Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic

For quite a while, I've decided not to make a blog post about Dennis Markuze (a.k.a. "Mabus").  I thought that the best way to deal with him was to ignore him, since clearly he fed on people's attention.  It turns out, that ignoring him was the exact opposite way to handle the whole situation.

Most people reading this blog already know who Markuze is.  But for the uninitiated, or those of you in the future, reading this years from now, (newcomers to skepticism hopefully won't have any dealings with him), here's a very brief primer:

Montrealer, and Christian extremist, Dennis Markuze has been sending out reams of harassment emails and comments to skeptics, atheists, and scientists for over 15 years.  These went well beyond the typical "troll" behavior we might expect of internet aggression, and eventually escalated into increasingly incoherent ramblings that threatened skeptics with torture, decapitation, execution etc....

He attended the American Atheists Convention in Montreal last fall, where the long-time target of his harassment, PZ Myers, was speaking (tell me of a single internet troll who dares to attempt a physical confrontation).  His newfound boldness, coupled with his increasingly explicit threats, pushed people into action in new, and innovative ways. 

For more detailed background of this entire Markuze affair, I highly recommend Tim Farley's post on the matter.

In the above image, this is just a portion of the harassment I received in one day. Included in the messages to me, were the usual targets: skeptic friends of mine such as Jonathan Abrams, Elyse Anders, and Nicole Gugliucci. Part of Markuze's tactics were to look through anyone his victims have been communicating with, and attack them too.  He also sent harassment letters to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, as well as my local Member of Parliament, Stephen Woodworth (who is public about his devotion to Christianity), both of whom I was having non-skeptic related political discussions with.

Just about every skeptic who has received his attacks knows his tactics, and many of us have to apologize to people for getting these awful messages at unawares.


On July 6, I received this (and many others like it) message.  It was unlike the others, because it was an explicit threat, rather than just the insinuation-to-kill that was his usual M.O. I gotta admit: I felt a little nervous.  Internet trolls don't talk like that.  Internet trolls are paradoxically inventive and crude (as any gamer can attest to).  This was pretty straightforward:  

"...we are going to torture before we execute you"

Without batting an eye, I called the RCMP, who forwarded me to the Waterloo Region police.  After I had spent a long day at work, the police came over to my house and I filed a report.  The police officer hadn't been briefed upon the nature of the threat (ie: that it was an internet threat), and my partner and I had to spend about 15 minutes explaining to him what Twitter was, how it's not Facebook, or how it's not email.  It was pretty exhausting.  Not to mention baffling ("What's Twitter?  Oh....it's this...internet....thing that....has hundreds of millions of users....that....are you sure you've never heard of it?  TWIT-TER!").

After about an hour and a half, the officer saw my screen shots, seemed to understand what was going on, and he said to me, "My advice to you:  Don't worry about it.  This guy is just trying to get inside your head, and you're letting him".

Needless to say, I was disappointed at this attitude.  I kept pressing him, "Regardless of what we might think his intentions are, he is uttering death threats, and it's my understanding that that is illegal."

He told me that for the the law to be able to act on a death threat, a death threat must have two things: Intention and agency. It's obvious that Markuze meant what he said (and has been saying for over 15 years), but the officer could not reasonably assume that it was a threat he could act on.  From his perspective, he sees an internet troll in Montreal, who would have to drive to Kitchener to cause me harm.

As a side note, uttering a death threat does not require the ability to carry out that threat, so the officer I spoke to was wrong (though I didn't know it at the time).  See here for the law covering death threats. In Canada, if you utter a death threat, that's a crime.  If you utter a death threat and you make a person feel unsafe, that's a worse crime.

The officer left, telling me that he would file the report, assuring me that, "If half the things you're saying were true, then the Montreal Police are aware of this guy, and they are keeping an eye on him."  He also told me that more people need to file reports, because it helps build an intelligence file on him.  I've been relaying that message on twitter and facebook ever since.

Well, fastforward a little over a month: A change.org petition, a twitter campaign, and some key media involvement later (again, read Tim Farley's post, it's excellent and well-detailed), the Montreal police finally got involved.

