Okay, Listen Up

12/7/2012

There were moments early on in the Wills and Kate emesis drama when I thought it foolish, wrong, and just plain stupid for a nurse to have given out information over the telephone.

I mean, really, who thinks that Elizabeth Regina herself dials a main number and asks to be put through? Who really thinks that the monarch needs an anonymous hourly wager to divulge info that's probably already been written up in a top secret report overnight?

My money was on the nurse being fired, given the patient and all. Except that I know from experience that reporters do get put through to nursing supervisors all the time, and that person can and does give out a statement to reporters. Those are usually along the lines of "critical but stable." No details, no soft cuddly tones. Still....

But now, the game has changed. The nurse in this case is dead, which reminds me to reignite the ire I originally felt, but sort of left behind, for the buffoons Down Under who instigated this hoax from the get-go.

I think I can guess what season it is down there. And I can only imagine what time it was when this news became public. But I do hope that someone woke up those two fools and said, "You're finished."

Seriously, if they were surprised at being put through - and yes, it was an egregious error - then what did they plan on happening? An on-air hang-up? A moment to giggle and pretend to be embarrassed? Instead, they got a rundown of Kate's In's and Out's.

Is nothing sacred anymore? Is it not possible to just leave people alone? Must we humiliate and degrade everyone? This is why I don't watch commercial television. I have zero desire to see people who can't sing (or dance) humiliate themselves any more than I want to watch lions eat gladiators alive.

So here's my message for the universe: I don't want to see your tongue, your underwear, your armpits, or your hoo-hah. I don't want to hear about your marriage, your therapist, your binges, or your surgery. Nor do I want to look at your wealth, your sulking children, or your stupid spouse.

I'm done (and I don't even watch this crap, so you can imagine how I'd feel if I actually did.) I vote for returning to the days when everyone did it, and no one talked about it. I enjoy the hint of something, rather than the full monty.

And that circles me back to this poor nurse. Unknowingly, she was made the butt of a world joke. She was no doubt wounded and humiliated. And for what purpose? So that we could all know that Kate was retching more or less than the day before? What have we come to?

Talk me down people.

Tyroanee

12/7/2012 22:15:27

Much agreed, what have we come to when someones suffering, famous or not has become a joke, or even news worthy.
While we all wait to fall over this imaginary cliff of uncertainty, I can't help but to reflect as to far we have climbed well over and beyond the mountain of humanity and compassion, only to find ourselves flat on our faces.

Laura

12/7/2012 23:08:22

You said it better than I did, Tyroanee. Our humanity is lost, not just over this incident, but in the way we live and celebrate people's foibles and failures. It's terribly sad in general. In particular I am so very sad for this nurse and her family.

Sarah Palin has a serpent's heart link

12/7/2012 23:37:00

While it is quite possible she was terminated, I wonder if she was mentally ill before the prank happened and all the scrutiny and negative attention is what drove her over the edge.

Laura

12/8/2012 00:48:50

It's fair to wonder that. Something like suicide does not happen in a vacuum. It was obviously the final straw. But it wasn't bad enough that she might have been reprimanded at work (after perhaps excitedly thinking that she'd been talking to the queen). But to then be humiliated around the world. Very sad indeed.

V-A

12/8/2012 02:51:41

The report I heard tonight (NPR) said that the nurse had an excellent record and had not been fired. In fact Buck. Palace had called the hospital to offer their condolences that they had had to suffer the prank. I can only imagine a nurse who took her job seriously (and managed a busy slate of patients) giving in to the authority she believed was on the phone. She was reviled because the prank was broadcast and the accent used for the Queen sounded really silly, so the nurse was made to look an idiot.

I also feel sadness for the Prince and Princess. No one's first pregnancy should have to be associated with something so vile.

I agree with your rant, Laura. I can't talk you down. Sometimes outrage is the only answer.

grannyj

12/8/2012 01:20:37

I cannot talk you down Laura. It makes me sick. I find it all so incredibly sad and so incredibly senseless. For whatever reason this nurse, who by all accounts was a kind, caring person, was too fragile to withstand the humiliation. And left in the wake is a family who will be forever changed. And for what?

