I have been fortunate to work in the courts in Canada and the United States. In both countries I have been very impressed with the knowledge and character of the judges who I have observed. There have been rare exceptions to this. Overall my experience has been exceedingly positive.
I had a moment to reflect on this when a middle eastern man reminded me that we are truly fortunate in Canada to have judges who are experienced, trained, honest and just.
“In the middle east my business covered several countries and the nature of my business meant I was involved with the courts, legitimately, not criminally. The courts and the judges there are are generally corrupt. I’ve had a chance to compare. It’s a bit like hockey and soccer. Soccer, you know the game is fixed. Maybe not as bad as wrestling but fixed nonetheless. Alll those players falling down is just too convenient. If hockey is fixed it’s not so apparent. Not with the players anyway. Maybe occasionally the refs."
He went on to say,"In the middle east, if you want to murder someone and you don’t involve the judge in your plan he’s likely to consider it a personal affront. You see you’re supposed to speak to him first. He’ll tell you how much he will need to get you off. He’ll then say it’s okay to murder. The police will catch you. You will appear in court. But then the judge, if he’s been paid off properly, will find some way to let you go free. If you don’t include him at the outset and just murder someone and show up in court, well, that’s just inconsiderate. You can still go free, if you pay the judge. But the cost will be double or triple what it would have been. That’s for disrespecting the judge. Disrespect is the most serious crime. That’s what I mean when I say the middle east is corrupt."
I personally don't know if this is 'true'. It's certainly reflects what so many have told me.
I remember an experience when I was sailing along the coastal towns in Mexico. I had to pay for a local license and visited the judge in his office. The license was only a matter of a few hundred dollars but I’d brought a wad of pesos. When I pulled it out of my jean pocket, the judge literally jumped out of his chair and began closing the blinds so no one could see in.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said, taking the money.” “My predecessor was totally corrupt and wouldn’t do anything without his palm being greased. I took this position on the basis of cleaning up the corruption. You can’t imagine how bad it would look for me if someone looked in and saw a gringo giving me this great wad of cash. I’m sure you understand."
I thought him a brave man knowing how many people of integrity are killed in government position by drug and arms traffickers.
I laughed though and said I did understand. But really I didn’t. Canada just never was that corrupt in my experience. Perhaps my concern is that when I was growing up we could leave our houses unlocked. I lock everything in Canada today.
I knew that if I wanted anything to be done in Asia when I was there I had to give a little ‘incentive’ to the person serving me. It was like the hotel staff in New York City and Paris. Hong Kong, Tokyo, and LA, this 'tip' thing may well be just 'big city' . Hotel staff stand and wait clearing their throats until I pay them, leaving me feeling somehow 'unsophisticated' because I don't know the latest 'palm greasing percentage' or situations where this is warranted.
A supervisor in provincial government services told me how frustrating it was these days constantly watching the new immigrant employees. “They simply can’t believe that we don’t get money on the side for every government transaction that we do. I’ve had to stop them repeatedly and even get them to give back money. They’ve actually complained that they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of getting a government job if they’d known how little it was going to pay. “In our country,” they say, "the salary is just the base pay. All the real money is made in the extras" I have to tell them over and over again that’s called ‘extortion’ in this country. Of course Trudeau’s ‘pay for access’ makes them not believe me. They tell me that Canada is multi cultural and wink. It’s becoming a problem but only for me."
A professor of political science explained to me that we don’t have ‘baksheesh’ in the west like they do in the east but “institutional backsheesh’ is alive and well. Our taxations schemes and various other formulas are used to reward or punish industries or companies. That’s what all the ‘lobbies’ are for, regulations that favour their clients. It's the foundation of the corruption in Ottawa and Washington and all government cities in Europe. Brussels is the absolute ground zero of this explosion in corruption.
In Communist Countries judges routinely convicted prisoners of conscience and sent them to the Gulag or the Psychiatric wards. As a member of the Psychiatrists against Political Abuse of Psychiatry and Human Rights Associations it's always amazing to see the endemic corruption in communist countries that seem to glossed over or completely ignored by the our mainstream media. The 'missing persons of Argentinia' were a fraction of the numbers that still go missing in China.
You are considered a criminal or psychotic if you question government or say anything against Marx. As a godless political system it takes as much offence to any questioning of Marx as the Muslims do when you question Mohammed or state the simple truths about Islam. The judges in communist countries were all corrupt, individually and collectively. Communism, a committee dictatorship, was like other dictatorships, corrupt to the very core.
I did pro bono work with Mr. Dugald Christie, the amazing lawyer who set up the pro bono services in the British Columbia. We attended church together and he really was a hard man to say no to considering his impeccable character. Indeed I never did say no to him. But all the pro bono work I’ve done has sure got me in a lot of hot water with government. There’s usually an unspoken and often political reason for a person being without support. Dugald Christie argued that the cost of legal matters in Canada was such that the middle and lower classes simply couldn’t afford the process. This was outside the domain of the judges and more a reflection of the political system.
The judges in Canada, as I’ve already said, have all individually with rare exception been stirling characters. We are very fortunate and I do hope that we can remain so with all the pressures on them these days from the Dark Side. I don’t think we appreciate the judges as much as we deserve because Canadians compare them in general against some ‘idealized’ standard.
I’d not exchange our Canadian or the American judges I've known for any judges in other parts of the world even the little I do know of them. Certainly I'd not want to face judges in dictatorships like most of the UN member countries or the communist countries, or South Americas, and definitely not most of Africa and increasingly in more countries in Europe where corruption stories are rife. Definitely I don't want to face judges in the middle east. This may be in part because I've seen first hand and heard first hand the stories of rank abuse physically and sexually from patients who've had that misfortune.
We simply are very fortunate in Canada to have the judges we have. We really should acknowledge it .
