Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Here comes a one two punch for the Medical Transgender Profit Machine

Posted: February 24, 2023 by datechguy in culture, medicine, Uncategorized
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Jason “Sonny” Pratt: I get it, by day the mild mannered children’s book author, by night the fearsome masked avenger.

Jon Sable [in B.B. Flemm guise] Just the opposite actually. If anyone knew I was writing Children’s books…I don’t even want to think about it.

Sonny Pratt: Well if you’re embarassed about being a children’s author why do you keep doing it?

Jon Sable: Sonny, There’s just so damn much money in it.

Jon Sable Freelance #7 1983

One of the things that has become very apparent in reading about the Transgender push among medical centers, particularly involving the young is that it’s a cash cow.

You not only have low risk (in terms of complications leading to death) elective surgery but you have drugs and hormone treatments taking place over the course of years or even decades and a psych department staying busy with counseling that can last just as long.

That’s a ton of billable procedures and products for EACH person who dives into the Transgender pool that will keep your practice and department in the black for many many years and all it requires is to throw out that pesky first principle of medical treatment “Do no harm” and replace it with “Do no harm to your bottom line.”

While exposing this might be effective to some degree against hospitals and practices that depend on donations and sponsors no amount of public shaming or twitter quips or thoughtful commentary or even detailed exposés is likely to cause people who have abandoned both Judeo-Christian ethics and medical ethics for profit to change their behavior.

This however might:

A woman in Ontario who identified as transgender and underwent hormone therapy, a bilateral mastectomy, and a hysterectomy filed the first lawsuit in Canada against her healthcare providers for facilitating her transition. 

Michelle Zacchigna, a 34-year-old woman from Orillia, Ontario, recently announced a lawsuit she filed against the eight doctors and mental health professionals who treated her over the years, alleging that they failed to address her complex mental health needs and instead allowed her to self-diagnose as transgender and undergo irreversible procedures that she now regrets. 

It’s worth noting that this woman is 34 and started this process at 21 meaning that this has been going on for a very long time before attention was being drawn to it.

“I will live the rest of my life without breasts, with a deepened voice and male-pattern balding, and without the ability to get pregnant. Removing my completely healthy uterus is my greatest regret,” Zacchigna wrote in a blog post for Lighthouse Forum.

Zacchigna’s lawsuit claims that the healthcare providers who treated her failed to address her serious mental health issues and developmental disabilities and instead offered her irreversible medical interventions. 

“The Defendants permitted Michelle to self-diagnose as transgender and prescribe her own treatment without providing a differential diagnosis or proposing alternative treatments,” reads the Statement of Claim filed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

I suspect this is the first of many such lawsuits we are going to see over the years as people who have been castrated and sterilized in their youth discover that it doesn’t bring them the relief promised by those who drugged and cut them up for fun and profit.

Mind you as I noted this woman was 21, can you picture how strong that argument might be for a person who started this as a teen, as a minor, as a pre-teen. The lawsuits practically file themselves. Once we start seeing jury awards in the millions or even tens of millions (after all when your life has been destroyed by thirty you might have fifty years of suffering to pay for. the cost benefit analysis will change in a real hurry.

These suits will be a series of solid jabs to the transgender body mutilation industry, and now Florida is preparing a follow up right cross taking a completely different tack:

The new bill, called the Reverse Woke Act, flips the gender transition movement on its head by requiring employers that provide coverage for gender transition procedures also to provide coverage for de-transitioning. It even puts employers on the hook for de-transitioning coverage for people who are no longer employed by the company if they worked there when they transitioned.

“An employer that covers the cost, directly or through benefits, of gender dysphoria treatment for employees must also cover the total costs associated with treatment that reverses the gender dysphoria treatment, regardless of the rate of coverage provided for the initial treatment,” reads the proposal introduced by Florida state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia.

“An employee who received gender dysphoria treatment through coverage provided by an employer is entitled to full coverage by that employer of the total costs associated with treatment that reverses gender dysphoria treatment if the employee later determines that the gender dysphoria treatment was not appropriate for him or her and wants to reverse the treatment, regardless of whether the person is currently employed by that same employer at the time of such determination,” the bill continues. “An employer’s obligations under this section are not affected by whether the initial treatment is provided in this state, and an employer may not make coverage of subsequent treatment contingent on whether the employee receives such subsequent treatment in this state.”

So if you’re a woke employer or corporation coving Transgender transition to show just how moral you are, you are on the hook to take care of the person who changes their mind, even if the person in question no longer works for you. You could be stuck dealing with such cost years or even decades later and subject to civil suits if you don’t pay up.

