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Twenty-Five Things That Caught My Eye Today: Ukraine, a Father Facing Death, Johnny Cash & More

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Ukrainian service members stand near a school building destroyed by shelling in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, March 4, 2022. (Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters)

1. I know some of you live in Alexandria, Va. Do something about this:

2. From elsewhere on this site, by Hollie McKay, in Kyiv:  Ukrainian Church Leaders Join Fight against Putin’s Invasion: ‘He Is the Antichrist’

3. Peggy Noonan: Ukraine’s Peril Stirs the West’s Humanity

But also maybe what’s different in this story is a lot of people would be taken aback that we all still have normal human emotions. Most of the forces of modern life tend toward the synthetic, the presentational — virtual feelings and enactments. And yet here we are, feeling something. . . .

The first week of the invasion shattered the Russian army’s mystique. These aren’t Siege of Leningrad killers; these aren’t fur-hatted Cossacks 15 feet tall on their nimble steeds; these are modern, slouchy 20-year-olds who play videogames.

“He’s afraid his military isn’t cutting it,” the Wise Old Hound said of Mr. Putin. “Something is going on there. There may be some question, is he gonna dump his military or is his military gonna dump him? They’ve got to be disillusioned with his commands and orders, and I suspect the disillusionment is a two-way street.” . . .

Thousands have gone into the streets to protest the war and Mr. Putin’s dictatorship. Reuters reported Sunday that 5,500 people had been arrested, 2,000 that day alone.

Mr. Putin will crack down, hard. Russians will suffer in another way. The past 30 years their lives have materially expanded — they are more prosperous, have more options, go on vacations, have children at colleges in Europe. As the diplomat said: “They shop at Ikea.” (The Swedish furniture chain shut its Russia stores Thursday.) Under Mr. Putin they didn’t have freedom at home but they became integrated into the world, which was its own kind of freedom.

They don’t want to be the pariah people of a pariah state. They want to be proud of themselves and their country. Most Russians don’t like the oligarchs and the hard men around Mr. Putin any more than we do.

We should find every way to tell the people of Russia the facts of the war as it unfolds, what the West is trying to do and why. Tell it as straight and clear as Mr. Zelensky. They should be told that the world has lost respect for Mr. Putin but not for the Russian people. Urge them to see Ukraine for what it is, and Mr. Putin for who he is.

4. Ukraine’s major archbishop: War risks creating ecological disaster as well as humanitarian catastrophe

Concluding his video message, Shevchuk noted that the Archangel Michael is the patron saint of Kyiv.

“We perceive today that the Archangel Michael together with the whole Heavenly Host is fighting for Ukraine,” he said.

He prayed: “Today we pray: O Archangel Michael and all the Powers of Heaven, fight for Ukraine! Cast down that devil who is attacking us and killing us, bringing devastation and death!”

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6. Wall Street Journal: In Ukraine, City Recalls Last Russian Occupation as ‘Sea of Bodies’

Slovyansk was seized in 2014 conflict, and fears are rising of possible repeat as Russian troops advance.

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8. Christopher B. Barrett & Vincent H. Smith: To address Ukraine’s humanitarian needs, suspend outdated food aid restrictions

9. Chef José Andrés teams up with Catholic nuns at Ukraine border

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12. Henry Olsen: As push to ban Russian oil builds, Biden has an opportunity to lead

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15. From the Columbus Dispatch: Medical expert: Husel’s painkiller doses enough ‘to take out an elephant’

Ryan Hayes came into Mount Carmel Health System’s intensive care unit in April 2017 with swelling in his brain after overdosing at home.

Then, a medical expert testified Monday, Dr. William Husel gave Hayes, who was 39, 1,000 micrograms of fentanyl, enough of the powerful opiate “to take out an elephant.”

Thirty-three minutes after that medication was given, Hayes was dead. And the medication is what killed him, Dr. Wes Ely, of Vanderbilt University, testified on Monday.

Similar circumstances were described for the other 13 patients Husel is accused of prescribing excessive doses of painkillers to between 2015 and 2018. For each, Ely said the drugs were what killed them, not their underlying health conditions.

Ely said Husel’s dosing was “astounding,” “mind-boggling” and “out of the norm.”

“This is like driving 250 mph through a school zone while people are crossing the street,” Ely said.

During his testimony, Ely, a practicing ICU physician for more than 25 years, said he would never use doses of fentanyl in the ranges that Husel ordered for patients and there’s no medical literature he could find for backing up what Husel did.

“There’s no literature at all because nobody does that,” he said. . . .

Husel, the former Mount Carmel Health system doctor accused of prescribing excessive doses of painkillers to ICU patients between 2015 and 2018, is on trial in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on 14 counts of murder.

Husel is accused of hastening the death of Hayes, as well as Joanne S. Bellisari, 69; ; Beverlee Ann Schirtzinger, 63; Danny Mollette, 74; ; Brandy McDonald, 37; Francis Burke, 73; Jeremia Hodge, 57; James Allen, 80; Troy Allison, 44; Bonnie Austin, 64; James Nickolas Timmons, 39; Sandra Castle, 80; Rebecca Walls, 75; and Melissa Penix, 82.