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Friday, December 30, 2016
Saturday, July 21, 2012
SV Giri at dock - Journal
Yesterday my lip swelled up like I'd had botox injection before a Mick Jagger look alike contest. Cellulitis. I took antibiotics and antiiflammatories after a couple of days and increasing pain. Now the tide's turned and I'm not having fluid slide out of the side of my mouth when I drink soda from a can. If I had silicone breasts or penis enlargement or botox lips I'd expect I'd get used to it. Like those supposedly primitive people who started the trend putting plates in their lips and 'enhanced' their bodies with equally sublime entertainment. I'm just thankful for the antibiotics. Being Mick Jagger isn't all it's cut out to be.
The boat is gently rocking. The sun has come out. My mood is better. I've finished reading the western novel I picked up. Nothing like Robert B. Parker to uplift one. I'm drinking a Sanpellegrino blood orange beverage. Laura is in the head cleaning herself. She just cleaned the freezer after my friends working here let meat and whatever else spoil in it. I have to get a refridgerator guy down here to look at the wiring and also add more junk to the compressor. I've done this a couple of times myself in the past. Right now I have a report due for work and 5 hours of a course to complete. I'm bushed with another sick weekend wondering when I'll have a holiday without being sick. Commiserated with a patient last week who had used up her vacation time as sick time after her sick time had run out. Remember when I was in India and found out that people generally got 2 weeks off and if they weren't better someone else got their job.
Thousands more into the boat. Boat world: "If you think about buying a boat, first stand in a shower tearing up $100 bills and watching them go down the drain. If you like the experience you'll be ready to buy a boat."
I was at the Mosquito Creek Marina yesterday. We drove the boat back here after it had been on the hard getting the shaft seals replaced along with the bottom zincs with new epoxy and antifouling done. Boat was back at it's regular cruising speed and handling like a ship not a barge. I felt comfortable in the Mosquito Creek Marina. It's a community. Here I'm in an industrial site. No restrictions on boat work so it's fine for now but I miss the community "out of the city in the city" feel that goes with the recreational marinas.
So much I could be doing on the boat. Top decks need a new paint job. All the ropes need cleaning. The netting and lines around the boat need repair and cleaning. Even the upholstery in the boat would benefit from some replacement where the cat's claws have done their damage. I do miss Angel at times .
As soon as one thing is fixed a dozen other things that need improvement come to mind. Mostly it's the cosmetics now. The main functional boat improvements have been taken care of these last couple of years.
Gilbert is stretching. I was up at 4:30 am with a sore mouth and took him for a walk on the dock. He pooped and returned feeling better. I read until noon and napped. I made toast early and ate this marvellous Sechelt jam on toast I was given. Later Laura made fried egg sandwiches. It's good to hear from my brother Ron that Dad is better. I like seeing what the nephews are up to on Facebook Andrew is up near the arctic and Graham is making movies out east, doing a day of shopping with Allan.
We've talked about going to Canadian tire today. We'd planned to be out on the water but the heavy rain deterred us. Then tomorrow there's a service for the newcomers who have joined the church. I'm one of those , changing churches last year, because this church welcomed my working dog, Gilbert. I thought I should come up to the altar and accept the welcome. Having attention placed on me almost caused me to consider joining another church but it's purely voluntary. It's the least I can do. I tend to just be thankful there's a place to go that's welcoming. I've participated in churches alot in the past, held roles and taken office but these days it's all I can do to make as many services as I can and be thankful. I feel it's a daily battle to be a doctor in Canada, it takes all my energy, so it's hard to get out in public on the weekend. The anger, entitlement and fear is palpable these days with the growing economic crisis.
Two more people were belligerent and threatening last week. One didn't pass a urine test and proceded to blame me for their using drugs. Very hostile threatening, lots of swearing and calling me down. I was exhausted. It's all you can do to get out of the room to safety. They know they can hit you and yet if you hit back you're in trouble, even in self defence. The government living in another galaxy and another time zone protected by denial and pomposity blame you for 'upsetting' patients. At the same time you have to inform them their urine is 'positive' and that there are consequences. That's when they take it personally and figure if they shout and swear and slam doors they will change your reaction. It doesn't but it always reminds me of the times I've been hit practising medicine outside of the boardroom, the kickings and the punches, the time I was held hostage, the time my dog was murdered and the days my windows were shot out or the late night phone calls and phone threats. It's part of the work. If a person's job, or freedom depends on their not being on drugs and they use they tend to 'blame the messenger'. The trouble is the 'system' especially the 'authorities', those so far removed from reality they can't find their ass, blame you too. It's the same with the guys I've committed to hospital. They've come out and accuse me of 'ruining their lives' but I've committed them because they were threatening to 'gut' their girlfriend because their God to them to, or that they were going to kill their boss or the prime minister. At these times I miss being a family physician and certainly miss the days of being a psychotherapist to the rich and powerful.
I 'm exhausted in moments by the desire to just walk away or go one on one with them. Thankfully this day the other doctors I was working with were having their bad days as well with one telling me "my guy walked out shouting I was a lousy doctor because I had too many patients and couldn't work fast enough so kept him waiting'. The other guy had had a relapse too and this guy had blamed the doctor. It would be funny it's so predictable. The psychosis of drug addiction is that it's everyone else's fault. And there are all those people protected miles from reality who actually believe that if these people had the right drug or the doctor 'listened' to them, they'd suddenly be better. I watched this show about women who want murderers and rapists for lovers and stalk them when they're in prison. When you work like I do saniety is rarer but it's the administration that are sickest because they're so ignorant but grandiose and pompous in their utter stupidity. They actually believe their lies.
