How to ratfuck your dead sister's memory

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I feel like throwing in my several cents about what the reactionaries at Susan G. Komen For The Cure did to their "brand" this week.

It doesn't surprise me to see that the mastermind behind this Komen policy coup was Ari Fleischer, the Bush administration's filthy little PR homunculus.

We all know that nobody squeals more pathetically than a bully when the intended victim punches back, and nobody becomes so undignified in fear as the bully when he feels outnumbered. So it's as inevitable as the four laws of thermodynamics that the flagship publication of right-wing bullies calls public reaction to the Komen affair "gangsterism."

One of the fun things about today's reactionary mouthpieces is that they project their own motives and tactics onto their critics. This is a psychological malfunction called "telling on yourself." Really: it's gangsterism for the public to be revolted by a raw, uncalled-for assault on Planned Parenthood by a powerful political lobby using a Disney-esque nonprofit juggernaut ("the cure" is their intellectual property if not their mission) and to take their money elsewhere. Many of us, upon learning "that anti-abortion rights activists have been pressuring Komen for years to end their relationship with Planned Parenthood," would be tempted to think of that as gangsterism... except then Ari Fleischer would refer to us as jack-booted thugs.

In addition to the obvious, I think it's worth remembering that the Komen foundation was established in honor of Susan Goodman Komen, who contracted and died of breast cancer as a young woman in the 1970s. The organization was founded by Susan's sister Nancy Goodman Brinker

who believed that Susan's outcome might have been better if patients knew more about cancer and its treatment, promised her sister that she would do everything she could to end breast cancer.

Or, perhaps, almost everything. Every little thing that's possible on the Komen CEO's (2010) salary of $459,406. Way to go, Ms Brinker.

I don't know what she is like in real life, but Ms Brinker certainly resembles a leering, plastic monster in this official State Department photo from 2007. (Oops---gangsterism!)

"National standard of care"

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Hey---guess what I have a 2 cm full-thickness tear in my left one of!

Answer: the only functional supraspinatus I have left in my body!

I may have mentioned a biking accident I had several months ago. At that time I requested my attending physician to order an MRI considering my previous bad luck with rotator cuffs and impromptu dismounting of a bicycle. The doc wrote the order, but muttered that the insurance company might not approve payment. That led me to postpone the order to avoid being hosed by my insurer. To abbreviate the story, I then went to a physical medicine guy who was very helpful but told me to call him if the pain didn't go away after a few courses of prednisone. It didn't, so I did. And the scan he reordered showed exactly what I felt: torn supra with some other mild collateral damage. Not like my disaster 4 years ago, but a surgery-grade impairment.

Naturally I expressed great irritation for having to wait for the MRI until retraction of the tissues began (fortunately no muscle retraction, unlike previously). The doctor, a nice gentleman who nevertheless felt defensive about my ire (which was actually aimed at my primary, not him), told me that a 3-month wait-and-see approach to this type of injury was the "national standard of care" before an expensive test was ordered. I asked him where this "national standard of care" was codified, and he told me "nowhere." He said it's something that doctors learn as part of their practice.

Yeah, I bet. But I wonder who teaches them.

When a 57-year-old man walks in and tells a doctor that he's flown over his handlebars and deflected the fall with one arm and fast thinking, I'd think the "national standard of care" would be to exercise some fucking professional discretion and carry out a complete diagnosis.

I think what we have now in this country is a "national standard of don't-care."

Good for Pelosi! [updated]

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She has reportedly told pro-sepsis Congressman Bart Stupak to go fuck himself regarding his anti-choice, pro-thuggery stance on the current healthcare reform legislation. Like Josh Marshall says, this is a major development if it's true.

Update:  Here's a little background on Pelosi's attitude, from The Politico (which is insignificant to me) via TPM (which isn't). It seems that Madame Speaker elbowed her way past the chiseled visage of Rahm Emanuel to get all simpatico with the President on HCR. Haha!