07.29.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:34 am by
Bush’s Nation Building
From today’s Indo:
“MEDECINS sans Frontieres, the Nobel-prizewinning aid organisation, is pulling out of Afghanistan because of the deteriorating security situation there and its frustrations with the American military.
The withdrawal, announced yesterday, two months before landmark elections are due, is the most damning indictment yet of the failure of the Afghan Government, American troops and Nato peacekeepers to bring stability to the country two years after the fall of the Taliban.
The organisation, which has maintained an unbroken presence in Afghanistan for more than two decades, accused the US military of co-opting humanitarian aid efforts for “military and political motives”, endangering aid workers by blurring the line between civilian and military operations. The decision comes just weeks after the killing of five Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) workers in northern Afghanistan by Taliban militants, who accused them of spying for the US.”
Nice one George.
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07.28.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:34 pm by
Poor Sue Ellen
JR committed her to the sanitarium. It’s for the best really. She really looks like shit. Mark just came back from the dead so Pam fainted. The first of two fiances to return from the dead. God love her.
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07.27.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:01 pm by
Fahrenheit 911
I know it’s easy to dismiss Moore as an over the top crackpot, but the following is undeniable:
- Bush’s procession to the White House was practically under attack by an angry public
- The Bin Ladens were flown out of the States on the 13th
- Bush did spend 40% of this first eight months on vacation
- The intelligence was a load of crap
- Iraq had nothing to do with 911 and there are no WMD
- A lot of companies make a lot of money out of war
- The poor do fill the ranks of the US army. The final line of the movie is compelling: (paraphrase) “We are prepared to fight for our country. All we ask is that you don’t send us into war unless its absolutely necessary”.
- Only one member of congress has a child in the Iraq
- The ‘coalition’ does consist of obscure Pacific islands
- Bush is a total idiot, which any uncut versions of his public appearances clearly demonstrate. To a frightening degree.
I heard Lila Lipscome being interviewed on Irish radio yesterday. She continues to be an articulate as she was in the film, which says to me that she was not exploited, as some critics have suggested.
Will 911 have any impact on the election. Hopefully.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 6:51 pm by
Mad housewife stuff
Lest my previous post do me a greater disservice than I deserve, I should note this week’s menu.
Monday: Fillet steak, new potatoes and a leek/mushroom and cream sauce.
Tuesday: Barbary duck breast, cut in medallions, fried with a cherry and red wine sauce served with mashed potatoes and ratatouille
Wednesday: Smoked fish pie (cod and coley)
On the other hand I have failed yet again to get my legs waxed at the salon. Good thing weather is so bad.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 3:07 pm by
Voter fraud
From today’s NYT. Looks like 2000 just encouraged the Bush’s to do a better job in 2004.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:52 pm by
Day in the life
Some months ago I did a “day in the life“. I feel obliged to share that life is somewhat less frenetic now and since the new pregnancy leaves me a little lethargic the day has changed. Here is new day:
7.30am baby wakes. Dad lifts him, heats bottle, gives breakfast, makes my breakfast and delivers it on tray to bed. Entertains baby till 8.45. Brings baby to me in bed where I engage in mild amusement till 9am. Put baby to sleep and snooze on till about 10. Rise and make sausage sandwich and ginger tea, empty dishwasher and watch Dallas. Baby usually wakes for Dallas so put him on floor where he drinks his bottle and laughs at Cliff. We dance around floor to theme music when finished. Do barely ten minutes yoga or have bath. Make phone calls to family. Read newspaper on Net. Give baby some fruit and put him back to bed. Get dressed. Do household administration (pay bills or something). Baby wakes. Get ready to go out. Stroll down to village. Buy imagined necessities at supposed bargain prices, have light refreshment. Get back to house. Prepare lovely dinner in Stepford fashion. Make baby’s dinner. Welcome Dad home with positive cheerful greeting to counter stress of commute. Dad feeds baby. Eat dinner. Accept praise for excellent cooking. Share putting to bed duties. Lay on couch for a few hours, perhaps interspersed with laundry duties or dishwasher filling on alternate nights. Since cable finally cut us off watch reduced number soap operas and read instead. Go to bed c.10-10.30.
Bit of a doss really.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:25 pm by
Bore
All that birth stuff is starting to bore even me now, so I think I’ll drop it: except for one last incident which was important.