Then the fellow who abused my secretary for my running late,said I was 'just shuffling papers ' and 'disrespected him for not being right on time." 20 minutes. I try to explain to people that half the people I'm seeing today, a few years back would have been in an institution. That day I'd had a guy threatening to kill himself and everyone else and I'd gone a half hour over ensuring myself that as in all the other times he's been like this it's not serious. Since I sent another guy to St. Paul's Hospital emergency a couple of months back, he'd said he was suicidal and jumped in front of the bus , they just discharged him an hour later regardless of his risk to himself or everyone on the bus, I've been a bit overwhelmed by these kinds of threats. Nobody cares anymore.
So many patients talk violence either suicide or homicide and it's a harder and harder call to assess risk especially when the next visit may be three months away. It was a whole different game when I saw people twice weekly or had some spare time I could see a person in again. All my spare space now is taken up with acutely suicidal people who are facing some crisis or other. I'm trying to change medications in the community with people on a dozen pills seeing half as many specialists and know that at the university they'd never do this sort of thing in the community. It's such an ivory tower with the College who condemns all the doctors and is above the law themselves smug in their superiority. I miss the old guys who knew what it was like in reality. More and more my compatriots are leaving. Pharmacists are dispensing medicine. Doctors right out of school with next to no experience, real experience that is, are going into upper echelon beaurocratic positions because they know not to 'rock the boat' and want a 'safe job'. No one has any time for patients. Those who do are either the 'enemy' or the 'target'. Not surprising so many doctors now either work with a lawyer at their side or a bodyguard.
I loved hearing the American nobel prize winner for literature say, to paraphrase "I remember when everyone was a citizen, then we became just consumers , and now we're only taxpayers, and that's not even said in a positive way."
Of course I could cherry pick and treat the worried well or go where the money, fame and priviledge is. The new young doctors are opting for all the 30 hour week salaried glory work but this work I'm doing is really more rewarding. To actually turn around a suicidal patient and see them get off the death road and take the life path is redemptive. I corresponded with a woman I saw 20 years ago who'd spent a year suicidal till I met with her and spent weeks with her and her family. She's an amazing woman today. I love getting the alcoholics and addicts out of the slavery and bondage. It's a miracle. It's like watching a Lazarus experience. I'm where I can help but the bad days are bad. The sex addicts are a different lot too. Increasingly ,there's always the law sitting right there threatening to throw the doctor in jail if he doesn't protect society. I reported a man whose woman said he had sexually abused his child and now I'm being sued for relaying the woman and child's concern. Some animals are more important than others, in the Animal Farm, we're living today. If I'd done nothing I might have been damned then too. Damned if we do and damned if we don't by the armchair quarterbacks that have turned this country into a prison where they are the guards and the rest of us inmates.. So many critics. So many who make the rules but don't abide by the rules and aren't themselves accountable to the rules. Makes me think of Gordon Lightfoot's song Don Quixote. I 'm always charging windmills. It was what doctors once were supposed to do. Now the abortionsists get the Order of Canada and soon the euthansia folk will be getting the country's top awards as 'doctors'. I'll have to pray more for my enemies especially those authorities calling for the Charge of the Light Brigade all over again. I'll have to get down on my knees more like Martin Luther King said, it's a tough day.
I'm looking forward to my upcoming medical conference IDAA. Always this time of year I'm spiritually bankrupt and then I usually perk up after spending time with the people I know there who really make being a physician seem worth it. I'm so honoured to be among a group of psychiatrists there who I can truly admire as they too care and are themselves struggling with the same concerns I have. It's gets back to whether I'm a spiritual being living in a material world or just a material being and the one with the most money and toys is the best. The judge I met this spring was just such a TS Eliott Hollow Man and it's so demoralizing to see such people abusing such powerful positions. Everyday there's more evidence of the old call of radical fascism or communism masquerading under new names.
I'm thankful for the sun today. I'm thankful for my boat no longer leaking. I'm thankful for my dog. I'm thankful for my legs and arms and heart and lungs. I'm thankful my lip's size is reducing and the pain is going. I'm thankful it's not raining. I'm thankful I have friends and family who I love dearly. I am thankful for Netflix and the Life tv series I'm enjoying each night now. I'm thankful for the good books I'm finding to read. I'm thankful for the advanced scientific research I'm able to study. I'm thankful for light. I'm thankful for my fingers. I'm thankful for summer clothing. I'm thankful for the ocean. I'm thankful for Vancouver and British Columbia and Canada. I'm thankful for God and Jesus and church and fellowship. Thank you
The boat is gently rocking. The sun has come out. My mood is better. I've finished reading the western novel I picked up. Nothing like Robert B. Parker to uplift one. I'm drinking a Sanpellegrino blood orange beverage. Laura is in the head cleaning herself. She just cleaned the freezer after my friends working here let meat and whatever else spoil in it. I have to get a refridgerator guy down here to look at the wiring and also add more junk to the compressor. I've done this a couple of times myself in the past. Right now I have a report due for work and 5 hours of a course to complete. I'm bushed with another sick weekend wondering when I'll have a holiday without being sick. Commiserated with a patient last week who had used up her vacation time as sick time after her sick time had run out. Remember when I was in India and found out that people generally got 2 weeks off and if they weren't better someone else got their job.
Thousands more into the boat. Boat world: "If you think about buying a boat, first stand in a shower tearing up $100 bills and watching them go down the drain. If you like the experience you'll be ready to buy a boat."
I was at the Mosquito Creek Marina yesterday. We drove the boat back here after it had been on the hard getting the shaft seals replaced along with the bottom zincs with new epoxy and antifouling done. Boat was back at it's regular cruising speed and handling like a ship not a barge. I felt comfortable in the Mosquito Creek Marina. It's a community. Here I'm in an industrial site. No restrictions on boat work so it's fine for now but I miss the community "out of the city in the city" feel that goes with the recreational marinas.
So much I could be doing on the boat. Top decks need a new paint job. All the ropes need cleaning. The netting and lines around the boat need repair and cleaning. Even the upholstery in the boat would benefit from some replacement where the cat's claws have done their damage. I do miss Angel at times .