Laura

12/8/2012 21:47:42

Well, exactly, for what? Because they just could not leave Kate and Wills' pregnancy alone. There had to be an angle, a joke, a something. Just had to pry. Senseless and tragic.

Dis Gusted

12/9/2012 17:42:05

the woman was mentally ill already. She was 46 years old and had been working for only 4 years even though she obtained a license in 2003. She described herself as frail and very nervous.

Obviously, she shouldn't have been working at all because she was fragile. She had two teenage children and a boyfriend that she never saw because they lived 100 miles away.

Ottoline

12/8/2012 02:39:07

Talk you down: Let's hold our horses. I have yet to read any indication of cause of death, although the s word has been bandied about in every article.

A prank, however dire its consequences, is not on a par with far-reaching white-collar crime, of the kind we have been discussing for the past 4+ years. When the Sarkozy/Palin prank happened, we thought it was fine. Invasions of privacy have always been a downside of being a prominent person. Even your favorite Anna Karenina movie* (the one with Helen McCrory, which I watched last night) is filmed a lot of the time as if the viewer is peeking from the crack of a door, or from around a corner -- people are watching aristos all the time. It's not worth railing against; taking precautions is important, but slips will occur. Part of the cost of doing business. In THAT business. Charles must be wishing his Camilla-gate invasion of privacy had been as benign.

Let's save our outrage and energy for defeating the far right wing, or ending the wars. Sad that this well-regarded nurse dies, but the two events might well be unrelated.

Are the DJs scum? I say yes, but I also think the audiences who listen to this stuff are equally to blame, if not more so. Demand pull. In our own little blog world, I see that, on IM, a straight political post on some really interesting and newsworthy event gets about 10% of the comments that something irrelevant and sleazy about Palin hairdos, clothes, weight, or plastic surgery gets.

_______
*Yes this movie was shadowy and beat-up enough for my taste. The husband reminded me of Tony Perkins in Psycho. I had to laugh at the de rigueur Tolstoy "happy peasants at bonfire" scene. Sooooo happy to be a serf in darkest Russia. As if their life was not essentially squalid and harsh, unless they were v v lucky. When I looked afterwards at clips of the Keira version, she seemed to be acting it like a spoiled indignant teen. Yes, Laura, the McCrory version seemed to me the best one I've seen.

V-A

12/8/2012 02:55:46

The prank against Palin was deserved. She asked for it by purporting to be worthy of an office far beyond her capabilities. The nurse who was pranked was doing her job-- AND very likely trying to serve her Queen when she fell for the prank. To think she was made a laughing stock one can only have pity for her and the two small children she left behind.

Laura

12/8/2012 21:52:38

It's very easy for us all to laugh and say, how could they both have possibly thought that that was ER II? I mean, as an American even I could tell it wasn't her royal highness. But we can't know what it was to be in that position. Does one really second guess the monarch? But more importantly, this woman was a private citizen doing her job. She was not a politician who put it all on the line for fame or glory.

Ottoline

12/9/2012 05:56:33

If the person who answered the phone and connected Palin to the fake Sarkozy had later killed herself, I don't think we would care whether the prank was "deserved" or not.

Laura

12/8/2012 21:49:54

I agree with you that the audiences who yearn for this stuff and laugh at it in different forms are the ones who enable it. But I don't think it matters much what pushed this woman over the edge. The entire thing was wrong even if it hadn't gone so bad. And if it hadn't gone so bad, would we all be in for another 8 months of this level of royal baby watch? Why couldn't they just have left well enough alone.

Ottoline

12/8/2012 04:54:02

A quick review of goog tells me that:
-- the ambulance workers who found her said "her death was unexplained but not suspicious."
-- The death is "being treated as unexplained, but police did not find anything suspicious. It will be up to a coroner to decide how she died."
-- Scotland Yard was classifying the cause of death, which British media have characterized as a suicide, as "unexplained."