Can you say “Cost prohibitive?”

Or to paraphrase Sherman: We cannot change the hearts and minds of those woke people in the medical profession, but we can through the courts & legislatures make the financial risks of the transgender industry to hospitals so terrible that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.

This is the first step in a long march, may legions follow.

The Anglican Communion Gives Up Christianity For Lent

Posted: February 22, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, culture
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Actually that’s a rather unfair headline. The Anglican communion has not given up Christianity for Lent, they’ve given it up for good.

Church of England priests will be permitted to bless the civil marriages of same-sex couples in a profound shift in the church’s stance on homosexuality after a historic vote by its governing body.

The vote wasn’t as close as one might have hoped:

After an impassioned debate lasting more than eight hours, the C of E’s national assembly, the General Synod, voted by 250 votes to 181 to back a proposal by bishops intended to end years of painful divisions and disagreement over sexuality.

In one respect it isn’t a surprise, when you have a denomination that was founded on the principle “I get to bang who I want and the hell with what the church says” odds are that right is going to expand in time from just the king to everyone else.

And what is the grand prize they receive for choosing the world over Christ? SCHISM!

A group of Anglican church leaders from around the world have ousted the Archbishop of Canterbury as their head following the decision to allow the blessing of same-sex couples in England.

The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) has said in a statement that it no longer considers Justin Welby to be ‘leader of the global communion’, and it has ‘disqualified’ the Church of England from being its ‘mother church’.

Earlier this month, the General Synod – the Church of England’s legislative assembly – passed a motion to allow the blessing of same-sex couples in civil partnerships.

The GSFA said it speaks for 75% of Anglicans around the world, officially representing 25 member provinces – mainly in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

That number is interesting, 75% of the Anglicans around the world aren’t with this move. You know the ones in Africa, India and Latin America.

I’ll wager the liberal Karens in England who have pushed this have very specific opinions on the clergy of color who are currently critiquing them but are keeping silent due to fears of being outed as racists think they know better than their non-white breathern.

Alas there doesn’t seem to be any signs of a modern St. John fisher or St. Thomas Moore in the west even though the only penalty might be cancellation rather than execution.

Over at Hotair they see where this is going:

Run amok is usually what happens when progressives take control of anything, so I think the remaining Church of England types in England should just bank on it. It’s not looking good for the home team. While I’m sure they’re all patting themselves on the back for their inclusivity and modern approach, when those C of E congregations start shrinking? No doubt they’ll be the most surprised.

This is of course the invariable result when you reject those who support biblical teaching for those who are fruitless and don’t multiply.

Then again when you have a denomination that is a copy of a copy they tend to fade which is the disadvantage of all Protestantism whose primary principle is that the every denomination must keep splitting until everyone has a church that suits either their desires.

Say what you will about the Catholic Church even as Denomination after denomination has embraced contraception, abortion and gay marriage they have stayed steady and not embraced the rebels within.

And of course there is always the choice for some of those Anglicans to decide to re-cross the Tiber per the guidelines set down by Pope Benedict XVI. How anxious Francis would be to welcome such congregations given his own proclivities is of course another story.

So let me say this to the new even more non-biblical Anglicans. I’m sure the press, video, print and online will embrace this decision as “brave” and pols and pundits will all be celebrating you for these moves and the Bishops involved in these decisions will be feted by their worldly pals for the rest of their lives but while you still have a heartbeat let me remind you of this warning from a fellow named Ezekiel:

You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me. If I tell the wicked man that he shall surely die, and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked man from his way, he (the wicked man) shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked man, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself.

Ezekiel 33:7-9

You, our modernist friends are welcome to ignore the advice of Ezekiel that I’ve in duty repeated to you or choose to embrace it. You have the rest of your lives to do so…

…after that you’re on your own and I wish you the very best of luck.

Postscript. I know today was going to be the Trump advice piece that I wrote two days ago but this coming out the day before Ash Wednesday was ready made for the occasion. I’ll get the trump thing up tomorrow.

America has its secretary of silly walks, Pete Buttigieg

Posted: February 19, 2023 by John Ruberry in Blame Trump, culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Yes, we have our secretary of silly walks, Pete Buttigieg. 

More on the walks in a bit.

Often described as “the smartest person in the room,” Mayor Pete to his friends, Pothole Pete to his growing list of detractors, the former McKinsey and Company consultant and mayor of South Bend, Indiana mayor has shown a great talent for cunningness in regard to his career advancement. 