As soon as one thing is fixed a dozen other things that need improvement come to mind. Mostly it's the cosmetics now. The main functional boat improvements have been taken care of these last couple of years.
Gilbert is stretching. I was up at 4:30 am with a sore mouth and took him for a walk on the dock. He pooped and returned feeling better. I read until noon and napped. I made toast early and ate this marvellous Sechelt jam on toast I was given. Later Laura made fried egg sandwiches. It's good to hear from my brother Ron that Dad is better. I like seeing what the nephews are up to on Facebook Andrew is up near the arctic and Graham is making movies out east, doing a day of shopping with Allan.
We've talked about going to Canadian tire today. We'd planned to be out on the water but the heavy rain deterred us. Then tomorrow there's a service for the newcomers who have joined the church. I'm one of those , changing churches last year, because this church welcomed my working dog, Gilbert. I thought I should come up to the altar and accept the welcome. Having attention placed on me almost caused me to consider joining another church but it's purely voluntary. It's the least I can do. I tend to just be thankful there's a place to go that's welcoming. I've participated in churches alot in the past, held roles and taken office but these days it's all I can do to make as many services as I can and be thankful. I feel it's a daily battle to be a doctor in Canada, it takes all my energy, so it's hard to get out in public on the weekend. The anger, entitlement and fear is palpable these days with the growing economic crisis.
Two more people were belligerent and threatening last week. One didn't pass a urine test and proceded to blame me for their using drugs. Very hostile threatening, lots of swearing and calling me down. I was exhausted. It's all you can do to get out of the room to safety. They know they can hit you and yet if you hit back you're in trouble, even in self defence. The government living in another galaxy and another time zone protected by denial and pomposity blame you for 'upsetting' patients. At the same time you have to inform them their urine is 'positive' and that there are consequences. That's when they take it personally and figure if they shout and swear and slam doors they will change your reaction. It doesn't but it always reminds me of the times I've been hit practising medicine outside of the boardroom, the kickings and the punches, the time I was held hostage, the time my dog was murdered and the days my windows were shot out or the late night phone calls and phone threats. It's part of the work. If a person's job, or freedom depends on their not being on drugs and they use they tend to 'blame the messenger'. The trouble is the 'system' especially the 'authorities', those so far removed from reality they can't find their ass, blame you too. It's the same with the guys I've committed to hospital. They've come out and accuse me of 'ruining their lives' but I've committed them because they were threatening to 'gut' their girlfriend because their God to them to, or that they were going to kill their boss or the prime minister. At these times I miss being a family physician and certainly miss the days of being a psychotherapist to the rich and powerful.
I 'm exhausted in moments by the desire to just walk away or go one on one with them. Thankfully this day the other doctors I was working with were having their bad days as well with one telling me "my guy walked out shouting I was a lousy doctor because I had too many patients and couldn't work fast enough so kept him waiting'. The other guy had had a relapse too and this guy had blamed the doctor. It would be funny it's so predictable. The psychosis of drug addiction is that it's everyone else's fault. And there are all those people protected miles from reality who actually believe that if these people had the right drug or the doctor 'listened' to them, they'd suddenly be better. I watched this show about women who want murderers and rapists for lovers and stalk them when they're in prison. When you work like I do saniety is rarer but it's the administration that are sickest because they're so ignorant but grandiose and pompous in their utter stupidity. They actually believe their lies.
Then the fellow who abused my secretary for my running late,said I was 'just shuffling papers ' and 'disrespected him for not being right on time." 20 minutes. I try to explain to people that half the people I'm seeing today, a few years back would have been in an institution. That day I'd had a guy threatening to kill himself and everyone else and I'd gone a half hour over ensuring myself that as in all the other times he's been like this it's not serious. Since I sent another guy to St. Paul's Hospital emergency a couple of months back, he'd said he was suicidal and jumped in front of the bus , they just discharged him an hour later regardless of his risk to himself or everyone on the bus, I've been a bit overwhelmed by these kinds of threats. Nobody cares anymore.
So many patients talk violence either suicide or homicide and it's a harder and harder call to assess risk especially when the next visit may be three months away. It was a whole different game when I saw people twice weekly or had some spare time I could see a person in again. All my spare space now is taken up with acutely suicidal people who are facing some crisis or other. I'm trying to change medications in the community with people on a dozen pills seeing half as many specialists and know that at the university they'd never do this sort of thing in the community. It's such an ivory tower with the College who condemns all the doctors and is above the law themselves smug in their superiority. I miss the old guys who knew what it was like in reality. More and more my compatriots are leaving. Pharmacists are dispensing medicine. Doctors right out of school with next to no experience, real experience that is, are going into upper echelon beaurocratic positions because they know not to 'rock the boat' and want a 'safe job'. No one has any time for patients. Those who do are either the 'enemy' or the 'target'. Not surprising so many doctors now either work with a lawyer at their side or a bodyguard.
I loved hearing the American nobel prize winner for literature say, to paraphrase "I remember when everyone was a citizen, then we became just consumers , and now we're only taxpayers, and that's not even said in a positive way."