Ely said he also preferred to remove patients from life support and ventilators during the day, allowing the families to get rest and consider what they may need to say for their own healing. The majority of the patients Husel is charged in relation to died during the overnight hours.

“I don’t want to rush that or do it under the cloak of darkness,” Ely said. “If you do it at night, it makes it seem like there’s some sort of urgency.”

Ely also was asked about the combination of drugs frequently used by Husel, which included fentanyl and a benzodiazepine, that many of the patients received.

“The brain is now getting pummeled in two different directions by two different compounds … to say ‘Don’t breathe anymore’,” Ely said. “It’s very dangerous to give both medications without monitoring the person carefully.”

Ely said the dosages that Husel was giving would tell a patient’s brain to stop breathing, rather than to make them unaware of pain or shortness of breath they might experience.

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17. Holly Kearl in USA Today: Surgeon denied my sister care because of ‘low quality of life.’ She proved him wrong.

When my older sister was 6 years old, she needed surgery to rebuild her chest, which was caving in and beginning to crush her organs. The surgeon at our local children’s hospital who was most qualified to perform it declined, saying Heidi had too low a quality of life to be worth his time.

What had Heidi, with dark brown hair that our mom arranged with brightly colored bows, done to offend him? What had Heidi, who giggled and bopped around the community swimming pool with assistance from her bright red plastic innertube, done to be deemed unworthy of medical care?

Only this: She was born with physical and intellectual disabilities stemming from having the rare disease microcephaly. Up to 7,000 rare diseases or conditions affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. At least 25 million people are living with a rare disease in our country.

For people like the surgeon, her differences were enough to discount her life.

Thankfully, our mom was never deterred by ignorant people, and she found a pediatric surgeon who was willing to operate on Heidi even though it was not his specialty. The surgery helped to double her lifespan to 12 years. Her life improved and was prolonged because the second surgeon saw her worth.

During those six additional years, she learned to drive an electric wheelchair and gain more independence. She thrived at school and her special summer camps. She went on vacations with us to see relatives and visit places like San Francisco, Myrtle Beach and the Rocky Mountains. Her mischievous side came out at the dinner table when she’d sneakily stick out her arm to knock off her plate and silverware. And she happily played with me, our younger sister, Mary, and our neighborhood friends.

This is the life the surgeon deemed too “low quality” to be worth saving. . . .

In January, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky gave an interview on “Good Morning America” saying a new study showed that a disproportionate number of deaths due to COVID-19 occurred among people who had four or more comorbidities – meaning they had disabilities, or, as she termed it, were “unwell to begin with.” She said this was “encouraging news” that vaccinations protect the vast majority of people. . . .

In other words, it was reassuring that it was mostly “only” the “unwell” or disabled people who are dying, as if their lives don’t matter. Later, under pressure from disability rights groups, she apologized, but not before writer and activist Imani Barbarin started what became a viral hashtag #MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy.

In the medical realm, in late 2020, NPR correspondent Joseph Shapiro reported on cases in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic where persons with disabilities were denied ventilators and other care at hospitals. One physician NPR quoted even described the “low quality of life” of a person with a disability as to why, using the same words the surgeon did more than 30 years ago about Heidi. . . .

I’m now the mother to a 3-year-old who has three rare diseases and a disability. He has had scores of hospital visits in four states and Washington, D.C., and he will have his 12th surgical procedure soon. I’m grateful to every medical professional who has helped him thrive so far, but I know that unless there are systematic changes, he may face discrimination one day just like Heidi did. And that is not OK.

18. CBS News: They say their children are being denied transplants because of their disabilities. A new federal law may help change that.

19.  Helen Lewis: The Twitching Generation

Around the world, doctors have noticed teenage patients reporting the sudden onset of tics. Is this the first illness spread by social media?

20. Carl R. Trueman: When Evil Is Called Good

President Biden, no doubt drawing upon years of careful reading in the field of gender theory, portentously pronounced early in 2020 that “transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights.” And it would seem that Biden’s administration and its state-level counterparts look set to be as good as their leader’s word. If you are a parent who wishes to stop your young daughter, swept up in the trans craze, from having her breasts removed, you should expect no help from those in power. If you are a legislator who wants to make sure gender transition clinics operate within the law, you should expect to be labeled a vicious bigot. And if you don’t want your elementary-school-aged child learning about sex from a stranger (who has also been given the right to know more about who your child believes he is than you do), then it is not too far-fetched to think that you might find yourself talking to child protective services at some point.

21. Patrick Brown: Listening to parents on paid leave

22. Jonathan Tjarks: Does My Son Know You?

I have already told some of my friends: When I see you in heaven, there’s only one thing I’m going to ask — Were you good to my son and my wife? Were you there for them? Does my son know you?

I don’t want Jackson to have the same childhood that I did. I want him to wonder why his dad’s friends always come over and shoot hoops with him. Why they always invite him to their houses. Why there are so many of them at his games. I hope that he gets sick of them.

One thing I have learned from this experience is that you can’t worry about things that you can’t control. I can’t control what will happen to me. I don’t know how long I will be there for my son. All I can do is make the most of the time that I have left. That means investing in other people so they can be there for him.

23: AP: Inmates leaving gangs, stripping tats for jobs, better lives

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25. From earlier in the week:

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