When the night duty came on, an efficient, busy, ward sister arrived. Threw open the windows (our warm November spell was continuing) and announced that apart from the heat outside, things were “heating up upstairs” and we’d have to squeeze an extra bed into the ward. We all got pushed up a little and two extra beds were fitted in. The curtain rails didn’t match up with the beds but mother nature doesn’t book in advance so no one minded.
I woke up early the next morning to see that a Nigerian lady had been pushed in beside me. A nurse was taking her blood pressure and letting her know it was very high. Had she flown recently? “Tuesday”. But this was only Wednesday. The woman must have gotten on a plane practically in labour. The result was a caesarian section and thankfully a healthy baby. She had no bag with clean clothes with her and said that a friend was due in later with her things. Maybe she went into labour early and her plans to have the baby in Ireland got rushed. She did have a mobile phone tho’ and shortly afterwards must have been talking to the father. She was crying and assuring him that everyone was being nice to her but that she was in pain. When she’d finished I told her she should ask for painkillers which she did.
This is the result of the whole citizenship row. If you have your baby in Ireland its an Irish citizen (well, pre-referendum). More importantly it used to mean (altho’ not guaranteed after the Supreme Court decision) that the parents had right of residency. Witnessing this distressed woman, I was conflicted.
On the one hand, she had endangered her own health and her baby’s by getting on a plane in labour or knew she risked inducing it by flying. She was in a foreign country, pretty much alone, having perhaps her first baby and needless to say she was miserable. But this was entirely self-inflicted. But what circumstances inspire this determination to make sacrifices so you and/or your child get an EU passport? Desperation or greed? Did she do it willingly or was she bullied into it? It was traumatic for her and for the medical staff who had to treat a woman when they didn’t even know her blood type. This shouldn’t be happening, and thanks to the referendum denying automatic citizenship to those born in Ireland, it won’t anymore and yet I was against the referendum.
Notwithstanding the personal misery lying beside me, the referendum messed with a principle, when I felt there should have been simpler ways to solve it.
I’d attended a friend’s wedding over 6 weeks previously and had taken a train to the far-flung country mansion in which it was being held because I had been assured by the airline I wouldn’t be let on the plane in an advanced stage of pregnancy. But some airline let this woman, and thousands like her on. What’s the story? Was it British Airways, letting them all fly from London so their problem became our problem? Anyway, it was unsettling. So were the disapproving looks she got from the other women. Presumably the incidence of this will reduce now but knowing nature abhors a vacuum, you get the feeling that that tragic little episode is just being replaced by another even more tragic one. Oh well.
Here endeth birth stuff. Which is great as it means my therapeutic aim to cease dwelling on the subject and look forward to the next birth has been successful. Perhaps blogs are the new confessionals?
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07.23.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:40 pm by
A night in the public ward in the NMH
The last part of the birth story had me wheeled off to Ward 7 in Holles St. Altho I have the requisite health insurance, as I was signed up for the Community Midwifery Scheme, I was officially a public patient. So the carpeted seclusion of the Merrion Wing was swiftly bypassed for the public ward. I’ve only had one hosptilisation as an adult (actually ever) and that was as a private patient so the next twenty four hours proved to be a valuable opportunity to observe the front line of hospital care in our lovely country.
Each ward is designed for 6 patients. 3 against each wall with a long wooden table down the middle. Everyone has their little curtains around them. So far so pretty much as one would expect. One of the community midwives settles me in and hubby and I fill her in on our rather hysterical arrival at the hospital. Having become familiar with my efficient and business like manner of managing my pregnancy, she is amazed and amused at the story and we have a great laugh. Dinner will be served at 5pm (?) and she advises me to request some tea and toast rather than the full meal. Then it’s quiet time. Between 4 and 6.30pm absolutely no visitors are permitted and mothers are to get their rest and eat their dinner. This is a good idea because its amazing the number of people who think they’re doing new mothers a favour by bouncing into maternity hospitals expecting to see cheerful Moms sitting up in bed, dying for a chat, and looking flushed and happy. Most of us are exhausted, in great discomfort, highly emotional and not able for much at all.
The ward clears of the 4 million delirious relatives and I get a chance to look around. To my left is a woman and at first there’s no sign of the baby. Then a doctor/consultant looking man arrives with the baby. The little thing has its legs in plaster cast and steel splints. It was born with clubbed feet and is being treated at the children’s hospital across town. The consultant has accompanied the baby back to the mother personally to explain the treatment. What do you feel? Sympathy, horror, gratitude.
