"We are a nation of cover-up artists."

You can say that again ...

We are a nation of cover-up artists.

Build a prison, then hire a 'security' company to fill it ...

So that you can use the revenue to support a police department?

Can the farce get any worse/better/more absurd?

Hardin Official Fights 'Outlandish' APF Rumors

Almost murder? ...

“How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death,” she said. “It is almost like, in a way, committing murder.”

Almost murder? What do you mean almost!

The USDA Organic label gets to stay, whether the product is organic or not ...

That's how I read this article: Claims dismissed against Aurora Organic Dairy (via)
Apparently neither the judge, the USDA nor the stores that passed on the products care whether the products they were selling (at higher Organic product prices) were actually organic.

The Bush administration did their best to bastardize the organic rules to favor corrupt corporations with sufficient financial clout. The next step is to make the label itself meaningless.

In the end, of course, this process helps no one. The consumer will not get the products they want but, in addition, once the label looses all trust no one will pay premium prices for the products. Not that the corporate Robber Barons care. They will just look around for the next scam to run. How long before they organize their own militias and invade our homes to take whatever they want.

---

---

Today's QUOTES:

In a world in which our own government is using contractors to conduct unwarranted invasions of our privacy, there's something utterly perverse about our own government then inventing FOIA exemptions to protect contractors from "unwarranted invasion" of their privacy. -- Leon Panetta: I’ve Got to Protect the Contractors from Unwarranted Invasion of Privacy by emptywheel, firedoglake.com Talk about an understatement! It's looking more and more like Barack Obama's pledge to usher in a new era of openness in government may well go unfulfilled. -- CIA Stance On Torture Tape Docs Suggests Obama's New Open Government Era Won't Materialize by Zachary Roth, Talking Points Memo

---

---

The most accurate graphic depiction of Health Insurance and Drug companies I've ever seen is ...

... here.

---

---

Today's QUOTES:

Once the RNC figured out that Obama, like almost every other prominent Democrat, could be mau-maued into apologizing over an issue that didn't rate an apology, ... -- All Apologies by Phoenix Wmoan, firedoglake.com ... [Billo's] arrogance is so simultaneously cloying and macho that his act seems like some kind of retro, angry white man, drag queen performance art. ... -- by digby, Hullabaloo ... Somehow, the "Sweet Land" of liberty is plagued by murderous fears that one's freedom depends upon the death, exile or enslavement of some other. ... -- Before the Mountains: Sotomayor and Sitting Bull in America by Glenn W. Smith, firedoglake.com In all the navel gazing about the future of journalism, it seems to me that one of the most important is consideration of the cracking of the insider culture. The media's failures of the past decade can be at least partially explained by its insular nature and class based identification with those they cover. ... [...] ... the fact is that American journalism is in crisis. They can pretend it's all about the financial model and parasite bloggers or whatever other excuse they can come up with. But one of the reasons is a catastrophic loss of credibility because they are consistently either missing the most important stories of our time or helping the powerful manipulate them. ... -- Covering Your BFF by digby, Hullabaloo

---

---

UFCW, the Food City Bugaboo ...

'Pears that UFCW, the union that Food City/Bashas claim is out to get them worked out a deal with the Arizona Desert Museum where museum employees who are members of the union will effectively get less takehome pay in order to help with financial problems at the museum and to help keep their jobs.

Desert Museum workers to take unpaid time off

Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 99, which represents staffers at the museum, unanimously voted to approve the furloughs Thursday.

"Our main goal with this is to keep our people employed," Vimmerstedt said.

Now that sure looks like the big bad union that Food City is describing, doesn't it. Imagine, employees actually participating in the success of the business through organization.

Why in the US do many think employees should not have the power to organize for their own benefit if they so desire?

Can't be that one group of Americans prefers another group to be isolated and dependent? No, that couldn't be ...

More Food City and Bashas and the UFCW ...

Here's an article that look's amazingly like a plant in on a site that uses 'freepress' in it's name:

Union Campaign To Destroy Grocery Chain by Warner Todd Huston, Sunday, May 3, 2009

The article ends with the following paragraph:

Proving that what workers want is of no interest to unions, rejection by employees is not good enough for the UFCW, however. The food workers union has used every weapon at its disposal to tear down the food chain and force its own will on workers and business alike.

