Odd, sycophantic article on Frist in Wapo

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Odd, sycophantic article on Frist in Wapo

Postby professorpan » Wed May 24, 2006 3:40 pm

ill Frist: A Doctor at Heart<br>By Laura Blumenfeld<br>Wednesday, May 24, 2006; A21<br><br>The houses were dark on Bill Frist's street. A morning bird chirped; the others were waiting for dawn. But Frist was awake, and his bedroom light was on. "I'm going to take a shower," the Senate majority leader said brightly. Ten minutes later, the blow dryer roared.<br><br>In the kitchen, Frist's wife, Karyn, was brewing coffee and remembering their life before politics. For 20 years, Frist had worked as a heart transplant surgeon. He had stitched hearts into more than 150 lives.<br><br>One Saturday night, Karyn recalled, "we were supposed to go to a movie. He walked out in his scrubs." Instead of taking Karyn to the theater, Frist brought her to the operating room. "To see the human body alive -- without a heart in it."<br><br>snip<br><br>"Well, your first patient was a dog," Karyn said. In medical school, Frist cut out a dog's heart and held it in his palm. It continued to beat for a slippery minute.<br><br>"Watching it beat, the beauty of it," Frist recalled. "I decided I would spend my life centered around the heart."<br><br>snip<br><br>He pressed his stethoscope to the gorilla's chest and narrowed his eyes. Kuja, a silverback patriarch, was breathing isofluorine. He was the Senate majority leader of the gorillas, who negotiated disputes, back-slapped the ape boys and owned exclusive mating rights with the females. When Kuja started to stir, a veterinarian injected more anesthesia. One backhanded swipe could break Frist's neck.<br><br>Frist listened to the heart; the gorilla's lub-dub sounded human. "When you're this close, you feel this kind of oneness with them," Frist said. The stink of ape sweat and gorilla testosterone soaked his hair and clothes. "Gorillas, people, men. You look at the people here, a symphonic flow of people pitching in. It's the oneness of humanity."<br><br>This kind of oneness does not come easily to Frist. Though devoted to matters of the heart, Frist acknowledges that he is aloof, something he traces back to the day he refused to attend kindergarten. He calls it "the Great Wall," an emotional barrier that has kept him from having close friends. It is a wall that could block his connection with voters, some say, and his way to the White House.<br><br>But in the operating room there were no walls, only bridges, as one arm reached over another. A veterinarian rotated the ultrasound probe over Kuja's heart. The dentist tweezed out the bloody string of a root canal -- "Isn't this exciting?" And Frist slipped an IV needle into Kuja's vein. His gloves turned red with gorilla blood.<br><br>"There's almost a spiritual, poetic component to it," Frist said, his eyes expressing what his surgical mask hid. "This oneness, this wholeness. You can't compare it to the Senate floor. I immerse myself in it. This is my real life."<br><br>Frist lifted Kuja's huge, leathery black hand. Williams, the dentist, said, "Take him with you to the Senate, so when Biden or Kennedy mouth off, you can turn him loose."<br><br>"He's on my side," Frist said, stroking Kuja's fur. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Odd, sycophantic article on Frist in Wapo

Postby Dreams End » Wed May 24, 2006 4:28 pm

He used to catnap cats off the street, literally to experiment on them. Are we supposed to be reassured that he likes cutting out animal hearts and watching them beat? Maybe this was a sly dig? <p></p><i></i>
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...

Postby Ted the dog » Wed May 24, 2006 4:43 pm

Was it Frist that killed cats or was it Santorum? Which one of them had sex with an animal and then admitted to it? (or was that bullshit?) <p></p><i></i>
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Re: ...

Postby albion » Wed May 24, 2006 4:51 pm

I'm pretty sure Frist was the cat-killer and Santorum was the one who equated homosexuality with bestiality. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: ...

Postby Dreams End » Wed May 24, 2006 5:21 pm

<!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.lisarein.com/fristquote.gif" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: ...

