinda enjoying the irony here.
The erosion of liberty always begins with a good intention. Be careful who you wish for Mr. Cone, Mr. Smith-Jr., Ms. Polinsky, et al.
You just might get it.
That one was for my friend, Bubba;)
Friday, July 23, 2010
Dear Roch, Occasionally, I Feel The Need To Re-state My Purpose In The Piedmont-Triad Blogosphere
There's a thread at Dr. Joe Guarino's (with whom I am largely politically-simpatico and who has shown great kindness & understanding in the past) that really demonstrates the lengths to which some of the more progressive folk in our local blogopshere will go in order to prove themselves morally and intellectually superior to everyone else. The thread has gone WAY off course.
I've tried my uber-best to be patient and cut Brandon some slack.
But Roch Smith, Jr., curator of the local blogging aggregator, We 101, is a whole nuther story.
Of course, as I did once before (back in 2006 when Dr. Mary dared defy all of the drooling Edwards-lovers who were dreaming of jumping up & down on poor Abe Lincoln's mattress), I put a big bulls-eye on my back by stating the following:
I hope to see the beginnings of a peaceful revolution this November - and, as a physician thoroughly disgusted by my own treatment in public service (under the administrations of Democrats) - not to mention the joke of "healthcare reform" railroaded through Congress earlier this year, I will work and speak in a fashion I never have before to see "your guy" loses in 2012 - because I believe his agenda is indeed the path to tyranny.
Just picture bloodshot eyeballs on the other side of a computer screen somewhere narrowing and bulging at the same time (Insert progressive robot voice): Dr. Mary Johnson . . . must . . . be . . . discredited . . . destroyed!
For the umpteenth time since my debut five years ago, the Greensboro blogosphere's resident deep-blue "fact-checker" mis-stated the facts (to my detriment) about my case against Randolph Hospital . . . with all of the usual slurs against my character and mental health implied.
My buttons duly pushed, I responded to Roch and thought the response would "top-level" well:
Roch, as per usual you are living up to your name as I always read it. And you should have stopped while you were ahead.
We've played this game over and over again. The settlement in 2001 was negotiated in BAD FAITH on a pack of LIES . . . including the false claim that the practice/people who canned me FOR SAVING A BABY'S LIFE AND DOING THE DUTY ASSIGNED TO ME BY THE STATE - the people who tried to sue me into oblivion for telling the truth (even Cone gets that) - the people who were actually paying themselves "a couple hundred thousand" (or more) dollars a year - were "nearly bankrupt".
By accepting the settlement, I was snookered into believing that I was being vindicated AND helping the hospital stay afloat. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. Especially when you're in this blogosphere and lean to the right of the political spectrum.
Six soul-sucking years of my life (first building a practice from nothing - then the battle to return home) were totally negated by the fraud.
And I know that's just fine with you. Because I did not worship at the altars of Clinton, Gore, Edwards, Sleazely, Perdue, Obama, etc. And because my experience does not say much for any of those societal do-gooders.
All doctors are "rich" and they're for sure "not special". Hold onto that thought when, after a few years of Obamacare, you - or your desperately-ill child - cannot find one.
OBTW, check your facts (given the N&R's history in Randolph County, maybe you should do it in some other fashion that just reading old newspaper accounts). The settlement was NOT for a "couple hundred thousand dollars". It wasn't even for one year's salary.
[And I paid ALL of Papa Schmid's attorney's fees from that - as well as TAXES on the sum - after Papa Schmid, representing me so zealously, told me that punitive damages were not taxable. Meanwhile, the taxpayer paid for Bob & Steve's SLAPP-suit.]
So tell me, Mr.-Truth-Justice-and-the-American-Way, do you REALLY think that one year's salary covers a destroyed practice & local reputation (how many times have you/your pals called me "crazy"?) and a life/career derailed?
Better yet, do you actually approve of the lying and cheating?
I DO BLAME THE NON-PROFITEERS WHO LIED AND CHEATED ME OUT OF MY HOMETOWN PRACTICE AND HUGE CHUNK OF MY LIFE. AND, AFTER A COUPLE OF YEARS OF BEING BLOWN OFF BY LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT (BECAUSE I CANNOT GET TO STATE LAW ENFOREMENT UNTIL THE LOCALS REFER - ala NIFONG), I CAME TO THIS BLOGOSPHERE WITH THE HOPE THAT "CITIZEN JOURNALISM" WOULD AMOUNT TO MORE THAN A FEW PROGRESSIVES BLOWING EMPTY, HYPOCRITICAL BLUE SMOKE UP ONE ANOTHER'S BUTTS.
I WILL CONTINUE TO BLAME RANDOLPH HOSPITAL & ITS EXECUTIVES FOR WHAT THEY DID TO ME/MY FAMILY/MY PATIENTS/MY COMMUNITY, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO CHASE THEM IN ANY VENUE I CAN FIND UNTIL THEY ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.
I believe it's called "civil disobedience".
And what's more, I no longer give a rat's tail what you/Cone/Fec/Sue think. Go converge on yourselves.
While we're at it, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE . . . tell us about the personal skin you've lost fighting injustice. Really. I'm DYING to hear all about it.
OBTW, I'm sure Mike Baron appreciates your way-too-little-way-too-late endorsement on the occasion of his cessation of blogging. The Greensboro blogosphere's latest failure-of-citizen-journalism-to-be-relevant sure gave me the warm fuzzies.
Brandon, playing over-compensating Grasshopper to Roch is not serving you very well. You have implied/injected/interpreted/figured meanings into everyone else's statements here, but apparently no one can summarize your own without being "moronic, manipulative and disgusting". I also fail to see how my "tactics" or blogging style remotely resembles Bubba's, but you've distorted so many things in this thread that I suppose I should not be surprised.
I quote: "The country voted and your guy lost and now you want revolution".
As I said, yes. I do. At the polls. Soon.
Very clearly, I should have posted the initial blistering retort.
P.S. According to StatCounter my recent posts on Bob Morrison's grand-standing PR moves to corner the not-so-serious-inpatient-psych business in Asheboro has someone from Randolph Hospital all over the blog.
Here's a message for the old gang: All that and a bag of chips, boys & girls. You don't get to waive N.C. Administrative Codes and General Statutes in the face of Sandhills' CEO after all of the amoral/illegal stunts you pulled with me. And don't tell me that you're "concerned" about patients either - after all of the uber-nasty things you did to shut me up and make me "go away" after I would not cave to your threats, roll over, go back to sleep and let a baby die.
Forget that. I got a really good lesson - on several fronts - on what the people who run Randolph Hospital are all about.
The ONLY language Robert Morrison and Steven Eblin ever understood was money. And it was the only thing (apart from absolute power at any cost) that they cared about.
Spare me the act.
I've tried my uber-best to be patient and cut Brandon some slack.
But Roch Smith, Jr., curator of the local blogging aggregator, We 101, is a whole nuther story.
Of course, as I did once before (back in 2006 when Dr. Mary dared defy all of the drooling Edwards-lovers who were dreaming of jumping up & down on poor Abe Lincoln's mattress), I put a big bulls-eye on my back by stating the following:
I hope to see the beginnings of a peaceful revolution this November - and, as a physician thoroughly disgusted by my own treatment in public service (under the administrations of Democrats) - not to mention the joke of "healthcare reform" railroaded through Congress earlier this year, I will work and speak in a fashion I never have before to see "your guy" loses in 2012 - because I believe his agenda is indeed the path to tyranny.
Just picture bloodshot eyeballs on the other side of a computer screen somewhere narrowing and bulging at the same time (Insert progressive robot voice): Dr. Mary Johnson . . . must . . . be . . . discredited . . . destroyed!
