Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Dear Glenn Hunter:

Yes, I have disagreed with you more often than not. But this? As someone said, your latest post on Frontburner is the exact reason comments are good. Because you are so very wrong. Let's get past the fact that my initial reaction was visceral and involved a knee to your nethers. I'm even willing to try to get past the fact that - even when Frontburner did allow comments - you tend to lob a bomb and then run away, never coming back to engage the people who called you on some of your complete and total, ill-informed toro caca. So let's get down to business. 1) The family allowed the Twittering of the surgeries (read that TWO surgeries) because it also benefited them. With two surgeries going on in two separate hospitals, it was a good and practical way for everyone (whether they were at UT Southwestern or Children's) to get updates and follow the progress. 2) Under HIPAA, a patient's written permission can allow for disseminating of their current medical condition and status. Five seconds of Google found the answer to that, btw. 3) According to UNOS, there are 102,144 people waiting for organ donations as of 1:50 p.m. Eastern today. By Twittering this surgery, organ donation was demystified, which could in turn lead to a lowering of that number. So in conclusion, it wasn't bizarre (except maybe to a relic) and it wasn't contradictory. It was no different than the press conferences after sextuplets are born, faces are transplanted, or Britney is rehabbed. But you know what is bizarre? The fact that I had to use my blog to tell you all this.