Considering that the laws are written, at behest of big business, to make the organizing of workers as difficult as possible (for the workers, that is) this article could only be written by those opposed to any union. The power is all on the side of the businesses and any workers and the union they wish to join has a long arduous uphill battle. Thuggery, amazingly, in spite of portrayals in the press, is usually instituted by the bosses, not the workers. That is the bosses hire the thugs. And thuggery comes in many forms. Lying flyers, lawyers and law suits, firings, threats and eventually physical violence.

Food City (&Bashas Family?) smear what they refer to as the 'UFCW smear campaign' ...

Received a $5.00 Food City coupon in the mail today. The coupon is attached to a mailer suggesting that the UFCW is trying to destroy Food City. Really, as if the employees did not need and want jobs!

Food City has Community Pride; is Clean and Safe; is a Brand You Can Trust; and has Strong Values ... they say so themselves and have nice pictures of two cute little boys (black), a group of employees (mostly brown), a smiling Eddie Basha (immigrant, 3 generations ago), and a man in a uniform (apparently white with light tan) giving a little boy (apparently brown, or tanned) a shot.

A mailer about such an important subject that presents its case as if it were advertising a product doesn't back up their statement that they have Strong Values. If anything if says the opposite.

From the UFCW web site:

ARIZONANS ARE STILL HUNGRY FOR RESPECT

Statement from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union

(Phoenix, AZ) – The baseless lawsuit filed by the Bashas’ supermarket company against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) underscores the company’s disrespect for workers, consumers and the community.

Bashas' appears to be acting out in desperation, naming religious leaders, workers, journalists and their spouses in a lawsuit. It really is a sad day when a company unleashes its high priced lawyers in an effort to suppress the concerns of its customers and the communities where they operate.

Our coalition, Hungry for Respect, was formed by grocery employees, their union and community allies out of concern for the company’s practices.
...

Unlike Food City/Bashas the UFCW provides some specificity:

In the spring of this year, Hungry for Respect shoppers found and purchased 683 containers of expired infant formula from certain Bashas’ Supermarkets, AJs and Food City stores in Maricopa, Yuma and Pima Counties. We then did what was socially responsible and alerted the public to what shoppers found. The lawsuit does not refute the fact that Bashas’ was selling outdated infant formula to unsuspecting mothers.

In November, Hungry for Respect submitted to the Maricopa Board of Supervisors an analysis of county health inspections that found Food City stores had 47% more major violations per routine inspection than Bashas Supermarket stores from January 2005 through September 2007. We called upon Bashas' Inc. and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to take steps to close the health inspection track record gap between Food City and Bashas' stores.

A federal administrative judge recently found that Bashas’ Inc. broke the law and ordered the corporation to "cease and desist…interfering with, restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of" their right to address workplace concerns through their union.
...

Food City/Bashas does not address the issues but does claim to be better than Ranch Market, Fry's and Safeway. Oh, and they have "deep respect for the Hispanic community and are proud that their employees come from diverse back grounds."

And don't forget that the Bashas family were immigrants ... three generations ago? All of which must somehow prove that Food City are the good guys and the union and the employees who want a union are the bad guys and deserve no respect or understanding even though Food City absolutely respects and understand its employees and the community it serves so Generously, Trustfully, Pridefully, Cleanly, Safely and with Strong Values.

Organically Grown Corrections ...

I linked to a C&L post in Organic vs GM ...

C&L has a correction post up about the subject: Monsanto and HR 875, Take Two

Food makers worried how to present their products in Depression-America ...

Food makers gear marketing to tough times

Not to worry. Their customer's health will be no more an issue in bad times than they were it good times. Chemicals will continue to fill the bill.

[Sara Lee Corp] is emphasizing the value of its Jimmy Dean Skillet product, Barnes said, noting that a consumer just has to add eggs and can feed a family of five a hearty breakfast for about $5.00.

