Dick Behaviour

Sanjay Gupta's interview with Dick Cheney aired last night on "60 Minutes".  What could have been an unendurable puff piece by a timid interviewer, turned out to be an intensly challenging give and take between two forceful personalities.  

 

I have no love for Dick Cheney.  He embodies the worst characteristics in Washington politics:  the entitled attitude of those who see themselves as omniscient and omnipotent.  Were he omnipresent, well, we'd have a god.   This is a war profiteer, a sneering know-it-all, an ambitious Iago who, were it not for his extreme health problems, more likely than not, might have run for President. 

That's one scary possibility. Even more scary was the state of his health throughout his Vice Presidency.

Cheney was one over-sized, weakened, barely pumping heartbeat away from the Presidency.   Dr. Gupta (or "Goop-Ta" as Cheney referred to him at one point) recounts the damage inflicted and attempts to keep this man alive:

1. 5 heart attacks
2. Open heart surgery & quadruple bypass
3. Stents and defibrillators inserted (more surgery)
4. Multiple angioplasties and catheterizations
5. Heart pump
6. Heart transplant two years ago

As Dr. Gupta repeatedly points out, these kinds of medical problems result in limited blood flow to the brain with potential side effects in cognition, memory, decline in decision-making, etc.  Cheney refused to acknowledge he had been counseled about these side effects nor was he worried about his decision-making at the time. 

In the "60 Minutes" interview, Reiner says he worried that Cheney couldn't stand the pressure that came on Sept. 11, 2001, the day terrorists attacked the U.S. Medical tests seen that morning showed Cheney had elevated levels of potassium in his blood, a condition called hyperkalemia, which could lead to abnormal heart rhythms and cardiac arrest.

Reiner says he watched news coverage of the day's events on television and thought, "Oh, great, the vice president is going to die tonight from hyperkalemia."  huffingtonpost.com

Cheney proudly recounts the critical decisions he had to make.  What a tough guy.  John Wayne on a defibrillator!  Yet, interestingly enough, in 2007 he had his defibrillator "modified" to prevent terrorists from hacking in and giving him a heart attack.



I do not share his enthusiasm.  It was not that long ago women were considered too "emotional" to serve as leaders of the land due to everything from monthly hormonal changes to crying  to menopause.  Most of you reading this blog will remember when a serious discussion involving a woman running for president included the oft repeated phrase

"I wouldn't trust  a woman with her finger on the button."

Gupta's interview will get scathing reviews from the Right and kudos from the Left.  He did his job.  He did not back down from one of the (formerly) most powerful men on the planet.  He approached this from a medical point of view and showed the emperor-in-waiting without his clothes.



Can't wait to see Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert riff on this.

 

Why...

...is the news becoming more dark, more depressing and overwhelmingly difficult to digest?  I find myself increasingly reluctant to scan internet news sources, watch tv news, read the scrolling headlines at the bottom of a tv screen.  It seems to predominate on the negative.  Look, I'm not Pollyanna and I don't expect happy sunshiney information every moment.  I also wonder at the magnitude of that which is anything but positive.

The evening news is on.  Another school shooting took place today with 7 dead thus far.  

The Trayvon Martin case: murky in detail, heartbreaking in scope.  It is every parent's nightmare.  Why was Trayvon picked as the poster boy for something that happens all too often?  He looks like a sweet, unassuming child.  He looks like your child or mine.  It's as simple as that.  

Yesterday, a headline scrolled across the bottom of one of the cable new channel about a father and step mother holding his daughter hostage, starving, abusing her.  She weighed 70 lbs when she escaped.  She's 15.  

Our troops continue to die overseas and for what?  There's always talk of another front, another war, another nation we'll have to protect from themselves.  Yet we seem unable to take care of our own.

Then there is the more mundane, not unexpected news about  taxpayer waste.  The GSA (General Services Administration) spent $823,000 taxpayer money on a retreat in Vegas in 2010.  Nobody sanctioned this.

Then there's Middle America.  We aren't in recovery but the 1% are.  

Sunday night,  "60 Minutes"  aired a follow up episode on contemporary art purchases and the money to be made.  It was all about the very wealthy speculating on what I perceive to be cutting edge crap.  Apparently, Morley Safer and I think alike.  He was dismissive of much of the contemporary art sold in the early 90s.  It came back to haunt him during in this episode.  He good naturedly acknowledged the art he disparaged had increased in value by the tens of millions.  But, he didn't acknowledge it was worth it.

60 Minutes: Homeless Children in the U.S.

60 Minutes drew this Thanksgiving weekend to a close with a report on the homeless.  Scott Pelley revisited children and families first interviewed last Spring to hear how they're doing.

 It wasn't pretty.`The statistics are shocking:

• 16 million U.S. children are living in poverty
• children in poverty comprise almost 25%, 1 out of 4
• 1/3 of all homeless people live in Florida
• 2/3 of the Florida homeless are on the streets

He put faces on the stats making it all the more real and heart breaking.

 If you didn't see the report, please watch the posted video above.

After a weekend of too much to eat and drink and four days off work, I sure as shit know what I'm thankful for and it's the roof over my head, the food I can afford to buy, the job I go to every day and the health my family and I enjoy. 

I wish the 1% everyone keeps talking about were mandated to watch this report on a daily basis until they helped put people back to work, back in their foreclosed homes and their children back in school on a consistent basis, 

Link to the guide to help these children in Seminole County, Fl through Families in Transition:  Seminolehomelesskids.org