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Katie's New Face

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Katie's New Face

#101

Post by eagsalazar2 »

crescentfresh wrote: post #47

As a father to two so-far-healthy young boys, one soon to be a teenager I feel devastated at the thought of either of them having to endure the level of emotional chaos that Katie went through the moments leading up to her suicide attempt. My stomach goes into a knot at the thought. I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path.

I hear you (I also have kids) but I always feel like the level of hype here is 75% about that pretty, white "before" photo. Yes it is tragic but what about the 1000s of disadvantaged kids that yearly fall into crime and drugs, ruining their lives, being incarcerated or killed, because of institutionalized indifference to the poor non-white members of our society and the corresponding negative feedback loops that trap them generation after generation. No personalized stories about them. No years of Jean Benet follow up, nothing except vilification and blame from the right.

Re: Katie's New Face

#102

Post by crescentfresh »

oihoaihsfoiahsf wrote: post #75
crescentfresh wrote: post #47

As a father to two so-far-healthy young boys, one soon to be a teenager I feel devastated at the thought of either of them having to endure the level of emotional chaos that Katie went through the moments leading up to her suicide attempt. My stomach goes into a knot at the thought. I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path.

What happened to Katie is super sad, but hundreds of thousands of people get dumped and cheated on every year without shooting themselves. I totally understand your feelings, because I also worry for my children. But I also try to do a few things: 1. Try to help my kids keep things in perspective. Don't hide the risk of pain and failure from them. Instead, warn them that such things will happen, and try to teach resi…

It's hard to prepare someone for emotional devastation from a life event. I had loving and supporting parents, and when I found out my exwife was cheating I went through some kind of scary. My kids no doubt will experience emotional torture at some point, I just hope it comes at a time that a) I'm there to realize it and be preemptive, or 2) they are adults that have some level of emotional balance (that I hopefully had a part in building :) to sustain and live through it.

My greatest fear is that I will emotionally injure my kids despite my unconditional love for them. I make mistakes afterall, sometimes not even realizing it.

Re: Katie's New Face

#103

Post by loblollyboy »

crescentfresh wrote: post #47

As a father to two so-far-healthy young boys, one soon to be a teenager I feel devastated at the thought of either of them having to endure the level of emotional chaos that Katie went through the moments leading up to her suicide attempt. My stomach goes into a knot at the thought. I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path.

Don’t have guns in the house is a good start

Re: Katie's New Face

#104

Post by yk »

loco5niner wrote: post #68
jonah wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, we could just stop sending our young people out to get blown up... Kudos to the DoD for funding these experiments but they're solving a problem of their own creation...

Oh hey, that's an idea. Why didn't we think of that earlier? Hey everybody lets just stop wars! Unfortunately, there will always be bad people and the only way to keep the innocent safe is for good people to step in and do difficult things.

In particular the DoD. It's not like the Iraq war helped anybody except turning Al-Qaeda from 500 people on the verge of getting kicked out of Afghanistan into an army large enough to have it's own internal civil war in Syria. And there are a lot cheaper ways to accomplish that.

Re: Katie's New Face

#105

Post by sDlEzAtyoNAz »

dbbk wrote: post #91
sDlEzAtyoNAz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Against what? In the US, that would be against the individuals who collectively commit millions of violent crimes per year (surveys indicate this number easily exceeds 5 million per year).

What are the odds of that happening to you though? I don't know what the actual statistics are but it seems highly improbable. And it doesn't seem logical to me that a criminal who wants to (i.e. rob you) is really going to actually shoot and kill you to do it.

That's hugely dependent on who you are and where you live and so on, but there are estimated to be around 6 million violent crimes per year, or about 55 people per violent crime. Of course many people are victimized more than once, so you can't easily extrapolate to how likely a random person is to be victimized. Either way, over a lifespan, that is a significant risk.

>And it doesn't seem logical to me that a criminal who wants to (i.e. rob you) is really going to actually shoot and kill you to do it.

What you're missing is that I don't want someone to rob me. I don't want my family to ever be at the mercy of a violent thug. They ultimately depend upon me for their safety, and I am going to do what I can to guarantee it.

Re: Katie's New Face

#106

Post by stronglikedan »

throwaway987909 wrote: post #77
jonah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I think we need to market images of badly disfigured veterans as a tragedy instead of an honor.

I hate the glamorization of the military. I don't understand how anyone would actually join. Sacrifice yourself mentally, and physically to fight political wars for the rich and powerful. No thank you. But the propaganda is soooo strong it preys on people who can't think for themselves.

People who don't think just like you != people who can't think for themselves.

Re: Katie's New Face

#107

Post by briandear »

throwaway987909 wrote: post #77
jonah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I think we need to market images of badly disfigured veterans as a tragedy instead of an honor.

I hate the glamorization of the military. I don't understand how anyone would actually join. Sacrifice yourself mentally, and physically to fight political wars for the rich and powerful. No thank you. But the propaganda is soooo strong it preys on people who can't think for themselves.

Go visit Taliban controlled Afghanistan when girls couldn’t go to school. Visit areas of Afghanistan after the US cleared Taliban areas and built schools. The girls that can now go to school aren’t rich and powerful, but it’s a fact that fighting that war helped make that possible.

Re: Katie's New Face

#108

Post by notafraudster »

tptacek wrote: post #89
jbob2000 wrote: post #27

> While the two were outside talking about how upset Katie was, she went into the bathroom, put the barrel of Robert’s .308-caliber hunting rifle below her chin, and pulled the trigger. Why did she have access to that gun? I bet Robert considers himself a "safe" gun owner too. Keep your guns locked and separate from your ammunition. Gun culture takes another victim.

This is like the archetypical off-topic ideological tangent. On a thread about a stunning and complicated medical achievement, more than 30% of the comments are a firearms debate issuing from this comment. Please don't write stuff like this. I know it seems natural to use this story as a launching point for talking about the broader ideological issue, and unnatural not to do that when it's the obvious thought the sto…

I might have otherwise been inclined to agree, but the framing of the original story I think wisely spends at least a little bit of time -- maybe not 30% -- discussing the para-political and social issues surrounding this, not just the scientific and technological issues of the transplant and the human story of Katie's recovery.

I think it's wise for the original article to discuss at least in passing the access to guns that allowed the suicide attempt to happen, the drug crisis that leads to there being any young donors at all, the donor waitlist situation and the choice to become a donor, and the DoD's involvement, and I'm glad the comments do as well.

I do agree that the comment you're responding to directly probably isn't the best kick at the can, though, and so to the extent that you mention the parent comment needing to resist the urge, I think the urge that should be resisted is the urge to have a driveby comment on a volatile subject, not to bring in related social/political issues.

Re: Katie's New Face

#109

Post by lukebitts »

stronglikedan wrote: post #106
throwaway987909 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the glamorization of the military. I don't understand how anyone would actually join. Sacrifice yourself mentally, and physically to fight political wars for the rich and powerful. No thank you. But the propaganda is soooo strong it preys on people who can't think for themselves.

People who don't think just like you != people who can't think for themselves.

That's not their argument, you are making a much stronger claim than they are.

Re: Katie's New Face

#110

Post by clarkmoody »

dwheeler wrote: post #58
jonah wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, we could just stop sending our young people out to get blown up... Kudos to the DoD for funding these experiments but they're solving a problem of their own creation...

A country without a military (or a dependable ally with one) is very quickly not a country. The US could stop funding the military, but the world would be a worse place for it.

Stop fighting overseas wars != stop funding the military
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