Just what heartiness will you find in one of Jimmy Dean Skillet meals (other than the eggs you add yourself? Here's the list of ingredients as listed on the package:

POTATO CUBES (POTATOES, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL [SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OILS] AND/OR VEGETABLE OIL [CANOLA, SOYBEAN AND/OR SUNFLOWER OILS], MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, DEXTROSE, TETRASODIUM PYROPHOSPHATE AND DISODIUM DIHYDROGEN PYROPHOSPHATE [TO MAINTAIN NATURAL COLOR]), COOKED CHORIZO SAUSAGE (PORK, SEASONING [CHILI PEPPER, SUGAR, PAPRIKA, SPICES, NATURAL FLAVORINGS, DEXTROSE, BHT], SALT, WATER, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, VINEGAR), SWEET CORN, BLACK BEANS, RED BELL PEPPERS, PASTEURIZED PROCESSED MONTEREY JACK CHEESE WITH CHIPOTLE CHILI PEPPERS AND NATURAL SMOKE FLAVOR (MONTEREY JACK CHEESE [CULTURED MILK, SALT, ENZYMES], CREAM, ANTI-CAKING BLEND [POTATO STARCH, CELLULOSE, NATAMYACIN {NATURAL MOLD INHIBITOR}], SODIUM PHOSPHATE, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF CHIPOTLE CHILI PEPPER, SALT, NATURAL FLAVOR, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, SORBIC ACID [PRESERVATIVE]), ONION, GREEN BELL PEPPERS.

Potato cubes with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Don't you just luv the fact that these 'food' makers don't even know what kind of oil they are going to use: could be soybean or perhaps cottonseed. Then they leave the option that they may not use just partially hydrogenated oil. They may combine it with non partially hydrogenated oil (how sweet of them). You realize these makers of 'food' know that partially hydrogenated oil is harmful. Well not to worry, a country that has transferred all the wealth to a very few can't complain about what's left, poisonous food not with standing.

Silly idea, but how about just buying a couple potatoes, some olive oil or canola oil to go along with those eggs. Dice and saute them yourself. Maybe a little bit of sausage for flavor. Garlic perhaps. Yum.

Then you could skip the following:

MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, DEXTROSE, TETRASODIUM PYROPHOSPHATE AND DISODIUM DIHYDROGEN PYROPHOSPHATE [TO MAINTAIN NATURAL COLOR])

and

SUGAR, PAPRIKA, SPICES, NATURAL FLAVORINGS, DEXTROSE, BHT], SALT, WATER, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, VINEGAR),

Corn and or black beans would be nice, but a little broccoli might be better. Cheese, too if it appeals to you. But why use this processed gunk. A little grated cheddar, Monterey jack, longhorn cheddar, swiss, gouda, whatever sprinkled on the top of the dish would be nice. That way you can skip the

ANTI-CAKING BLEND [POTATO STARCH, CELLULOSE, NATAMYACIN {NATURAL MOLD INHIBITOR}],
and
SODIUM PHOSPHATE, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF CHIPOTLE CHILI PEPPER, SALT, NATURAL FLAVOR, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, SORBIC ACID [PRESERVATIVE]),

Such a meal would taste very good with much less salt than the 670mg per recommended serving (four servings per packages). Adding your own fresh green pepper and/or onion if you wish, and whatever spices you prefer. I would use turmeric on the potatoes, no pepper but generous use of anaheim chili peppers (that is before I quit eating chili peppers and tomatoes because of arthritis).

I see no reason to add cream to this dish. I think if it needed more filling power I would use another potato and a little more broccoli instead of the cream.

If newspapers die ...

Another McClatchy Commentary, this one by Barbara Shelly, The Kansas City Star: Communities will feel loss of newspapers

But if newspapers die, what forum will exist for stories like the fish vendor's? Small in the scheme of things but large to the persons involved.

Haven't newspapers died already? Where are the reporters she talks about. They've been homogenized and pasteurized by corporate control. The Arizona Daily Star here in Tucson was at one time --seems like eons ago-- quite a good paper. They had periodic special reporting on topics of interest to Southern Arizona. Not any more. Today's corporate Star is like imitation vanilla. Superfluous. Tasteless. Insipid. There's nothing there that I am willing to pay for. I visit the online version once in a while hoping to see a change. I would really like an active local area newspaper. But we will not get any 'news' from corporate newsrooms. We will get messages and indoctrination. I don't blame the individuals that still call themselves reporters. They need jobs and wish to do well at those jobs. Well, yes, I do blame them, but I also think I can understand the dilemma for any who would be more reporter-ish in their work.

Internet sites can give you the big stories. Bloggers can give you opinions and snappy lines. Watchdog sites can give you good investigative reports.

But if newspapers die, what forum will exist for stories like the fish vendor's? Small in the scheme of things but large to the persons involved.

