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PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Totally final, last year-end quiz ONE OF THE great things about being in a new year is getting to wipe 2013 from our minds. Completely. Forever. Gail Except maybe Collins this one last, final, end-of-theyear quiz.
Foreign Affairs 1. North Korea announced the execution of leader Kim Jong-un’s uncle and former mentor, explaining that, among other crimes, Jang Songthaek had been guilty of: A) “Singing off key.” B) Failing to send Kim Jongun a birthday card. C) Insulting Dennis Rodman. D) “Half-heartedly clapping.” 2. After the death of Nelson Mandela, former presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the late South African leader should inspire us to: A) Fight against racial discrimination. B) Fight against poverty. C) Fight against Obamacare. D) Fight to save South Africa’s endangered Table Mountain ghost frog.
Congress 3. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology: A) Has a chairman who is worried about “global warming alarmists.” B) Has a science subcommittee chairman who believes the theory of evolution and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell.” C) Recently held a hearing on extraterrestrial life. D) All the above.
4. Toward the end of the last big Senate debate of the old year, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama emotionally declared that: “Like the frog in the warming water, we do not realize we are being cooked and that the freedoms of Americans are being cooked!” He was talking about: A) Global warming. B) A problem with the Capitol heating system. C) The Senate rules. D) People who made 2013 such a bad year for Paula Deen.
Virginia, was the first woman chosen to perform as the Mountaineer, the mascot of the West Virginia University football team. When she hit the field, people in the stands would: A) Yell extra loud at the sight of a path-breaking woman. B) Cry: “Run for the U.S. Senate when Jay Rockefeller retires!” C) Throw cups and chant: “We don’t want a mountain deer. Bring us back our Mountaineer.” D) Behave pretty much the same as usual.
5. Speaker John Boehner said recently that the immigration reform bill is: A) “Absolutely not” dead. B) “Probably not” dead. C) “Deader than a doornail.” D) “Alive and well and living in Switzerland.”
9. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas recently told ABC News that he did something during his first year in office that “no one” else in Washington does. He explained that it was: A) Appearing as dwarf prince Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. B) Irritating John McCain more than Barack Obama ever did. C) “Trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problems.” D) Making preparations to renounce his Canadian citizenship.
Business 6. Which of the following did McDonald’s not do in 2013? A) Offered its employees advice on how much to tip their personal fitness trainer or pool cleaner. B) Got stuck with 10 million pounds of unsold Mighty Wings. C) Offered its employees budgeting tips with a planner that presumes they’re working two jobs. D) Put Ronald McDonald on part-time status.
10. In her latest book, Sarah Palin says Todd’s favorite present is always: A) A Sarah selfie. B) Duck whistles from the Dynasty boys. 7. This year Amazon C) Gift cards for gas for his announced it was thinking about: snow machine. A) Creating a fleet of drones. D) Anything that’s made in B) Taking over the world. America. C) Delivering babies. D) Raising its number of wafANSWERS: 1-D, 2-C, 3-D, 4-C, fle iron options from 613 to some5-A, 6-D, 7-A, 8-C, 9-C, 10-C thing in the five figures.
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Politics 8. Natalie Tennant, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for Senate in West
Gail Collins is a columnist for The New York Times. Maureen Dowd, our regular Friday columnist, is off today.
Botched procedure prompts fight for life NEW YEAR’S DAY should be a time of fresh beginnings and forward motion. But for the family of Michelle 13-year-old Jahi McMath, Malkin the holiday season has been suspended in a cloud of unfathomable pain and suffering: A routine tonsillectomy gone wrong. A beautiful child declared “brain dead.” Lawyers, TV cameras, tears. The McMaths are fighting for life. On Monday, they won a court order that prevents Children’s Hospital of Oakland from pulling the plug on Jahi until Jan. 7. Her relatives have been attacked as “publicity hounds” for doing everything possible to raise awareness about the young girl’s tragic case. They’ve been criticized as troublemakers for challenging powerful hospital officials. They’ve been labeled “selfish” and ignorant because they are praying for a miracle. Why, many observers ask, don’t they just “accept reality” and let go? As the mother of a 13-year-old girl, I would have done everything Jahi’s mom has done to this point. Everything. Here’s reality: Children’s Hospital faces serious malpractice questions about its care of Jahi. Hospital execs have a glaring conflict of interest in wielding power over her life support. According to relatives, medical officials callously referred to Jahi as “dead, dead, dead” and dismissed the child as a “body.” The McMath family refused to be rushed or pushed around. They demanded respect for their loved one. I say more power to them. There are plenty of reasons to question the medical establishment’s handling of catastrophic cases involving brain injury and
“brain death.” In 2008, doctors were dead certain that 21-year-old Zack Dunlop was legally deceased after a horrible ATV accident. Tests showed there was no blood flow to his brain. His hospital issued a death notice. Authorities prepared to harvest his organs. But family members were not convinced. A cousin who happened to be a nurse tested Zack’s reflexes on his own one last time as the hospital swooped in. The “brain dead” “body” responded. Forty-eight days later, the supposedly impossible happened: “Brain dead” Zack Dunlop walked out of the hospital and lived to tell about his miraculous recovery on the Today Show. The immense pressure Jahi’s family faces to give up and give in reminded me of another child written off by medical and government officials: Haleigh Poutre. She’s the miracle child who was nearly beaten to death by her barbaric stepfather. Hooked to a ventilator in a comatose state, she was then nearly condemned to death by Massachusetts medical experts and the state’s criminally negligent child welfare bureaucracy, which hastily declared her to be in a hopeless vegetative state and wanted to pull the plug on her life. The “experts” were wrong. Haleigh breathed on her own; a caring team of therapists nursed her back to health. Soon, she was brushing her hair and feeding herself. She lived to testify against her abusive stepfather, now behind bars. Her survival is a stark warning against blind, yielding trust in Big Nanny and Big Medicine. We don’t know what God has planned for Jahi. But I do know this: America has become a throwaway culture where everything and everyone — from utensils to diapers to cameras to babies — is disposable. Elites sneer at the sanctity of life. The Terri Schiavo case brought out the worst, most dehumanizing impulses of
American medical ethics debates. And from the attacks I’ve seen on the McMath family, little has changed. Schiavo’s brother, Bobby, knows exactly how it feels to battle the culture of death and medical expediency. His group, Terri’s Network, and other prolife organizations are trying to help with Jahi’s transfer to a long-term care facility. In the meantime, Jahi’s plight serves as a teachable moment for those with ears, eyes and hearts open. This is a gift. “Families and individuals must make themselves aware of what so-called ‘brain death’ is and what it is not,” Schindler advises. “Additionally, families and individuals must educate themselves regarding their rights as patients, the advance documentation that must be completed prior to any medical procedure as well as how to ensure best any patient’s rights.” Jahi’s story should also prompt family discussions about living wills, durable powers of attorney, “do not resuscitate” orders, revocable trusts and advance directives. It’s never too early to broach these uncomfortable matters of life and death. I want to thank Naila Winkfield and the McMath family for not “letting go” so easily. Their plight is every parent’s worst nightmare. Their fight reaches beyond ideology, race, and class. The united front of the family and the public testaments of their faith in God are gifts. The Instagram image of Naila clasping her daughter’s hand at her hospital bedside — the hope, the desperation, the abiding love — is universal. At the start of 2014, the greatest gift of Jahi is her transcendent reminder that all life is precious. Let it not be taken for granted.
________ Michelle Malkin’s nationally syndicated column appears in the PDN every Friday. Email malkinblog@gmail.com.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 2014
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