Of course I could cherry pick and treat the worried well or go where the money, fame and priviledge is. The new young doctors are opting for all the 30 hour week salaried glory work but this work I'm doing is really more rewarding. To actually turn around a suicidal patient and see them get off the death road and take the life path is redemptive. I corresponded with a woman I saw 20 years ago who'd spent a year suicidal till I met with her and spent weeks with her and her family. She's an amazing woman today. I love getting the alcoholics and addicts out of the slavery and bondage. It's a miracle. It's like watching a Lazarus experience. I'm where I can help but the bad days are bad. The sex addicts are a different lot too. Increasingly ,there's always the law sitting right there threatening to throw the doctor in jail if he doesn't protect society. I reported a man whose woman said he had sexually abused his child and now I'm being sued for relaying the woman and child's concern. Some animals are more important than others, in the Animal Farm, we're living today. If I'd done nothing I might have been damned then too. Damned if we do and damned if we don't by the armchair quarterbacks that have turned this country into a prison where they are the guards and the rest of us inmates.. So many critics. So many who make the rules but don't abide by the rules and aren't themselves accountable to the rules. Makes me think of Gordon Lightfoot's song Don Quixote. I 'm always charging windmills. It was what doctors once were supposed to do. Now the abortionsists get the Order of Canada and soon the euthansia folk will be getting the country's top awards as 'doctors'. I'll have to pray more for my enemies especially those authorities calling for the Charge of the Light Brigade all over again. I'll have to get down on my knees more like Martin Luther King said, it's a tough day.
I'm looking forward to my upcoming medical conference IDAA. Always this time of year I'm spiritually bankrupt and then I usually perk up after spending time with the people I know there who really make being a physician seem worth it. I'm so honoured to be among a group of psychiatrists there who I can truly admire as they too care and are themselves struggling with the same concerns I have. It's gets back to whether I'm a spiritual being living in a material world or just a material being and the one with the most money and toys is the best. The judge I met this spring was just such a TS Eliott Hollow Man and it's so demoralizing to see such people abusing such powerful positions. Everyday there's more evidence of the old call of radical fascism or communism masquerading under new names.
I'm thankful for the sun today. I'm thankful for my boat no longer leaking. I'm thankful for my dog. I'm thankful for my legs and arms and heart and lungs. I'm thankful my lip's size is reducing and the pain is going. I'm thankful it's not raining. I'm thankful I have friends and family who I love dearly. I am thankful for Netflix and the Life tv series I'm enjoying each night now. I'm thankful for the good books I'm finding to read. I'm thankful for the advanced scientific research I'm able to study. I'm thankful for light. I'm thankful for my fingers. I'm thankful for summer clothing. I'm thankful for the ocean. I'm thankful for Vancouver and British Columbia and Canada. I'm thankful for God and Jesus and church and fellowship. Thank you
Appaloosa - a novel
Robert B. Parker is one hell of a western writer. He 's landed himself smack middle of the tradition of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. I can hear a Johnny Cash ballad as I read his writing. He's that good. Appaloosa is about lawman Virgil Cole and his side kick Everett. The story is told mostly from the viewpoint of Everett, ex military Indian fighter who teams up with Marshal Virgil Cole to cover his back with 8 guage shot gun.. There' Bragg the killer renegade rancher rich politician type and some gunslingers and Indians. And of course there's Allie. The name kind of reminds one of Ali McGraw and the Sundance Kid. She's got a thing for the main stallion whether he's good or bad. A kind of Eva Braun girl. Like any good western there's a subtext morality play that's lying deep down in this one. Something about rules of conduct. I thought of Crosby, Still and Nash's song "If you are on the road, you need a code which you can live by." Each person has a kind of code and Everett and Virgil even mention the great American philosopher Emerson though mostly the book hearkens back the military genius Clauswitz. I couldn't put it down. It's was that simple. Wise and deep and full of intricate action. But not a word too many or a word too few. When I finished I wanted to slap a cowboy hat against my jeans and ride into another Robert B. Parker adventure.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Confession John Grisham
John Grisham is a captivating writer whose knowledge of law is impressive. His story of the condemned man on death row with all it's uncertainty and ambiguity is a trying story. Falsely accused or not the drama unfolds with police and woods and race riots. In the midst of this are governors and pr and media ratings. All the while a young man waits and a lawyer fights for his case. Families huddle and sometimes cry. There's not much laughter in the serious business of life taking but that's just what Grisham in this novel is bringing forward to the reader's attention. It's all about the death penalty. Should the state be in this business and what about the mistakes in the justice system, or rather given all the mistakes in the justice system. What is Christian and what is American and what is finally Texan? Who would have known that the cost of killing was greater than the cost of living? A good novel and very thought provoking read if only for the actions taken. There is little wonder why John Grisham is a New York Best Seller.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Advocacy -Legal and Medical
I attended the Trial Lawyers Association of BC conference on rehabilitation medicine. There was about a 50% split between lawyers and doctors. I was reminded of university when arts faculty met science faculty and how people forget the wide gulf of difference between arts students and science students. Having begun my career as an arts students, straight A's by the way, become a scientist, with strait A's, completed a medical degree, speciality and subspeciality, then completed a minister of theology degree I am fully aware of the difference between the religious view and the secular view. Yet there was this amusing anthropological confusion as to the 'manners' and 'style' of language to be used in which house.
The genius of the Trial Lawyers Association of BC medical topic conferences is that they challenge doctors and lawyers to consider that we are Chinese and they are American, or vice versa.
This resulted in two justices, several lawyers and doctors speaking to the concept of 'advocacy'. Lawyers, collectively, have a conflict of interest in this matter, as their very income depends upon their role as 'advocate' . As Jesus was to be the advocate of the individual soul before God so a patient's lawyer advocates for his client before the god like judge. Yet physicians are routinely called upon to be an advocate for their patient. In the nether region, we stand beside him facing death ,going far beyond the court room when it comes to 'advocacy'. I know. I have caught too much illness at the bedside and seen friends die as they have stood without guards before deadly diseases and faced epidemics at the side of their patients. I have entered rooms that families have closed the door on. I have wounds from my work in patient advocacy and scars. In the old sense I would be seen as snatching my patients back from Satan or out of the mauls of death.