Internet sites? Bloggers. Watchdog sites? Something's missing here. Bloggers and internet sites and watchdogs and reporters and commentators etc. are not mutually exclusive.

Blogger is one of those terms that can mean anything and nothing at the same time. I'm a blogger, I suppose, as I have this blog call Arizona Eclectic on a service called Blogger that is on the Internet. Gee.

I'm one of those who "give you opinions and snappy lines." Except that I post other people's 'snappy lines' and opinions. It's how I learn and how I remember. In class I learned to write everything down. Even if I never read my notes (which were mostly illegible), just the process of writing it helped me remember the subject matter. Don't know why but it worked for me.

Shelly, however, seems unaware of the range of skills in this world she so handily writes off as bloggers. There are reporters blogging. Real reporters like the Border Reporter, who writes about a local geographical area. Now just try to tell me that Larisa Alexandrovna at at-Largely is not a reporter AND a blogger.

What about firedoglake.com. Seems to encompass opinion, analysis, research and reporting. Certainly it's no more biased that the corporate controlled GOP media though it's much more intelligent, thorough and rational, most of the time.

Seems to me that the newspapers are already dead in the sense of being a place for real reporters. Local public interest stories, neighborhood stories, community interest stories? When there are reporters with incentive and a way to provide themselves a livelihood then they will find the stories. That environment has already been killed by greed obsessed corporate media. Sex, crime and political gotchas are what they expect us to swallow. And pay for? Sorry, I resist.

When I get calls trying to get me to subscribe (it's probable close to 10 years since I finally got fed up with the Star) to the local paper the callers script never includes any information about the actual reporting in the star. They try to sell me on the coupons. They've become a marketer of coupons. That's how I see them. News quality? Information accuracy. Completeness of facts. All secondary, if that. I would pay for quality, completeness, dependability, facts and a little bit of decent writing and organization skills. I paid for the paper for years. As much as I use the Internet I still like having a paper or magazine or book in my hand and reading it relaxed in a comfortable chair.

---

---

Today's QUOTES:

... I don't know who tanked Brennan, but the fact that a whole bunch of people are still whining about bloggers doing it a solid month after it happened strikes me as a sign that something's amiss. --The Great And Powerful Left by digby, Hullabaloo ... There's the central axiom driving coverage by our American media: the more significant a matter it is, the less attention it receives ... --Politico reviews the year in American "political journalism" by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

---

---

From the offspring of Ma Bell ...

Verizon offers 'My Verizon' members the amazing ability to "keep a copy of your saved phone numbers on a secure website without a monthly fee so they're available if you lose or upgrade your phone."

Please be aware that that free service from the company that spies on you and shares your information with the government [unConstitutionally and without warrant], information that is ultimately shared with other non-governmental and unregulated organizations is offering you a special service to share that information with you also. And all that sharing is worth $1.99 per month (per month!) but they will just give it away because, you, the spied upon, are just so special.

Gall, thy name is Republican Business Models.

Does anyone really believe ...

Does anyone really believe ...
... that the those who hold corporate and political power in the U.S. actually believe in those 'free markets' they tout so repetitively?

Free Market definition: an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses.

Those who hold corporate power believe in a market where they control the rules which change (or can be ignored) as needed to ensure their continued ascendency. And apparently the vast majority of our elected politicians and political appointees either agree or have been effectively neutralized. Greed and power are the characteristics of this environment. The health of our society has no importance. The welfare of our citizens has no importance.

Does anyone really believe ...
... that insurance is the proper approach to providing health care for all of us?

Healthcare definition: the maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health, esp. through the provision of medical services

Insurances definition:
1) a practice or arrangement by which a company or government agency provides a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a premium : many new borrowers take out insurance against unemployment or sickness.

• the business of providing such an arrangement : Howard is in insurance.
• money paid for this : my insurance has gone up.
• money paid out as compensation under such an arrangement : when will I be able to collect the insurance?
• an insurance policy.

2) a thing providing protection against a possible eventuality : seeking closer ties with other oil-supplying nations as insurance against disruption of Middle East supplies | young people are not an insurance against loneliness in old age.

Does anyone really believe ...
... that insurance companies which were designed to provide a hedge against a 'possible eventuality' in an economic system based on greed and control where denying service is a sign of success will ever be able to provide acceptable healthcare? The requirement for healthcare is not a 'possible' eventuality, but instead an eventuality that everyone will eventually, is not sooner, require.