For the umpteenth time since my debut five years ago, the Greensboro blogosphere's resident deep-blue "fact-checker" mis-stated the facts (to my detriment) about my case against Randolph Hospital . . . with all of the usual slurs against my character and mental health implied.
My buttons duly pushed, I responded to Roch and thought the response would "top-level" well:
Roch, as per usual you are living up to your name as I always read it. And you should have stopped while you were ahead.
We've played this game over and over again. The settlement in 2001 was negotiated in BAD FAITH on a pack of LIES . . . including the false claim that the practice/people who canned me FOR SAVING A BABY'S LIFE AND DOING THE DUTY ASSIGNED TO ME BY THE STATE - the people who tried to sue me into oblivion for telling the truth (even Cone gets that) - the people who were actually paying themselves "a couple hundred thousand" (or more) dollars a year - were "nearly bankrupt".
By accepting the settlement, I was snookered into believing that I was being vindicated AND helping the hospital stay afloat. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. Especially when you're in this blogosphere and lean to the right of the political spectrum.
Six soul-sucking years of my life (first building a practice from nothing - then the battle to return home) were totally negated by the fraud.
And I know that's just fine with you. Because I did not worship at the altars of Clinton, Gore, Edwards, Sleazely, Perdue, Obama, etc. And because my experience does not say much for any of those societal do-gooders.
All doctors are "rich" and they're for sure "not special". Hold onto that thought when, after a few years of Obamacare, you - or your desperately-ill child - cannot find one.
OBTW, check your facts (given the N&R's history in Randolph County, maybe you should do it in some other fashion that just reading old newspaper accounts). The settlement was NOT for a "couple hundred thousand dollars". It wasn't even for one year's salary.
[And I paid ALL of Papa Schmid's attorney's fees from that - as well as TAXES on the sum - after Papa Schmid, representing me so zealously, told me that punitive damages were not taxable. Meanwhile, the taxpayer paid for Bob & Steve's SLAPP-suit.]
So tell me, Mr.-Truth-Justice-and-the-American-Way, do you REALLY think that one year's salary covers a destroyed practice & local reputation (how many times have you/your pals called me "crazy"?) and a life/career derailed?
Better yet, do you actually approve of the lying and cheating?
I DO BLAME THE NON-PROFITEERS WHO LIED AND CHEATED ME OUT OF MY HOMETOWN PRACTICE AND HUGE CHUNK OF MY LIFE. AND, AFTER A COUPLE OF YEARS OF BEING BLOWN OFF BY LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT (BECAUSE I CANNOT GET TO STATE LAW ENFOREMENT UNTIL THE LOCALS REFER - ala NIFONG), I CAME TO THIS BLOGOSPHERE WITH THE HOPE THAT "CITIZEN JOURNALISM" WOULD AMOUNT TO MORE THAN A FEW PROGRESSIVES BLOWING EMPTY, HYPOCRITICAL BLUE SMOKE UP ONE ANOTHER'S BUTTS.
I WILL CONTINUE TO BLAME RANDOLPH HOSPITAL & ITS EXECUTIVES FOR WHAT THEY DID TO ME/MY FAMILY/MY PATIENTS/MY COMMUNITY, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO CHASE THEM IN ANY VENUE I CAN FIND UNTIL THEY ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.
I believe it's called "civil disobedience".
And what's more, I no longer give a rat's tail what you/Cone/Fec/Sue think. Go converge on yourselves.
While we're at it, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE . . . tell us about the personal skin you've lost fighting injustice. Really. I'm DYING to hear all about it.
OBTW, I'm sure Mike Baron appreciates your way-too-little-way-too-late endorsement on the occasion of his cessation of blogging. The Greensboro blogosphere's latest failure-of-citizen-journalism-to-be-relevant sure gave me the warm fuzzies.
Brandon, playing over-compensating Grasshopper to Roch is not serving you very well. You have implied/injected/interpreted/figured meanings into everyone else's statements here, but apparently no one can summarize your own without being "moronic, manipulative and disgusting". I also fail to see how my "tactics" or blogging style remotely resembles Bubba's, but you've distorted so many things in this thread that I suppose I should not be surprised.
I quote: "The country voted and your guy lost and now you want revolution".
As I said, yes. I do. At the polls. Soon.
Very clearly, I should have posted the initial blistering retort.
P.S. According to StatCounter my recent posts on Bob Morrison's grand-standing PR moves to corner the not-so-serious-inpatient-psych business in Asheboro has someone from Randolph Hospital all over the blog.
Here's a message for the old gang: All that and a bag of chips, boys & girls. You don't get to waive N.C. Administrative Codes and General Statutes in the face of Sandhills' CEO after all of the amoral/illegal stunts you pulled with me. And don't tell me that you're "concerned" about patients either - after all of the uber-nasty things you did to shut me up and make me "go away" after I would not cave to your threats, roll over, go back to sleep and let a baby die.
Forget that. I got a really good lesson - on several fronts - on what the people who run Randolph Hospital are all about.
The ONLY language Robert Morrison and Steven Eblin ever understood was money. And it was the only thing (apart from absolute power at any cost) that they cared about.
Spare me the act.
Converging Right Out West
I hear that ConvergeSouth is gonna start back up.
It's no secret. The 2006 "convergence" that openly fawned all over Elizabeth Edwards (back in the day when ALL the progressive blues in the North Carolina blogosphere were drooling and fantasizing about jumping-up-&-down on Abe Lincoln's old bed) kinda stomped on my last nerve. And "Dr. Sue's "malignant narcissism" post wasn't exactly the way for the PhD to win over friends in the blogosphere (particularly those of us badly-burned by what passes for "citizen journalism" in the Triad) . . . or influence we-delusional/mentally-impaired-types-not-of-like-political-mind.
I thought it was good when she took a break.
Makes this story all the more interesting. Kinda "grass-roots" isn't it?
It's no secret. The 2006 "convergence" that openly fawned all over Elizabeth Edwards (back in the day when ALL the progressive blues in the North Carolina blogosphere were drooling and fantasizing about jumping-up-&-down on Abe Lincoln's old bed) kinda stomped on my last nerve. And "Dr. Sue's "malignant narcissism" post wasn't exactly the way for the PhD to win over friends in the blogosphere (particularly those of us badly-burned by what passes for "citizen journalism" in the Triad) . . . or influence we-delusional/mentally-impaired-types-not-of-like-political-mind.
I thought it was good when she took a break.
Makes this story all the more interesting. Kinda "grass-roots" isn't it?
Joy And Pain
My new nephew is home from the hospital. He is a big boy baby - that looks uncannily like his Father.
When I called to check on him the other day, his Father worried that he was jaundiced (the baby is breast-feeding) asking, "Hey Sis, can you tell anything by that picture I sent?".
The response was quick and classic Johnson . . .
Sure, Bro. That yellow & green blanket and the subdued lighting in the tiny picture on my POS cell phone sets off your son's skin tone so well.
Insert laughter . . . followed by grumbled explicatives, and the usual raucous sibling banter.
Anyway, as we have a child in our family with AML , this story on CNN (about Broadway/LionKing child-star Shannon Tavarez . . . a mixed-race child in need of a bone-marrow transplant), tugs at the heartstrings.
Our little Lexie is acutally home from Duke . . . after yet another round of intensive chemotherapy. Everyone is praying that the fix is in.
One of the better pictures of my nephew that my sister-in-law ultimately sent me is of a bald/pale little girl in a sundress smiling down on her (mildly-jaundiced) newborn baby cousin.
It brought immediate tears to my eyes, and my heart hurt.
And it's a picture I shall cherish always.