He wasn’t an effective mayor and he’s been a disastrous secretary of transportation. In his 24 months at that job, he has faced three crises.

Buttigieg was AWOL during the supply chain crisis of 2021–he was on previously unannounced paternity leave–the holiday season flight disruptions of 2022, and now, there has been a recent increase in train derailments, including the one that led to a toxic mushroom cloud in East Palestine, Ohio. 

But it’s not his fault! It’s Donald Trump’s fault! Actually, Buttigieg is wrong, the Trump era rule change on trains had no effect on the East Palestine disaster.

But Buttigieg still has a job, and because he checks a sacrosanct “box” that is so important to the identitarians of the woke Democrat Party–Buttigieg is gay–he is still being discussed as a running mate for Biden in 2024. Like Chicago’s failed mayor, Lori Lightfoot, Kamala Harris is another “triple threat,” the vice president is Asian, Black, and a woman. Harris is the “first” of all three to serve as vice president, Michael O’Shea, writing for the Federalist, says that “Harris could only feasibly be replaced with another “first.'” 

And that “first” could mean Buttigieg, despite his flops.

I endured some Buttigiegs when I was toiling in the hospitality industry. They were smug, they always knew what to say and how to say it, and they looked good, but when it came to real work, they always had other things to do. 

At one hotel where I worked, we had a management company take over operations–and the Hotel Buttigiegs would nitpick us on nothingness—“Hey, can you have that neon beer sign moved to another window?”–but the real problems we faced would not be addressed. The hotel was falling apart and when one of my co-workers would bring that up obvious problem, the reply would be, “Well, the owners won’t invest their money into rehab.” Fine, I get it, but if these “experts,” these Buttigiegs, were so smart, they would either convince the owners to open their wallets, or they could find a way to make the hotel profitable. After all, they were the experts, as they would regularly remind us.

I remember one of those Hotel Buttigiegs dressing me down one day, literally, because my shirttail was out. Okay, that’s a legitimate criticism, but the reason I was disheveled is that there was a call for all able-bodied employees to help move chairs into a ballroom because a client’s meeting attracted far more attendees than expected. I answered the call–but Hotel Buttigieg didn’t. After all, he was “management.” Well, so was I, but I was not part of the elect, I was not a member of their management class, their little club of overpaid know-it-alls. But Hotel Buttigieg always had his shirt tucked in.

Before long, shirttail-critic stopped coming by–that was an improvement–and so did all of the other Hotel Buttigiegs. The challenges facing the hotel were largely intractable, partly because of these know-it-alls. They were AWOL, while their bosses were still collecting their management fees, because these Hotel Buttigiegs didn’t want their names muddied with our crappy hotel. They were presented with challenges–and they ran away. Because the Hotel Buttigiegs wanted to look good–ah, that tie is perfect with that suit–for their next undeserved promotion.

Pete Buttigieg as of this writing hasn’t visited East Palestine. But Donald Trump will be there on Wednesday. Trump, although he has no real power anymore, has never been afraid of a challenge. Unlike, well you know who.

Oh yeah, silly walks. 

I was in the audience at the Park West in Chicago in 1987 when Graham Chapman gave a fabulous lecture on his years with the Monty Python troupe. I hung on every word. There was a question-and-answer session, and Chapman, who died of cancer two years later, was asked about the silly walks sketch, one of the many legendary bits from the greatest comedy television show ever.

His reply went something like this, “Oh yes, back in Britain we had this member of parliament, who couldn’t do anything right, but the prime minister always found a cabinet position for him. So, when writing this sketch, we came up with the most ridiculous position we could imagine for him.” 

Watch as John Cleese kicks the sketch out of the park. 

America now has its secretary of silly walks, the incompetent Pete Buttigieg. Currently he’s in charge of the US Transportation Department, yet he might be a heartbeat away from the presidency in 2025.

But the residents of East Palestine aren’t laughing at all. Nor are they impressed. Even though Mayor Pete is so smart–he graduated from Harvard, you know–and he’s a former consultant from McKinsey–and oh yeah, did I mention how smart he is? And Buttigieg looks dashing in a suit too.

UPDATE February 22:

20 days after the toxic spill, and very likely only because he was shamed into it, Buttigieg will visit East Palestine tomorrow.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Godwin’s Law needs a revision or a successor

Posted: February 12, 2023 by John Ruberry in culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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By John Ruberry

It’s time to revise or perhaps expand on Godwin’s Law. Named for attorney Mike Godwin, which, according to Dictionary.com, “Godwin’s law is the proposition that the longer an internet argument goes on, the higher the probability becomes that something or someone will be compared to Adolf Hitler.” 

