ChezLark

I went for my 6-week follow-up visit at Harborview today, and learned many interesting things. For one, I got all my medical imagery on CD-ROM. Some of it is quite disturbing. Consider this X-Ray of my femur on the day of the accident:

This is the most dramatic image of the fracture; the other pre-operation X-Rays show the bone better aligned. The fact that the bone splintered somewhat makes this fracture “slightly comminuted“. Apparently this is not a very significant amount of splintering, though — the break is fairly clean.

They took a new course of X-Rays this morning that show the intramedullary nail and the fracture starting to heal:

The doctor I talked to today said that it’s quite invasive to go in after the bone fragments, so they prefer to just let them be. The cloudiness around the fracture site is a callousy material starting to form, which is the first healing stage. It will take around a year for the bone to fully regenerate around the fracture.

However, I don’t have to wait that long to get use of my leg back. I started bearing partial weight on my broken leg today, increasing to 100% over the next month. By 4-6 weeks from now, I should be walking unassisted!

Even better, the doctor said that by the 6-month mark, I should have regained full power and motion in the broken leg, and can participate in sports. That means that if I heal on schedule I don’t have to miss the snowboarding season! Between 6 and 12 months the bone keeps reinforcing itself and becomes increasingly strong.

This all made me quite happy, despite the disturbing splinteriness of my fracture.

American troops and even contractors in Iraq are already immune from prosecution under Iraqi law. But as one of the US occupational authority’s last acts before ostensibly handing over power to an Iraqi entity, the immunity is expected to be extended another six or seven months.

At least the US is dropping its attempt to have all its troops worldwide be immunized from prosecution for war crimes by the International Criminal Court!

Two steps forward, one step back?

Slate offers a near-complete evisceration of Michael Moore’s new film, Fahrenheit 9/11.

Samples:

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.

Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything.

I kept bumping into claims by scary right-wing religious groups that in Canada, it is illegal to publicly criticize homosexuality. Take for example the claims from this libertarian-looking site:

In 1971, Canada passed Human Rights Act, making it illegal to publicly incite hatred or contempt against an identifiable group, defined by race, religion, gender, or ethnic origin. At present, it is a hate crime in Canada to publicly criticize homosexuals.
[...]
In fact, in many European countries and Canada, truth is no longer accepted in court as a defense for those charged with hate crimes. The only issue is whether the feelings of another have been hurt. If so, and bias was the motivation, a “hate crime” has occurred.

The Hate Propaganda section of the federal Canadian Criminal Code, (sections 318-320), reads in part as follows after the recent introduction of bill C-250:

[...]
(4) In this section, “identifiable group” means any section of the public
distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual
orientation.
[...]
319. (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public
place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement
is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty[...]
[...]
(2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private
conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is
guilty[...]
[...]
(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2)
(a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true;
(b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by
argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a
belief in a religious text;
(c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the
discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable
grounds he believed them to be true; or
(d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal,
matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an
identifiable group in Canada.

What do you think? Draconian restriction on free speech, or justifiable prohibition of behavior designed to incite hatred and/or violence?

Took the bus to work today, on crutches. Wandered around the office on crutches. Got lunch on crutches. Life is now conducted on crutches. This is an improvement over a wheelchair; I am more nimble on crutches and can get into more places. I’m down to using the wheelchair only when I’m not sure I’ll be able to sit down, or if I have to go a considerable distance.

Some professor writes in defense of the administration’s claims that the Geneva convention does not apply to Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters.

Counterpoint is provided by some hyperventilating leftist called Michael Froomkin. Although his critique is a little breathless, it provides good counter-arguments.

On point in particular:

Point: The Geneva Conventions do not apply to “illegal combatants” because “It applies only to conflicts between its signatory nations. Al Qaeda is not a nation; it has not signed the convention” [...] “Although the convention applies to the Afghanistan conflict, the Taliban militia lost its right to prisoner-of-war status because it did not wear uniforms, did not operate under responsible commanders and systematically violated the laws of war.

Counterpoint: “Al Qaeda is not a country. It cannot sign the Geneva conventions. But its fighters often are citizens of signatory countries, or are fighting on behalf of signatory countries.” [...] “To the extent that particular fighters violated their rights to POW status by, for example, not wearing uniforms, our obligation under those same conventions is to treat them as POWs until we give them a hearing.”

One point worth emphasizing here is that the Geneva Conventions require that persons whose status as a POW is unclear be given a hearing to determine their status. Persons found not to be POWs nonetheless have a variety of rights as run-of-the-mill civilian detainees

Rumsfeld today admitted that he ordered the secret detention of an Iraqi suspected of belonging to a terrorist organization. The detention was secret because the DoD did not register the detainee with the Red Cross. Failing to issue all wartime detainees an identification number and failure to register them with the Red Cross are violations of the Geneva Conventions.