Postby dugoboy » Wed May 24, 2006 7:51 pm

if you read the entire article to the end, it is a very <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>wierd</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> article. it kept talking about Frist stinking of gorilla testosterone. i'm veryy confused lol. <p>___________________________________________<br>"BUSHCO aren't incompetent...they are COMPLICIT."</p><i></i>
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gorilla pornography

Postby Moddey Screbbagh » Wed May 24, 2006 11:31 pm

this is one of the most bizarre things i have read in a long time. it is remarkably badly written, with cheesey quotes that sound made up. in fact, the whole thing sounds made up to me. the narrative with the gorilla is truly odd, as from what i can make out, frist was present for a tooth extraction, and, hero that he is, he stuck an IV in the ape's arm - hardly a major procedure. are we to believe that he goes to the zoo to listen to gorillas hearts and put in IV's for the zoo dentist? <br>and the stuff about the smell of gorilla testosterone... incredibly odd. <br><br>i am truly puzzled as to how a professional journalist in such a major paper could have written such a thing, and that the editors gave it a pass. is it some sort of coded message? a joke?<br><br>if not i am now even more depressed than before about the state of things... <p></p><i></i>
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Re: gorilla pornography

Postby dude h homeslice ix » Wed May 24, 2006 11:44 pm

i know the temptation is strong around here at times to read secret messages into such things, and indeed, such messages do exist. maybe even in this case. however, it seems as though this is just another brown-nosing puff piece to me <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :o --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/embarassed.gif ALT=":o"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> ccam: <p></p><i></i>
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Re: gorilla pornography

Postby FourthBase » Thu May 25, 2006 1:34 am

Coded message?<br><br>There's steganography in that gorilla pornography? <p></p><i></i>
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Bizarre

Postby professorpan » Thu May 25, 2006 1:42 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>this is one of the most bizarre things i have read in a long time<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Absolutely. I can't imagine any editor letting that go without demanding some major revisions.<br><br>It does seem forced and purposely strange, as if the writer is trying to convey a hidden message -- and alerting the reader to the concealed content.<br><br>Yes, that is unsupported speculation from the Professor ;-)<br><br>Very, very odd. <p></p><i></i>
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Frist and Cats

Postby nomo » Thu May 25, 2006 2:40 pm

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist_medical_school_experiments_controversy">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bil...ontroversy</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Bill Frist medical school experiments controversy<br>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<br><br><br>While he was a medical school student, Bill Frist (now a Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee) performed medical experiments on shelter cats while researching the use of drugs on the mitral valve. By his own account, Frist improperly obtained these cats from Boston animal shelters, falsely telling shelter staff he was adopting the cats as pets. In his 1989 book Transplant, Frist admitted that he killed these cats during medical experiments at Harvard Medical School, as part of his studies.<br><br>In his book, Frist explained that he succumbed to the pressure to succeed in a highly competitive medical school. Frist stated that he "treat[ed] them as pets for a few days" before he "cart[ed] them off to the lab to die." He went on to say, "And I was totally schizoid about the entire matter. By day, I was little Billy Frist, the boy who lived on Bowling Avenue in Nashville and had decided to become a doctor because of his gentle father and a dog named Scratchy. By night, I was Dr. William Harrison Frist, future cardiothoracic surgeon, who was not going to let a few sentiments about cute, furry little creatures stand in the way of his career. In short, I was going a little crazy." He went on to describe why he conducted animal experiments: "It can even be beautiful and thrilling work, as I discovered that day in the lab when I first saw the wonderful workings of a dog's heart . . . I spent days and nights on end in the lab, taking the hearts out of cats, dissecting each heart, suspending a strip of tiny muscle that attaches the mitral valve to the inner wall of the cat heart and recording the effects of various medicines I added to the bath surrounding the muscle." "I lost my supply of cats. I only had six weeks to complete my project before I resumed my clinical rotations. Desperate, obsessed with my work, I visited the various animal shelters in the Boston suburbs, collecting cats . . . it was a heinous and dishonest thing to do."<br><br>Although Frist's book had been published more than a decade before, the matter created public controversy after mention in a Boston Globe profile, published after his election as Senate majority leader.[1] PETA, which opposes scientific experimentation on animals that results in death or cruel treatment demanded that Frist atone by sponsoring legislation to protect animals from unnecessary suffering. In response, Frist's office reaffirmed that he denounced the action, but made no promises about any animal protection legislation.[2]<br><br>Some claim that Frist's actions violated Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, sec. 77, a criminal statute prohibiting cruelty to animals. Frist was never charged under this statute and his defenders have pointed out that until 1983 Massachusetts law permitted shelters to release animals for laboratory experiments, and some states continue to permit such activity today.[3] Because the Boston area animal shelters in Frist's case did not release the animals to Frist knowing they would be used for experimentation because of his deception, these laws may not have applied to the facts presently in the public record about Frist's actions.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Frist and Cats

