In the Globe today, there is an article by Ingrid Peritz questioning whether a faster response to Natasha Richardson’s head injury would have saved her life. A second article by Jessica Leeder talks about “talk and die syndrome” where patients are lucid and coherent right after the injury, but by the time they display worrying symptoms, it is too late. I hope this is not an attempt to lay blame in order to make sense of a random and tragic accident.
After severe headaches and signs of “instability,” Richardson was taken to a hospital nearby Mont Tremblant, where the accident occurred, and was then driven to Sacre-Coeur Hospital in Montreal for specialized treatment. The hours in between the accident and her arrival at Sacre-Coeur could have made all the difference to Richardson’s recovery, according to Peritz. But I’m not sure this situation would have gone any differently.
Richardson refused medical treatment immediately after the fall – as I’m sure do thousands of people who take a tumble during ski season. Though I’ve never hit my head, I’ve certainly had several falls on the ski slopes, off my bike and on ice. As long as you feel okay, as Richardson did at first, you brush yourself off and are on your way. Like many people, I err on the side of cavalier as opposed to hypochondria when experiencing a wide variety of symptoms and accidents. According to Doug Firby, a spokesman for Sunshine Village Ski and Snowboard Resort in Banff and quoted in Leeder’s piece: “Some of [the skiers] bang their heads. I can’t imagine a scenario in which you could actually force all those people to go to hospital.” The one thing I guess you could force them to do is wear a ski helmet, legislation that is sure to come down the pipeline soon.
But there are some accidents just happen and no amount of safety procedures and equipment can change that. It is unfortunate and utterly devastating to the loved ones of the victim who must spend an awful lot of time running through alternate “what if” scenarios in their heads. And sometimes people make glaring mistakes or are willfully negligent to safety and of course I believe these people should not be let off the hook. But sometimes accidents are just that: accidents. They are a confluence of unpreventable events.
I am reminded of Atom Egoyan’s film The Sweet Hereafter, based on a book by Russell Banks. In it, lawyer Mitchell Stephens comes to the town of Sam Dent after a school bus crash that has killed several of the town’s children. Stephens is intent on somehow laying blame for the accident – on the driver, the bus company – someone must pay for the deaths of these children.
But the conclusion of the book does not see anyone held accountable for the accident: it shows a community coming together only to mourn the deaths of the children. They see no need to find fault in order to assuage their pain – the people involved are already hurting enough.
Perhaps Richardson’s death will see calls for mandatory helmets on ski hills or better air ambulance service in the area. But it certainly should not be used to find fault where there isn’t any.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The Palin Is Just Not That Into You
First comes love, then comes… No, wait – first comes marriage, then… Oh shit, it was the baby first, then a forced engagement, then – what am I missing in Bristol Palin’s romantic history? Oh yeah – a little thing called freewill and a woman’s right to choose not to be the posterchild for Republican reproductive control. (Which is a bit difficult in the bedrooms and backseats of the nation as Bristol has demonstrated.)
It’s official: Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, who were once "committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished: to provide a loving and secure environment for their child,"* have broken up.
So now little Tripp will grow up, cared for by a single mother – an archetype so despised by the vile Ann Coulter who believes "Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts”. Oh how I love the way conservatives unwittingly screw each other with their black-and-white statements.
Bristol recently stated in an interview with Greta Van Susteren that abstincence is “not realistic” and that “[sex] is more and more accepted among kids [her] age” (really?), something Mama Palin and Coulter seem to ignore. So instead of making the hard choice to terminate the pregnancy, Bristol had the kid and is now setting up her own little future criminal.
But the thing is, little Tripp will probably be okay. Like all sweeping, black-and-white statements, they leave out the little grey nuances. Coulter claims 70% of inmates, teenage runaways and delinquents, and drug users (amazing how this percentage is constant throughout) come from single parent homes. Regardless of the accuracy of Coulter’s stats, she is only looking at one variable – how many parents raise you – and completely discounting all the other factors that go with criminal activity, drug abuse etc. like socio-economic status, mental illness and abuse, to name a few.