When I called to check on him the other day, his Father worried that he was jaundiced (the baby is breast-feeding) asking, "Hey Sis, can you tell anything by that picture I sent?".
The response was quick and classic Johnson . . .
Sure, Bro. That yellow & green blanket and the subdued lighting in the tiny picture on my POS cell phone sets off your son's skin tone so well.
Insert laughter . . . followed by grumbled explicatives, and the usual raucous sibling banter.
Anyway, as we have a child in our family with AML , this story on CNN (about Broadway/LionKing child-star Shannon Tavarez . . . a mixed-race child in need of a bone-marrow transplant), tugs at the heartstrings.
Our little Lexie is acutally home from Duke . . . after yet another round of intensive chemotherapy. Everyone is praying that the fix is in.
One of the better pictures of my nephew that my sister-in-law ultimately sent me is of a bald/pale little girl in a sundress smiling down on her (mildly-jaundiced) newborn baby cousin.
It brought immediate tears to my eyes, and my heart hurt.
And it's a picture I shall cherish always.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Bob Morrison & Sandhills: More Grandstanding - This Time On DigTriad (WFMY 2)
Last week, I waxed poetic here on Housecalls about Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison's, efforts to corner the market in Psychiatry.
Particularly galling to me was Morrison quoting North Carolina Administrative Code & General Statute . . . to bully Sandhills' CEO into bending to his will . . . Bob being an un-convicted felon himself.
This man should have been FIRED long ago . . . by his Board of Directors . . . for his own ethical lapses.
Well, the local MSM is still lapping at the Bobber's trough . . . this time it's DigTriad (aka WFMY TV 2). I left a comment (these days I'm not exactly holding back):
Unbelievable.
For those not in the know, Bob Morrison is a non-profit executive who REPEATEDLY LIED UNDER OATH during his own SLAPP-suit in order to finish the killing of a good home-grown doctor's practice and the smearing of her reputation (all because she would not look the other way when a very sick baby was in trouble . . . or participate in a cover-up afterwards).
At the time Morrison had to corner the market on Pediatrics. And it did not matter who got in his way.
He's totally gotten away with it (instead of being fired or prosecuted) because North Carolina doesn't not enforce the law when "right people" are involved.
Now he's trying to do the SAME thing with Psychiatry - corner a "market" before competitors (already in Asheboro) can get a footing: http://drjshousecalls.blogspot.com/2010/07/grand-standing-in-mental-health-crisis.html
He has the cheek to stomp and wave North Carolina statutes over Sandhills' head - when he/his high-priced attorneys (paid for by the taxpayer) sneered and spit at (and broke) the law themselves.
I think "the law REQUIRES some of these things to be done differently" too. So I'm asking. When is the local MSM going to wake up and stop feeding at the trough of this monster . . . hold his overpaid feet to the fire . . . and hold him accountable?
Particularly galling to me was Morrison quoting North Carolina Administrative Code & General Statute . . . to bully Sandhills' CEO into bending to his will . . . Bob being an un-convicted felon himself.
This man should have been FIRED long ago . . . by his Board of Directors . . . for his own ethical lapses.
Well, the local MSM is still lapping at the Bobber's trough . . . this time it's DigTriad (aka WFMY TV 2). I left a comment (these days I'm not exactly holding back):
Unbelievable.
For those not in the know, Bob Morrison is a non-profit executive who REPEATEDLY LIED UNDER OATH during his own SLAPP-suit in order to finish the killing of a good home-grown doctor's practice and the smearing of her reputation (all because she would not look the other way when a very sick baby was in trouble . . . or participate in a cover-up afterwards).
At the time Morrison had to corner the market on Pediatrics. And it did not matter who got in his way.
He's totally gotten away with it (instead of being fired or prosecuted) because North Carolina doesn't not enforce the law when "right people" are involved.
Now he's trying to do the SAME thing with Psychiatry - corner a "market" before competitors (already in Asheboro) can get a footing: http://drjshousecalls.blogspot.com/2010/07/grand-standing-in-mental-health-crisis.html
He has the cheek to stomp and wave North Carolina statutes over Sandhills' head - when he/his high-priced attorneys (paid for by the taxpayer) sneered and spit at (and broke) the law themselves.
I think "the law REQUIRES some of these things to be done differently" too. So I'm asking. When is the local MSM going to wake up and stop feeding at the trough of this monster . . . hold his overpaid feet to the fire . . . and hold him accountable?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Thoughts On Shirley "No One Would Listen" Sherrod: Lady, It's The Federal Government. Your Civil Rights Were Violated For All Of 3 Days. Get In Line!
7/22 AM Note to readers: After sleeping on it, this post has been amended (for clarity) and updated.
For those who have inquired, I'm told my new nephew is doing well . . . although I haven't seen him yet (part of the ongoing price I continue to pay for doing my duty as a physician in a society that could not care less).
I'll also preface this post with some context: I am a tad morose this evening - because I just learned that fellow Randolph County blogging-whistle-blower, Mike Baron of DamScam (in his case, done wrong by the City of Greensboro), is calling it quits.
(I'm sure Cone, Robinson, Martin et. al. are all very happy. One down. One to go.)
It's been an interesting couple of days in the medical blogosphere. Indeed, it was an interesting morning. Be forewarned. There will be some bouncing from topic to topic until we get to Shirley. I'm gonna be Scrooge and do it all in one post/go back on break.
Today at work, minding my own business after rounds, I bumped into yet another physician who had worked at Randolph Hospital . . . and did not have a whole lot good to say about the people who run it. I'm certain the Bobber's ears were burning.
My fondest dream is that perhaps one of these days, "the right people" will wise up and show the Bobber & Evil Steve the door . . . or the general populace will finally get disgusted enough with "the team" to descend on the executive suite with burning pitchforks (please note that I am compelled to insert a disclaimer that I am not advocating domestic terrorism lest Blogger be shut down). Of course, I am not holding my breath on the right people un-circling the wagons . . . or seeing the flickering of burning pitchforks in Randolph's parking lot.
Back to the blogosphere and the Internet . . .
First, Michael Volpe e-mailed me to let me know about a story/thread on the Radiology site "Aunt Minnie" waxing poetic on the trials & travails of wanna-be/pretend VA "whistle-blower" Dr. Anna Chacko. You have to register with Aunt Minnie to see the thread. But it's safe to say that while there may be a whole lot to fix at the VA, Chacko's former colleagues are not buying the spin. I put in my two cents.
It still angers me that "progressive" Dems like Congressman Brad Miller have plenty of time to advocate for an out-of-state VA doctor who was disciplined after a complete review and a boatload of due process . . . yet they have stuck up their enlightened noses at my tale of woe as a public servant in Asheboro (me being an NHSC alumna who got NO review and ZERO due process FROM ANYONE prior to being crap-canned for defying threats/saving a child's life and seeing my practice/patients handed over to Kathleen Riley).
On the subject of medical whistle-blowers, the Mighty Orac (at Respectful Insolence) had a post up yesterday on the Texas Medical Board finally "getting off its tuckas" and initiating disciplinary action against the infamous Dr. Rolando Arifiles, Jr.
Regular readers might remember that, in a very "Asheborian" fashion, Dr. Arifiles joined forces with a crooked small town Texas Sheriff and filed trumped-up criminal charges against two nurses who had the audacity to report him to the proper authorities for practicing bad/questionable medicine. The women (fired for their trouble) were acquitted, and have now filed civil lawsuits. I hope they kick some good-ole-boy butt, and said so on the thread.