Across the room and to the right is a young woman and again there’s no sign of a baby. Plenty of pink balloons, flowers, cards and enormous cuddly toys. It transpires it was a miconeum birth too, except the baby inhaled and its upstairs in special care. It’ll take 3 or 4 days to clear the lungs and pray there’s no long term damage. I feel massively guilty that I resisted the inducement. What if my baby had inhaled the stuff? Still, the other girl’s baby wasn’t overdue so it appears to be the luck of the draw no matter what way you give birth.
Across and to the left is a woman who looks like she’s used to this. She’s breast feeding but every now and then winces and cries. She thinks the womb is contracting with the feeding (this can happen) but after a while nurses are sent for. Some kind of specialist nurse arrives, the curtain is drawn and I can hear them talking and her weeping. The mother of the club foot baby is friendly with her and goes over for a chat after they leave. The woman is in tears with the pain but no one knows what to give her as they don’t know what’s causing it. I have my own suspicions but say nothing. Sure enough later that night after some coming and going I can hear the two friends chatting again and a “you won’t believe what it was” and some giggles. Without hearing the rest, I confirm my own theory. Constipation. I’ve been given dire warnings about this.
Strangely I can remember absolutely nothing about the lady directly opposite me. She says or does nothing. Just feeds the baby and sleeps. However, to my left is a Nigerian woman. Her mobile phone rings constantly and despite the no visitor rules her friend is still there and chatting (loudly) away behind the curtain. The security guard stops by and makes numerous polite requests for the visitor to leave. After twenty minutes there’s a full scale row while the rest of us give each other knowing, half-disapproving, half-entertained looks. The visitor is soooo stubborn. Just refuses to leave claiming her friend needs her. There is noooo sympathy since the friend is clearly in great spirits. Perhaps, in Africa, they are used to the relations staying in the hospitals to look after the patients. Anyway, eventually, the visitor leaves, sneaks back in, and is finally ejected.
The tea ladies arrive. I’ve been snoozing behind the curtain. Baby is asleep in the cradle beside me. When very-much-in-charge senior tea lady whips back my curtain announcing the arrival of fish and chips being served at the table. I assumed it would be trays in the beds but the fellow patients are sorting themselves out. I politely request my tea and toast as instructed. “Well, I can’t bring that now..it’ll have to wait for later”. I assure her, any time at her convenience will suffice as I’m barely out of the delivery suite. She closes the curtain and as the other ladies hobble towards the table where dinner is served she makes a little speech to all and sundry, no one in particular and me. “I don’t know. Some people think this is a restaurant and they can order whatever they want. Not like when I was having my babies years ago in the Rotunda. If you didn’t get up and go the table, you didn’t eat. Simple as that. I don’t know where some people think they are now.” I can’t help laughing in my little cubicle. I had no idea asking for tea and toast was so out of the ordinary. To be totally fair, half and hour later she comes back with a gorgeous pot of tea and toast that’s still hot and was buttered the second it came out of the toaster. Perfect. I thank her profusely for her trouble.
The staff midwife is cruising around. She’s Indian and has a lovely smile on her face. She checks my chart. Admires the baby and enquires if I’ve ‘made water’. I’m a bit confused but realise she’s wants to know if I’ve peed. Well, no, ‘cos the epidural just wore off, my legs are only coming back to life and I haven’t stood up yet. “You had epidural at 5am. You must make water or we will insert catheter for 24 hours”. No way. Apart from the indignity of a catherer, there is totally no way I am going to spend another 24 hours in this place. I want to be out by 10am the next day. She inspects my abdomen and presses. The bladder is pretty distended. I need a shower anyway as I haven’t been cleaned up since the birth so we head off to the bathroom.
I gingerly get out of bed and very slowly make my way out of the ward, across the hall and towards the bathroom door. I’m starting to resent the fact that she hasn’t offered her arm to me, when I pause at the big heavy ancient door. (Think Dickensian but clean). I glance at her, assuming she’s going to push the door open. She stares back at me. Looks like I’m pushing the bloody thing open myself. It takes a huge effort and we get in. She hands me a plastic jug so whatever I produce can be measured. It’s all starting to get a bit surreal. I go into the loo, stand over the jug and wait. Nothing. I turn on the taps. I picture waterfalls. The whole time she’s outside; “are you making water?”. “Just give me a minute”. I’m starting to sweat. This bitch is coming nowhere near me with her tubes.
