Daily Flog 8/4/08: Dumping patients, probing Mary-Kate, shooting nose-biting suspect, ratting out cops
Running down the press:
Post: 'OLSEN TO HEATH FEDS: LET'S DEAL. DEMANDS IMMUNITY FROM PROBERS'
Good move by Mary-Kate Olsen's lawyers, but at least Paris Hilton still allows probing.
Daily News: 'Harlem pastor suspended as DA probes charges he sexually abused 2 kids'
Now for a probe of a probe. Oren Yaniv's concise lede:
Daily News: 'Commander wired to snag drug-rap cop'
John Marzulli's scoop:
In what may have been an unprecedented technique to catch a Brooklyn detective suspected of corruption, a detective commander wore a wire to secretly tape conversations with the gumshoe in their precinct's squad room, the Daily News has learned.
Post: 'FEDS ALLOWED LAB RAT TO ROAM FREE'
Never let sensitivity get in the way of a funny headline. Story's about anthrax-story-infected scientist Bruce Ivins. Yeah, the guy killed himself, but no one's complaining about such insensitive treatment of this dead guy, even though he hadn't been convicted.
Now when a great American like Jesse Helms dies after being convicted by his own words during a long career of political pettifoggery, it's naughty to make fun. (See my July 4 item "Jesse Helms Finally Dies" and the comments.)
Post: 'EX-NYERS RIPPING OFF MEDICAID MILLIONS'
Frederic U. Dicker's lede:
Would anyone but the Post call an audit "explosive"?
Post: 'GUN COP ONCE A CAPTIVE'
Mildly interesting second-day-angle stuff:
What's more interesting is the suspect's history:
Post: 'DIGGING CHINA: NOTHING'S ROUTINE'
One of the first of many juvenile stories from the U.S. sportswriters shipped to China for the Olympics. This one's by Mike Vaccaro:
I'm happy for you.
Post: 'PARIS WON'T TAKE A PREZ STAND'
From Page Six:
On Saturday night, at a Bridgehampton mansion rented by MySpace founder Chris De Wolfe, the haughty hotel heiress told Page Six she wasn't distraught over being featured last week in a John McCain campaign ad which mockingly compared Barack Obama to Paris and Britney Spears.
Now it's a story that Paris Hilton is not distraught about publicity?
Times: 'Immigrants Facing Deportation by U.S. Hospitals'
Deborah Sontag's tale is full of grim anecdotes. She writes that the practice is "apparently widespread," but who knows? Anyway, her key grafs:
American immigration authorities play no role in these private repatriations, carried out by ambulance, air ambulance and commercial plane. Most hospitals say that they do not conduct cross-border transfers until patients are medically stable and that they arrange to deliver them into a physician’s care in their homeland. But the hospitals are operating in a void, without governmental assistance or oversight, leaving ample room for legal and ethical transgressions on both sides of the border.
Indeed, some advocates for immigrants see these repatriations as a kind of international patient dumping, with ambulances taking patients in the wrong direction, away from first-world hospitals to less-adequate care, if any.
This year's Mother Teresa Award goes to Sister Margaret Bride at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. Sontag's story notes:
Sister Margaret McBride, vice president for mission services at St. Joseph’s in Phoenix, which is part of Catholic Healthcare West, said families were rarely happy about the hospital’s decision to repatriate their relatives. But, she added, “We don’t require consent from the family.”
Apparently a nice job by Sontag. Too bad the Times only a week earlier buried a story about Australia's government taking the opposite tack toward immigrants from that of U.S. hospitals or government officials. In a hefty, well-backgrounded story, the Christian Science Monitor reported it this way:
Australia's government has overhauled its immigration policy for asylum seekers, a move that drew praise from human rights groups, but was criticized by the main opposition party as a potential security risk. The new policy was announced Tuesday and follows the election last year of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who had opposed the tough anti-immigration stance of his predecessor, John Howard. Among the largest group of claimants in recent years have been refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Times gave the story much shorter shrift — only eight paragraphs — under a headline that reads as if it came from a press release and says nothing about the policy change itself:
Speaking of Iraqi refugees, the Bush regime has been astoundingly niggardly, considering that it caused the Iraq debacle in the first place. The Guardian (U.K.) reported on August 1, "US shatters record for Iraqi refugee admissions."
Then you look at the actual figures, and they're embarrassingly low. The story notes:
Advocacy groups and lawmakers have criticized the U.S. for its poor performance on Iraqi refugees but over the past several months, the administration has rapidly increased the number it has allowed in, breaking admissions records in April, May, June and now July.
Many critics say, and officials have acknowledged, that the administration has a moral obligation to the refugees and must do more.
Times: 'Ragtag Taliban Show Tenacity in Afghanistan'
"Ragtag"? The Taliban have always looked ragtag, but for quite a while they've been regaining control over wide swaths of the country. (See my June 20 item about Pakistan and Afghanistan grabbing the top spots in the fright race.)
The Times website promos, unlike those of other NYC papers, are dull, dull, dull and not to the point, not to the point, not to the point. Carlotta Gall's actual lede on the story is better than the headline and far better than the site promo:
Have your manservant bring you the paper for the full story.
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