Before closing his post on Arifiles, Orac could not resist taking another whack at the North Carolina Medical Board's beyond-absurd "resolution" to the troubling case of Dr. Rashid Battar. You might remember that Battar's the guy whose "alternative medical" techniques include injecting filtered urine back into autistic children. Our Medical Board fixed it so alls you have to do is sign a waiver and that kind of criminal-quackery-equivalent-to-child-abuse is yours for the asking/paying . . . and Dr. Arifiles is free & clear as a bird.
People I do not make this stuff up.
Just like I did not make up the story of a local Pediatrician (that would be me) being threatened for complaining about quality-of-care issues at Randolph Hospital . . . then getting fired for intervening to stop a neonatology wanna-be from nearly killing a newborn baby with his ignorance & arrogance (Randolph fired me and rewarded him with a Chief-of-Staff position) . . . then having my local reputation trashed and my practice/patients handed over to the aforementioned Kathleen Riley (whose income miraculously and almost immediately went WAY up) . . . then getting SLAPP-sued for telling the government the truth about what Randolph's thugs-in-suits had done to me . . . then getting swindled by perjury, contempt and fraud on the part of said thugs-in-suits at settlement . . . then being TOTALLY ignored after I reported the aforementioned perjury, contempt and fraud to local, state & Federal authorities - in 2003 - before the statutes of limitations on my civil claims ran out.
(Of course, there is no statute of limitations on perjury. And it's actually not a very hard argument to make that I have been the victim of an ongoing/deliberate/methodical conspiracy to facilitate a cover-up. A lot of Asheboro notables have played both active and passive roles. Indeed, I'm convinced that several of the more "honorable" types on the medical staff must have to wear neck braces.)
Speaking of contortions worthy of orthopedic support, in the SEVEN YEARS since bringing these things to the attention of the Randolph County DA's office, Garland Yates has refused to even meet with me to discuss the (one would think very serious) allegations I've made - much less accept a sworn complaint.
Garland, you see, must protect "the right people". And/so he killed an investigation by the SBI - after his ADA led me to believe that the case had been referred out of Randolph County and up the legal food chain.
[Speaking of the SBI, did anyone else notice that it took the Courier three days to report that they're in town investigating a school principal for (wait for it) failing to report a pedophile teacher's assistant in her midst? Failing to report badness directed against children being a reason for teachers . . . or doctors . . . to get into trouble? I mean, who knew?]
FYI, in North Carolina, the willful and persistent failure of a DA to perform his duty (i.e. and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice . . . you know . . . like letting non-profit hospital executives get away with repeatedly lying-under-Oath in order to save their institution some money) . . . is called "Habitual Intemperance".
Of course, NONE of this is deemed newsworthy or "relevant" by our local journalists - particularly the ones who blog.
(Be patient, readers. I'm working the "No One Would Listen" angle before I get to Ms. Sherrod. We'll get to her soon enough.)
As regular readers know, I turned to the "progressive" Greensboro blogosphere in 2005, after nearly 2 years of being shut-down & out by honest/transparent/oh-so-ethical "public servants" like the "honorable" types serving on Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors . . . and Garland Yates and Andy Gregson . . . and NC Attorney General Roy Cooper . . . and Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall . . . and even the IRS/US Department of Justice. You see, the state of North Carolina does not seem to have ANY mechanism in place by which non-profit hospital executives who abuse state & Federal programs to their own ends . . . lie to patients . . . terrorize good/ethical physicians . . . and break the law (by lying to the Court) . . . can be held accountable.
(The Feds, of course, DO have mechanisms to make non-profits dance. Alas, the US Department of Justice just doesn't care AT ALL about good doctors done very wrong. And that's really scary because Obama's new healthcare reform bill just gave the IRS a whole lot more power to do nothing.)
Lawyers I consulted (at the time that I put two & two together) told me that yes, they could certainly take my money and file all kinds of exotic motions & lawsuits, but the reality was that my case against Randolph Hospital is CRIMINAL and the best thing/least fiscally-devastating I could do in terms of getting real vindication/satisfaction would be to go public with the ugly truth and RAISE SOME HELL.
Ergo, Dr. J's Housecalls was born. The rest is history. And on this day that Roch Smith Jr. laments the departure of a fellow blogger that he/others routinely ridiculed and marginalized for the horrible sin of standing up and telling the truth (better late than never, eh, Roch?), let me just say that John Robinson & Ed Cone's peculiar brand of "citizen journalism" is not what it was cut out to be.
On a brighter note, I got a slightly better reception in the medical blogosphere - but only slightly. For I've still not gotten any substantial help from "my own kind" . . . many of whom are now railing against the joke that was healthcare reform - and are now calling for better whistle-blower protection. I've blogged about that fairly recently, so there's not reason to re-hash that here.
Moving on along, last week, I submitted last week's Housecalls post to blogborgymi's medical "Grand Rounds". The post picked apart an AP report relating a recently-released AMA study "revealing" the inconvenient truth that American doctors are not inclined to blow the whistle on impaired or incompetent colleagues. They tend to circle the wagons - or duck & run.
Duh.
AMA ethicists were horrified and troubled. There was "no excuse" they said.
But it's funny. Just like the blow-hard North Carolina Medical Board, the AMA has done NOTHING to protect/defend/help physicians who face retaliation for blowing that whistle.
Of course, I am the poster-child for that lost cause (like tort & peer review reform, effective whistle-blower protection was an issue not addressed by President Obama's precious healthcare bill). So the faux-outrage of a few AMA ethicists (over a decade too late . . . as smug local bloggers who've never lost any skin fighting for anything of import tell me that my case is "old" and I need to "get over it") is LOST on me.
Anyway, my post did not make the Grand Rounds (which was odd, because this week's host said he took all comers). I left a comment linking the omission at the site and later got an e-mail from "Captain Atopic" (as it turns out, a medical student). My e-mail did not make it to his Inbox, he said. He apologized for the omission and wished me well (shades of Ed Cone).
My gut is telling me that he's an earnest young man, still bright-eyed and idealistic, and not under the thumb of corporate medicine (like some of the more well-known medical bloggers who shall remain nameless), and that my e-mail/IP address has probably been tagged as "SPAM" - most likely by one of the "advocacy" or governmental agencies/officials that I've written to ask for help. Or perhaps someone with a more malicious intent.
I'm looking into it.
Now, we've finally reached the curious case of Shirley Sherrod. And we're going to compare and contrast our situations (and our skin colors) just a little bit. This white girl who did the right thing over a decade ago is going to talk about race in context of her service to the Federal government . . . and the difference in treatment she has experienced in terms of a proper review of her case (compared to a black woman who did the wrong thing twenty-some years ago and is only getting grief for it now). I'm quite certain that what I have to say will make some heads spin and stomachs spew. But I don't care. You either want an honest dialogue on race (and the veil pulled backon medicine) or you don't. Transparency isn't easy.
Deep down, as I've blogged before, I've always believed that if I had been descended from a poor or middle-class black family . . . or (even better) illegal immigrants brought in by Asheboro's mill owners, my story would NEVER have been ignored by the local media . . . particularly the professional race-baiters at the Greensboro News & Record.
I would have been a poster-child for politically-correct victimhood.
(Just think of it. Poor Jack Perdue might even be alive today if I had been victim-worthy enough for Ethan Feinsilver to give me more than a passing glance.)
I was also on the wrong end of some heavy-handed playing of the race card in Asheboro - most aptly embodied by the back-stabbing, self-serving machinations of the aforementioned Dr. Kathleen Riley (as a part of the laying-down-of-the-railroad that was going on just before I was shown the door of Randolph Medical Associates). I've never quite gotten over it - especially since I'm certainly not the non-profit executive who made the decision not to market RMA's services to East Asheboro (the rationale being that those children were best served by the Health Department).