The Daily Mail, owned (via shell companies) by Murdoch+pals, says "apparent suicide" per "a source." Also sounds like many twitterers claim it was a suicide, but give no reason.

I'm just saying that when tabloids of the Rupert sort are involved, I'd prefer to know what police, ambulance, and Scotland Yard say before we need to be talked down from the instant unsupported conclusion of the mob. They may, of course, prove to be right. But let's wait ten more minutes until we know what the official experts say.

Of course a death is very sad. Sad for all.

cranky

12/8/2012 07:22:31

What about the Governor of Wisconsin being called by a fake Koch? Clearly lies were told, to get Walker on the line and on his knees before the fake billionaire. The lies in the call caused Scott Walker to tell the truth.

Ivyfree

12/8/2012 14:19:07

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation. I thought the nurse who died had only transferred the call to another nurse, who is the one who gave information. I don't know what confidentiality laws exist in Great Britain, but ethically, the nurse who talked is the one who should be embarrassed- not the one who transferred the call to her.

And I believe it was suicide. While young people can die spontaneously from cardiac arrhythmias, that's not as frequent as suicide. A young person, dying, and the police are saying it's "not suspicious"- well it's going to be murder, accident or suicide, and they're not saying "apparently accidental." Tragic.

Dis Gusted

12/9/2012 17:45:18

agreed. she only forwarded the call. That she killed herself because of embarrassment is an embarrassment to good nurses everywhere.

Good nurses don't kill themselves. She wins the Darwin award.

Ivyfree

12/11/2012 01:57:09

Good nurses don't kill themselves? Are you saying that you don't believe good nurses can become depressed and overwhelmed?

ManxMamma

12/8/2012 16:56:57

I could not agree with you more Laura.

FrostyAK

12/8/2012 17:38:17

It seems as if life/society has become a pale reflection of reality tv shows.

I was truly saddened to hear of the nurse's death, be it suicide or stress from the 'prank' - it will negatively impact both her family and the Duke and Dutchess. Kate and William are going to have a tough enough row to hoe without such tragedy blighting their path. IMO, the entire weight of the death lies directly on the shoulders of the 'funny' dj's who don't have an ounce of brains between them,

On another note, seems prince Charlie is anxious for his mother to be gone ( paraphrase of his own words) so he can assume the throne. One might hope that the crown passes directly to William instead.

Ivyfree

12/8/2012 22:04:49

Kate and William are going to have a tough enough row to hoe? Look, I don't wish them any harm; I tend to be something of a monarchist, anyway. But let's not pretend that they aren't significantly advantaged in life, okay? I've known women with hyperemesis who are missing work they can't afford to miss. If necessary, the Duchess can stay in bed her entire pregnancy and be waited on and have total parenteral nutrition, without a worry. They have personal prestige up the wazoo, money to burn and massive public support. Obviously they still have issues and there are some down sides, but somehow, I find myself not worrying in the least about how they'll manage or how difficult they'll find it.

Laura

12/8/2012 21:57:57

Responding to a few of you here: Ivyfree, you're right: it is becoming either foggier or more clear that she was the one who put through the call, but it was not her voice we heard. Am I correct? Either way, Frosty is correct in that it seems related to the prank. And whatever transpired in terms of humiliation or punishment at work, was too much for the nurse to bear.

I return to my initial premise which is that there is no decorum any more. No boundaries. No sense of propriety that tells us that certain things remain off limits and private. Kate's emesis, for one. I think the very nature of the problem that hospitalized her is what was so titillating for these juvenile DJs. Had she broken a leg, would they have found it so silly to hear details? Probably not. But there potential for some real bodily function information and therein laid the rub, in my opinion. Evidently the Australian version of the FCC is not telling these folks they can't do this. But do we need anyone to tell us that something isn't right? Why isn't this just internalized?

