TeresaCentric

UCLA Can’t Seem to do Right by Burn Victim or Her Family

2009-07-01T03:08:48Z

During my time at Pomona College, I was privileged to know two beautiful, brilliant sisters. The eldest, Naveen, was in my class, while her younger sister Sheri studied abroad and graduated with Andy’s little sister Susan. Both women were kind, funny and scarily intelligent - a credit to their family, the college, and to one another. Their potential was limitless - both women had the character and talents to be of great benefit to the human race.

Now, only one of them will get that chance. Sheri Sangji died earlier this year after a horrific and entirely preventable laboratory accident at UCLA.

On December 29, 2008 - while the campus was nearly deserted for the winter holiday - Sheri was working unsupervised to transfer a highly dangerous chemical from one container to another. The chemical in question - t-butyl lithium - bursts into flame when exposed to air. That’s what happened when the stopper came out of the container in Sheri’s hands. She was burned over 43% of her body and died 18 agonizing days later. She was 23.

At the time of the incident, several previously cited safety violations in the lab where Sheri worked remained uncorrected. Sheri was not adequately trained in safety measures for handling the chemical, nor was she trained in what to do if she caught fire. She was not wearing a protective lab coat. The University has since been fined $31,875 for four violations - one regulatory and three “serious” - that lead directly to Sheri’s death

It is a laughably small sum when compared with the devastating result of those violations.

Since the accident, the University has been unforthcoming, insulting and possibly even dishonest with the Sangji family and the regulatory authorities responsible for the ongoing investigation. According to the LA Times:

On the night of the fire, a deputy fire marshal had ordered [principal investigator Patrick] Harran and his researchers to stay out of the lab, which was then locked and secured with plastic crime-scene tape, records show. But the next morning, the deputy reported, he found that some 5-gallon drums of improperly stored flammable liquids were gone, and other items had been moved around.

There also was no sign of a container of highly flammable hexane that Sheri Sangji said had spilled and fueled the flash fire that engulfed her, according to a report by Los Angeles fire officials who interviewed her shortly afterward.

When UCLA fire officials interviewed Harran on Feb. 5, he said he knew nothing about the hexane. He acknowledged asking two researchers to clean up the lab and remove the drums, but said he had no ulterior motive.

“I just wanted to get all those drums out,” he said. “It was my fault. . . . And it didn’t relate to the accident, but it just looked bad.”

Then, the University had the gall to appeal the censure they received, a legal move aimed to limit their civil liability. Finally, when a public relations fiasco ensued, they backed off the appeal and issued an appalling statement:

“In our view it was not worth the distraction it was causing,” [said Kevin Reed, UCLA vice chancellor for legal affairs.] “It was in UCLA’s best interest to withdraw the appeal and move forward, as we have been trying to do since this tragic day happened.”

Reed also accused the family of sending [the regulatory body] a letter “ghost-written by plaintiffs lawyers” in an “effort to get some big judgment at the end of the rainbow here.”

Naveen, a medical student at Harvard, says that she wrote the letter, and I take her at her word. If anyone can craft a well-written and justifiably outraged appeal for justice, she can. Clearly, Mr. Reed does not have any clue who he is dealing with - as he would if he had the good sense to get to know Naveen or her family.

The bottom line is this: we don’t know the full extent of what happened to Sheri yet. We may never know everything - but UCLA at least owes the Sangji family a respectful and dignified attempt at transparency. Instead, they seek only to cover their own asses, creating still more suffering and strife for a family that has known more than enough.

Where the Wild Birds Land on Your Hand

2009-06-30T15:53:57Z

I went on an awesome backpacking expedition with a few close friends this week. Sometimes, in this technology-saturated world we live in, it’s awesome to get off the grid.

As we crossed into the Alpine Lakes wilderness and found our way to Talapus Lake, we saw a pair of camp robbers, the cute little bluejay like birds that are brazen enough to make a living stealing food from camp sites. They were so comfortable with people that with a little coaxing, and a little food, they landed right on our hands:

We named the two Icarus & Daedalus, since one was much more cautious than the other.

Scoble has been talking a lot about how much drama can unfold on the Internet. To be sure, the unplugged world can be dramatic - but every so often, I think Robert should come one step further down from the speed and have a good hike in the woods.

In fact, I think it would do all of us rectangle gazing geeks some real good.

Jackson Death “Without a Doubt” Poses Threat to Democracy in Iran

2009-06-26T21:13:23Z

Looks like I’m not the only person who believes that the Ayatollah and his butt buddy Ahmadinejad are happier than pigs in you-know-what over Michael Jackson’s death:

The Jackson story, paired with Farrah Fawcett’s death and Sanford’s own scandal, “without a doubt” poses a danger in Iran, according to Michael Rubin, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and former Bush administration official.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Rubin said the issue was already a hot topic among his colleagues in the Middle East.