That's the background-of-hurt-and-resentment upon which I will now paint. Getting on with the story, earlier this week, USDA official Shirley Sherrod (the state director of rural development from Georgia) was forced to resign her position by Obama's Agricultural Secretary . . . after a videotaped admission she made at a NAACP banquet this past March became public.
The admission was that once-upon-a-time-a-long-time-ago, when she was young (and racist), she did not do her best by a white farmer facing bankruptcy & foreclosure.
[Once again, in the interest of full disclosure, as the very proud grand-daughter of a white farmer from Eastern North Carolina . . . a man of modest means and great faith who got no assistance or compensation when times were bad . . . a man who was generous with (and kind to) his neighbors . . . all of his neighbors (black & white) . . . a man who gave folks work and lodging and aid to the point that people stopped in their fields and openly wept/bowed their heads as his funeral procession passed (it made quite an impression on his grandchildren), Ms. Sherrod's admission DID NOT FLY AT ALL.]
A selectively-edited (albeit revealing in other ways) clip from the video was posted by Breitbart and pretty much went viral after the story was picked up by Fox News.
Breitbart says he was motivated by the NAACP's recent resolution condemning the Tea Party's "racist elements". Of course, more rational, level-headed folk are not going to get too bent out-of-shape by a pot v. kettle accusation lobbed by an organization whose very name is inherently racist.
It would be Sherrod's misfortune to shed red blood by virtue of getting caught in the black vs. white crossfire. You see, it turns out Breitbart cheated to make his point.
After resigning, Sherrod came out swinging (the real lesson here for anyone under the gun) - insisting her remarks . . . which she had framed as a lesson on the importance of getting beyond race (nevermind that, in the case she described, she didn't exactly get beyond it) . . . were taken out of context. What's more, the farming couple that she referred to a lawyer "of their own kind" have come forward to support her. They say she did all she could.
(Another never mind, as Sherrod was crystal clear on the fact that, in the beginning, she didn't do all she could. Now don't fret, There was a happy ending for the couple. But like everything else that has anything to do with the Federal government, you have to wait for it. )
The NAACP, initially embarrassed by the video excerpt, condemned Sherrod and supported Agriculture Secretary's Vilsack decision to force her resignation.
But in the wake of the release of the full video, the NAACP and Secretary Vilsack have done an about-face. The argument now is that Sherrod's admission, taken "in context", was merely offered as "a lesson about race" (that very well may be, but NAACP officials seem to have missed the knowing laugher in the room as Sherrod spoke of just doing enough by the white couple to cover her ass/keep her job . . . when I first saw the video, I was chilled by the memory of those who wildly cheered the OJ verdict).
Besides, Sherrod/her supporters argued that she was actually not a Federal employee at the time she abused her power . . . she "only" worked for a NON-PROFIT (Dr. Mary certainly learned the hard way that no one cares what non-profits do).
And, like Robert Byrd, Sherrod has "evolved" beyond her formerly racist notions of going into government sevice to help black people and black people only.
I'm wondering. In 2010, how many public servants still do that? How many of them don't have the epiphany that Shirley Sherrod says she had . . and exercise their biases and prejudices every day? How many of them just do enough to get by? And turf people like me to the lawyers?
Secretary Vilsack (and the White House) admit now that they were engaged in premature rush-to-judgement (that was all about damage control). It's crystal clear they were worried about a backlash over the clip - because Michelle Obama (finally proud of her country) had attended the very NAACP convention that adopted the resolution against "racist elements" in the Tea Party . . . hell, by all news accounts, she "pumped up" the crowd before the vote.
I'm also thinking that Sherrod may be a little too close to the shenanigans behind the Pigford settlement for remarks such as those she made (even "in context") to get too much scrutiny.
Can you picture the elitist do-gooding eggheads in the White House when they first saw the (edited) Breitbart clip? Hipocrisy alert!!! Must . . . disavow . . . racist elements . . . in the NAACP . . . now!!!
It's like the people running our country are in the second grade and still living in the 1950's . . . before desegregation and the dawn of the welfare state.
Sherrod has given a vivid account of taking a call from her bosses and being forced to pull over her car and pro-offer her resignation over her Blackberry.
"No one would listen", she says.
(While I can certainly sympathize, I'm familiar with no one listening, Shirley. Try getting fired after saving a baby's life, sweetie. No due process. Every door of redress or fair review slammed in your face by "right people" who sneer and spit. No news reporters ready and willing to showcase your life being trashed solely to cover up the embarrassing facts that would showcase bad medicine and greed. And no Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton in the wings to hold press conferences and call for my vindication.)
Yes indeed, folks. It's been only three days, but Shirley Sherrod is a civil rights hero now. (7/22 Addendum: Her biography is now wafting out over the Internet, and it has been revealed that her Father was murdered by a white farmer back in 1965 - in an argument over the ownership of a few cows - and she might as well have lived in Asheboro, given that the crime was never prosecuted.) Her case has been reviewed, and Obama's White House Press Secretary was back-tracking and apologizing to Ms. Sherrod even as I drafted this post this afternoon. She's been offered a "unique" (made-up-just-for-her) job in civil rights.
Our tax dollars at work.
She'll probably be invited over to the White House for a beer.
Of course, it all sounds like just another day at the Greensboro PD. And I smell a lawsuit brewing (Sherrod is not sure she wants her job back). Gotta milk those three long hard days of victimhood.
All of this is just so hurl-worthy.
As for, "No one would listen"? Are you fricking kidding me?
Lady, you're FRONT PAGE ABOVE EVERY FOLD on CNN and DRUDGE and Fox News . . . embarrassed "i-reporters" are falling all over themselves to apologize to you . . . still others are patting themselves on the back because they did not rush to condemn you . . . all because you did something not very nice (and very racist) a long time ago . . . and you were stupid enough to flaunt it on camera under the guise of a life "lesson" . . . in front of a room full of people who LAUGHED at what you did.
(Can anyone else mulling over these lamentable events imagine the rabid uproar that would have ensued if a someone working under the Bush administration - especially a white someone - had made those kinds of admissions - and it was caught on tape? Would ANY amount of "in context" explanation matter?)
Yeah, Ms. Sherrod, you got canned. Yet, in a matter of DAYS you've been vindicated by an apology from the President of the United States and the Secretary of Agriculture . . . moreover, you have a "unique" job offer that you probably won't take because I expect you'd rather team up with the NAACP and sue the government that actually paused to take a second look. I'm thinking there will be CNN stories and book deals and maybe even a movie. So who really needs a government job?
It seems to me that EVERYONE IS LISTENING to you.
In stark contrast, how many YEARS has this white middle-class girl who did not fit any of our oh-so-enlightened and progressive society's current politically-correct/stereotypical notions of victimhood lanquished in medico-legal oversight hell . . . the white middle-class girl who served her country honorably and well . . . the white middle-class girl who, in fact, went above and beyond for a patient-not-even-her-own twelve years ago (as opposed to just doing enough to cover her ass and look good for her superiors) . . . the white-middle-class girl who, despite everything, has continued to work with and for the poor and under-served of all backgrounds/races in the inner cities and the most rural of areas (sticking her neck WAY out for minority patients badly-served as she went) - even as her country/state/hometown treated her like garbage, and sent her e-mails to SPAM (much like you passed off a poor white farmer on a white lawyer) . . . the white middle class girl who has BEGGED for even a small portion of the attention/assistance/vindication you're now getting from the highest levels of government and the national press?
It would have been REAL nice if, in twelve years, the once very idealistic white middle-class girl who wanted to save her small portion of the world for Pediatrics had seen ANY of those basic, simple civil rights you've been rewarded on a silver platter in a matter of days.
No one is listening?