Ottoline

12/8/2012 23:28:50

Whether or not it was suicide, the nurse who died did not seem to have that much reason to be upset in my view: she transferred the call but did not answer the DJ questions; she was not reprimanded; she was supported by the hospital after the call; the Palace did not blame anyone and in fact praised the whole staff; the info about vomiting or not seems pretty bland to me.

Yes the DJs should lose their jobs; yes, better taste and judgment should prevail; yes, being royal or famous has its downside; yes, any nurse would feel bad to have even the slightest role in such a prank..

But until I hear it from someone in a position to know (rather than tweeters and tabloids), I'm not going to believe it was suicide.

We are all entitled to our opinion or belief about it, but I do think we should have some respect for the role of the presence or absence of confirmed facts in such an incident.

V-A

12/9/2012 02:19:22

Kindness and empathy are not judgements. No one life is harder than another unless you know the full story of both. Economic disadvantage is not the only disadvantage. To be sad for the dead nurse, sad for the Williamses that they experienced this, sad for the hospital, and for even yes QEII-- that is just goddam human kindness. Having sliding scales for sympathy or for judging someone's hardship is just irrelevant. And yes, all the money and position in the world does not make up for losing one's mother at a young age. So William's privilege now does not negate whatever heartache he lived through.

V-A

12/9/2012 02:20:58

So now I'm the angry one. I meant the heartache William experience when his mother died. (above.) I just don't understand "qualifying" one's sympathy.

Ivyfree

12/9/2012 17:50:22

You don't understand "qualifying" one's sympathy? Well, here's a scenario. A 14 year old boy's mother is killed in an accident. That boy's father rushes to him, his father's family brings him home immediately, surrounds him with loving care, he has access to the best therapists if needed but there's no evidence that he needed it, he goes to some of the best schools in the world, surrounded by every possible luxury that love and taste can provide. Sad.

Other scenario: a boy is being raised by a single mom whose father ran out long before his birth, is raised by her in a one-room apartment while she supplements her income with men who are willing to pay her for favors but backhand him if he gets in the way. He's got no relatives and he plays out on the street because there's no safe place nearby for him. He goes to the local school where the teachers try but the furniture is broken, the library is pitiful, and the textbooks are out of date because the community won't vote any money for the schools. He becomes a diabetic at age 5 and becomes picked on and jeered at for being different- oh, and he's very nearsighted and a little overweight. Sometimes his mother has a job and he's looked after by the alcoholic elderly woman down the hall who occasionally slams down a peanut butter sandwich. His mother uses drugs to anesthetize herself against the grinding poverty of their life, and is arrested for doing so. The kid goes into foster care, but gets bumped from one caregiver to another. When he's 14, his mom is killed in a prison fight.

Frankly, the second scenario attracts my sympathy more. Both these kids lose their mothers, but one has every possible support, the other has little to none. It's not "qualifying" sympathy to acknowledge that some people are more fortunate than others.

V-A

12/9/2012 21:59:24

Ivyfree, I had all the advantages you list. Money aplenty. Education. My family did all the right things. What no one knew was that my father was a pedophile. Or that my mother was a narcissist. I used to pray that my parents were ugly, poor, and stupid, because I believed that would have made them loving. A priest I respect ends every service with the words: "Be gentle with one another. We are all involved in great suffering." If someone does not hurt me personally (or as a public servant) I want to be sympathetic without measure. Otherwise I might as well be a Republican.

12/11/2012 23:09:46

There are many kinds of poverty.

grannyj

12/11/2012 18:18:33

V-A thank you for your comment. You say it so well. In terms of sliding scales for sympathy or for judging another's hardship- if this were the case none of us would qualify- if you look at the way most of the people in the world have to live. Heartache is what it is. Material advantages may make some things easier, but it does not change that basic emotion.

V-A link

12/12/2012 00:07:40

Actually, Granny and Up-- You both said it better than I did. Thank you for understanding.

Ottoline

12/9/2012 05:47:36

So now the (Australian) Sun, another Rupert rag, is starting to back away from the wildfire they and twitterers started, by saying, deep in the article: "Mental health experts today cautioned against any assumptions about factors contributing to her death and news coverage in Britain have linked her death and the pranks but have cautiously not suggested one led to the other."