I like the pristine suited world of the courts. The women look fresh in comparison to my colleagues who have done much time at bedside. Not like the 'new doctor' who avoids touching patients and chooses instead to 'administrate medicine'. There's an effete dandyism and ego beyond anything I've ever encountered in the humbling reality of medicine. The board rooms of hospitals probably make the courts look pure and innocent but the medical office itself is more like a jail house experience in comparison. Chambers and wigs and so much of the political are absent on the ground floor in the trenches where the rubber meets the road. . Certainly the politics of university also make the courts look hallowed in comparison as well.
What's obvious though to me is the abscence of blood, and shit, and snot. Even in my psychiatric office there is alot of snot and sometimes blood. But the court and those who are advocates there principally deal in money and power and thought. Guns on sheriffs in the court room contain emotion better than quiet rooms in asylums. Hospital security can't kill people to keep the peace. There's no safety in medicine. It's raw and hidden. Microbes are the experts in passive aggressive.
A patient expects their doctor to be their advocate. My patients, psychotic, brain damaged, personality disordered, often wholly incompetent, emotionally distraught, depend on me, as their physician, commonly to make decisions for them which they can't make for themselves. I commonly use the standard of 'would I want my mother or father's doctor to recommend this to my patient" or 'would I want my doctor to do this for me." In fact I've been disappointed by some of my doctors and colleagues who have refused to go near me or near my sickest patients when they have been in greatest need.
It was in the early days of the Aids epidemic that I treated AIDS dementia biters and alone took paper bags off the heads of violent patients who had been chained by police and brought to emergency.
Yet as a 'medical advocate' I'm asked to be 'objective'. I'm asked to be 'professional'. I'm asked to have 'boundaries' and indeed I've noted that those who often are celebrated most actually 'treat' their patients as 'numbers' and make decisions without any consideration of the emotional and relational world of the patient. They keep their eye on the politics and finances and I admire them their intellectualism even if at times it harkens back to nazism.
Our patients don't know that all of us who are doctors who 'care' 'too much' for our patients who 'cry' when one dies or who think about our 'work' on weekends are diminished by our superiors. The new world order of medicine is not what it was. It's all corporate and glossy and long gone is the country family physician. He or she is an anachronism like the family farm. There's a lot of lip service towards this but the fact is any doctor who really truly cares, not in that smaltzy, politically correct, commerically relevant, consumerism caring, but caring, in an advocate sense will be punished. Because a true advocate might well offer their life as ransom. And today even the ship's captain leaves the ship before the crew and clients. That's corporate professionalism. The country goes to hell in a handbasket but the CEO gives himself a raise and bonus.
However, a long history of the heros in my profession's past did.just the opposite. Many a doctor died living with his leper patients. . The war doctors and the missionary doctors didn't hide in rationalism. All of those doctors gained the 'reputation' that we as physicians now stand on. Those doctors I refer to gave us the 'brand' as the new world order would say. But we're rapidly using up the good will in unholy alliances.
The courts ask us for 'legal advocacy'. There's a lot of 'hair splitting' in this term and it's only beginning to be understood in a new way with a history of confusion as modernism, post modernism and ultramodernism compete as special relativity and string theory compete in physics.
The idea I garnered is that you must separate a man or woman from her ideas. I can advocate for an idea but I can't advocate for a person. If I as a doctor say to a judge I believe my patient is sane and should be allowed to go free into the community, I am stepping on his robes. From what i gathered there's a tremendous 'parentalism' in the court and everyone is terrifed of the judge becuase he controls the sheriff with the guns and has inhuman powers granted by the emperor as opposed to a 'democracy' elected' prime minister whose first responsibility is to the people. The atmosphere among lawyers and in the courts is distinctly different these days and has indeed occasioned a recent serious book that says that Canada is no longer a democracy but indeed run by the Supreme Court.
Some have called the new world order a 'legal theocracy' with the Judge as the new God head.
The story of Dugald Christie is fascinating.. As a brilliant recently suspiciously killed Canadian lawyer he argued strongly that there was no justice for the poor in Canada and the year of his death was travelling to Ottawa to argue that there was no more justice for the middle class.
"Indeed in the 'occupy ' movements where there's the 99% and 1% economic debate the extension would be that there really is no 'court' and no 'justice' for the 99%. The cost of 'justice' in Canada has made it no longer a 'public' utility but rather a 'commodity' and indeed a 'brand'. Naturally he was killed. They say it was a hit and run but these days everyone knows that such things are past because everyone can just 'hit and walk'.
So the doctor entering the temple of law must remember that he can argue what he believes is right about his patient but he dare not tell the judge what he thinks he should do. How dare he speak to a judge that way. Naturally expert witnessess don't know the whole context and academically the judge is absolutely right to maintain that he is the judge and she is there to make the final decision. But it's interesting because if I say, "I believe my patient is right and they should win the lottery" becausse I want the world for my patient, if only to get them out of my hair, then I'm 'crossing a line'.
The best message to be gleaned from the discussion is not what is 'right' or wrong but rather that if a person wants to 'advocate' for their patient then they can do it best by bringing the teacher an apple. The courts are telling doctors what best 'sways' them as arguments and what is best for their patients. At this level the judges and courts are genius. However at another level they are 'dictating' to experts in science as to how to present their postions and seeing that any who don't do the will of the judge are to be punished.
I couldn't help but think of the great arguments of days gone by and all the emotional joy in expression that people made to the point of begging judges to see the patient freed.
To be clear there are 'expert' witnesses. These would be free of conflict of interest if they were hired by the courts. They are not. Someone else pays for them, one side or the o ther. But money talks though in this world of influence and prividge even that is 'psychotically denied' or 'psychopathically denied' or simply the way business is done. Witnessess are sometimes 'bought' but we must ignore this. In fact so much is 'ignored' that 'selective reasoning' best describes the rationalism of the court. As researchers have shown cloudy days affect the decisions of the stock market we can only hope that sunny days will affect the courts.
There must be authority.