Eventually I emerge defeated. I suggest a shower might help. Her eyes narrow and she resents my resistance. Still I need the shower. Then I confess that in the transportation panic last night, the towel, listed as a hospital essential was forgotten. She goes off and comes back a minute later with one of the blankets from the baby’s cradle. I can’t believe it. I can’t get a frigging towel???? Does she help me over the step into the shower? There’s no soap. How was I supposed to know there’d be no bloody soap. The towel was on the list so that’s my fault. But soap? Very bitterly she disappears and returns with some shower gel someone else left behind. The jug is deposited in the shower tray just in case.
I’m getting to grips with washing myself and she’s still shouting in at me. “Are you making water?”. I’m incredulous and getting pissed off. I dry myself with the blanket, put on my night dress and we head back for the ward. I leave the blanket in a laundry bin but she retrieves it. Clearly its going back in the cradle. I request that one of the community midwives is sent for. If I have to have the bloody thing done, I want one of mine to do it. Of course this gets her back up completely, but I’m past caring now. She’s an unhelpful cow and will be going off duty in a few hours.
My lovely midwife arrives and offers me another chance to pee. We head off again except this time, arms are offered, doors are opened, she turns on the taps and we have a giggle. I offer her €50 to pee into the jug for me. We abandon it, return to the ward and she does the evil deed with a minium of discomfort. A rather alarming rush of orange liquid shoots into a bag and quickly fills it. Wow. After all the puking you’d wonder where it all comes from.
She’s just finishing up when I hear hubby outside with my parents. I’d asked him to send for them and no one else for the visiting hour. Suddenly I feel like celebrating.
More tomorrow.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:11 pm by
Dallas
Ah, the joys of the stay at home Mom. Double episodes of Dallas at 10am! Outstanding moments of comedy are:
1. Priscilla Presley’s acting – a seamless precursor to her Naked Gun performances – no difference whatsoever. I particularly enjoyed her plea to Bobby to forget her as she is incarcerated for the murder of Naldo Marquetta, father to Charlie, (altho’ not on the birth cert.)
2. Bobby’s last words; “be good to each other” just before the continous beep on the machine. The family stand round competing in various stages of grief. But there are no medical personnel at all. Quite bizarre. In ER there’d be half a dozen staff cranking open the chest and doing CPR for half an hour.
3. “Momma, I’m sorry”, he weeps to Donna Reed. But it’s Barbara Bel Geddes in the next episode arranging the funeral.
4. The child actor who plays Christopher keeps changing.
5. Cliff Barnes. He really was a fool.
6. JR’s evil grin.
7. Sue Ellen’s quivering lips, expanding shoulder pads, and the way she can blink so dramatically as she takes another swig from the bottle.
8. Top 3 most used lines:
” I love you”. At least 25 declarations per episode.
“We gotta talk”.
“JR, you disgust me”.
Can’t wait to see the “it was all a dream” episode as Bobby steps out of the shower. Counting the continuity flaws will be great craic.
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07.15.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:11 pm by
Those damned elusive WMD
Bush is off the hook because he’s stupid. Bliar is off the hook because he can claim he didn’t actually lie or make the “intelligence community” (a misnomer if ever there was) lie. But why doesn’t he have to resign for showing incredibly poor judgement? Given that Blix and the rest of the UN Security Council weren’t convinced, did it never occur to him to ask if the spies were sure? In the face of global opposition he never once asked John Scarlett if he was convinced of the veracity of the information? If Scarlett was asked and replied in the affirmative when we know (by his own admission) that he was editing out the qualifications, then why was he promoted instead of fired? Why was Campbell put on the JIC to help them write a document? Can they not write? Robin Cook asked the questions. Clare Short asked the questions. If Bliar did a Bertie and made sure not to ask questions he didn’t want the answers to, then shouldn’t he resign for that alone? He is accountable for delivering false information to the cabinet, the Commons, the British people and the world. Let’s give him the total benefit of the doubt and say he made an honest mistake. BIG mistake. And no resignation? What do you actually have to do to resign? Have sex with your secretary?
And the argument that none of it matters because Saddam was a bad man who killed lots of people is completely bogus. Tell that to the 5 million who’ve died in the Congo. Why are African rogue nations allowed to slaughter entire populations without any reprisals?
Bliar says history will judge him. It will alright. As a fool.
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