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25
Sep
2017
A friend required surgery recently for a lump in her breast. She got into the operating room within a week. Someone else got bumped. The surgeon shrugged: “In these circumstances, a facelift doesn’t take priority.”
My friend benefitted from a process called “triage.” Basically, it’s a system for making difficult choices. And it applies to many situations beyond medical. Even to the future of the United Nations.
In its original battlefield context, triage meant dividing injured victims into three groups:
· Those likely to recover, regardless of medical attention
· Those for whom immediate care will make a positive difference
· Those unlikely to live, regardless of what doctors can do; devoting energy to them might mean denying care to someone else who could benefit more.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Trump, triage, United Nations, NAFTA, eye for an eye
5
Feb
A week ago Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order restricting immigration from seven Muslim countries where he doesn’t have business ties. He branded them “evil”.
Two days later, a Canadian with far-right sympathies entered a mosque in Quebec City and shot six men in the back as they knelt in prayer. Eight others were injured.
The timing is too close for pure coincidence. If you’re a white supremacist feeling you should take action against people you dislike, what better justification could you ask for than encouragement from the world’s most powerful person?
Trump called Ottawa to offer his condolences. I think he should be charged as an accessory to murder.
Tags: Trump, mosque, killing, Serenity prayer
29
Jan
National Public Radio in the U.S. has made a decision. It will not use the word “lie” to describe President Donald Trump’s less-than-truthful assertions. Or, as NPR puts it, “how to characterize the statements of President Trump when they are at odds with evidence to the contrary.”
NPR cites, as an example, Trump’s claim that when the World Trade Center was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, "I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people [referring to ‘Muslims’] were cheering as that building was coming down."
The statement was clearly false, and NPR said so. But they didn’t call him a liar.
Tags: Trump, lies, NPR
18
Dec
2016
Apparently, we have entered a “post-fact world”. A couple of news stories used that term this past week.
Post fact. Not just post truth. Post truth simply implies that there is no absolute truth anymore. All truths are relative. Your truth was shaped by your society, your education, your life experience – it was, therefore, just as true for you as my truth was for me.
But those relative truths were always tempered by reality.
That’s not how it works in a post-fact world. The new criteria become – Who says it? How often? How loudly?
Tags: reality, Trump