Postby Dreams End » Thu May 25, 2006 2:56 pm

While typically I don't buy into the idea of analyzing the personalities of politicians in the hopes of discerning underlying issues...what a piece of work.<br><br>For those of you who don't know, here in Nashville, the Frists are the major benefactors of just about every major charity. Not exactly Rockefellers but same deal on a small scale. Frist name is everywhere along with Ingram (the book distributors). Between the two families, I doubt there is a major charity here that doesn't have their name involved.<br><br>So, on this small scale, I see very well how the gatekeeping goes on. I'm not saying there are directives from Frist not to, say, challenge health care policy...but might as well be. And given his position as Senator and protector of laws that benefit the family business, it is important. Still...weird article. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Frist and Cats

Postby StarmanSkye » Thu May 25, 2006 3:39 pm

"While typically I don't buy into the idea of analyzing the personalities of politicians in the hopes of discerning underlying issues...what a piece of work."<br><br>-- Very deftly said, DE;<br><br>Indeed, what a helluva revolting piece of brown-nose faux-journalism crap -- a sure sign of how far America's so-called Free Press has deteriorated under the subverted management of corporate elites and ruling class toadies; The article would seem to be a slyly sycophantic puff-piece, perhaps incorporating PR-industry studies re: subtle psychological cues<br>to 'market' and position Frist's political image.<br><br>The gratuitously allegorical reference to Frist employing Kujo as might-makes-right moral-authority backup to discipline outspoken contrarian Democrats (like Kennedy) is just SO weird and transparently contrived. Almost like this was a core part of the 'journalist's' task, to frame a publicity-stunt message as 'news' that Senator Bill Frist is a deeply principled OK guy who is keyed-in to the mysteries and up to the challenge, of 'leadership' and life -- and 'stuff'.<br><br>I sort-of suspect this was a paid-to-plant PR piece.<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>
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Here's the whole article - kept in case it disappears online