But if you are the 'treating physician' and indeed you are not paid the questionable sums that expert witnesses can command then the whole issue of 'advocacy' is a different matter.
Indeed the issue of 'unholy' or 'illegal' or 'unethical' advocacy hinges on 'motive'. The motive for a doctor is the well being of his patient. And if you say to a judge that if you put my patient in jail he might die as a doctor and a human you are doing your job correctly. Naturally today's judges in comparison to their former 'brand' don't wnat to carry that responsibility and don't want a physician to say something that the 'media' might glom onto and embarass the individual judge. There are to be no other gods but me. .
Wheels within wheels.
Yet this is only 'unethical' if I have indeed been 'paid' by the patient, or had sex with her ,or was in a real estate contract with them, or was considering that my patient was the 'Queen'. and that future work with the Royal family might be jeopardisd. especially considering the consequence of this. now that Prince Phillip has confessed that he personally is of the blood line of Vlad the Impaler. Why he should have to tell the world this now is itself grist for the mill.
So legal advocacy would say that a doctor should argue for his viewpoint regarding his patient without telling the courts how to do their business and indeed respecting the judge. The Bible spoke most highly of Solomon and Jesus loved the Father but called him Papa to the great frustration of the Jewish lawyers of his day. Indeed Christianity respects justice but says that without mercy it is Philistine.
The Bible actually says that the judge has his authority from God. Given that the judge's aruthority is from the Canadian people through PM Harper I certainly respect him and accept that when I go into another 'frat' house in the arts wing I must respect them because the 'arts' students have always had more numbers, more money, more power and the prettiest wingiest girls from fine arts departments. All I have is nerdy geeky stuff, bombs, biological weapons, paradigms and such. As a scientist I'm more and more an anachronism everywhere in what are increasingly termed the 'economic dark years'. Faced with economic threat even Prince Phillip reverts to his wild darwinian dna. Naturally judges would be afraid and must worry that their sheriffs might turn their guns on them
As a Christian I might look to God. But then Jesus questioned the authority of the father at the end crying out 'My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me". The greatest healer and greatest advocate was alone in the end. It's the Christmas season and time to consider advocacy in the light of Christ.
it's difficult in the world where the rules change with whim and people forget what they want to forget and those of us who remember will remember Kruschev pounding his shoe for Russia and Kennedy whacked on pills and Marilyn bringing the world to the brink of annihilation. Einstein never believed that God played with dice.
The genius of the Trial Lawyers Association of BC medical topic conferences is that they challenge doctors and lawyers to consider that we are Chinese and they are American, or vice versa.
This resulted in two justices, several lawyers and doctors speaking to the concept of 'advocacy'. Lawyers, collectively, have a conflict of interest in this matter, as their very income depends upon their role as 'advocate' . As Jesus was to be the advocate of the individual soul before God so a patient's lawyer advocates for his client before the god like judge. Yet physicians are routinely called upon to be an advocate for their patient. In the nether region, we stand beside him facing death ,going far beyond the court room when it comes to 'advocacy'. I know. I have caught too much illness at the bedside and seen friends die as they have stood without guards before deadly diseases and faced epidemics at the side of their patients. I have entered rooms that families have closed the door on. I have wounds from my work in patient advocacy and scars. In the old sense I would be seen as snatching my patients back from Satan or out of the mauls of death.
I like the pristine suited world of the courts. The women look fresh in comparison to my colleagues who have done much time at bedside. Not like the 'new doctor' who avoids touching patients and chooses instead to 'administrate medicine'. There's an effete dandyism and ego beyond anything I've ever encountered in the humbling reality of medicine. The board rooms of hospitals probably make the courts look pure and innocent but the medical office itself is more like a jail house experience in comparison. Chambers and wigs and so much of the political are absent on the ground floor in the trenches where the rubber meets the road. . Certainly the politics of university also make the courts look hallowed in comparison as well.
What's obvious though to me is the abscence of blood, and shit, and snot. Even in my psychiatric office there is alot of snot and sometimes blood. But the court and those who are advocates there principally deal in money and power and thought. Guns on sheriffs in the court room contain emotion better than quiet rooms in asylums. Hospital security can't kill people to keep the peace. There's no safety in medicine. It's raw and hidden. Microbes are the experts in passive aggressive.
A patient expects their doctor to be their advocate. My patients, psychotic, brain damaged, personality disordered, often wholly incompetent, emotionally distraught, depend on me, as their physician, commonly to make decisions for them which they can't make for themselves. I commonly use the standard of 'would I want my mother or father's doctor to recommend this to my patient" or 'would I want my doctor to do this for me." In fact I've been disappointed by some of my doctors and colleagues who have refused to go near me or near my sickest patients when they have been in greatest need.
It was in the early days of the Aids epidemic that I treated AIDS dementia biters and alone took paper bags off the heads of violent patients who had been chained by police and brought to emergency.
Yet as a 'medical advocate' I'm asked to be 'objective'. I'm asked to be 'professional'. I'm asked to have 'boundaries' and indeed I've noted that those who often are celebrated most actually 'treat' their patients as 'numbers' and make decisions without any consideration of the emotional and relational world of the patient. They keep their eye on the politics and finances and I admire them their intellectualism even if at times it harkens back to nazism.
Our patients don't know that all of us who are doctors who 'care' 'too much' for our patients who 'cry' when one dies or who think about our 'work' on weekends are diminished by our superiors. The new world order of medicine is not what it was. It's all corporate and glossy and long gone is the country family physician. He or she is an anachronism like the family farm. There's a lot of lip service towards this but the fact is any doctor who really truly cares, not in that smaltzy, politically correct, commerically relevant, consumerism caring, but caring, in an advocate sense will be punished. Because a true advocate might well offer their life as ransom. And today even the ship's captain leaves the ship before the crew and clients. That's corporate professionalism. The country goes to hell in a handbasket but the CEO gives himself a raise and bonus.