“To put it this way, the gods are not in favor of hope and change,” Rubin said. “Unfortunately in Iran people are going to prison, but when a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, the pressure goes away.”

“Its’ a sad commentary that celebrity still trumps national security in news coverage, but that’s the world we live in,” he said.

Michael Jackson as Symbol of Freedom

2009-06-26T06:15:17Z

Andrew Sullivan’s Live Tweeting the Revolution series is incredible. He consistently pulls images and updates from Iran’s front lines to the fore.

This tweet he recapped stuck out at me today:

R.I.P Micheal Jackson, many in Iran loved you and grew up with your songs, despite all the Regime’s confinements and propaganda

It’s very true that Western music has played a role in raising the generation that is now working to collapse an unjust system in Iran. A reminder that we are all connected in more ways than initially meet the eye.

Michael Jackson Dies, Ayatollah Khameni & “President” Ahmadinejad Breathe a Sigh of Relief

2009-06-26T04:33:16Z

Don’t get me wrong. I love Michael Jackson’s music. Today, the world lost a beloved musician who - as my good and wise friend Andru Edwards pointed out to me - transcended racial barriers “Before Barack, before Oprah, before [Tiger] Woods.”

But the artistic and racial impact of Michael Jackson’s life - and the premature sadness of his death - are the perfect distraction from the doings of the thugs running Iran. I fear that the media and the American public will pay far too much attention to the train wreck of Jackson’s decline and death - as they did with Anna Nicole Smith - and forget this infinitely more principled and even more untimely death, and the uncounted others like it.

WARNING: EXTREMELY DISTUBING & GRAPHIC

The youth of Iran are screaming out for justice. May we continue to bear witness to their struggle and support them in every way we can. (You can start by Tweeting this link.) May their voices not fall on ears deafened by the constant commercialism of US culture.

Wilshire & Washington: Adam Kokesh on U.S. Foreign Policy in Iraq, Iran

2009-06-24T15:47:17Z

Join Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry and I as we talk with my old college friend, Adam Kokesh on this week’s Wilshire & Washington. Adam is a decorated Iraq veteran and fierce anti-interventionist who has been endorsed by Ron Paul.

Holding on and Letting Go: My Take on Newspapers

2009-06-22T05:02:21Z

Back in March, I wrote a blog post about the fate of Seattle’s now all-online newspaper, the Seattle P-I. At the time, I wasn’t auditioning for anything, but shortly thereafter, the editor of my college alumni magazine got in touch to ask if I would write a piece about my personal relationship to the P-I for the magazine’s Spring 2009 edition - which would cover the travails of the newspaper business from all angles.

Here’s an excerpt of the piece I wrote:

We were a P-I family. After my parents divorced, the paper would land on both doorsteps each morning. I had no siblings to share my adventures in joint custody, but the P-I was there no matter where I slept each night.

At nine, I clipped out articles from the front page for Tuesday’s current events discussion in Mrs. Loeb’s class. As an angsty teenager, I avoided parental eye contact by reading the paper and sipping a latte until the Geohegans came to pick me up for school.

Be sure to head over to Pomona College Magazine to read the rest.

Mental Health Break: Is President Obama a Nerd?

2009-06-22T04:53:59Z

My roommate Arjun showed me this unbelievably hilarious video of John Hodgman at the Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner tonight:

This video addresses all the burning questions that we’ve all been asking. “Is Obama one of us?” “Will he live up to our expectations?” And most importantly, “has President Obama ever read Dune?”

Iran Revolution: Thoughts on Despotism, the MSM and APIs = Freedom

2009-06-14T03:54:26Z

As soon as Andy and I came back into mobile range after our camping trip at Lake Wenatchee this afternoon, the first thing he did was go to Andrew Sullivan’s blog to get some news on the Iranian election. We got tingles when we heard that people were rioting in the streets over the obviously rigged victory of the ruling party over the opposition.

By the time we got into Seattle, the election story had been more than 36 hours in the making and yet the mainstream media was covering anything but. Instead, Twitter has been the main source of news for information from brave Iranians who want to share what is happening in their country with the rest of the world.

It is amazing to me how much the mainstream media and the Iranian regime have in common. The regime failed to realize the power of Twitter to spread news and information, in part thanks to the structure of APIs that allow users to Tweet without having to visit Twitter’s domain. This means that users can go to any number of sites and post their updates. The regime’s censors cannot possibly block the people’s access to every place they might post a Tweet and the result is freedom of speech in the midst of revolution.

Meanwhile, CNN, FOX, MSNBC and everyone else are airing stupid pre-taped shows on everything from Letterman vs. Palin to the auction of Unabomber Ted Kazinski’s belongings. They, too, are underestimating the power of people with access to the Internet to broadcast and cover stories without their intervention. They could be add tremendous value by fact checking rumors and bringing in experts to comment on the situation - but instead they’re sitting on their hands.

Old models - from despotism to broadcast media - are being turned on their ears by this new technology and the world is watching.