Postby JD » Thu May 25, 2006 4:05 pm

Here's the whole article - kept in case it disappears online.<br><br>Yeah this is way weird. I have to wonder whether or not this article is saying something not meant for the great unwashed. Specificially odd to my eye are the references to the heart beating in the hand, testosterone, the strength of the ape, using the strength of the ape against Senate opponents, and of course "I fell in love with him in his scrub suit, with blood splattered on his clogs". <br><br>I can't help but to equate to imagery produced by this article to that of Aztec sacrifices.<br><br>I'm not a surgeon. I can't help but to wonder though wouldn't you want to have some time built into your schedule in case the surgery takes longer than anticipated? Would a real surgeon start an operation knowing they have to be "talking to the Israeli prime minister in 18 minutes" and opening the Sentate in a couple of hours? Could the surgery not have been scheduled on a day with more openings to the Senate Majority Leader's calender?<br><br>There are no cardiac surgeons who can operate on guerillas who are not the Senate Majority Leaders?<br><br>This comment is interesting: "These gorillas seem to develop heart disease," said Frist (R-Tenn.). "It's totally unknown. I did a lit search -- nothing. The fact that we're working on the edge of the unknown is fun." So no literature of gorilla heart disease, yet there he is ripping one apart. Is this hinting the operation is not actually required but being done for other reasons "on the edge of the unknown"?<br><br>Or this: "The typical person around here may not understand." Does this suggest that there may be an inserted coded message, as I said before something that is not understood by the great unwashed?<br><br>Or this: "Something had changed inside of the beast while he slept. Frist smiled and spoke unremarkably from the lectern, reeking of silverback testosterone." Something had changed? Not understood by the gorilla, or presumably the "typical person".<br><br>Or this: The reference to the Prime Minister of Israel; is it likely that Israel is named for no good reason?<br><br>The previous vivisection controversy is frankly amazing. I wonder if he also killed animals prior to entering medical school where is was "acceptable"? Remember the stories of GWB recreationally blowing up frogs in his forelorn youth. Or Cheney's 100 bird hunting days.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301380.html">www.washingtonpost.com/wp...01380.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Bill Frist: A Doctor at Heart<br><br>By Laura Blumenfeld<br><br>Wednesday, May 24, 2006; Page A21 <br><br>The houses were dark on Bill Frist's street. A morning bird chirped; the others were waiting for dawn. But Frist was awake, and his bedroom light was on. "I'm going to take a shower," the Senate majority leader said brightly. <br><br>Ten minutes later, the blow dryer roared.<br><br>In the kitchen, Frist's wife, Karyn, was brewing coffee and remembering their life before politics. For 20 years, Frist had worked as a heart transplant surgeon. He had stitched hearts into more than 150 lives.<br>        <br>One Saturday night, Karyn recalled, "we were supposed to go to a movie. He walked out in his scrubs." Instead of taking Karyn to the theater, Frist brought her to the operating room. "To see the human body alive -- without a heart in it."<br><br>As Karyn spoke, Frist came down the stairs. "This is really who you are," she said, looking up at him. She first met Frist in the emergency room, where he treated her for a sprained wrist. "I fell in love with him in his scrub suit, with blood splattered on his clogs. I see him doing that, almost more than as a politician."<br><br>Frist, at heart, is a doctor. At 5:45 a.m., before a recent Senate workday, he prepared for a quirky slice of surgery. During congressional breaks, Frist, 54, has been known to fly to Africa to operate. But in Washington, he has quietly cultivated another practice: gorillas at the National Zoo.<br><br>"These gorillas seem to develop heart disease," said Frist (R-Tenn.). "It's totally unknown. I did a lit search -- nothing. The fact that we're working on the edge of the unknown is fun."<br><br>"Well, your first patient was a dog," Karyn said. In medical school, Frist cut out a dog's heart and held it in his palm. It continued to beat for a slippery minute.<br>"Watching it beat, the beauty of it," Frist recalled. "I decided I would spend my life centered around the heart."<br><br>"And you didn't say 'I'll take some time off and be a politician' while you were holding the dog heart," Karyn said.<br><br>Frist, in a gray suit, picked up his file marked "ZOO" and said, "We've got to be on time to open the Senate."<br>He climbed into the back of his black SUV; his driver steered toward the zoo. "I gravitate towards insurmountable problems," Frist said, his long legs spilling between the front seats. "I try to use creative solutions." One day, he hopes to cure AIDS or cancer. He sucked on the stem of his glasses: "The typical person around here may not understand."