How do you talk to these people? The insurance company mentality ...

My eye doctor (ophthalmologist if you prefer) increased an eyedrop prescription from a drop in each eye twice a day to three times a day.

Walgreens gives me a 10ml bottle and charges the rate for a 30 day supply. At the window I ask whether 10ml will last 30 days. The pharmacist says it 'should.'

I used google and found that 10 ml of a thick solution (which this is) would provide around 120 drops. I need 180 drops for 30 days (what we're supposed for those months that have 31 days I have no idea). I called Walgreens and was told over the phone after she 'checked the computer' that the supply was for 25 days though they were happy to charge the full monthly co-pay.

At this point Walgreens is saying that they will order a 15ml bottle (with a sigh evidently because 'they don't usually carry that size'). I haven't opened the box the prescription came in so I'm taking it back and supposedly I'm going to get a 15ml bottle in it's place (don't hold your breath).

To the pharmacist at Walgreens I said I was concerned that they would give me a 25 day supply, charge me the rate for a months supply and never say a word about it. What were they going to do when I came back early to refill the prescription? The answer is they cannot fill the request with part of a bottle. Well I know that. As if I would accept an opened bottle. Good grief. What about prorating the charge. That concept, evidently, is taboo.

[Note: I like the pharmacist herself. I assume she's just caught up in the system and has to work within the environment. Pharmacists are dependent on their corporate bosses and the insurance companies. They are not accountable to us the customers. There must be a great deal of strain in the job as they have to deal directly with us, the customer, while following the money grubbing directives of the corporate mafia.]

I called AARP, who sells this insurance coverage. I explained what had happened at Walgreens and explained that I was told that Walgreens would supply a 15ml bottle and that I was calling to express a concern about how the program was administered. I was concerned that Walgreens filled my prescription with a quantity (est 25 days worth) that they knew would not last for the month and that when I mentioned that they didn't really seem concerned. The first response from the AARP rep was 'yes?' as if that sounds right to me. There's no point to trying to recall the rest of the conversation. It's like talking to a wall. I don't think they even understand the concept of fairness. If they offer a policy with a $30.00 co-pay for 30 day supply then for $30.00 one should receive a 30 day supply. If because of the arbitrary size of certain medications that is not possible then prorate the co-pay. This is absolutely incomprehensible to them. Does not compute, period. Anyway the conversation ended with her putting me on hold to check on something. I was on hold for what seemed like quite a while. When she came back on the line she apologized for leaving me on hold so long and said she was going to transfer me to an 'expert' (I think she said expert) in 'this.' Well then I went on what seemed like permanent hold. I hung up after what seemed like a long time (I didn't time it).

Voilà, problem solved, from their perspective at least.

Kansas City has plans ...

McClatchy is just a mine of interesting articles today. They point to this article: Kansas City plans green scheme for sewer system by Karen Dillon and Lynn Horsley, The Kansas City Star

The following are listed as part of the 'green design:'

•Porous paving, an alternative to conventional asphalt and concrete, is designed to allow rainfall to soak through the paving to reduce runoff.

•Rain gardens usually are built in a shallow depression using conditioned soil and a gravel bed with native plants that slow rain water while filtering it.

•Storm-water planters, built either above or below ground, use conditioned soil and native plants to slow and filter rain water. They can sit on porous paving, allowing rain water to soak into the ground.

•Green roofs are installed on flat or sloped roofs and consist of a layer of soil and vegetation that slows runoff and can provide insulation from the heat and cold, reducing extreme temperature fluctuations.

•Rain barrels catch rain water flowing from eave troughs and divert it from the sewer system. It then can be used in irrigation systems and to water lawns and gardens.

•Tree boxes are built along sidewalks and streets, capturing runoff and channeling it to be cleaned by vegetation and soil before entering a catch basin. The runoff helps irrigate the trees.

•Vegetative swales are open-channel drainage-ways that carry runoff in place of sewer pipes. Water doesn’t pond in the channel for long periods. Instead, channels allow the water to soak into the ground.

Arizona, including Tucson, being in the clutches of the real estate and developer mafia, can only manage to come up with plans such as re-vitalizing downtown Tucson, for the umpteenth time, building LA type freeways that never quite handle the volume of traffic and building big and little boxes across the desert. It's called progress.

