I never truly recognized the value of HR departments until my partner was hired by a mid-size (100 employees) organization that didn't have one. Personnel policies were made up by the director. They were byzantine and weird - even fairly straightforward ones, such as what constituted overtime and at what rate overtime hours would be paid.
Eventually they hired their first HR staffer, and our family, for one, was very grateful indeed.
Charlie - please read the Lauren Slater book with a house-sized grain of salt. I'm just saying.
Here's my list:
Just finished a re-read of Bujold's Diplomatic Immunity, and was pleased to discover that I only remembered the vague outline of the plot. Now I've started re-reading Falling Free, which I think I've only ever read once. I don't remember what happens.
I'm also in the middle of Melissa Scott & Lisa Barrett's Point of Dreams. It might've been easier if I had read Point of Hope, but I'm enjoying the book anyway.
For comfort reading in odd moments, on my Palm Pilot: Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, zillionth re-read.
And, last but not least, New Mother's Guide to Breastfeeding, by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Because it's really not too early to be thinking about it - yikes!
she doesn't actually address the allegations of neglect, child abuse, and the like except to say that "if it happened, we would have heard about it."
I'm sorry, David, I thought I had.
The only anecdotes in the BBC piece for which there is really enough information to figure out what happened are stories in which guardians completely stopped HIV+ children's medical treatment altogether. It appears that at least some of those guardians subsequently lost custody of their children, presumably due to charges of medical neglect.
The case of the foster mother quoted extensively in the BBC piece - the one where it says she was charged with "child abuse" - doesn't speak to the issue of parental consent rights whatsoever. If she was only a foster parent, and not an actual adoptive parent, those children were legally in the custody of the state. It was the state's responsibility to ensure that they received medical care. The foster mother stopped all of the children's medications, a decision which was never legally hers to make. It's hardly surprising that the state then decided that HIV+ children should be in the custody of someone who believed in accepted medical theories of HIV.
When children are under the legal guardianship of the state, it's the state's responsibility to make medical decisions for those children. That's what, for example, enables children whose parents have beaten them half to death to get medical treatment regardless of whether the parents would approve.
The state can legitimately make a decision that children who are in its legal custody, who are dying and are otherwise out of treatment options, may benefit from the opportunity to try an experimental medication. That's true whether or not, for example, the biological parent thinks that fresh air and herbs are sufficient to treat HIV.
As far as "if it happened, we would have heard about it" - I thought I'd been clear, but again, apparently I wasn't. Please paraphrase me instead as, "If it happened AND THEN CAME TO LIGHT IN THE NEWS LIKE THIS, it would be a huge story and the wrath of God would fall on all concerned." Because it would. I'm not saying that Institutional Review Boards never miss anything and that the FDA is all-seeing and all-knowing, I'm saying that they do act unfailingly when research abuses come to light.
If you're arguing otherwise, you need to explain why every other case in which the FDA has been made aware of irregularities in the protection of research subjects has led to massive regulatory wrath... except for this one. You'd need to explain why the media was all over one death at Johns Hopkins in 2001, but is suddenly indifferent when Columbia presides over massive subject maltreatment for a decade. And if you're arguing that... the burden of proof is on you.
*blush*
Thanks, Patrick. Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for helping spread the debunking.
Oh, Patrick. I feel the same way.
I've been fighting the urge to delete my blog. At the very least, it's hard to imagine ever updating it again, because what would be the point? If everything we've said so far hasn't made a difference, what more could there be to say?
I find myself thinking a lot about miscarriage today. I don't know, it just seems like nothing could live in a body this hopeless and a country this determined to send itself to hell.
Fortunately, I think the baby is probably smarter than I am. Any day now, I should be feeling her move... and then I'll have to get over my sadness and start back to work, trying to make the world a fit place for her to live in. I ain't there yet, but I'm just having to trust in blind faith that I will get there.
Wow. The whole transcript really is worth reading. I think I'm glad I didn't see it, though. Stewart sounds so pained, and Carlson and Begala are so fucking oblivious.
What a great, real, human perspective, interjected into the spin machine.
Terry - right now, I'd worry that the really big stuff would have undesirable vibration effects. But anytime after April, you may be hearing from me. :-)
Man. I love shooting, and I'm actually quite good at it, but I haven't been to the range since my sister sent me an article about increased blood lead levels in persons who frequent indoor shooting ranges. I guess I'll go back in, uh, two years or so, when I'm no longer the primary support system for a developing brain.
I liked to shoot the Ruger 22/45, which is the exact same frame as the Model 1911A1, but .22 caliber. A couple of times I shot a Ruger 9mm that I liked as well. I wrote about my first time shooting here, in case anyone's interested.
Does anyone else have trouble accessing washingtonmonthly.com? About half the time, I get a "this page can not be displayed" error.
Will, I don't think you can have it both ways. If you want Democrats to acknowledge Nader as a legitimate opposition candidate with a legitimate political agenda, then you have to expect, you know, opposition.
"Why do Democrats blame Nader voters, instead of Bush voters?" I blame both sets of voters, personally. Both Bush and Nader are running against my guy. They're both trying to make my guy lose. If Nader voters don't want to be treated like "the enemy," in electoral terms, then they shouldn't be running an opposition candidate.
There isn't a middle ground, where Nader gets to campaign against the Democrats but Democrats honorably agree to only target Bush. Why would there be?
Riding home on the train past the Baltimore Arena last night, I noticed that their big electronic sign was advertising a concert by "Bette Milder."
Do you think it's a Bette Midler impersonator, with some of the brassiness toned down?
Best of luck with the move, and I hope you love your new house.
The Electrolite Institute of Whatever The Hell is honored to offer the Eohippus J. Glyptodon Chair of Mammalness to the esteemed Professor Rivka. (Psst: You'll find the Mallet of Overdue Correction in the third drawer down the back.)
A mallet! *thwack* Oooh, that has a nice *thwack* balance to it; I *thwack* can feel my academic gravitas in- *thwack* -creasing by the moment.
Chair of Mammalness! *thwack* Those shoddy scholars the monotremes will simply be green with envy. Of course, I've always said that if you're going to have fur and lay eggs, you can't expect anything more dignified than an Interdisciplinary Studies Certificate.
The only thing I worry about is the heavy fur on my full academicals. New York in August, after all, for Convocation. And whose bright idea was it to put the nipples on the hood? I don't care if they're only symbolic, they shouldn't be dorsal. But I'll do my best to carry it off with dignity. *thwack!*
Ooh! Oooh! Can I be the Dean of Mammals?
It's an unconstitutional standard. In Tarcaso v. Watkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the state cannot privilege "religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs."
Lucky for me, because there's no way in hell my church could afford to pay taxes on our center-city property.
Kathryn - this is probably one of the ways my day job helps with my blogging. I'm just as queasy and shocked and sad and ashamed as everyone else is. But you don't last long as a psychologist if you can't learn to bookmark those feelings and set them aside while you analyze whatever it is that you're hearing.
Patrick - thanks for the kind words. It means an awful lot, coming from someone I respect so much.
Tony Hellman - did you actually click through any of the links? The fact that you suggest "Back to the crackdowns, we might think about cracking down on white males" makes me think that perhaps you didn't.
Maybe my point was too subtle, but in fact I hardly need to be lectured about illusory correlations and the evils of prejudice against Certain Ethnic Groups. I'm guessing Patrick doesn't, either.
Teresa, in that case I'm sorry that I spread the reference any further. I thought I was being helpful, but instead I was just unintentionally insensitive. Feel free to delete my comment, if you'd rather not give it any more of an airing than it's already gotten.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 2 |
| 2004 | 26 |
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