Yesterday, at around 6:00 pm, I received a call from a Montreal detective who told me what everyone on Twitter had already been talking about : Markuze had been apprehended, and is in custody.

In all likelihood, he will be released on bail, and with conditions that he not use a computer.  Markuze will probably not spend any time in prison, but that's okay: He's not a criminal, even if he has committed criminal acts.  It's obvious to anyone with an Armchair Degree in psychiatry that Markuze is not a well man: He is mentally unstable. 

If the judge orders him to get psychiatric evaluation, maybe he will finally get the help he needs.  He's been making these attacks for over 15 years, with a posting rate that can best be described as 'obsessive'. If he had been identified in 1995 (when he was asking for help in obtaining a bomb to blow up federal buildings), maybe he would have been getting the help he needed back then, and he might now have been a productive member of society.

The Mabus/Markuze story may not be over.  It's possible that when he's released, he will be released without conditions that he surrender his computer and stay off the internet.  It's entirely possible that in a month, we all may be seeing the same harassment letters we've been deleting non-stop. And yet, I question the wisdom of people demanding his immediate incarceration, and that the full hammer of the law be brought down upon him.

Now that Markuze is in custody, there is a real chance that a mentally ill person will get the help that he needs.  For the first time, I have honest, and real hope for Markuze. 





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My friend and fellow skeptic Joey left a thoughtful comment on my post yesterday, and as usual with Joey, I got to thinking.  I think her comment needs addressing, because her point is shared by many, and I think it's getting lost in the fighting.

Joey said,

"To be sure, women and visible minorities do receive an equal, and fair hearing in our lot. So why then, is there still such an imbalance of the genders and the colours?"

Can't speak to the race issue, but as far as women go, part of the imbalance may lie with the other part of this story: I personally am dissuaded by a woman blogger exercising her right to disagree with another skeptic, and being treated extremely unfairly for it. I don't even want to be involved in this "how to get women into skepticism" thing anymore because some of the hypocrisy there is just not something I want to deal with.

Joey, I really get what you're saying.  I think it pains me, and many others that it has gotten as vitriolic as it has. Today, I saw this conversation on facebook (though I'm not providing links that will identify the speakers):

Person A: Nothing can shake my admiration for Richard Dawkins.
Person B: That's a fairly sweeping statement, there. What if Dawkins turns out to be a closet child raper? Still won't shake your admiration?

I see problems with both statements, and they are reflective of the larger debate that is being played out.  As Person A helps remind us, Dawkins has an army of supporters who agree with him because they share his mindset, or because they will agree with whatever he says out of unshakable admiration (also known as "sycophancy").  Person B mentions child rape, as if we didn't need enough extremism in this discussion.
 
However, what I've learned over the past couple of days, is that this issue has gotten bigger than the two things that got people going in the first place:

Elevator Guy and Stef McGraw.

Those were both smaller issues that sussed out a much larger culture of misogyny in the atheist and skeptic communities.  The guy in the elevator sparked a discussion that ballooned up fast, and the issue of Stef McGraw is a side-distraction.  Yes, Stef's issue might imply a culture of hostility by Rebecca, or a culture of  entitlement when Stef speaking of her "ruined reputation," but that's not what this is about anymore.

Usually, whenever smaller events and discussions like these happen, there are a few comment threads here and there, it gets ugly, and in a week, people (for the moment) forget about it. This too, will pass.  But when our most visible leader and spokesperson talks with such insensitivity and hostility to a very important issue, it tells me that we need to distance ourselves from that culture of yesterday.


Sadly, this has become a fight.  Hopefully, no one relishes it, though I expect that many revel in the opportunity to insult, berate, and laugh at other members of our communities over feminism.  This is what misogynists do: they ridicule anyone who shows an interest in feminism because they think there is no problem, or they don't care.

I see other people on twitter and facebook exclaiming that "Because I agree with Dawkins, I'm a misogynist."