Why does the food industry hate us?

If they're not feeding ground animals to herbivores or adding bacteria and other unpleasant things to our meats and vegetables they are shoveling salt into the processed convenience foods they engineer for attractiveness, tastiness and addictive qualities. Their engineering and marketing talents cover everything except nutrition and wholesomeness.

• 2300 milligrams (1 teaspoon) a day is the recommended upper limit for sodium.
• Most Americans get at least 4000 mg per day.
• 75% of that salt come from processed foods.

So the easiest way to reduce salt intake would be to cut out processed foods.

The food industry could reduce the salt they use to help make their concoctions palatable and addictive but have you noticed that when they reduce the salt they increase the sugar or the fat or both?

Link

Children raised on soda and juice are growing up with weak bones.
This is a short video at WebMD. Of course the short ad at the beginning is for juice. And the solution is Tums. I think WebMD is too dependent on advertising to trust them to do any more than present corporate controlled 'wisdom. '

Truth instead of propaganda will not be their choice ...

At the same time, the barons of old-line newspapers and broadcast TV seem to have realized it's pointless to keep fighting the shift online, but they're still unsure how to embrace it. And they're struggling to attract new online users just to survive.

No matter how bad it gets, these 'baron' of lies, filth and garbage will never convert their products to real journalistic outlets any more than their paper products have much journalistic cred. Instead they will look for ways to control the internet as the solution to their problems. Even if the theory of competition as the way to stimulate and drive growth and prosperity was ever more than propaganda, the current crop of 'barons' certainly don't believe in it.

It's too bad for the United States, of course, because barons, with or without royal titles, are a sign of deteriorating times. The media, the banking industry, the telecomms, the energy industry, the auto industry. All barons of the power of inflexibility and overarching mismanagement.

Bank of America's involvement with 'dirty coal' inspires ...

... an outing.

Really, we have to stop thinking of the 'illegal alien' explosion ...

... as a criminal matter. We have to stop viewing ourselves (the US) as the center of the universe. Something worse is going on here. The US, has in the past, at times, thought of itself as a solver of problems. Well, there are big problems going on in the world and US and foreign corporations are at the heart of them. That's the only manner in which we, the US Citizens are the center of anything. We are allowing, aiding and abetting, the corporate empires to collect all power into their greedy and bloody grasp.

Mexico’s Ghost Towns --The other side of the immigration debate by John Gibler

Cerrito del Agua, population 3,000, has no paved roads — either leading to it or within it. No restaurants, no movie theaters, no shopping malls. In fact, the small town located in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas has no middle schools, high schools or colleges; no cell phone service, no hospital. Its surrounding fields are dry and untended. The streets are empty.

The explosion of emigration to the United States over the past 15 years has emptied much of central Mexico, even reaching into southernmost states like Chiapas and Yucatan. But it has simply devastated Zacatecas, a dry, rolling agricultural region located about 400 miles northwest of Mexico City.

...

How we approach this problem can make a difference. Rounding up, jailing, abusing those who have come to this country is not only cruel and barbaric, it is not in our own best interests.

We are not helping anyone when we abuse others and we have a sorry set of politicians who either are corrupt or weak. We all are playing into the overseers' [greedy corporate] hands.

There's so much wrong here ...

Airport 'security' thugs can make you take off your shoes, feel you up in front of everyone, make you drink your baby's breast milk and steal your belongings.

Now I learn that hospitals are in the business of kicking people out of the country when the patients' financial status doesn't suit them. (via The Sideshow)

You might think that the people they decide to kick out of their hospital and the country are here illegally. Not so, St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona is trying very hard to kick a very sick woman who is in the US legally out of the country and into a hospital that has agreed to take her in Honduras but that has made it clear cannot care for her properly. The patient has no family in Honduras, her family is here and she has lived here for more than 17 years.

Evidently St. Joseph's Hospital regularly kicks people out of their hospital and sends them to another country. About 8 a month. I don't know how may to places that can't care for them properly (is that called murder?) or how many of them against their will.

The family has taken the issue to court. The article isn't very clear but it doesn't sound like the court is much concerned about a patient's right not to be deported at a hospital's whim.

Whatever the case I wouldn't expect much compassion out of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona.