You Can't Silence Us

Socialism hurts everyone

Boston schools have eliminated educational courses that are designed for advanced students because not enough black students are admitted to the program. This is the basic flaw with socialism- it seeks to achieve equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity.

The students who are seeking to enter the program took a standardized test in the third grade, earned a high score, and won an open spot via lottery. Even with that, the rate of black students that entered the program was far below that of white and Asian students.

Many studies have shown that black students do poorly on standardized tests and on intelligence tests. As a result, researchers have concluded that the tests have racial, cultural, and socio-economic bias built in. There is no evidence of this claimed bias, aside from the results. The conclusions of these researchers ignore an obvious, alternative conclusion: that some races and cultures are less intelligent or place less value upon education, which results in the disparate scores.

My guess is that this is not because blacks are inherently inferior or less intelligent than whites, but that the black culture itself places little value on intelligence or on education. There is research that even supports this. When black or mixed-race children are raised in white rather than black homes, their pre-adolescent test scores rise dramatically. These adoptees’ scores seem to fall in adolescence, but this could easily be because their social and cultural environment places them into social circles with other black teenagers.

The whole point of desegregating the schools was to place black students into classrooms with white students, with the belief that black test scores have not risen. Instead, the white/black gap has shrunk, mostly through white students losing ground as they began to adopt the “hip hop” culture.

No matter what the cause, eliminating the advanced classes in order to put the advanced students in with the underperforming students will create equal results, but that only means results will be equally poor.

There you have the essence of socialism: as long as everyone has the same outcome, it doesn’t matter how poor that outcome is. Welcome to education in a socialist environment.

People who have read this post: 494
By Divemedic, ago

First aid

Yesterday at the blogshoot, we did a bit of training on gunshot wounds. Several people in attendance asked me to do a post on the contents of a first aid kit. Let me start by saying that the way paramedics can tell the new guy from the experienced medics is in the amount of gear they tote around. Medics, fishermen, and gun owners have a trap that they commonly fall into, and that is the tendency to buy tons of gimicky crap when it comes to equipment.

Remember that serious trauma is first and foremost a surgical emergency. Trauma patients don’t need a tricked out first aid kit- they need a trauma surgeon. All they need you to do in the field is keep them alive and prevent them from furthering their injury until they can get on the operating table. So with that in mind, I take a minimalist approach to trauma first aid equipment. Please see the end of this post for disclaimers and conflict notice.

First aid kits that are filled with bandaids, sting ease, and other supplies are not good for this sort of work. Sure, I have one of those in the car, but band aids are not going to do you any good with a serious injury. Likewise, don’t get one that has suture kits and everything else, because you aren’t gonna need that and will likely screw it up anyway. Remember: simple. minimal. Stay in your lane.

The basics:

A pair of trauma shears. Most often used for cutting off your victim’s clothes. Don’t bother with the ones that have built in carabiners, bottle openers, glass breakers, or any of that other nonsense. You will likely throw these out once they are soaked in blood, so don’t waste a lot of money on a tricked out pair.

A compressed space blanket. Trauma patients need to be kept warm. After you treat them, wrap them in one. I used to keep the back of my unit heated to 90 degrees for trauma patients. Since we can’t do that, a space blanket is a great way to help with that.

A couple ( 2 or 3) packs of gauze soaked with a clotting agent. QuikClot is best, any of the other commercial alternatives (Celox for example) are acceptable. Many doctors will trash talk QuikClot, but every time one has told me that, the only reasons they can give are anecdotal. The plural of anecdote is not data.

A quality tourniquet. I prefer the CAT. Try to get one with the NSN number printed on it, that way it is more likely to be MilSpec and not a Chinese knock off.

A nasopharyngeal airway with a pack of KY to aid insertion.

An Israeli combat bandage. I like these because they can also be used as an ACE bandage, or (in conjunction with a triangular bandage) to stabilize arm/shoulder injuries, and other uses. Use your imagination.

A Hyfin Chest seal.

A pair or three of exam gloves.

If you don’t want to assemble a kit piece by piece, this is a good one. I just throw out the cheap tourniquet, then add a CAT, a Hyfin kit, and that handles most of what you will need in an emergency.

I follow the CoTCCC (Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care) Guidelines (see below) very closely and have designed trauma kit around them. All of the trauma treatment training I conduct is based on those guidelines.

Tactical Combat Casualty Care (Pronounced “T-Triple C”) is a set of guidelines developed by USSOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) to properly train non-medics to deal with the preventable causes of death in the field. With that in mind, remember that the single most important piece of gear that you have is the knowledge that you carry in your head. Seek out and get some training. Do not attempt to do any of this or use any of this stuff without knowing what you are doing.

Supporting documentation from the National Association of EMTs:

Basic Management Plan for Care Under Fire

  1. Return fire and take cover.
  2. Direct or expect casualty to remain engaged as a combatant if
    appropriate.
  3. Direct casualty to move to cover and apply self-aid if able.
  4. Try to keep the casualty from sustaining additional wounds.
  5. Casualties should be extricated from burning vehicles or buildings and moved to places of relative safety. Do what is necessary to stop the burning process.
  6. Airway management is generally best deferred until the Tactical Field
    Care phase.
  7. Stop life-threatening external hemorrhage if tactically feasible:
  • Direct casualty to control hemorrhage by self-aid if able.
  • Use a CoTCCC-recommended limb tourniquet for hemorrhage that is anatomically amenable to tourniquet use.
  • Apply the limb tourniquet over the clothing clearly proximal to the
    bleeding site(s). If the site of the life-threatening bleeding is not
    readily apparent, place the tourniquet “high and tight” (as proximal
    as possible) on the injured limb and move the casualty to cover.

Disclaimers and conflicts:

I have no financial conflicts to disclose, other than the fact that I do make money for training people in various aspects of trauma and medical care. I do not have a financial stake or interest in any of the products mentioned or linked in this post.

This post is not a substitute for training, knowledge, or does it imply that you should practice any of the techniques on this page without the necessary training, experience, and clinical judgement to apply these techniques. The writer assumes no responsibility for anyone who attempts to practice any of the actions on this page without first receiving training in the use or application of any of the procedures mentioned on this page.

People who have read this post: 1,530
By Divemedic, ago

Teaching the truth

If you believe that there are two genders, you cannot be a teacher in the state of New York, as one teaching student by the name of Owen Stevens discovered. Mr. Stevens was suspended by the state university from his teaching certification program for posting on Instagram that he believes that “a man is a man, and a woman is a woman.” This, they claim, means that he cannot create an environment that is inclusive of all students. His suspension will continue until he completes a reeducation program and renounces his earlier statements. The Dean of the college claims that future teachers are required to support all aspects of homosexuality and gender identity.

To his credit, Mr. Stevens is refusing to do so. The Dean told Stevens that his scientific stance on biology is “in conflict” with the state’s Dignity for All Students Act. A SUNY Geneseo spokeswoman said that the school does not believe that it is infringing on any student’s right to free speech.

“Although we cannot comment on any particular student, SUNY Geneseo respects every student’s right to freedom of speech and expression,” the spokeswoman said. “By choosing to enter into certain professional fields, students agree to abide by the professional standards of their chosen field. At times, these professional standards dictate that students act and behave in certain ways that may differ from their personal predilections.”

Up until this school year, I taught Biology. When we reached the section on human genetics and reproduction, I would talk about how the X and Y chromosomes determined if a person was a male or a female. I would always get the question about transgender. My statement was like this: “When you get down to basics, the Y chromosome has one job: it tells the developing fetus to grow a penis, and tells it to develop male secondary sex and gender characteristics. So a person either has a Y chromosome and a penis, or they don’t. Male or female, that’s it. Anything else is not supported by biology and would fall into the realm of psychology.”

Every once in awhile, a student would reply with: “What about those born with intersex characteristics, where they have both sets of genitals?” To which I would reply, “That is a birth defect, an abnormality in fetal development. When children are born without arms, we do not declare them to be snakes, likewise, a child born with incomplete dual genitalia are abnormal. They do not define the rest of human development. Such individuals are less than one in a thousand live births, and do not excuse people with normal genitalia for the delusional belief that they can select their own biology, even when their DNA plainly states otherwise. That is a psychological problem, not a biological one.”

That statement would mean that I am not qualified to teach in New York.

People who have read this post: 453
By Divemedic, ago

Pentagon Purge

The Pentagon sent a report to Congress back in October, claiming that the military had been ‘infiltrated’ by white supremacists. It was released to the public on February 25, with Pravda and Isvestia immediately parroting the report. What is odd about that is the UN Secretary General claimed on February 22 that white supremacy was the main threat to the world.

What an amazing coincidence. That was obviously not a coordinated release or anything. Nope. Completely coincidental.

Guess what- being a white supremacist isn’t a crime. That whole ‘freedom of speech’ thing says that you can believe whatever you want. What is happening here is that the left is using this accusation of white supremacy to conduct a purge of anyone in the military who doesn’t pass the ideological purity test. For decades, I have been hearing those on the right claim that the US military would never fire on its own citizens. The left is purging the military of anyone who would refuse such an order.

People who have read this post: 730
By Divemedic, ago

Why do I need to know this?

This is my answer to SiGraybeard:

There are many challenges to being a teacher in a failing high school. One of those challenges is the students have parents who are largely high school dropouts and drug addicts. They didn’t become that way because they value education. Kids emulate the behavior they see at home. Countering years of a parent who is ignorant and telling the child, “You don’t need to know that. You will never need to know how to use any of that stuff they make you learn. I graduated 20 years ago, and still haven’t used any of it,” is nearly impossible.

One of the things that I do is present the students with a digital photo album. It’s a photo story of my life. My time in the military. My time as a firefighter. A paramedic. A master SCUBA diver. I show them pictures of my travels. I show them how great life can be, and how different it can be from what they know. Then I tell them that the key to living an interesting life is education. That doesn’t mean college, necessarily. It could be a trade. Then I try to tie my lessons into a skill.

Kids, did you know that a bullet begins to fall from the acceleration of gravity as soon as it leaves the barrel of a gun? If a sniper shoots a bullet perfectly horizontal, and his watch falls off at the same time, the bullet and the watch will hit the ground at the same time. Then I prove it.

If four firefighters are on the fourth floor of a building, and there is 200 feet of firehose between the truck and their position, you have to add pressure to the water to account for friction and elevation. This is how you calculate just how much pressure you need to add in order to get them enough water to put out the fire.

Efficiency is important. Chemical reactions have efficiency. Some reactions are not perfect. Let’s say we are making drugs like in “Breaking Bad.” Let’s say that we know that our reaction is 90% efficient. (Pointing to kid in front row) Is John stealing from us, or are we losing product to inefficiency? If he is stealing, we need to whack him. Let’s do the math and see if John lives or not. (students all laugh) So we start by calculating…

I use examples to make the class fun, interesting, and relevant. Math isn’t racist, but a poor teacher can make it boring. Even these tactics fail more than half the time. The kids don’t care, their parents don’t care, and so the kids don’t even come to school more than half the time.

So many people fall back on the race card. It isn’t that my kid is absent and refusing to cooperate with the lessons. That would be an indictment of my parenting. It isn’t that my kid is becoming a gang member. A drug user. My daughter isn’t going to wind up as a stripper. No, all of this is the teacher’s fault. Not mine. Not my child’s. The teacher MUST be racist. Blaming racism is the same fundamental logic as 1930s Germans blaming the Jews- “It can’t be MY fault. It must be someone else’s fault.” The people need a scapegoat for their own failures.

People who have read this post: 649
By Divemedic, ago

Gun free zone signs don’t work

A shooting at AdventHealth Celebration. That is a failure of gunfree zone signs. As I have posted before, that hospital has signs up.

The sign is misleading. Chapter 790 only prohibits weapons and firearms in a pharmacy, and even so, law enforcement and those licensed to carry concealed weapons are exempt. Since you are prohibited from carry firearms unless you fall into either of those categories, that particular law is redundant. There are no laws prohibiting a person with a concealed weapons permit from carrying a weapon in a hospital, nor do signs carry the force of law in this state.

Even so, the law prohibiting weapons in a pharmacy does not extend to the entire hospital, just to the portion of the hospital that is the pharmacy. This sign is deliberately misleading, which indicates to me that the SDA church (who owns the hospital) is being less than honest when it comes to this signage.

I ignore the sign and enter with my weapon anyway, and so do the criminals, apparently.

People who have read this post: 537
By Divemedic, ago

What?

Texans who couldn’t go to work because of the winter storm, they were told that they could either burn vacation or forfeit the pay for the days that they didn’t work. They are incensed, and I don’t understand why.

When a Hurricane hits in Florida, we have it the same way. Not getting paid when you aren’t at work isn’t anything new- why would you expect to get paid when you aren’t working?

Why should their employers pay them for days they were off work? Expecting the company to do that is expecting your employer to insure you against lost wages for acts of nature. Isn’t that what insurance is for?

People who have read this post: 454
By Divemedic, ago

Blame the guns

On January 31, Omarea James became the third black football player to be shot in Ocala, Florida in less than a year. In June, Kyrion Weathers was shot. In December, Chris Chevelon was also shot and killed. What did they have in common, other than living in the same neighborhood? Take a look at Omarea’s father, and you tell me:

The guy who was arrested in the shooting is a 20 year old suspected gang member who referred to the victims as “opps,” street slang for “opposition.” A copy of the arrest affidavit is here (pdf).

arrest affidavitDownload

The apartment complex where all of them live is well known in the area for being a crime ridden cesspool.

But the article itself shows what the left is blaming- gun ownership. According to them, gun owners are worse than COVID, and police aren’t the answer, they say.

People who have read this post: 377
By Divemedic, ago

Blogshoot

This post is a plug for the upcoming blogshoot that is coming up this Saturday. I am going to do a “first aid for the shooting range” quicky class.

Be there. We had a good time at the last one.

This is the only post for today because I am doing some training for the maintenance of my medical license. Gotta get that done.

People who have read this post: 729
By Divemedic, ago