JAB, about whom the Mandarin, Dr. J., and ourselves were just speaking, has this carved into some poor slob’s entrails and sent up to the seventh floor:

Your Czarness:

For ‘Puter’s reference, here is someone else who is decidedly not a nurse.

It is a gloomy day here at the Trailer-Park-at-the-Edge-of-Town and I feel that I am not my usual “ray of sunshine” self. So be a benevolent Czar and pardon me for having the gall to suggest an alternative and/or supplementary explanation as to why this “not-a-nurse” story is such a big [please insert Joe Biden quote here] deal.

Maybe the powers that be in the media know something we don’t know, such as the racial/ethnic identities of the recently deceased and the “not-a-nurse.”

To wit: if the recently deceased is from an historically oppressed/underrepresented group and the “not-a-nurse” happened to be a member of the Anglo-Saxon/oppressor group, don’t you think that’d make for a GREAT scandal?

And since the story is from California, maybe there’s a union angle. Like say, the retirement home owner(s) has failed to get on the right side of history and employ ONLY union staff? Delicious, right?

I remain your most dyspeptic minion,
JAB from The Doublewide

Those are all very possible. And the Czar concurs that the media know much more about this story than we are hearing. The Czar wondered if the media are trying to play the angle that the management is a big business and bad, bad, bad. Or that they are trying to suggest that Obamacare would fix this. Or something.

But your speculations are equal to the task as well. The curious fascination with what ostensibly should be an open-and-shut case is bizarre. Of course, the secondary story here is that public trust in the mainstream media is so low—now at 6% of the population—that everyone is convinced that there must be an angle being played here.

Also curious is the strange disconnect in the reporting. Mind you, the story broke a week ago but only recently got attention when the 911 recording was released. Among the latest questions:

1. Where is the DNR? The Czar had numerous sources indicating she had one on file. MC wrote in to ask for such a source—the one the Czar checked just this morning now indicates there was no DNR on file. Stories have now been updated and corrected to reflect that the victim indeed did not have one.
2. Is the caller a nurse at all? Apparently, no one involved in the story can positively identify who the caller was, and whether she is a nurse or even basic caregiver.

Stand by, because the media blogs will soon reveal what their angle is. Already you are seeing it exaggerated:

A nurse’s refusal to perform CPR on a dying elderly woman has sparked outrage and controversy across the United States.

Hardly. And a California assembleywoman is already vowing to get things changed.

Oh boy. That will end well.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.