Perhaps you are, perhaps you aren't.  Perhaps you haven't given it much thought either way (This might help). Feminism is a very difficult concept to come to terms with, because, as I said yesterday, it challenges our most basic assumptions about how the genders interact.  It takes time, and very careful contemplation.  I'm not suggesting that if you disagree with Rebecca, Jen, Phil, Matt, Stephanie, Barbara, PZ, Greg, or myself, that you haven't thought of it enough.  I'm simply asking you to think about it a great deal more.

It took me years (including an undergraduate education in political studies) to understand feminism as I now do.  There was a time when I was hostile to feminism: lumping it in with the stereotype of bra-burning and man-hating.  There was a time when I was ambivalent towards it: thinking it a fine pursuit for others but not me.  There was a time when I was modestly curious about it: seeing how much of a body of thought it was, and thinking I could never hope to penetrate its dense tomes.  There was a time (now) when I saw the incredible value of it, and strove to learn as much as I could (while still leaving time for food and work).

For most people, the colloquial definitions of feminism are fine enough, because they're easy to grasp, and easy to approve, or reject. But real feminism, as we see Rebecca and others trying to discuss, is much more subtle.  As I said in yesterday's post, understand the historical and cultural context of a feminist question first, then question.  Dawkins (and his numerous supporters) asked the question without first understanding the context.


The worst, most intellectually dishonest thing anyone can do is to reject an entire discussion, as I see being done now, and in the recent past.

I see how an important discussion turning into a fight can be disheartening: it is. But we fight because we care too much, and this is simply too important to let slide.  Dawkins is not the only highly visible member of our community to act like this, and its time to make it known: Skeptics (and atheists) take women's issues very seriously.

I want to give Dawkins the benefit of the doubt here: he is a highly intelligent, eloquent, and educated academic, one who understands ethics better then most.  Will he take this moment to truly reflect on what he said, and what others have been saying, or will he soldier on like a smug, privileged British intellectual, completely removed from society?   Hopefully, time will tell.

As with alternative medicine harming people, psychics bilking people, and religions hindering education, we fight because we care.

And as for Joey, and the numerous other people that have been turned off because of this whole affair:  Please come back, and please don't hold what we're doing against us.  I understand why you're taking a break, and don't blame you: this has gotten nasty, exhausting, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  But it is going somewhere positive, I promise. I also hope you understand why we fight:  the consequences of not standing up for feminism at this moment are too severe.

When this blows over (and it will), we'll save your seat for you.




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I've not wanted to wade into this Rebecca Watson / Richard Dawkins / Steff McGraw / Jen McCreight / just about everyone kerfuffle, but things are getting about as heated as they can without a cage match. I generally dislike blogging on these meta-issues of skepticism, because I feel smug when I do it. And yet, I say these following words with humility, and I beg your indulgence. 

Full disclosure: I consider Rebecca a friend.  She and another Skepchick blogger Carrie once drove three hours, across to the Canadian side of the border to come to my house for what was effectively beer, pie, and coffee, so I'll put it out on front street: I may not be entirely unbiased here.  

See?  Bestest. Friends. Ever.

Also, I'll not link to many outside sources in this post, except when required for context, so as to not inflame the already raging fires more.

That being said, here are some simple lessons that I hope we have all learned:

1) Calling someone a "rape apologist" serves no one. Smarten up, and don't do that.

2) Just as when Randi publicly questioned climate science a little over a year ago, Richard Dawkins displayed some extraordinary insensitivity and ignorance to feminist issues.  When our heroes get stuff wrong, it reminds us not to practice the hero-worship and sycophancy that we all aspire to avoid.

3) Feminism needs to be discussed. Skepticism is too big, too important, to not discuss it. I see too often in comment threads and in some blogs (no, I'll not be naming names here, sorry) where people (usually white, straight, and male) talk of being tired of feminist issues being discussed, because it's not really a problem. The idea that because we're a science-based community, then equality and evidence is our M.O.  To be sure, women and visible minorities do receive an equal, and fair hearing in our lot.  So why then, is there still such an imbalance of the genders and the colours?  Well the answer is simple, but no less challenging: we have equality, but we don't have equity.  The outcome of our collective input still favours those with white skin, and penises.  Of if you like, Whitey McPenises.