However, a long history of the heros in my profession's past did.just the opposite. Many a doctor died living with his leper patients. . The war doctors and the missionary doctors didn't hide in rationalism. All of those doctors gained the 'reputation' that we as physicians now stand on. Those doctors I refer to gave us the 'brand' as the new world order would say. But we're rapidly using up the good will in unholy alliances.
The courts ask us for 'legal advocacy'. There's a lot of 'hair splitting' in this term and it's only beginning to be understood in a new way with a history of confusion as modernism, post modernism and ultramodernism compete as special relativity and string theory compete in physics.
The idea I garnered is that you must separate a man or woman from her ideas. I can advocate for an idea but I can't advocate for a person. If I as a doctor say to a judge I believe my patient is sane and should be allowed to go free into the community, I am stepping on his robes. From what i gathered there's a tremendous 'parentalism' in the court and everyone is terrifed of the judge becuase he controls the sheriff with the guns and has inhuman powers granted by the emperor as opposed to a 'democracy' elected' prime minister whose first responsibility is to the people. The atmosphere among lawyers and in the courts is distinctly different these days and has indeed occasioned a recent serious book that says that Canada is no longer a democracy but indeed run by the Supreme Court.
Some have called the new world order a 'legal theocracy' with the Judge as the new God head.
The story of Dugald Christie is fascinating.. As a brilliant recently suspiciously killed Canadian lawyer he argued strongly that there was no justice for the poor in Canada and the year of his death was travelling to Ottawa to argue that there was no more justice for the middle class.
"Indeed in the 'occupy ' movements where there's the 99% and 1% economic debate the extension would be that there really is no 'court' and no 'justice' for the 99%. The cost of 'justice' in Canada has made it no longer a 'public' utility but rather a 'commodity' and indeed a 'brand'. Naturally he was killed. They say it was a hit and run but these days everyone knows that such things are past because everyone can just 'hit and walk'.
So the doctor entering the temple of law must remember that he can argue what he believes is right about his patient but he dare not tell the judge what he thinks he should do. How dare he speak to a judge that way. Naturally expert witnessess don't know the whole context and academically the judge is absolutely right to maintain that he is the judge and she is there to make the final decision. But it's interesting because if I say, "I believe my patient is right and they should win the lottery" becausse I want the world for my patient, if only to get them out of my hair, then I'm 'crossing a line'.
The best message to be gleaned from the discussion is not what is 'right' or wrong but rather that if a person wants to 'advocate' for their patient then they can do it best by bringing the teacher an apple. The courts are telling doctors what best 'sways' them as arguments and what is best for their patients. At this level the judges and courts are genius. However at another level they are 'dictating' to experts in science as to how to present their postions and seeing that any who don't do the will of the judge are to be punished.
I couldn't help but think of the great arguments of days gone by and all the emotional joy in expression that people made to the point of begging judges to see the patient freed.
To be clear there are 'expert' witnesses. These would be free of conflict of interest if they were hired by the courts. They are not. Someone else pays for them, one side or the o ther. But money talks though in this world of influence and prividge even that is 'psychotically denied' or 'psychopathically denied' or simply the way business is done. Witnessess are sometimes 'bought' but we must ignore this. In fact so much is 'ignored' that 'selective reasoning' best describes the rationalism of the court. As researchers have shown cloudy days affect the decisions of the stock market we can only hope that sunny days will affect the courts.
There must be authority.
But if you are the 'treating physician' and indeed you are not paid the questionable sums that expert witnesses can command then the whole issue of 'advocacy' is a different matter.
Indeed the issue of 'unholy' or 'illegal' or 'unethical' advocacy hinges on 'motive'. The motive for a doctor is the well being of his patient. And if you say to a judge that if you put my patient in jail he might die as a doctor and a human you are doing your job correctly. Naturally today's judges in comparison to their former 'brand' don't wnat to carry that responsibility and don't want a physician to say something that the 'media' might glom onto and embarass the individual judge. There are to be no other gods but me. .
Wheels within wheels.
Yet this is only 'unethical' if I have indeed been 'paid' by the patient, or had sex with her ,or was in a real estate contract with them, or was considering that my patient was the 'Queen'. and that future work with the Royal family might be jeopardisd. especially considering the consequence of this. now that Prince Phillip has confessed that he personally is of the blood line of Vlad the Impaler. Why he should have to tell the world this now is itself grist for the mill.
So legal advocacy would say that a doctor should argue for his viewpoint regarding his patient without telling the courts how to do their business and indeed respecting the judge. The Bible spoke most highly of Solomon and Jesus loved the Father but called him Papa to the great frustration of the Jewish lawyers of his day. Indeed Christianity respects justice but says that without mercy it is Philistine.
The Bible actually says that the judge has his authority from God. Given that the judge's aruthority is from the Canadian people through PM Harper I certainly respect him and accept that when I go into another 'frat' house in the arts wing I must respect them because the 'arts' students have always had more numbers, more money, more power and the prettiest wingiest girls from fine arts departments. All I have is nerdy geeky stuff, bombs, biological weapons, paradigms and such. As a scientist I'm more and more an anachronism everywhere in what are increasingly termed the 'economic dark years'. Faced with economic threat even Prince Phillip reverts to his wild darwinian dna. Naturally judges would be afraid and must worry that their sheriffs might turn their guns on them
As a Christian I might look to God. But then Jesus questioned the authority of the father at the end crying out 'My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me". The greatest healer and greatest advocate was alone in the end. It's the Christmas season and time to consider advocacy in the light of Christ.
it's difficult in the world where the rules change with whim and people forget what they want to forget and those of us who remember will remember Kruschev pounding his shoe for Russia and Kennedy whacked on pills and Marilyn bringing the world to the brink of annihilation. Einstein never believed that God played with dice.
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