Fitness Blog

The Rest of the Story: What do you suppose is the story behind the lone girl in the red sweater?

Sunday in My Garden: The creature feature:

The cat in the radish patch:


The bee in the ferns:


The beautiful bug:



The vegetarian spider:

"Troubled" Hospital: King-Harbor hospital in Los Angeles is in the news again for failing to recognize a medical emergency - in the emergency room:

The shocking audiotape of the 911 call suggests the dispatcher had no idea what to do when she received a call last month from the boyfriend of Edith Isabel Rodriguez. As he pleaded with the dispatcher to send paramedics to her aid, Rodriguez lay on the floor, in pain, throwing up blood. The dispatcher was flummoxed, though, because the policy of "take the patient to the closest hospital" didn't apply. Rodriguez was already in the emergency room lobby of Los Angeles' inner city Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital.

Shortly after another bystander made a second futile 911 call imploring paramedics to take Rodriguez to another hospital, she died of a perforated bowel. A security videotape, still unreleased to the public, is said to show her writhing on the hospital floor unattended for 45 minutes. At one point, the tape reportedly shows a janitor going about his business mopping the floor around her.

Good grief. How does that happen? Can the emergency room possibly be so busy that no one has the time to drop what they are doing to attend to a woman vomiting blood on the floor of their lobby? Sorry, but that defies belief. There's only one thing that could explain such a thing - indifference. No amount of healthcare reform is going to change that. It takes a fundamental shift in management attitudes and a willingness to punish those who fail to meet professional standards - whether they be the clerk sitting at the front desk registering patients or the doctor providing the care.

A Few Minutes of Fame: I hope these people get compensated with something other than a few minutes of celebrity.

The Gross Profit Motive: Michael Moore's new movie is rave reviews in some quarters.

UPDATE: It looks like the film maker is himself getting Michael Moored.