For better or for worse, the Geneva Conventions offer a lot of protections. For example, the Third Geneva Convention, which relates to prisoners of war, provides that prisoners of war must be permitted to write to their families, and that the families of detainees must be notified immediately of detainees’ capture and of their state of health.

There’s also the minor fact that the US is a signatory to the Conventions (1882)

Designs on the White House had a competition to come up with the best political T-Shirts, and posted their finalists recently. Some of them are terrific. My favorite T-shirt features a bunch of Bushisms.

This whole DoD torture-memo thing is really getting to me. The main annoyances:

• Ashcroft had the arrogance to simply refuse to turn over three DoD torture memos to the 9/11 Congressional committee, even though they had already been leaked to the press. He cited no controlling legal principle, nor did he invoke executive privilege. From the linked story:
  

  “I am refusing to disclose these memos because I believe it is essential to the operation of the executive branch that the president have the opportunity to get information from his attorney general that is confidential,” Ashcroft said.

  Durbin challenged Ashcroft, saying: “Sir, attorney general, with all due respect, your personal belief is not a law, and you are not citing a law and you are not claiming executive privilege. And, frankly, that is what contempt of Congress is all about. You have to give us a specific legal authority which gives you the right to say no or the president has to claim privilege. And you’ve done neither.”

  You might wonder why Ashcroft wasn’t immediately charged with Contempt of Congress. One factor that would impede this would be the fact that the U.S. Attorney must drive the prosecution. Argh.

• Bloggers and discussion sites, as well as mainstream news outlets are wondering whether Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement was lying to the Supreme Court when he told them that the current Executive does not use even “mild torture” on detainees. Subsequently, the Abu Ghraib abuses became public. Maybe Mr Clement was simply out of the loop.
• Eric Muller, a law professor at UNC, has an interesting blog called “IsThatLegal?”. In a 6/6 entry, Mr. Muller muses:
  

  Do the authors of this memorandum not realize that if we get to spin criminal law theories from whole cloth, others do too? Maybe there’s a memorandum in the al Qaeda files somewhere that lays out a case for an attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, on the theory that the United States is an “aggressor” and an attack on the United States is therefore “necessary” to repel our aggression. Or that American policy in the Middle East is a greater harm that the lesser harm of an attack on the United States would avert.

  Crazy, you say? Sure. But if we get to manipulate legal doctrine, so does everybody.

  As already linked from his blog, there are a number of public Al Qaeda documents purporting to justify their attacks one way or another. Possibly one of the most disturbing, though, is a section from Bin Laden’s Letter To America. In that letter, he justifies attacks on civilians in a novel way:

  (3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:

  (a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.

  (b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.

  [... More reasons ...]

  So there you have it. The US figures it has the right to torture its enemies, and its enemies figure they have the right to attack US civilians. Isn’t international law great?

One would hope that it would give the Administration pause that they are engaging in the same kind of legal sophistry as their enemy.

Getting pretty powerful with the crutches!

Today I went to an appointment on my own by hobbling two city blocks to the bus stop, and riding the bus to where I was going. It was very liberating.

My doctor did some blood work to see how my blood levels were recovering from the accident; his conclusion is that my blood has fully recovered, so I’m off iron supplements.

Every day, a little better…

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Laura and I moved back home yesterday. Last night was my first night back in our own bed since the accident — it’s been almost 4 weeks.

Returning home was a little eerie, due to a number of things. For one, there are artifacts of the accident stored around the house: in our garage, we have the helmet I was wearing when I got hit: it sports a few significant gouges and a whole bunch of lesser abrasions, scrapes, and dings. The visor is scratched and broken off. Even Laura’s helmet, which was in the scooter’s storage area under the driver’s seat, was thrown out of the scooter and bashed up as it rolled around.

We also have my clothes from the accident, in a big plastic hospital bag. My jeans and fleece have neat slices down the front, and now look like some kind of human-shaped blanket, or clothing for a really fat two-dimensional person. My fleece is scratched and ripped in a number of places, and my shoes have scary-looking scrapes and gouges all over them, I have no idea from what.

All in all, the clothes and gear I was wearing that day speak of the violence of what happened; nobody’s clothes should end up looking like these do: scraped, torn, cut, smashed, broken. It’s terrible to think I was inside them 4 weeks ago.

Another disturbing set of things are all the little ways in which the house is the way Laura and I left it almost a month ago when we set out to go to the Experience Music Project with my brother. Of course, I didn’t make it back from that trip.