4) If problem A is 10 serious, and problem B is 3 serious, it's still okay to oppose problem B.  One does not subtract problem B from A in order to assess how serious a situation is.  Feminism is not a zero sum game, where lots of oppression somewhere makes a little oppression seem like people should not complain.

5) Women have a different set of shared experiences then men do. I am normally loathe to speak of identity politics and post modernism with any sort of weight, but here it applies: It is wrong, ethically, morally, and culturally to assume that the male standard(s) of social interactions can be any sort of measuring stick against what is largely (but not uniquely) a female experience.  Men: stop it.

6) Atheists have often trumpeted (or parroted) the words of Dawkins with respect (or lack of respect) to religious persons, and too often have the religious been labeled as 'crybabies' when called out in the biting way that only Dawkins can deliver.  Maybe now we feminist atheists are getting a taste of the sting that the religious feel when Dawkins insults them, to cheers of applause from atheists.  Respect: It's time we all learned it, and not to define others by what they believe, but by how they act.


7) Don't let the extreme right wing, or any armchair political analyst fool you: "radical feminism" is not a body of thought in the feminist literature, at least not in the way you are being led to believe.  What they call "radical feminism", I call "white guy thinks vaginas are out to take his job away". Radical feminism is about abolishing patriarchy, not men.  During this whole affair, nowhere did true radical feminism come into play.

8) It's fine to "just ask the question" about why one simply cannot push the elevator button to escape, if your intentions are *truly* out of intellectual curiosity.  But it's also a huge leap of arrogance to assume that a) you already know the answer and more importantly, b) you can ask that question without a broader understanding of the cultural context of said question.  This is feminism 101: Understand the history and context, then see if your question still applies.  More often than not, feminist issues are not simple, and they have more baggage behind them then most are prepared to admit, or accept.

This is the challenge of feminism: to seriously challenge and question our own assumptions on how society operates with respect to genders.  We skeptics (and atheists) take pride (and boast) about phraseology like "critical thinking" and "challenging the status quo".  And yet here, our most most basic assumptions about human and gender interactions have been brutally challenged: do we have the courage to continue to ask questions about them, or do we dismiss the conversation wholesale, and make no effort to learn anything?

It's easy to denounce religious-motivated female genital mutilation; this is the extreme.  The hard part is seeing gender power imbalances in the mundane, everyday experience. Men: we don't experience life the way women do.  We just don't.


P.S.
Special shout-out to Stephanie Zvan who compiled a helpful list of links in a recent post, where you can read many links and get more context about what happened, what didn't happen, and why feminism is still an urgent, important issue.



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 Do me a favour, head over here and vote this up, if you're so inclined to accept my awesome funniness.




Just in case you thought this joke of mine was in poor taste: According to the source of the original photo, in this incident, no one was killed, or even injured.  I chose this image carefully.




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Today is a sick-day for me.  I woke up with a terrible pain in my throat, barely able to speak or swallow.  It's probably a cold that will pass in a few days, but when you're a teacher, it's best not to risk spreading viruses around to kids and other teachers.

I was going to use today to write a post about the upcoming federal election.  Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed a much higher tweet volume than usual.  But today is April 5, and this day means something significant for me, as well as many people born between 1975 and 1982.

17 years ago today, Kurt Cobain pointed a shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Kurt Cobain's suicide note.  I still haven't read this yet...not sure I can.

I won't talk a great deal about Kurt's suicide, his drug addiction, or his depression.  Not today.  I'd instead like to talk about the legacy of music, culture, and art that Kurt Cobain left.  I know this has been done countless times by writers far more eloquent than I, but I've never put my own words on Kurt down before.  This article is for me as much as it is for you.


