Monday, July 20, 2009

Twitter knows about epicaricacy

Thank heavens for those Google alerts. Yes, just today I found that Robin Bloor has tweeted about "epicaricacy." That word is really getting around!

I suppose I should begin to tweet a bit, but I haven't found a reason yet. I know that people first heard about Michael Jackson from Twitter, but what does a nano-second mean anyway? I really am perplexed about what people see in Twitter. A friend found that I have a Twitter account [I have one follower :)], but neither of us knew what to do with it. Perhaps one of my many readers can explain. [I am full of sarcasm today! One might think I were British, except I don't write color with a u.]

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Good bye to a friend

Sometimes we all make mistakes. Most often, in my profession, the errors are due to our systems. Yet, when push comes to shove and some error is made public...boom! People are fired. Never mind looking at the entire system, at the resources that have been taken away, and at the good work of the workers. The "leaders" must show that they are in charge so they get retribution. They think they will look better to the public. However, little do they know that the public isn't as stupid as they think.

It always seems to be the nurses, too, who are at fault. One situation in Colorado occurred years ago where a baby died of an injection. There were 50+ plus mistakes that led up to this, including pharmacy errors, medical errors, as well as nursing errors. This is usually the situation. What happened? The nurses, alone, not only lost their licenses, but were charged criminally! This was made very public by the media, so the prosecutor had to make his point. Why didn't he also charge the physicians and the pharmacists? Nurses always seems to be easy targets. I think it's gender bias since in the U.S. approximately 92% of nurses are female. In this case, one of the nurses courageously decided to go before her peers (the others made a "deal"), rather than to bow to the prosecutors. The facts of the system errors were made public, and the jury of our peers acquitted her. Society, dear politicians, isn't as stupid as you might think. She lost her license, of course, but, quite correctly, the jury didn't see this as criminal behavior.

I'd like to salute my dear friend in California who is suffering because of a similar situation. Once again, many, many others were linked to what happened, but it was nursing who was attacked by the media and then by the "leaders." I am so sorry. We nurses need to stand up, courageously, and support our peers. This just isn't right!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The best 4 poets in the world

It has been awhile, hasn't it? I must get back to blogging...

I am reading an excellent novel that takes place in India. It is a cynical, and humorous, take on the call center workers in India. Indeed, as one reviewer said, "Adiga sets out to show us a part of [India] that we hear about infrequently: its underbelly..." Balram in the book, "The White Tiger," describes the four best poets in the world (this isn't stated as an opinion, but a fact), and they are Rumi, Mirza Ghalib and Iqbal and one he couldn't remember. One of Iqbal's poems is quoted as saying this about slaves: "They remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world." Balram also wonders why the four best poets all happen to be Muslim, especially, he says, when "all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up." Hmmm...a bit biased, wouldn't you say?

At any rate, it made me wonder who my four favorite poets are. I'll have to think about it. I know that Wordsworth is one, and maybe Frost. Perhaps Bob Hale is my third :) It's a great question, that's for sure.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Back from Durban

I had quite a trip and have been neglecting my Blog, as well as Wordcraft. It was mostly a work trip, but it's always nice to see differences with people and language. My colleague and I were noting all the differences in pronunciation, like "schedule" and "process," but our Canadian (or maybe Australian, I don't recall...or even maybe Scottish) colleague pronounced "mandatory" as man-DA (as in "dad")-tory. Wow! It was a good thing the word was on a powerpoint or we never would have figured it out!

Then there was this woman (I really can't remember where she was from) who just wouldn't quit! First they gave us a yellow light, which meant we have 5 more minutes. Then a red light...meaning STOP! When our speaker got the red light, she just kept going. Finally the moderator said, "You really must stop now," but she kept going! The man running the powerpoints finally put up a blank screen, and the speaker seemed rather annoyed but finally stopped. However, she then had the audacity to say, "Any questions?" The moderator was extremely annoyed by this point and said, "You have taken up all your time! Sit down!" The speaker went back to her seat, mumbling all the way. Funny! I made sure to keep on time!