This is of course not true: the twitter-dee and tabloid-dum are the very ones who jumped to the suicide conclusion, via their mile-high headlines featuring the s-word and their reference to an unnamed source. I'd say the Rupert papers made a lot of money off this.

http://tinyurl.com/acmgekv

I am not saying that there was NOT causality. That and suicide may well prove to be the case. But it hasn't yet been proved to be the case. What is gained by this viral speculation before anyone in a position to know has offered any real conclusions?

One has to put the viral coverage of this prank as a possible cause of this death, and a certain cause of much unneeded distress, esp to the nurse and her family. And ditto for the other nurse. Only one clear winner, who gains: tabloid sales.

I noticed that when Prince Phillip was caught exposing his genitals (while photographed wearing a kilt, seated, at a public gathering), it was hushed up very quickly, with no photos on the web. Not so Kate's photos, which invaded her privacy. In this case, I am positive an ethical press could have stopped this rampage of coverage -- or greatly minimized it -- in the days before the death. Or after the death, emphasizing that details were not yet available rather than pushing the suicide conclusion.

If the press can manage to perpetuate the Palin Pregnancy Hoax cover-up, it surely could have squelched all this hysteria, if only to protect the family of the nurse.

Laura

12/9/2012 20:24:34

I "feel" for William and Kate in the context of their life. They are in the lucky sperm club. It's not fair and it's all very strange. But in the context of who they are and how they live - and it is simply impossible to make comparisons to the rest of us mere mortals - then I do find it all too bad that this story had to start out this way.

As for the nurse, I don't judge what happened in her life or who she was. The hoax went overboard. I'm tired of the whole idea of hoaxing for an audience. Society in general needs to stop this garbage. Let the royal throw up in the hospital in peace. End of story.

Ottoline

12/9/2012 20:58:42

Oh, my -- this will all surely be a case study someday. See HuffPo:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/royal-prank-nurse-suicide_b_2266447.html

First, the Twitter-Dees and Tabloid-Dums went viral, implying and claiming the death is a suicide, blaming the pranksters, and selling lots of papers or harvesting clicks. Bonanza for them!

Next, we have the tabloids (at least Rupert's Australian Sun) backing off from claiming both causality and suicide (two separate things) until there is more info. The lawyers just weighed in.

Now, this HuffPo piece points the blame fingers toward the hospital, that it possibly treated the nurse harshly (in spite of the statement to the contrary) and should have had better phone security. An acknowledgment that the data points don't add up just right.

The next step is to proclaim that the it was the victim's fault for over-reacting (which the HuffPo piece starts up). When in doubt, blame the victim, esp a deceased victim who cannot respond.

No one has yet officially blamed the tabloids, and Rupert's papers specifically, for frothing up this tragedy. But they will, soon.

How about blaming the royals for going to an expensive private hospital instead of duking it out with their subjects at a nat'l Health Care facility?

None of this is helping with the distress of the nurse's family, co-workers, or the royal couple. To me, this is a perfect storm kind of event that had all the vectors pointing in a bad direction: ravenous prurient interest in public figures; trash media; ambitious DJs trying to get ahead in the way that their sleazoid milieu tells them (accurately) is the best way to fame and fortune; the profits-at-all-costs, ethics-devoid journalism of Rupert and his gang that we see being revealed at present; depression as an undiagnosed illness; and the finger-pointing characteristic of human nature.

As Humphrey Bogart said when he relapsed with his drinking in "The African Queen": "Awww, Rosie, it's just human nature," and Hepburn replied "Human naycha, Mr Alnutt, is what we were put on earth to rrrrrrrise above."

I guess we try, we relapse, we self-flaggelate when it goes so far as to create tragedy, pretty soon we will forget about it and move on to the next distraction.

lucy

12/10/2012 20:19:44

Spot on Laura! When my daughter was a teen she and I watched a segment of a Paris Hilton reality show. We decided she and her sidekick were pointless people and turned it off. I only become engaged when I see pointless and embarrassingly inadequate people like Sarah Palin foisted upon us in the political arena. This is where it begins affecting my life.