As a teenager in the 90's, Nirvana was the giant in our music and our culture.  There were many bands that were going strong at the same time the people identified with: Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Soul Asylum, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots....all great bands that stood strong on their own merits.  But there was somehow, something different about Nirvana.
_____

It might have been the awful singing.  It seemed that Kurt was determined to avoid every lesson a vocal teacher would have told him: "Don't use your head voice!  The power comes from the diaphragm below your lungs, not from your throat!".  Kurt would then use this head voice to whine out lyrics so incoherently, that it was a widespread joke.  Some speculated at the time that there were no lyrics, and this was intentionally part of the grunge "Fuck You."  Weird Al Yankovic parodied this aspect of Cobain's singing style in 'Smells Like Nirvana.'  (Indeed, Yankovic's parody of Cobain was so popular it helped revitalize his career, reminding the world that he doesn't just parody Michael Jackson songs).  Kurt was a terrible singer, but like a lot of things, we didn't care about that.
_____

It might have been something in the way of Kurt's apathetic demeanor.  The 90's counter-culture scene was one that dripped of apathy, nauseatingly so (captured wonderfully by the Simpsons).  This might be selection bias or confirmation bias on my part, but there seemed to be something genuine about Kurt's apathy.  He seemed to carry himself as a man who had entirely given up, and was simply going through the motions of living.  We learned later that this was indeed the case, as Kurt had long suffered from chronic depression.

Cynics today (and some at the time) admonished Kurt for being a self-centered crybaby while being the biggest rock god on the planet.  Sadly, depression is not a condition that is influenced by how others see the individual.  Kurt felt alone, worthless, and that there was no escape.  This is not to downplay the role that Kurt's well-documented heroin addiction had in exacerbating his depression, but to illustrate that no matter how much genius gets recognized and rewarded at the time, depression still can take down our very best.

The tragedy of the 90's counter culture was that we all celebrated the sense of hopelessness and apathy that, when it was genuine, helped contribute to Kurt's suicide.
_____

It might have been the songs themselves.  At the time that Nirvana made it big (along with the wave of Seattle grunge that followed immediately after), rock was dominated by the second wave of over-produced hair bands that were desperately trying to mimic the guitar gods of yesteryear, and this is to say nothing about the music that actually seemed to be intentionally hollow (DJ "Jazzy" Jeff and the Fresh Prince, M.C. Hammer and Deee-Lite all come to mind).When Nirvana and Grunge came along, they threw out the whole playbook.  They were poor musicians, poor singers, and the didn't give a shit.  In this respect, they were a lot like the punk movement 10 years prior.  But unlike the punk movement, the grunge musicians still wanted to make music for the sake of making music and expression (as opposed to making music for the sake of saying "fuck you"...a noble goal nonetheless, but not one I identify with).

The songs of Kurt ranged from the mellow and desperately expressive:



To the incredibly defiant and energetic:


The style of Lithium was to later be one of the defining characteristics of many 90's rock and grunge tunes: soft, quivering verses, punctuated by heavily distorted and screaming chorus. 

It was partially in pursuit of this style of polarized music that drove Kurt to design the Fender "Jag-Stang:" a hybrid of Fender's Jaguar (traditionally used as a jazz guitar) and Mustang (a whammy-bar reliant guitar popularized by 60's Surfer music) models.
_____

It might have been his suicide. If a rocker reaches the level that Kurt did, and they died before their time, they always seem to have a mythic sort of quality to them: Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison...these rockers have a fan base whose dedication goes beyond simple fandom. It's a kind of quasi-religious like reverence. 

I remember the day Kurt's death was announced.  I was in the 9th grade at the time, and in my first period music class. My friends and I (all budding musicians) shared the news with each other, and we all reacted like it was the death not of a a good friend but of a kind of leader. As a teenager in the 90's, it was hard to not feel the sense of hopelessness and apathy of a world that was going to do whatever it wanted to, and to hell with the young people (contrast this today with the culture of entitlement that teenagers and the youth have). Whether this apathy was misplaced or not, we all felt it (and teenagers have a way of confusing feeling with reality).  Kurt was the one guy who seemed to be most affected by our collective hopeless culture, and he spoke both to, and for us all.  And he was gone.