Spare me, sister! And get in line (but, of course, you won't have to). In terms of the "dis-service" done to you by the government you served, and the "injustice" done, you've got nothing on the white middle-class doctor from North Carolina who has been battered black and BLUE.
My advice? Take your newly-created job from the Administration that will not go after Black Panthers intimidating white "crakers" trying to vote . . .
. . . the Administration that promised hope & change yet has only flipped the race & entitlement cards over and over again in its plays for power.
It's old and its stale and its tired and it's not playing with those of us who have paid-in-blood-and-tears the bills that really kill . . .
. . . disgusted people of all colors/backgrounds who will be flinging the tea in November.
And I guess my final point is this. Try as we might . . . and as noble/high-minded as we'd like to be, none of us is completely color-blind. We're all racists and bigots in one fashion or another . . . moreover, the people doing the most finger-pointing are probably protesting too much and the worst of the lot. It starts when we're very young (I mean very young), it is shaped by our life experience . . . our hurts and resentments . . . our family histories . . . and it is just a matter of degree.
Shirley Sherrod's folly, in this lamentable era of sound bite and "gotcha" journalism, was being honest about it. She didn't deserved to be fired. But what she owned up to doesn't need to be so easily drowned-out by the mea culpas.
You see, it's not very hard at all to visualize Sherrod as one of the dis-interested NHSC mid-level bureaucrats who passed me off on the lawyers . . . instead of doing their jobs and enforcing Federal contracts/the law . . . the people whose negligence and apathy let my practice - and my dream - die. How different would things be, if in the beginning, someone at the NHSC/DHHS (or one of the local newspapers) had had an epiphany and asked a question or placed just ONE phone call in my behalf?
In other words, I'm the white farmer. And in the Federal Bureaucracy, I found no "friends for life" . . . only injustice and poor service that I IN NO WAY deserved. After all, I did not go into public service resolved and determined to help only one group of people . . . well, unless you count children as one group of people.
To sum up, it's ALL about context. Racism is also a two-way street. And in our current era of "reform", this particular former Federal servant is tired of being a dead Mockingbird under the feet of people/Presidential administrations who profess to be progressive and enlightened and ethical and tolerant AND colorblind . . . but whose actions have proven exactly the opposite.
I'd like to speak to President Obama too, Ms. Sherrod. I know quite a bit about serving on the front lines . . . where the rubber meets the road.
For those who have inquired, I'm told my new nephew is doing well . . . although I haven't seen him yet (part of the ongoing price I continue to pay for doing my duty as a physician in a society that could not care less).
I'll also preface this post with some context: I am a tad morose this evening - because I just learned that fellow Randolph County blogging-whistle-blower, Mike Baron of DamScam (in his case, done wrong by the City of Greensboro), is calling it quits.
(I'm sure Cone, Robinson, Martin et. al. are all very happy. One down. One to go.)
It's been an interesting couple of days in the medical blogosphere. Indeed, it was an interesting morning. Be forewarned. There will be some bouncing from topic to topic until we get to Shirley. I'm gonna be Scrooge and do it all in one post/go back on break.
Today at work, minding my own business after rounds, I bumped into yet another physician who had worked at Randolph Hospital . . . and did not have a whole lot good to say about the people who run it. I'm certain the Bobber's ears were burning.
My fondest dream is that perhaps one of these days, "the right people" will wise up and show the Bobber & Evil Steve the door . . . or the general populace will finally get disgusted enough with "the team" to descend on the executive suite with burning pitchforks (please note that I am compelled to insert a disclaimer that I am not advocating domestic terrorism lest Blogger be shut down). Of course, I am not holding my breath on the right people un-circling the wagons . . . or seeing the flickering of burning pitchforks in Randolph's parking lot.
Back to the blogosphere and the Internet . . .
First, Michael Volpe e-mailed me to let me know about a story/thread on the Radiology site "Aunt Minnie" waxing poetic on the trials & travails of wanna-be/pretend VA "whistle-blower" Dr. Anna Chacko. You have to register with Aunt Minnie to see the thread. But it's safe to say that while there may be a whole lot to fix at the VA, Chacko's former colleagues are not buying the spin. I put in my two cents.
It still angers me that "progressive" Dems like Congressman Brad Miller have plenty of time to advocate for an out-of-state VA doctor who was disciplined after a complete review and a boatload of due process . . . yet they have stuck up their enlightened noses at my tale of woe as a public servant in Asheboro (me being an NHSC alumna who got NO review and ZERO due process FROM ANYONE prior to being crap-canned for defying threats/saving a child's life and seeing my practice/patients handed over to Kathleen Riley).
On the subject of medical whistle-blowers, the Mighty Orac (at Respectful Insolence) had a post up yesterday on the Texas Medical Board finally "getting off its tuckas" and initiating disciplinary action against the infamous Dr. Rolando Arifiles, Jr.
Regular readers might remember that, in a very "Asheborian" fashion, Dr. Arifiles joined forces with a crooked small town Texas Sheriff and filed trumped-up criminal charges against two nurses who had the audacity to report him to the proper authorities for practicing bad/questionable medicine. The women (fired for their trouble) were acquitted, and have now filed civil lawsuits. I hope they kick some good-ole-boy butt, and said so on the thread.
Before closing his post on Arifiles, Orac could not resist taking another whack at the North Carolina Medical Board's beyond-absurd "resolution" to the troubling case of Dr. Rashid Battar. You might remember that Battar's the guy whose "alternative medical" techniques include injecting filtered urine back into autistic children. Our Medical Board fixed it so alls you have to do is sign a waiver and that kind of criminal-quackery-equivalent-to-child-abuse is yours for the asking/paying . . . and Dr. Arifiles is free & clear as a bird.
People I do not make this stuff up.
Just like I did not make up the story of a local Pediatrician (that would be me) being threatened for complaining about quality-of-care issues at Randolph Hospital . . . then getting fired for intervening to stop a neonatology wanna-be from nearly killing a newborn baby with his ignorance & arrogance (Randolph fired me and rewarded him with a Chief-of-Staff position) . . . then having my local reputation trashed and my practice/patients handed over to the aforementioned Kathleen Riley (whose income miraculously and almost immediately went WAY up) . . . then getting SLAPP-sued for telling the government the truth about what Randolph's thugs-in-suits had done to me . . . then getting swindled by perjury, contempt and fraud on the part of said thugs-in-suits at settlement . . . then being TOTALLY ignored after I reported the aforementioned perjury, contempt and fraud to local, state & Federal authorities - in 2003 - before the statutes of limitations on my civil claims ran out.
(Of course, there is no statute of limitations on perjury. And it's actually not a very hard argument to make that I have been the victim of an ongoing/deliberate/methodical conspiracy to facilitate a cover-up. A lot of Asheboro notables have played both active and passive roles. Indeed, I'm convinced that several of the more "honorable" types on the medical staff must have to wear neck braces.)
Speaking of contortions worthy of orthopedic support, in the SEVEN YEARS since bringing these things to the attention of the Randolph County DA's office, Garland Yates has refused to even meet with me to discuss the (one would think very serious) allegations I've made - much less accept a sworn complaint.
Garland, you see, must protect "the right people". And/so he killed an investigation by the SBI - after his ADA led me to believe that the case had been referred out of Randolph County and up the legal food chain.
[Speaking of the SBI, did anyone else notice that it took the Courier three days to report that they're in town investigating a school principal for (wait for it) failing to report a pedophile teacher's assistant in her midst? Failing to report badness directed against children being a reason for teachers . . . or doctors . . . to get into trouble? I mean, who knew?]
FYI, in North Carolina, the willful and persistent failure of a DA to perform his duty (i.e. and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice . . . you know . . . like letting non-profit hospital executives get away with repeatedly lying-under-Oath in order to save their institution some money) . . . is called "Habitual Intemperance".