The fact that Tripp will be raised by a single mother who has a set of support systems in place (ie. money and Mama Palin) already puts him ahead of the criminals that fall into Coulter’s 70%. It’s not Bristol’s marital status that affects her kid’s success, it’s her socio-economic status.
Hopefully Sarah Palin has learned that to support abstinence-only sex education is one of these sweeping statements. It completely discounts a pretty intense factor: teenage lust; something which Bristol spelled out for her mom in her interview with Greta Van Susteren.
It is a grand thing that America chose wisely last November and voted in a president who understands that sweeping statements (hello, War on Terror) are always riddled with shades of that truth.
______________________________
*Mama Sarah, December 2008
It’s official: Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, who were once "committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished: to provide a loving and secure environment for their child,"* have broken up.So now little Tripp will grow up, cared for by a single mother – an archetype so despised by the vile Ann Coulter who believes "Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts”. Oh how I love the way conservatives unwittingly screw each other with their black-and-white statements.
Bristol recently stated in an interview with Greta Van Susteren that abstincence is “not realistic” and that “[sex] is more and more accepted among kids [her] age” (really?), something Mama Palin and Coulter seem to ignore. So instead of making the hard choice to terminate the pregnancy, Bristol had the kid and is now setting up her own little future criminal.
But the thing is, little Tripp will probably be okay. Like all sweeping, black-and-white statements, they leave out the little grey nuances. Coulter claims 70% of inmates, teenage runaways and delinquents, and drug users (amazing how this percentage is constant throughout) come from single parent homes. Regardless of the accuracy of Coulter’s stats, she is only looking at one variable – how many parents raise you – and completely discounting all the other factors that go with criminal activity, drug abuse etc. like socio-economic status, mental illness and abuse, to name a few.
The fact that Tripp will be raised by a single mother who has a set of support systems in place (ie. money and Mama Palin) already puts him ahead of the criminals that fall into Coulter’s 70%. It’s not Bristol’s marital status that affects her kid’s success, it’s her socio-economic status.
Hopefully Sarah Palin has learned that to support abstinence-only sex education is one of these sweeping statements. It completely discounts a pretty intense factor: teenage lust; something which Bristol spelled out for her mom in her interview with Greta Van Susteren.
It is a grand thing that America chose wisely last November and voted in a president who understands that sweeping statements (hello, War on Terror) are always riddled with shades of that truth.
______________________________
*Mama Sarah, December 2008
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Elf Is Just Not That Into You
So, I avoided the cliché of going to see He’s Just Not That Into You with a huge group of girls by going with my happily married friend Michelle. Two things:
1. At the end of He’s Just Not That Into You, the adulterers are punished by being alone. This seems a simple solution to a complex set of feelings. I am certainly not excusing adultery: I’ve had the chance to be the other woman handed to me on a two-timing plate on a few occasions and have declined each time because of my respect of this institution I’m not entirely sure I buy into. But I cannot accept this simple-minded answer that humans must fit this monogamous model and should be punished for any aberrant behaviour.
2. The conversation that Jennifer Anniston had at the wedding with the Wiccan? Yeah, I’ve basically had that exact conversation. With a guy wearing a feather in his hair. We talked fairies and elves and sprites (he was into Celtic mysticism). When I asked what category I fell into, he asked what I felt I was. I said I felt like an elf. And so he said I was an elf.
1. At the end of He’s Just Not That Into You, the adulterers are punished by being alone. This seems a simple solution to a complex set of feelings. I am certainly not excusing adultery: I’ve had the chance to be the other woman handed to me on a two-timing plate on a few occasions and have declined each time because of my respect of this institution I’m not entirely sure I buy into. But I cannot accept this simple-minded answer that humans must fit this monogamous model and should be punished for any aberrant behaviour.
2. The conversation that Jennifer Anniston had at the wedding with the Wiccan? Yeah, I’ve basically had that exact conversation. With a guy wearing a feather in his hair. We talked fairies and elves and sprites (he was into Celtic mysticism). When I asked what category I fell into, he asked what I felt I was. I said I felt like an elf. And so he said I was an elf.
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