Our parents were baby boomers, and we were too young to be Gen X'ers.  No one gave two shits about us but ourselves. we were a forgotten generation that just lost its only ambassador.  We were told our whole lives that we missed the greatest parties ever, and nothing will ever be as great as the Beatles ever again. 

Kurt Cobain was our John Lennon.

Our odd form of 90's counter culture kept going a little longer after Kurt's death, but pretty much gave up once the Spice Girls came around.  Love it, hate it, mock it, or be indifferent to it: this sense of hopelessness and apathy was the identity we all shared, and it was ripped away because of heroin, depression, and a shotgun.

Just as there will never be another Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon or Bob Marley, there will never be another Kurt Cobain.

Bye.

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Last night, I attended a local performance of a new play, The Abortion Monologues.  The idea behind this play is fantastic: encourage women to talk about a very uncomfortable topic with the hope that with communication comes understanding.  In the spirit of The Vagina Monologues, it is all about getting the stories out there.  No judgment, no condemnation, no endorsement: just communication. Ostensibly, women who have had abortion experiences will feel a little safer and less like social outcasts if they understand that they're not alone, not by a long shot.

The play was well written (personally, I've never been a fan of the monologue style of theatre, so it was a bit of an adjustment for me), and well performed.  It detailed the stories of 23 women who've had abortions in varying circumstances.  Most of the stories were largely centered around the commonplace abortion story, with little discussion of the extreme cases (rape, incest) prompting abortive instances. I learned later that this was intentional by the author, who insisted that it shouldn't take extreme cases to allow for regular discourse in public*.  I heartily agree. 

There is a certain sense of apologetics and accommodation that gets involved whenever we try to encourage a dialogue using the fringe examples.  Why must we have to bring up the cases of when a drunk uncle rapes a teenager to discuss something that happens every day? This brings up some interesting issues when dealing with civil rights concerns.

After the curtain call, the director invited the audience to participate in an open discussion.  Most of the questions and comments shared were by women, voicing their approval with how the play was written and performed.  Some commenters discussed the stigma that abortion incurs, and others on the state of abortion access in Canada (in short, abortion has been legal in Canada since 1988, but women still have to jump through hoops to get them).  All in all, a constructive discussion.

Until...

One woman commented on how great it was that so many men were in attendance (I'd put it at about 33% men), and many women in the audience roared with applause and approval.  The director (but it might have been a cast member...hard to see from my vantage point) agreed and said something to the effect that it's great to see so many men, and that the men in this audience are an example to the rest of men.

Now, don't get me wrong, this was a well-meaning comment, and put forth with nothing but the best intentions and in the spirit of fellowship.  I understand and appreciate that. 

But...

This attitude is part of the problem.  As one of the men in attendance, I didn't really feel like I belonged there.  It felt like a girl's club (yes, I know the irony there, so don't bother pointing it out), and the men were simply welcome to come along.  There is a fundamental difference between being 'welcome' and 'belonging'.

By making this gesture to the men in the audience, the well-meaning, thoughtful women who applauded painted every man there as an 'other'.  This is unfortunate, because abortion is not just a women's issue.  Don't get me wrong, there is nothing more obnoxious than some guy standing up saying "WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ!?"  This is not what I am doing here. 

Abortion is not just a woman's issue.  It is also a men's issue.  It is also a children's issue, a cultural issue and a class issue.  By artificially making abortion a women's issue, it alienates many people who are also affected by abortion, even those of us who are supportive and pro-choice.  I felt welcome in that hall, but I did not feel as though this was an issue that had anything to do with me.

This is one of the logos I was able to find of the play, but not the one for the performance I attended in Kitchener, ON.  This logo, while certainly not exclusive, is definitely not inclusive either.

This might have been alleviated had there been one character in the play who was a man that had an abortion story.  If the writer wanted to show how commonplace and everyday this experience was, perhaps just one narrative from a male perspective would be beneficial.  After all, abortion is an issue that affects more than just one half of the population, but you'd hardly know it. Men may not be part of the discussion, but they are part of the equation. There may be something to be gained by some feminist women / groups seeking ownership of abortion issues for women, but it effectively leaves half the affected people out of the discussion.