<br><br>At the zoo hospital, a team of four veterinarians, three technicians, an animal keeper and a veterinary dentist were wheeling a 350-pound gorilla into surgery as Frist arrived. They would perform an ultrasound of the heart, a root canal and a physical. Frist joined the team, as he had on other mornings, tying on a mask. He unbuttoned his business shirt, revealing jungle-pattern surgical scrubs and a pair of hairy, toned biceps.<br><br>"A little bit like Superman," said the dentist, Chuck Williams.<br><br>Frist snapped on rubber gloves. He leaned over the operating table, gripping the corners. An oxygen monitor beeped. The patient gagged.<br><br>"This is home," Frist said through his mask. "Where I spent 12 hours a day for 20 years." Frist spent so much time in the hospital in Tennessee that when he came home to his wife and three sons he felt like an intruder.<br>He pressed his stethoscope to the gorilla's chest and narrowed his eyes. Kuja, a silverback patriarch, was breathing isofluorine. He was the Senate majority leader of the gorillas, who negotiated disputes, back-slapped the ape boys and owned exclusive mating rights with the females. When Kuja started to stir, a veterinarian injected more anesthesia. One backhanded swipe could break Frist's neck.<br><br>Frist listened to the heart; the gorilla's lub-dub sounded human. "When you're this close, you feel this kind of oneness with them," Frist said. The stink of ape sweat and gorilla testosterone soaked his hair and clothes. "Gorillas, people, men. You look at the people here, a symphonic flow of people pitching in. It's the oneness of humanity."<br><br>This kind of oneness does not come easily to Frist. Though devoted to matters of the heart, Frist acknowledges that he is aloof, something he traces back to the day he refused to attend kindergarten. He calls it "the Great Wall," an emotional barrier that has kept him from having close friends. It is a wall that could block his connection with voters, some say, and his way to the White House.<br><br>But in the operating room there were no walls, only bridges, as one arm reached over another. A veterinarian rotated the ultrasound probe over Kuja's heart. The dentist tweezed out the bloody string of a root canal -- "Isn't this exciting?" And Frist slipped an IV needle into Kuja's vein. His gloves turned red with gorilla blood.<br>"There's almost a spiritual, poetic component to it," Frist said, his eyes expressing what his surgical mask hid. "This oneness, this wholeness. You can't compare it to the Senate floor. I immerse myself in it. This is my real life."<br><br>Frist lifted Kuja's huge, leathery black hand. Williams, the dentist, said, "Take him with you to the Senate, so when Biden or Kennedy mouth off, you can turn him loose."<br><br>"He's on my side," Frist said, stroking Kuja's fur.<br><br>Afterward, Frist buttoned himself back up, into his blue shirt and into his senatorial reserve. "I need to be talking to the Israeli prime minister in 18 minutes," he told his driver as the SUV rumbled toward the Capitol. He said he was aware of critics, "People say, 'Oh, he's inside-baseball, and stiff.' "<br><br>"Reid called," an aide said at the Capitol door, referring to the Democratic leader.<br><br>"I think we're on the same wavelength," Frist said as they strode inside.<br><br>At 9:30 a.m., Frist opened the Senate, gripping the corners of the lectern, as he had the operating table. <br><br>Across the city, rolling in a bed of hay, Kuja opened his eyes and grunted. The gorilla kept touching his tongue to his tooth. Something had changed inside of the beast while he slept. Frist smiled and spoke unremarkably from the lectern, reeking of silverback testosterone.<br><br>Off Camera is a monthly column by Laura Blumenfeld featuring Washington's top decision makers in their off hours -- outside the office and inside their lives<br> <p></p><i></i>
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gorilla science

Postby Moddey Screbbagh » Thu May 25, 2006 6:59 pm

i like the aztec sacrifice image, and it is bizarre that it's the israeli prime minister he's about to see.<br><br>another odd thing, that's not made clear from the article, is that no "surgery" is actually being performed. they put the beast to sleep and removed a tooth, did a physical and an ultrasound of the heart -- probably frist's project -- which just involves putting a probe on the sleeping gorilla's chest. our man bill just put an IV line in -- not a big deal at all and something usually done by a tech or nurse. he didn't need to be there for this at all. if it happened it was totally staged. he could have looked at the ultrasound pictures of the heart later, in his office, if in fact he really is interested in gorilla hearts...<br><br>one really has to hope that a stupid set piece like this presumably designed to show us the "real bill frist" will backfire somehow. and i'm repeating myself now, but how does wapo allow this kind of crap to happen? <p></p><i></i>
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