Of course, NONE of this is deemed newsworthy or "relevant" by our local journalists - particularly the ones who blog.
(Be patient, readers. I'm working the "No One Would Listen" angle before I get to Ms. Sherrod. We'll get to her soon enough.)
As regular readers know, I turned to the "progressive" Greensboro blogosphere in 2005, after nearly 2 years of being shut-down & out by honest/transparent/oh-so-ethical "public servants" like the "honorable" types serving on Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors . . . and Garland Yates and Andy Gregson . . . and NC Attorney General Roy Cooper . . . and Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall . . . and even the IRS/US Department of Justice. You see, the state of North Carolina does not seem to have ANY mechanism in place by which non-profit hospital executives who abuse state & Federal programs to their own ends . . . lie to patients . . . terrorize good/ethical physicians . . . and break the law (by lying to the Court) . . . can be held accountable.
(The Feds, of course, DO have mechanisms to make non-profits dance. Alas, the US Department of Justice just doesn't care AT ALL about good doctors done very wrong. And that's really scary because Obama's new healthcare reform bill just gave the IRS a whole lot more power to do nothing.)
Lawyers I consulted (at the time that I put two & two together) told me that yes, they could certainly take my money and file all kinds of exotic motions & lawsuits, but the reality was that my case against Randolph Hospital is CRIMINAL and the best thing/least fiscally-devastating I could do in terms of getting real vindication/satisfaction would be to go public with the ugly truth and RAISE SOME HELL.
Ergo, Dr. J's Housecalls was born. The rest is history. And on this day that Roch Smith Jr. laments the departure of a fellow blogger that he/others routinely ridiculed and marginalized for the horrible sin of standing up and telling the truth (better late than never, eh, Roch?), let me just say that John Robinson & Ed Cone's peculiar brand of "citizen journalism" is not what it was cut out to be.
On a brighter note, I got a slightly better reception in the medical blogosphere - but only slightly. For I've still not gotten any substantial help from "my own kind" . . . many of whom are now railing against the joke that was healthcare reform - and are now calling for better whistle-blower protection. I've blogged about that fairly recently, so there's not reason to re-hash that here.
Moving on along, last week, I submitted last week's Housecalls post to blogborgymi's medical "Grand Rounds". The post picked apart an AP report relating a recently-released AMA study "revealing" the inconvenient truth that American doctors are not inclined to blow the whistle on impaired or incompetent colleagues. They tend to circle the wagons - or duck & run.
Duh.
AMA ethicists were horrified and troubled. There was "no excuse" they said.
But it's funny. Just like the blow-hard North Carolina Medical Board, the AMA has done NOTHING to protect/defend/help physicians who face retaliation for blowing that whistle.
Of course, I am the poster-child for that lost cause (like tort & peer review reform, effective whistle-blower protection was an issue not addressed by President Obama's precious healthcare bill). So the faux-outrage of a few AMA ethicists (over a decade too late . . . as smug local bloggers who've never lost any skin fighting for anything of import tell me that my case is "old" and I need to "get over it") is LOST on me.
Anyway, my post did not make the Grand Rounds (which was odd, because this week's host said he took all comers). I left a comment linking the omission at the site and later got an e-mail from "Captain Atopic" (as it turns out, a medical student). My e-mail did not make it to his Inbox, he said. He apologized for the omission and wished me well (shades of Ed Cone).
My gut is telling me that he's an earnest young man, still bright-eyed and idealistic, and not under the thumb of corporate medicine (like some of the more well-known medical bloggers who shall remain nameless), and that my e-mail/IP address has probably been tagged as "SPAM" - most likely by one of the "advocacy" or governmental agencies/officials that I've written to ask for help. Or perhaps someone with a more malicious intent.
I'm looking into it.
Now, we've finally reached the curious case of Shirley Sherrod. And we're going to compare and contrast our situations (and our skin colors) just a little bit. This white girl who did the right thing over a decade ago is going to talk about race in context of her service to the Federal government . . . and the difference in treatment she has experienced in terms of a proper review of her case (compared to a black woman who did the wrong thing twenty-some years ago and is only getting grief for it now). I'm quite certain that what I have to say will make some heads spin and stomachs spew. But I don't care. You either want an honest dialogue on race (and the veil pulled backon medicine) or you don't. Transparency isn't easy.
Deep down, as I've blogged before, I've always believed that if I had been descended from a poor or middle-class black family . . . or (even better) illegal immigrants brought in by Asheboro's mill owners, my story would NEVER have been ignored by the local media . . . particularly the professional race-baiters at the Greensboro News & Record.
I would have been a poster-child for politically-correct victimhood.
(Just think of it. Poor Jack Perdue might even be alive today if I had been victim-worthy enough for Ethan Feinsilver to give me more than a passing glance.)
I was also on the wrong end of some heavy-handed playing of the race card in Asheboro - most aptly embodied by the back-stabbing, self-serving machinations of the aforementioned Dr. Kathleen Riley (as a part of the laying-down-of-the-railroad that was going on just before I was shown the door of Randolph Medical Associates). I've never quite gotten over it - especially since I'm certainly not the non-profit executive who made the decision not to market RMA's services to East Asheboro (the rationale being that those children were best served by the Health Department).
That's the background-of-hurt-and-resentment upon which I will now paint. Getting on with the story, earlier this week, USDA official Shirley Sherrod (the state director of rural development from Georgia) was forced to resign her position by Obama's Agricultural Secretary . . . after a videotaped admission she made at a NAACP banquet this past March became public.
The admission was that once-upon-a-time-a-long-time-ago, when she was young (and racist), she did not do her best by a white farmer facing bankruptcy & foreclosure.
[Once again, in the interest of full disclosure, as the very proud grand-daughter of a white farmer from Eastern North Carolina . . . a man of modest means and great faith who got no assistance or compensation when times were bad . . . a man who was generous with (and kind to) his neighbors . . . all of his neighbors (black & white) . . . a man who gave folks work and lodging and aid to the point that people stopped in their fields and openly wept/bowed their heads as his funeral procession passed (it made quite an impression on his grandchildren), Ms. Sherrod's admission DID NOT FLY AT ALL.]
A selectively-edited (albeit revealing in other ways) clip from the video was posted by Breitbart and pretty much went viral after the story was picked up by Fox News.
Breitbart says he was motivated by the NAACP's recent resolution condemning the Tea Party's "racist elements". Of course, more rational, level-headed folk are not going to get too bent out-of-shape by a pot v. kettle accusation lobbed by an organization whose very name is inherently racist.
It would be Sherrod's misfortune to shed red blood by virtue of getting caught in the black vs. white crossfire. You see, it turns out Breitbart cheated to make his point.
After resigning, Sherrod came out swinging (the real lesson here for anyone under the gun) - insisting her remarks . . . which she had framed as a lesson on the importance of getting beyond race (nevermind that, in the case she described, she didn't exactly get beyond it) . . . were taken out of context. What's more, the farming couple that she referred to a lawyer "of their own kind" have come forward to support her. They say she did all she could.
(Another never mind, as Sherrod was crystal clear on the fact that, in the beginning, she didn't do all she could. Now don't fret, There was a happy ending for the couple. But like everything else that has anything to do with the Federal government, you have to wait for it. )
The NAACP, initially embarrassed by the video excerpt, condemned Sherrod and supported Agriculture Secretary's Vilsack decision to force her resignation.