Obviously, this is not intentional nor mean-spirited.  My point in writing this post is that maybe more men would feel sympathetic and be supportive on this issue if they felt a sense of belonging and ownership.  Abortion is a men's issue too, and I'd like to see more understanding of this by the well meaning pro-choice community.


* Ostensibly, it is to this point that explains the absence of any narratives involving LGBTQ experiences of abortion.  A conspicuous absence, I thought, for a progressive play that opened in 2009.




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Every year, March 17th rolls around, and people invariably ask me one version of the question, "Steve, you're pretty obnoxious with the way you wear your Irish heritage on your sleeve.  You must LOVE St. Patrick's Day and you you probably love to drink green beer and get drunk!"

These people are "Irish for a day".  Lovely.

Or by playing with these Italian  plumbers who stomp on "Goombas"

While this barely qualifies, I'm still counting this under my Infographics for Skeptics.  My blog, my bendable rules.

Of course, you could always go directly to the source and vote it up.



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Despite line at the bottom of the image, I did make this.  You can vote for it at the main page, and check back here for more Infographics for Skeptics.




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There is a very sad story going on that involves a terminally ill one-year-old boy in a persistent vegetative state, whom doctors give no hope of recovery.  Worse still, little Joseph Maraachli's condition is deteriorating, and both the doctors and the family know that he will die.  At the time of this writing, he may have already died. There is no silver lining to this story.  It is altogether tragic, though that word seems barely able to fit.

The doctors were unable to obtain consent to remove Joseph's breathing tube (which was keeping his airway clear of mucus), so they are seeking consent from the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPGT)  Joseph's parents want to bring their son home to die in comfort, surrounded by loved ones, and not in a hospital.  But in order to safely bring Joseph home, he needs a tracheotomy performed.  As if this story couldn't be any sadder, Joseph's parents, Moe and Nadar Maraachli went through this before, eight years ago, as their daughter had the same condition Joseph has.  Then, the tracheotomy was performed, allowing their daughter to spend her last moments of life at home.

But doctors have concluded that a tracheotomy is too risky for Joseph, and would surely cause great discomfort, pain and infection, leading to a very painful, extended death.

• If the doctors leave the breathing tube in, Joseph will deteriorate and slowly die as parts of his brain die off piece by piece.
• If the doctors remove the breathing tube, the fluids in his body will fill into his lungs, and he will choke and die.
• If the doctors perform the tracheotomy, Joseph will experience a great deal of pain, get an infection, and die painfully.

Like I said, this is a terrible, tragic story, and there is no silver lining.  Joseph will die, and there seems to be no way that this story could get any worse.  One would have to be a heartless cynic to use this story to further their own ideological goals.  What kind of despicable human would exploit the desperation of the parents of a dying child? And yet....

Oh no.  Not this again.

As if on cue, the Fox News propaganda machine jumped in and attempted to re-frame the story as another reason to fear 'Obamacare.'

They've used a Canadian story before in order to scare Americans from public health care.  In the Summer of 2009, there was a story of Shona Holmes, who was suffering from a brain cyst.  She was put on the waiting list to have the cyst removed, but was unable (or unwilling) to wait for the procedure. The type of brain cyst that Holmes had was definitely bad (causing temporary partial blindness and discomfort), but would have caused no permanent injury, and was not fatal.  Fox News declared that it was not a cyst, but a brain tumor, and told American audiences that our heartless Canadian socialized medicine was willing to let the brain tumor go unoperated because it's too expensive.  A lie that Holmes was only too happy to perpetuate.

Unlike the Holmes story, this story can have no happy ending.  There is no operation waiting, at great expense, for him at the Mayo Clinic. Still, the Fox News pundit, Megyn Kelly (shown here, talking about the "news") brought Joseph's father onto her show to get his story, and afterwards had a discussion about how the Canadian Courts intervened because of a 'cost issue.'
 

Obviously, the father's story seems heart-wrenchingly desperate.  All things considered, he is being remarkably brave and thick skinned as he is trying everything and anything he can to act in what he believes is in the best interests in his son and family.

