ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Okay, I'll admit it.  When the ALS Ice Bucket challenge started making the rounds on the social media sites, I rolled my eyes.  I even shared the Salon.com link about how you don't have to do the ice bucket challenge, just give money.  It was snarky (why I didn't link it here), and it was sort of self-righteous.
And then something amazing happened: videos and more challenges kept coming in.  Families touched by ALS made their own videos of gratitude for the money raised and the awareness created.  Last time I read about it, ALSA was up to $23 million raised in a few weeks.  It won't be sustained, no one is fooling themselves into thinking that.  This is literally a flash in the pan.  But that's okay.
The majority of medical research done in this country today is funded via either academic grants (which come from government sources such as the National Institutes of Health, or NIH) or via grants from private industry.  Obviously, private industry grants, primarily the pharmaceutical companies, are generally driven by a profit motive: we find the new treatment for this disease, we patent and sell that treatment, we make money.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with making money.  Nor do  I believe that there is anything wrong with doing medical research with the intent to make money on discoveries made, although that is a very murky area, ethically for me.  The inherent problem with this model is that there are diseases that just do not lend themselves to profitable treatment.  Pediatric and childhood cancers, ALS, Rett Syndrome, and multiple sclerosis are all examples of such diseases.
The beauty of this sudden infusion of money to the ALS Association is that research done on ALS specifically can be applied to neuromuscular diseases in general.  Now we're talking about benefits to multiple sclerosis, to Rett Syndrome (a genetic neuromuscular disease that affects girls), and possibly even Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Hopefully the ALSA will be wise and understand that this infusion will likely be short lived, even if the challenge continues for several more months.  Hopefully, they will use the money wisely and carefully, and, in the words of everyone's parents when we were handed a surprising amount of cash, they won't spend it all in one place.
Either way, I'm here to say it, "I was wrong."  I was wrong about "just give money" instead of giving into an internet meme.  The more videos are made, the more people watch, the more that they're aware of the campaign to raise money and awareness and the more money is donated.  If you just give money (and you're not Patrick Stewart), then there is no sense of  passing the challenge to give on to your friends and family.
So, in that spirit, here are the videos my family made to raise money and spread awareness both for ALS, as well as for Rett Syndrome (and in my case funding for the NIH, as determined by our members of Congress).

Traffic Stops

So, the world is on fire.  It just is.  From the Ebola crisis in Africa, the crisis in Gaza, the activities of ISIS (specifically the beheading of journalist James Foley, but among many many others).
And locally, we're not immune.
Ferguson.  Mike Brown.  Darren Wilson.  Riots.  Looters.  The Wiki has been created, and the link is here.  I don't have the energy to go through it all here.
But I have read and watched so much about it, my head aches and my heart is broken.  Again.
I've read articles from law enforcement supporters about the danger they absolutely face every day to protect and to serve.
I've read the articles from men and women of color who have been mistreated at the hands of authority in the name of safety.
I've scrolled through the #IfTheyGunnedMeDown posts on Twitter, and watched some of the town hall discussions.  We all have our thoughts about it and bring our own experiences to it.

But somewhere between reading news reports and blogs and watching news coverage, an idea has come up several times.  The riots, the protests, the shooting itself isn't about race.  It's about class.  Kareem Abdul Jabar even wrote a well thought out piece about it.

Here's my main problem with that.  I don't think that's entirely true.
So I'd like to do an exercise.  Given that I only have like 3 readers, it probably won't be entirely statistically significant, but maybe I'll feel better or I'll get an answer I wasn't expecting.  I kind of hope that's the case.

Think of all the times you've been pulled over by a state trooper, local police, or sheriff.  I'm not talking DUI here, leave those out, if that's the case for you.  I'm talking routine traffic stop: speeding, illegal turn, expired plates, running a light or stop sign, etc.   Consider those traffic stops and answer the following questions:

1--Were you alone in the car?
1a--If the answer to #1 is no, that is, if you had passengers in the car with you, were your passengers' identification requested by the cop?

2--Were you asked or required to get out of the car?
2a--Were your passengers required to get out of the car?
2b--Was your car searched?

I ask this for a couple of reasons.  Let me give you some stories from my own experience as well as people I know.

In Savannah, GA, my brother in law, who is Puerto Rican was driving his wife (who is white) to work.  They had a friend (a black teenager they had more or less informally adopted) in the back seat.  The driver did a rolling stop at a stop sign.  A cop saw him not come to a complete stop, and pulled the car over.  On asking for the driver's license and registration, he also asked for the ID of the passengers in the car.  My sister in law was shocked and confused.  She had never once, when being pulled over, had her passengers asked to pass over their ID to the cop.  She tried to refuse, but her husband and their teen both told her that this was routine when being pulled by the cops.  Read that again, friends.  Her Puerto Rican husband and black teen adopted son both were neither surprised nor inclined to question a policeman asking for the identification of passengers in a car that was stopped for nothing more than a rolling stop at a stop sign (something we've all been guilty of at some point in our driving careers).

