Policy & Public Safety: Chalk one up for human rights …for the moment!
The people of California seemed to have won a battle in our never-ending war defending our basic human rights from our own government. You know me, peeps: I’m all about the bass (whooops) …I’m all about people having the freedom to choose how to live their life –save they hurt neither others nor themselves, right?
Even in a situation regarding this story, where mandatory helmets would of course save lives …it is not a “free” country if we force people to wear helmets. Similarly, if we force people to wear seatbelts …again, we are not actually living in a “free” country, correct?
No, I’m not advocating or supporting our beautiful brothers and sisters of the world get hurt nor be careless by not wearing helmets or seatbelts. Rather, I’m advocating “freedom to choose,” which includes the choice to wear one’s helmet or seatbelt….
I remember a bit by comedian Bill Hicks expounding upon people burning the American flag back in the day (maybe early ’90s). In his dialogue, he highlighted that one of those “freedoms” granted by living in America …is burning the American flag.
Both Hicks and I make these claims not as “traitors,” or to be blasphemous or sacrilegious to our country, flag or humanity, rather to highlight that “freedom” includes our God-given right to express ourselves in a manner that works for each one of us personally (as proclaimed in the 1st Amendment), as long as we’re not hurting others.
The burning of the flag might be offensive to some, yet we all do things that are offensive to someone somewhere –most likely. Unless we are mean-spirited and intentionally hurtful, which sadly some of us are, our actions that offend others are not done intentionally. Rather they are acted upon to communicate a clear message, for example, the burning of the flag.
It was not done, in my opinion, as a snub against war veterans, especially those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Instead it was done to express …to demonstrate that we are not pleased nor satisfied with how our government is running the country. It was an intentionally extreme action executed to mimic and reflect back to our controllers and to our government the extreme violations being done against humanity.
I do enjoy connecting these dots… From being forced to wear seatbelts and helmets to having the freedom to burn the American flag –it’s all the same thing: Having the freedom to choose. This story relates how a Californian bill has been revised and will be re-addressed in two years (early 2017), after two agencies (California Highway Patrol and its Office of Traffic Study) explore the connection between helmet-wearing and any resulting injuries or death from bicycling accidents.
Bill Revised After Adult Cyclists Balk at Helmet Requirement by Arin Mikailian. LA Times.
Military Medicine & Ethics: Human mistakes leading to fatalities.
This is sad, unbelievably disrespectful, and infuriating. The bottomline is our government’s medical teams sometimes make mistakes. Well, we all do, right? …of course, we do! That’s certainly one aspect of being human …but then the life lesson is taking responsibility, making amends if necessary, and learning not to do that again, right? That’s what mistakes are for: To learn.
Leave it up to our military to take mistake-making to a whole new level. Of course, I do not believe that this is new information for any of us, simply more and more evidence that it occurs much more than we may realize –and again, another glaring issue reminding us of areas that need to be immediately remedied. Taking responsibility is essential as we step into our integrity heading toward Ascension, which can only be achieved if we’re living in our authenticity.
TJ Moore from Indiana was a 19 year old who just joined the Air Force. During basic training in San Antonio, he died from a 1.5 mile test run. “A former football player … seemed to fit in well… But on his first Saturday of basic training, he flamed out on the 1.5-mile run, part of a mandatory initial fitness test. Given 18 and a half minutes to run six laps, Mr. Moore stopped after three laps. ‘Running is not for me,’ he declared.”
Two doctors initially put his training “on hold” pending further medical exams, and a nurse charted that the patient “can not run at all [and] ordered a thorough medical evaluation…. Had that occurred, someone most likely would have noticed the results of a blood test that had arrived at the clinic the previous afternoon. Routine lab work done when he arrived at Lackland showed that Mr. Moore had sickle-cell trait, a genetic condition affecting 8 percent of African-Americans.”
Even though two doctors pulled him from basic training, its seems the Air Force changed their minds, and stated Moore was “medically qualified […just] deconditioned.” A physician assistant effectively cleared Moore for re-engagement in the physical basic training, although the assistant never conducted the “thorough examination” as recommended, and yet documented that Moore “was without health concerns.”
Sadly, that very afternoon, Moore vigorously ran five laps in 82-degree heat. Short of the finish line, he fell, got up, then collapsed again. The cause of death was cited as sickle-cell trait complications, which of course was already discovered from his initial standard bloodwork that had gone undetected from sitting on someone’s desk.
“Three independent experts who reviewed Mr. Moore’s medical records at The Times’s request agreed that medical workers had failed him. Dr. Janis Abkowitz, a well-known hematologist and medical professor at the University of Washington, said abandoning the precautions just ordered by two physicians ‘was a terrible error.’”
And yet, the military conducted another travesty by lying about their mistake, leaving Moore’s family drowning in a sea of unanswered questions and bureaucratic run-around. “But the official Air Force explanation — in a 15-page report in a white binder, delivered to Ms. Holmes in December after months of inquiries — was that the military had followed proper protocol. No mistakes were identified. No one was faulted.”
“‘I raised T. J. as a single mother on little income for 19 years, and kept him safe. They had him for nine days and sent him home to me in a box,’ said Ms. Holmes, who called the report ‘garbage.'”
Incredibly, at this SAME location (Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio), approximately four years ago, another sickle-cell trait recruit died after the SAME 1.5 mile run –wow. Clearly, no one is learning from their mistakes at Lackland! “The Air Force screens recruits for the trait and requires precautions, not always enforced: Just three years earlier, a Lackland recruit with sickle-cell trait died after the same 1.5-mile timed run. He had never been issued the required armband to alert medics to his status.”
The profound excuses, moral dissociation, and deep apathy held within these 15-page reports that our military gives to our grieving families resulting from gross medical negligence is horrific and unacceptable. As previously mentioned, we have all heard of these happenings over the years, yet to learn it still happens is not tolerable. Highlighting such repeated occurrences needs to happen, if we are to ever stop this insanity and blatant disrespect of human life and of not being held accountable.
Service Members Are Left in Dark on Health Errors by Sharon LaFraniere. NY Times.
Across this beautiful world, We Are All One.
Gavin