Cross posted at
Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle bulletin board and as always, hats off to
Maryscott O'Connor!
I don't have cable or satellite let alone HBO. In the past my comments that "military medicine" is an oxymoron brought condemnation. I still find the juxtaposition, within one institution, of the specialities of killing and saving lives more than passing strange. They are contradictory and mutually exclusive IMO.
more hell below:
I remember alienating a high school chum when he said he had to make a decison between becoming a physician or going to West Point. Damn! It still say if you can't make that choice instantaneously then fuggedabout the healing profession.
Here's another contradiction. While we are fighting and killing and dying and wounding and getting wounded - Americans are going without basic healthcare. High tech my ass! We are headed for a new feudalism of Lords and Peasants. George W. Bush is of the monied, priviledged, deciding class while ordinary Americans are reduced to being serfs, and serfs don't need (or can afford) no stinking healthcare. Ours is but to do for the rich and die in poverty,neglect, and ignominy.
But, hey, the reviewer likes the documentary! I won't be watching. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so let the devil take the so-called "cutting edge" techniques developed while "saving" the serfs who are serving their masters.
'Baghdad ER': Saluting Valor On the Medical Front Lines (Washington Post)
STYLE Section (???)
Shales: 'Baghdad ER' Is Brilliant
HBO's documentary -- which is a lesson in humanity, not politics -- deals far more in actions than in words.