In Mebane, NC, a rural town, 2 relatively young black men were driving a country road.  The passenger was a patient of mine.
   Let me give you some of his history: this is a young man who had surgery on a ruptured disc in his lower back about 8 to 10 years ago.  During the course of that surgery, he developed an infection in his spine.  That infection completely paralyzed him from the waist down.  He was told that he would never walk again and there was nothing that they could do.  He decided that this just wouldn't be the case.  He worked with therapists, and after leaving the hospital in Atlanta, continued to exercise and work and by the time I met him, he was walking with a walker, but debilitated by constant pain.  I was his pain doctor.  I started him on a pain patch that give him mobility back and after 8 months, he was walking with a cane, mostly for balance but not support and he was doing a light weight routine at home every day.  The guy was inspirational to me as a doctor and as a human being.
  Anyway, he comes in for an appointment one day and he's using his walker again and walking with a limp.  I asked him what happened and he told me this story.  He was riding in a car with his friend on a rural country road near Mebane.  His friend did a rolling stop through a stop sign (seems like a common problem), and a sheriff's deputy pulled them over.  His friend was asked to get out of the car and hand over his license and registration.  The deputy then went to the passenger side and asked my patient to get out of the car.  Remember, this was a guy who rolled through a stop sign, that's why they're stopped.  My patient told the deputy, "I'm getting out, but I am disabled and need my cane, and I move kind of slowly."  When he did not exit the car at the deputy's desired speed, the deputy grabbed my patient by the back of the neck and yanked him out of the car.  My patient instantly fell to the ground.  The deputy yelled at him to get the "f***" up and refused to let him hold his cane.  The driver asked the deputy to leave him alone, and that he was injured and couldn't walk well.  Another deputy arrived on the scene, and my patient told me that at that point, the first one was much more professional: he checked their ID, issued the ticket and let them on their way.  The damage to my patient was done, however, he had a 2 to 3 month set back in his exercise routine and required more pain medication during that time.  All because he was riding in a car while black.

The reason I present these stories is simple: I am a white woman.  I grew up lower middle class, and if there were a middle class remaining in this country today, I guess I'd still be in it.  I've been pulled over for speeding, for ID checks, for an expired license plate in the past.  Not once, in any of those traffic stops were my passengers asked to show their ID.  Nor was I ever asked to get out of my car.
The only stories I've heard like that are either from people in traditionally black neighborhoods or from people of color.
So I want to know: what's your experience?  If you're white, have you ever had to get out of the car for a routine traffic stop?  Have your passengers been required to show ID?

Modern Problems

So I haven't talked much about it, but here it is:
Robin Williams's death hits and the news surrounding it hits me in a few ways.  First, my sister committed suicide at 15.  I can't say what she was thinking or feeling at the time, I can only say that it shattered my family.  Shattered it.  We all regarded one another differently. We couldn't help it.  In some ways it brought us closer.  In some ways it tore us apart.
More recently, my father, a retired politician and public figure in my home state of Montana, suffered a stroke in 2009.  While we were showered with love and support from friends, family and loved ones as well as former staff and supporters, the comments on the news stories of his stroke were--how to say this kindly--horrifying.  People said he deserved it.  People told him a debilitating stroke was too kind for him.
As a daughter, it was devastating.
Look, I get it.  You might not agree with my dad.  Hell, I didn't always agree with him.  But he was, first, foremost, and always, my father.  He taught me how to catch a pop up fly ball. He taught me to change a tire.  He taught me that you could change your own oil.  He taught me to catch a fish.  He taught me to love the land.  Believe it or not, he taught me how to be a woman who respects herself.  He was the man who expected great things from me and any partner who might consider himself good enough for me. He was, by no means, perfect.  But he was my dad.  He hugged me when I cried, he rewarded me when I succeeded, he bragged on me constantly.
Having been a U.S. Senator for nearly 20 years, I knew that not everyone liked his policies.  Hell, I didn't like them all. But when he suffered a stroke that left him nearly paralyzed on his left side, politics didn't matter.  He was, and is, my dad.
The comments on the local Montana newspaper websites were devastating.  I wanted to respond to every commentor: you don't know him, he didn't hold you when you got beat up by the bully down the street, you just don't get how much he cares.  But obviously I couldn't.
All I can say is this: thank God that Twitter and FB weren't the big part of my  life they are now back in 2009.  I would have shut down completely, much like Zelda Williams.
I can't change internet trolls.  I can't tell them how hurtful and horrible they are, since I believe in my heart that they already know it.
All I can do is to shrug and to understand.  And that, frankly, sucks.
The mere idea that a person can't be who he or she is because of celebrity by relation sucks.  The idea that someone lives to torture the already grieving heart distresses me in a way I can't express.
While I think the conversation that is happening now regarding mental health and suicide is important, I think the more important conversation is that of torture.  We've had plenty of chances to discuss mental health, and we as a society are unwilling to admit that mental health is important.  I get that.
What is so horrifying, and no I'm not using hyperbole here, it's fucking horrifying, is that people on social media are allowed to literally torture family members who are grieving via their posting of disparaging and mean (that's right, just plain mean) content on sites like Twitter and Instagram.  But more importantly, it also happens on news sites (as it did in my family's case).
While I understand that free speech is a sacred part of what makes us a republic, I do not understand why news sites, which often review comments on stories before allowing them to be posted, do not filter out hateful or mean comments on stories of personal tragedy.
Why doesn't the Billings Gazette filter out comments like "serves him right, I hope he dies" comments on the story of my father's stroke?  This was a comment I actually read, I'm not making this up.
It's not censorship, it isn't.  Those sites have a policy regarding comments that violate their policies.  Hate speech is not allowed.  If this isn't hate speech, what is?
My heart breaks for Zelda Williams, and the family of any celebrity that grieves a personal tragedy.  I only had a very very VERY small taste of what she must have experienced, and it broke my heart and tore at my soul.  I applaud her for leaving social media, but grieve that she had to do so.