I found the hiking maps I had printed out before I left work on Friday May 14th, the day before the accident, thinking that my brother may like to go camping with us. I found mail that had arrived that day and that I had put aside to look at when we got home. I found notes on bits of paper about matters now long since resolved, or cancelled, or rescheduled.

But layered on top of all these reminders was the strange experience of returning to my house profoundly different. Laura has to “spot” me, for the moment, when I go up and down stairs, to make sure I don’t fall. We’ve creatively replaced the shower doors in our bathroom with a curtain so the tub is easier to get into. I still haven’t been to the loft office because it’s an extra flight of stairs and each trip up or down costs a lot of energy. The cats are afraid of my crutches. I worry about slipping on our area rugs, which we don’t have pads for. I can’t do basic chores like vacuum (continually necessary in our house) or tidy up.

It’s a strange thing to suddenly be a visitor in your own home; I’m suddenly not sure how, or am just unable, to perform many basic tasks.

This is not to say that I’m not glad to be home. For one thing, I’m glad we were able to give Buck and Chesty their life back — we will always be grateful to them for being so tremendously welcoming to us when we needed help the most.

Also, since our house is multi-level, with smaller rooms, I’ve been getting around exclusively on crutches, which is a good step forward from using the wheelchair. I’ve gotten mobile enough to switch chairs, lie on the couch and watch TV, and generally pretend I don’t have a snapped thighbone. My main problem these days revolves around Timmy the cat’s incorrigible tendency to jump on my broken leg. I have to be continually vigilent and exploit his fear of my crutches to keep his little misguided affections from causing me pain.

It is comforting to see the cats again; they are their usual mischievous, sneaky, maddening, affectionate selves. Maybe even a little more so, since they seem terribly lonely.

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

Just in case nobody noticed, I have been updating the narrative of the crash and hospital stay, below.

I went home for the first time since the accident today. It’s been almost exactly three weeks.

The occupational and physical therapists came by to help me practice getting up and down the three trillion stairs in our place, and getting into the tub in the main bathroom. Things went quite well — the stairs are fairly straightforward but tiring to navigate. We got the glass doors off our shower, which makes it a lot easier to get into the tub. All in all, it looks like I should be able to go home very soon now.

The cats seemed much the same — Timmy the Madcat is as fat and furry and ever, and Seattle Blue is still sleek and poised. And of course, they had carefully deposited a thin layer of cat fur over everything in the house.

After climbing up to our bedroom and back down and out to the car, I was pretty wiped out. I got back to Buck and Chesty’s place and slept for a couple hours.

Do you ever get spam that has randomly-generated, pseudo-readable text, presumably to defeat spam filters? I love getting these messages, because sometimes the text inadvertently forms interesting poetry. Here’s one I got yesterday:

Lesson ready: oh ground — settled size necessary, ashamed, warm, brought cant anxious, believed dropping dining doctor. Send your secretary knowing! Everybody following: who chair fall delight describe? Right new drop, progress completely appreciate ninety miles — surely observed! Suppose Earth enemy, by calendar ladies when criticize beauty? Monday fit father confidence certain. Enemy beside addition copy choose rain beautiful.

I think we should definitely all choose rain beautiful whenever possible.

Swelling pretty much gone. First follow-up visit with the orthopedic team at Harborview today. Got stiches out. Left knee looks solid; took off knee brace. No weight-bearing on the broken leg for at least 8 weeks post-op, which means at least another month and a half with the wheelchair / walker / crutches. Blah.

The doctor at Harborview showed us some X-Rays from after the operation (I guess they must have taken them while I was still under anaesthetic) that showed the hardware in my femur; it was pretty cool. There does indeed appear to be a rod down the center of the femur, held in place with two cross-bolts near the top of the bone. The whole thing looked pretty imposing. Apparently we can get a CD of the various scans they did on me while I was in the hospital; we plan to do that after my next follow-up visit (4 weeks out) when they take some more X-Rays of the femur.

Physical Therapy delivered some loaner crutches to practice with; I even made it up and down some stairs! With some practice, I should be able to go home (Land of Stairs) before too long, and Chesty and Buck can have their life back.

It feels good to have the bandages and braces off my legs; they feel a little more normal. On the other hand, the left leg looks strange and shrunken from having the brace on it for a week; it seems far too frail to carry my whole weight.

We went by the house today to pick up the mail, but of course I didn’t attempt to make it inside. Laura brought the Timmy cat outside to say hello; he was definitely not amused, and made strange mewing noises the whole time. He seemed healty and furry, though, and certainly didn’t look like he had been missing any meals while I’ve been away.

The sheer magnitude of the recovery period is starting to sink in: I won’t be able to put any weight on my broken leg at all until sometime in late July, and then I need to gradually recover use of it, which, I am told, will take at least several months. Sigh