But in the wake of the release of the full video, the NAACP and Secretary Vilsack have done an about-face. The argument now is that Sherrod's admission, taken "in context", was merely offered as "a lesson about race" (that very well may be, but NAACP officials seem to have missed the knowing laugher in the room as Sherrod spoke of just doing enough by the white couple to cover her ass/keep her job . . . when I first saw the video, I was chilled by the memory of those who wildly cheered the OJ verdict).
Besides, Sherrod/her supporters argued that she was actually not a Federal employee at the time she abused her power . . . she "only" worked for a NON-PROFIT (Dr. Mary certainly learned the hard way that no one cares what non-profits do).
And, like Robert Byrd, Sherrod has "evolved" beyond her formerly racist notions of going into government sevice to help black people and black people only.
I'm wondering. In 2010, how many public servants still do that? How many of them don't have the epiphany that Shirley Sherrod says she had . . and exercise their biases and prejudices every day? How many of them just do enough to get by? And turf people like me to the lawyers?
Secretary Vilsack (and the White House) admit now that they were engaged in premature rush-to-judgement (that was all about damage control). It's crystal clear they were worried about a backlash over the clip - because Michelle Obama (finally proud of her country) had attended the very NAACP convention that adopted the resolution against "racist elements" in the Tea Party . . . hell, by all news accounts, she "pumped up" the crowd before the vote.
I'm also thinking that Sherrod may be a little too close to the shenanigans behind the Pigford settlement for remarks such as those she made (even "in context") to get too much scrutiny.
Can you picture the elitist do-gooding eggheads in the White House when they first saw the (edited) Breitbart clip? Hipocrisy alert!!! Must . . . disavow . . . racist elements . . . in the NAACP . . . now!!!
It's like the people running our country are in the second grade and still living in the 1950's . . . before desegregation and the dawn of the welfare state.
Sherrod has given a vivid account of taking a call from her bosses and being forced to pull over her car and pro-offer her resignation over her Blackberry.
"No one would listen", she says.
(While I can certainly sympathize, I'm familiar with no one listening, Shirley. Try getting fired after saving a baby's life, sweetie. No due process. Every door of redress or fair review slammed in your face by "right people" who sneer and spit. No news reporters ready and willing to showcase your life being trashed solely to cover up the embarrassing facts that would showcase bad medicine and greed. And no Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton in the wings to hold press conferences and call for my vindication.)
Yes indeed, folks. It's been only three days, but Shirley Sherrod is a civil rights hero now. (7/22 Addendum: Her biography is now wafting out over the Internet, and it has been revealed that her Father was murdered by a white farmer back in 1965 - in an argument over the ownership of a few cows - and she might as well have lived in Asheboro, given that the crime was never prosecuted.) Her case has been reviewed, and Obama's White House Press Secretary was back-tracking and apologizing to Ms. Sherrod even as I drafted this post this afternoon. She's been offered a "unique" (made-up-just-for-her) job in civil rights.
Our tax dollars at work.
She'll probably be invited over to the White House for a beer.
Of course, it all sounds like just another day at the Greensboro PD. And I smell a lawsuit brewing (Sherrod is not sure she wants her job back). Gotta milk those three long hard days of victimhood.
All of this is just so hurl-worthy.
As for, "No one would listen"? Are you fricking kidding me?
Lady, you're FRONT PAGE ABOVE EVERY FOLD on CNN and DRUDGE and Fox News . . . embarrassed "i-reporters" are falling all over themselves to apologize to you . . . still others are patting themselves on the back because they did not rush to condemn you . . . all because you did something not very nice (and very racist) a long time ago . . . and you were stupid enough to flaunt it on camera under the guise of a life "lesson" . . . in front of a room full of people who LAUGHED at what you did.
(Can anyone else mulling over these lamentable events imagine the rabid uproar that would have ensued if a someone working under the Bush administration - especially a white someone - had made those kinds of admissions - and it was caught on tape? Would ANY amount of "in context" explanation matter?)
Yeah, Ms. Sherrod, you got canned. Yet, in a matter of DAYS you've been vindicated by an apology from the President of the United States and the Secretary of Agriculture . . . moreover, you have a "unique" job offer that you probably won't take because I expect you'd rather team up with the NAACP and sue the government that actually paused to take a second look. I'm thinking there will be CNN stories and book deals and maybe even a movie. So who really needs a government job?
It seems to me that EVERYONE IS LISTENING to you.
In stark contrast, how many YEARS has this white middle-class girl who did not fit any of our oh-so-enlightened and progressive society's current politically-correct/stereotypical notions of victimhood lanquished in medico-legal oversight hell . . . the white middle-class girl who served her country honorably and well . . . the white middle-class girl who, in fact, went above and beyond for a patient-not-even-her-own twelve years ago (as opposed to just doing enough to cover her ass and look good for her superiors) . . . the white-middle-class girl who, despite everything, has continued to work with and for the poor and under-served of all backgrounds/races in the inner cities and the most rural of areas (sticking her neck WAY out for minority patients badly-served as she went) - even as her country/state/hometown treated her like garbage, and sent her e-mails to SPAM (much like you passed off a poor white farmer on a white lawyer) . . . the white middle class girl who has BEGGED for even a small portion of the attention/assistance/vindication you're now getting from the highest levels of government and the national press?
It would have been REAL nice if, in twelve years, the once very idealistic white middle-class girl who wanted to save her small portion of the world for Pediatrics had seen ANY of those basic, simple civil rights you've been rewarded on a silver platter in a matter of days.
No one is listening?
Spare me, sister! And get in line (but, of course, you won't have to). In terms of the "dis-service" done to you by the government you served, and the "injustice" done, you've got nothing on the white middle-class doctor from North Carolina who has been battered black and BLUE.
My advice? Take your newly-created job from the Administration that will not go after Black Panthers intimidating white "crakers" trying to vote . . .
. . . the Administration that promised hope & change yet has only flipped the race & entitlement cards over and over again in its plays for power.
It's old and its stale and its tired and it's not playing with those of us who have paid-in-blood-and-tears the bills that really kill . . .
. . . disgusted people of all colors/backgrounds who will be flinging the tea in November.
And I guess my final point is this. Try as we might . . . and as noble/high-minded as we'd like to be, none of us is completely color-blind. We're all racists and bigots in one fashion or another . . . moreover, the people doing the most finger-pointing are probably protesting too much and the worst of the lot. It starts when we're very young (I mean very young), it is shaped by our life experience . . . our hurts and resentments . . . our family histories . . . and it is just a matter of degree.
Shirley Sherrod's folly, in this lamentable era of sound bite and "gotcha" journalism, was being honest about it. She didn't deserved to be fired. But what she owned up to doesn't need to be so easily drowned-out by the mea culpas.
You see, it's not very hard at all to visualize Sherrod as one of the dis-interested NHSC mid-level bureaucrats who passed me off on the lawyers . . . instead of doing their jobs and enforcing Federal contracts/the law . . . the people whose negligence and apathy let my practice - and my dream - die. How different would things be, if in the beginning, someone at the NHSC/DHHS (or one of the local newspapers) had had an epiphany and asked a question or placed just ONE phone call in my behalf?
In other words, I'm the white farmer. And in the Federal Bureaucracy, I found no "friends for life" . . . only injustice and poor service that I IN NO WAY deserved. After all, I did not go into public service resolved and determined to help only one group of people . . . well, unless you count children as one group of people.
To sum up, it's ALL about context. Racism is also a two-way street. And in our current era of "reform", this particular former Federal servant is tired of being a dead Mockingbird under the feet of people/Presidential administrations who profess to be progressive and enlightened and ethical and tolerant AND colorblind . . . but whose actions have proven exactly the opposite.
I'd like to speak to President Obama too, Ms. Sherrod. I know quite a bit about serving on the front lines . . . where the rubber meets the road.
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