However, in the segment after Joseph's father, Kelly spoke to two others, and it didn't take long for the discussion to go where Kelly was leading:

MEGYN KELLY: Dr. London, do you think that there is something going on here in terms of Canadian health care system, which pays -- you know, they pay for all of the medical care. Do you feel like that's playing any role here?

DR. KATHLEEN LONDON: I can't believe that it would, because again, a tracheostomy is such a simple procedure, and the parents are saying they are going to care for this child at home. So I'm not really sure how this could be a cost issue or anything else. And I'm actually quite confused and wondering what details are we missing, and is there something else?

KELLY: What do you make of it, Wendy?

WENDY MURPHY: Well, look, I think it absolutely is a cost issue because putting in the tracheotomy will allow the child to live longer which costs the hospital that daily cost care. Please --

LONDON: No. They're taking him home.

KELLY: But he could come back.

MURPHY: No, but I understand. But they also then have oversight responsibilities. Whether the child were -- have a tracheotomy and stayed in the hospital or go home, they still have oversight responsibilities, which costs money every single day that that child is alive.

This is what I'm worried about with Obamacare. You know, it's not quite likely to be that bad. We don't really have death panels as people have come to understand that term. But we are going to have government agencies and panels making decisions based on cost, and that's a lot closer to the Canadian model than we've ever seen in this country. So we should be worried. It won't get this bad, but it will come close. [Fox News, America Live, 2/22/11]

This is hardly an earth shattering revelation, but it's clear that the facts don't matter to Kelly and Fox News.  The story has nothing to do with the costs incurred by our health care system, but is about the rights of the parents, the rights of an infant in a persistent vegetative state, and the knowledge and expertise of the doctors involved.  This is a discussion worth having.

The Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (which I'm assuming is the "Death Panel" Kelly and company is referring to) is a public protection safeguard designed to intervene when the best interests of a person are not protected.  It doesn't just intervene (on request) with cases that involves patients in a persistent vegetative state, but also in matters of estates, guardianship issues, and in making substitute health care decisions (such as intervening when a person gets in a car accident, and no known next of kin is able to be reached).  The OPGT exists for one sole purpose: to protect Canadians who aren't being protected for one reason or another.

This sad case of little Joseph may fall under their scope, and they may intervene.  Whatever their decision, it's not about the costs.  If they decide that the doctors should not remove the breathing tube, or perform the tracheotomy, they will be doing so out of protection of Joseph, not in consideration of the costs.  The OPGT is an office of the Attorney General, which makes is part of the Judical branch of government.  The scope of the judicial branch cannot, by constitutional convention, encompass decisions of financial costs of the health care system, which falls under the legislative and executive branches (Canada has a fusion of powers, not a separation of powers like the US does) of the Federal and Provincial governments. That's why the judicial system exists:  It protects the laws and rights of Canadians no matter what the elected bodies decide...it is outside the scope of popular opinion, because it has to be.

If any organization were to intervene due to costs (which isn't happening), it would be the one of these branches of government, NOT the court system.  Of course, if the legislative branch were to make a decision based on the costs, the OPGT would block the decision, because when it comes to individuals constitutional rights, rights trump costs. Any discussion of "death panels" or the supposed overburdened costs of Joseph's care crowds out the serious ethical and legal discussion that needs to be made.

Make no mistake, this issue is not about our socialized medicine, or the idiotic scare-mongering of death panels.  This is a case of the rights of the family to chose the manner of death for an infant in a persistent vegetative state.  I'm not weighing in on whose voice should take precedence: the family's or the doctors'. I'm not an involved party, and I think it irresponsible for anyone to question or condemn the parents or the doctors involved.  I have as much sympathy as I am able towards all involved party, and I hope that something, anything that is not terrible comes of this, but I'm not too hopeful. This story is bad all over.

This story is gut-wrenchingly sad enough as it is, and it doesn't need cynical politicking and scaremongering from Fox News to scare people away from socialized medicine.


__________
Sources:
Media Matters
The National Post
The Calgary Herald
CTV News





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