Ottoline

12/11/2012 23:18:56

As you can tell from my earlier comments, my stance re the nurse's death is not that high on the sliding scale of sympathy or empathy, although the circumstances are enormously sad. Nor is my sympathy for the royal couple that great, although it seems quite hideous for them to have this omen-like blot on the start of this pregnancy -- at least that is how I would feel, given how much we wonder and worry about our pregnancies and fear any threat to the new little life.

But my lack of outrage is for a different reason than others have discussed here: my reason is that this all seems remote from my life. It's nowhere as sad as the recent death of a too-young daughter of a friend, or the setback one of my sons has had, or even the racism in our society that is daily shown to have abundant practitioners. Getting some unusual laundry tasks done today is more important to me than this set of events so far away. I have a greater interest in the vulgarization of our society for allowing this tabloid feeding frenzy, which reverberates with the twittering of all who wish to comment. Yet among my real-life friends, I see no such vulgarization, nor do I see interest in this story.

Recent events:
-- It looks now that the hospital did something(s) that the husband didn't like, about which he has expressed great anger. Perhaps he will manage to remain silent about his anger, now that the hospital is giving him all that money (surely with a string or two attached).
-- The husband says his wife was not depressed, which immediately triggers my red flag that anyone who was in denial about a depressed wife who then kills herself would of course have big feelings of guilt and rage.
-- The suicide note will perhaps clarify things, or perhaps we will never see it. One tabloid just said the letter does not mention the hoax.
-- Another tabloid said the nurse had hung herself, although this has not yet been reported by anyone else.
-- The criss-cross blaming of the media for the intense speculative coverage has begun.
-- The autopsy report was supposed to be released today, Tues; isn't today already over in London??
-- Of course, as Laura said above, no suicide happens in a vacuum. Leading me to think that this death has more complicated antecedents than this silly, unimportant, and otherwise non-damage-producing hoax.

I am watching all this and wondering, as I often do, why the press covers some things and not others. Apart from the profit motive of "what sells" and what doesn't. Or perhaps there really is very little motive apart from that, in spite of nice words to the contrary about journalistic duty and ethics.

I guess we all believe in the desirability of a free press. However, the continued cover-up of the Palin Preg Hoax shows me that the press is actually not free, not able to cover certain topics, probably required to cover other topics. And I wonder if all the tabloid attention, seizing upon this story, is a cold-blooded effort to deflect attention from the Rupert empire's other woes, which seem far more newsworthy to me, in spite of the undoubted Rupert wish to keep a lid on them.

FrostyAK

12/13/2012 18:30:54

The coroners court has spoken, with a preliminary finding. It appears that she hung herself and may have slit her wrists as well.

There still has been nothing said about the contents of 3 notes left by the nurse.

We can expect this to go away quickly if enough cash is applied to the wound.

I still contend that this is going to make things rougher for Kate and William, who will be plagued by 'the press' till the day they die. Like Diana was...

Ottoline

12/13/2012 18:48:34

Very, very sad. I keep thinking of her in her all-alone room, feeling so utterly miserable that she would do this as her best solution. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, including whatever other problems were hurting her. I kept hoping it was some kind of unrelated death. And I hope that this media frenzy might make the press more careful, think more about the effect. And think more about how their premature hysterical reporting added zero value to anything, and did so much harm. And yes, this is such a blight on everyone, not only the suicide, but the notoriety in the press, esp re her children, and yes upon Kate. Esp with Diana in mind.

RIP.

Laura

12/14/2012 02:49:51

May she RIP and may her family eventually find peace again.

Tom

2/27/2013 15:33:11

"And that circles me back to this..."

http://www.emf.intherough.net/Did-Penn-State-Officials-Know-Sandusky-Was-A-Pedophile-Since-1998.pdf

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Laura Novak

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