Drink this...

Abandoning the medical history of this...

Yesterday, I went to a location shoot at an old hospital in downtown Los Angeles.

The hospital had clearly been condemned at some point. The doors were locked down, windows were shattered or boarded up. Great location when all you need is the interior of a morgue.

The inside was reminiscent of the abandoned insane asylum in the movie "Session 9," and if you've seen that, you already have a feeling for creepy atmosphere. I was there during daylight though, so the creep factor was a little lower.

So, while hanging around in the guts of this dilapidated morgue, I stumbled upon something that's got me feeling queasy even a day later.

It wasn't the prosthetic bodies lined up on the morgue shelves playing dead bodies. It wasn't even the bloodied, burned prosthetic body parts the artists bring to life (or death) with makeup. And it wasn't the wall of freezers or anything else that might typically creep someone out in a morgue--even an out of order morgue.

It wasn't the little girl laughing or the doctor who are rumored to haunt the hospital ... unfortunately, I didn't get to meet them. It wasn't even the "isolation room" which had drawings of embryos, religious symbols and poetry on every available inch of the wall.

No. What I saw, which is still haunting me this morning, was something much more benign than any of that.

What I saw were medical records.

Not props.

REAL, abandoned medical records of REAL people. Piled high on shelves in a random room in this abandoned hospital--dating back to the 30s--easily accessible by anyone with clearance to be on the property.

Why should I care? Why should I be so affected? These weren't my medical records ... and yet ... I feel so violated by this injustice.

Because these individuals are dead, assuming they are since their records were in the morgue, does that mean their privacy is no longer something to protect?

What if these people aren't even dead? What if these records hold the key to someone's recovery ... or what if they could answer questions in a homicide investigation?

Just whose property are these records anyway? Who is responsible for abandoning them?

More importantly, what am I going to do about this...? I can't let it go!

Sacrilegiously fueling the division of this...

At long last the voice of reason about Don Imus and the reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It's random guy I've never heard of, but it's nice to know I'm not completely alone. Meet Jason Whitlock, Kansas City Star columnist, who isn't afraid to state the obvious:

"Don Imus is irrelevant."

Money Quotes

"We keep deluding ourselves and getting caught up in distractions that have nothing at all to do with what is setting back, holding black people back and it's our own self-hatred. Don Imus is irrelevant to what is going on with black people. Don Imus is no threat to us. Don Imus will not shoot one of us in the street. He will not impregnate our daughter or our sister and abandon that kid and that woman."

"Two ministers, who have needed forgiveness in their own life, don't have the moral integrity to give this man the forgiveness he has asked for in a sincere fashion."

"They go around the country starting fires, dividing people and then start picking everyone's pocket. You never see them go back and apologize for the messes they make ... They're terrorists."

WTF is wrong with Tucker Carlson that he has to ask if Sharpton and Jackson are connected to this story?

Bill won't allow hospitals to send patients home to this...

I suppose I should applaud "One Bill Gil" for attempting to put together a piece of legislation besides one that gives driver's license to illegal immigrants.

But why has he deemed hospitals responsible for homeless people? And how is this...

legislation that would bar hospital staffers from transporting a patient to a location other than the person's residence, unless they have the patient's informed consent

going to prevent "dumping" of patients on skid row--if that is their residence?

The religion of peace police lash out at this...

Partying, dancing, alcohol. Oh my!  In Islam, that just doesn't fly!

FoxNews.com - A Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting them of attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women danced, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The defendants were among 433 foreigners, including some 240 women, arrested by the kingdom's religious police for attending the party in Jiddah, the state-guided newspaper Okaz said. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place.

Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to prison terms of three to four months and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes, the newspaper said. They have the right to appeal, it added.

The prosecutor general charged the 20 with "drinking, arranging for impudent party, mixed dancing and shooting a video for the party," Okaz said.

The paper said the rest of those arrested were awaiting trial.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which it bans alcohol and meetings between unrelated men and women.

The religious police, a force resented by many Saudis for interfering in personal lives, enjoys wide powers. Its officers roam malls, markets, universities and other public places looking for such infractions as unrelated men and women mingling, men skipping Islam's five daily prayers and women with strands of hair showing from under their veil.

In May, the Interior Ministry restricted the powers of the religious police to just arresting suspects, because the police sometimes had held people incommunicado and insisted on taking part in ensuing investigations.

Islam: No tolerance allowed in this...

"We were so deluded with our multiculturalism that we did not realize the risk of losing the very culture we prided ourselves on having.  We did not realize that the intolerant Islamic side of our culture was gaining strength on the back of our West openness and pride in diversity.  With our open-border policy, we unwittingly allowed what would turn out to be our enemy to infiltrate our society to plot and fight with radicals within to gain control of our government."¹

A quote from Lebanon past or U.S future?

Hmmmph.  Remember when Lebanon used to be a safe place for Arabs to practice the religion of their choice? That was before there were so many Muslims there.  And look at 'em now.

This is what the U.S. has to look forward to. And unsuspecting, tolerant Americans are paving the way.

Not gonna happen here? Yeah, ok. And the holocaust didn't happen either. Right?

---

1 - "Because They Hate," by Brigitte Gabriel, pg. 14

Hailing the genetic discovery of this...

Genetic breakthrough reveals the differences between humans

Once again reminding us of the fallibility of science.

I'm telling ya, one day a scientist is gonna split open an atom and find evidence of God inside.

Whose audience is paying more attention to this...?

Iranian President Mahoud Ahmadinejad: "The western powers created the Zionist regime in order to expand their control of the area. This regime massacres Palestinians everyday, but since this regime is against nature, we will soon witness its disappearance and destruction."

Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris: "Israel is a cancer spreading through the body of the Islamic nation... the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS from which the entire world suffers."

Jay-Z and Russell Simmons: "What's hot? Respect for people. What's not hot? Hating people for their color or religion."

Unhijabing this...

AP - Earlier this year on an Arabic Web site, a Muslim woman scholar posted an open letter to the Islamic world. "Take off the veil, sister," began Elham Manea, a professor of Yemeni descent who now works in Switzerland.

Her opinion was not new - that head scarves and other coverings for women are not mandated by the Quran or Islamic tradition. But the essay's impassioned tone quickly grabbed attention.

MORE

She deserved this...

Western Muslim leader: Rape is "90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.”

More on the uncivilization of Islam at FrontPage.com.

Philosophical fatwa against this...

“You will never feel secure on this earth. One billion, three hundred thousand Muslims are ready to kill you.”

The Philosopher and the Fatwa