Here’s the new law, you can call it Godwin’s Law II, Ruberry’s Law, or just a simple observation: The longer any American political discussion continues, it’s very likely that something or someone will be called a white supremacist. 

Yes, that includes some things. When Pete Buttigieg was calling for massive infrastructure spending last year, he mentioned previous road and bridge projects and “the racism that went into those design choices.” To be fair, there is a grain of truth or two to what Buttigieg said. Nearly 100 years ago, master builder and notorious racist, Robert Moses, purposely designed Long Island’s Southern State Parkway, which was built to expand access to Jones Beach State Park, another Moses project, with overpasses that were quite low, so buses, presumably filled with minorities, couldn’t be driven to Jones Beach. 

On the other hand, it has long accepted as local gospel that the 14-lane Dan Ryan Expressway, built like a trench, was geographically placed to separate South Side Chicago’s white and growing black populations. Chicago’s NPR station dismissed that tale as an urban legend ten years ago. Long before the Dan Ryan’s completion in 1962, African Americans had migrated in large numbers to the “white” side of the expressway. 

Let’s move on to an interesting young man, Vince Dao. He’s a conservative who late last year participated in the Asian Americans Debate Model Minority & Asian Hate panel organized by Vice. Dao spoke with a level of common sense, so much so that most of the other participants, including a Bangladeshi American man and a Korean American woman with purple hair, appeared to be suffering coronary attacks as they had never been confronted with a logical discussion in their lives. 

If you only have a few minutes, the core part of this debate begins at the nine-minute mark.

“If America is to hold together, assimilation [is]–not just good or bad–[but] necessary,” Dao stated. “I don’t think it’s going to be possible for America to survive as a stable functioning society if people don’t, to some degree, say, ‘Well here’s what we’re going to commonly agree upon.'”

“But who gets to choose it?” another panelist asked. Dao responded, “The majority culture I suppose.” When pressed on what was that majority culture, Dao elaborated it would those who happen to be in power. “And who’s ‘people with power?’ White people?,” the purple-haired woman bellowed out while rolling her eyes, adding derisively for emphasis, “I’m going to say it… white people!”

Not surprisingly, purple-haired woman brings up “white supremacy,” proving the infallibility of Godwin’s Law II or whatever you think it should be called. Later in the exchange she asks Dao, “Do you ever say ‘all lives matter?'” His response, was, “Of course.” Another woman, sarcastically responding as if Dao was on trial for murder and he admitted in testimony that he committed the deed, answered back, “There it is! All lives matter!”

Yes, some leftists believe if you say, “All lives matter,” it is racist.

The sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm would be proud of Dao’s detractors. 

When Republican Larry Elder, a black man, ran for governor of California two years ago, a Los Angeles Times columnist warned that Elder offered a “white supremacist worldview” and that he was a “very real threat to communities of color.” Last month, the brutal beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers–the first five cops charged with his murder are black–was presented by some media wags as an example of white supremacy. Oh, the chief of police in Memphis is an African American woman.

The general theme of the white supremacy trope is that America is rigged–and our nation’s ruling class is in place–forever. 

No, it isn’t.

Let’s talk about William Augustine Washington. He was the last great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Augustine Washington, a slave-owner like his famous son, our first president. 

While generations of the Washington family enjoyed great financial success, William Augustine Washington, who died in Bradley, Illinois in 1994, was a humble tool-and-die maker. That’s something to ponder as Presidents’ Day is next week.

At my age I can say I know, met, and interacted with thousands of people, many of them fascinating individuals. Until recently I worked with a man, a modest yet erudite clerk, who was a descendant of George Washington’s successor as president, John Adams.

When I toiled in the hospitality industry, one of the salespeople I worked alongside had a distinguished ancestor of her own, Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Years earlier she parlayed her lineage, and, ahem, white privilege, to land a highly paid job. Well, not really–on the financial end. She wore a hoop skirt while portraying an ordinary citizen at Colonial Williamsburg. 

As for my white family, the richest member of my extended relations was a great uncle–who fathered one child, a son. The son died broke.

America is not “rigged,” but that is not to say racism doesn’t exist. It certainly does. 

But America’s freedom to succeed comes with a curse, the possibility of failure, even if you are white.

And for some sheep, America is about, and only about, white supremacy. Which is why, because of those sheep, if you wait long enough, every political argument will devolve into that topic. 

Yes, we have a new law of political discussion.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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