What's Easier to Haul Out of a Hospital? Dead Babies or Bowling Balls?

**SCROLL DOWN FOR EDITS**

I suppose it was only a matter of time before this blog started focusing on dead fetuses and stillborn babies. That time is now.

Washington Hospital Center has been fined $8,000 by the District for storing the remains of 95 stillborn babies and fetuses dating to 2001, far beyond the 30-day limit imposed under city law.

I really have no rational response for this. I guess what I don't get is that 95 (!) dead babies have been stored in a 2x2x4 refrigerated box, some of them for as long as six years. Whose job was it to put the dead babies in the box? Because all those other dead babies should have been a red flag. Like, that's too many dead babies. I'm almost completely lacking in the common sense department, but I'm pretty sure that I would tell someone if I knew that there was a box with 95 dead babies. Throwing another on the pile seems to be a bad way to deal with the issue.

Washington Hospital Center, which makes no mention of this on their website, has called this snafu an "administrative failure." No fucking duh. One would have to possess a pretty sick imagination to come up with a reason for the dead baby box that wasn't administrative failure.

Oh, and some of the babies weren't even documented. So Washington's infant mortality rates have been wrong for the past six years. Undocumented dead babies are the worst dead babies of all.

I'm being flippant about a really serious issue. I mean, a box of 95 dead babies, some of them undocumented, strikes me as ridiculously irresponsible. Six years! Six years worth of babies! I can't wrap my head around that so I'm going to deflect any feelings of sadness and disgust with humor. Unfortunately, anyone who has had a stillborn at Washington Hospital Center over the last six years doesn't have the luxury of thinking this is even remotely funny. I would imagine that this is opening all sorts of emotional doors that had been locked and boarded over the past few years. I send these people my condolences. They shouldn't have to be dealing with this again.

And if anyone is curious, the punchline to the joke in this post's title is: "Dead babies, because you can use a pitchfork."

**EDIT**

Hilariously, Howard University's Hospital also had a secret stash of still born babies and fetuses.

Howard University Hospital has 25 sets of remains in its morgue, some from 2003, officials said. When added to 95 sets of remains dating from 2001 reported recently by Washington Hospital Center, the District's infant mortality rate for the last several years is certain to rise, officials said.

I don't have any idea how hard it is to run a hospital. I would imagine that it's extraordinarily difficult. However, remembering to dispose of dead babies that have been locked in storage for four years can't be that difficult. It just can't.

That's more would-be mothers who are probably quite annoyed at hearing that their baby could very well have been in a storage cooler instead of in a final resting place. That can't feel good.

Priorities

The Washington Post had some lame feature story on teenagers being so dependent on multitasking.

It's homework time and 17-year-old Megan Casady of Silver Spring is ready to study.

She heads down to the basement, turns on MTV and boots up her computer. Over the next half hour, Megan will send about a dozen instant messages discussing the potential for a midweek snow day. She'll take at least one cellphone call, fire off a couple of text messages, scan Weather.com, volunteer to help with a campus cleanup day at James Hubert Blake High School where she is a senior, post some comments on a friend's Facebook page and check out the new pom squad pictures another friend has posted on hers.

In between, she'll define "descent with modification" and explain how "the tree analogy represents the evolutionary relationship of creatures" on a worksheet for her AP biology class.

Call it multitasking homework, Generation 'Net style.

Wow, that's quite impressive. I'm certainly incapable of doing all that once. It's even more impressive when you realize that the author was omitting what we all know every 17-year-old girl is doing on the weekends: organizing rainbow parties, bracelet parties, and other types of oral sex rings. Accumulating bracelets while studying for that big midterm shows just how capable "Generation 'Net" (ugh) really is. Kudos to them.

G.O.R.

This is a totally personal post that has absolutely nothing to do with hating DC, but, whatever. If you find that upsetting, click away immediately.

I just want to let the masses know that I, Rusty, am the current Washington, DC Guitar Hero II Champion. Or, as one spectator so eloquently put it, I am a "god of rock." I plan on buying a championship belt and designing a champsionship patch for when I defend my title next month. I am glad that my years of Guitar Hero practice have finally paid off with a $20 Wonderland gift certificate.

So, here's a definitive list of my "useful" skills:

-Shredding my video game axe. Rock.
-Maintaining a shitty blog.

Epic Meeting Disappoints/Book Review

So I went to the Laura Sessions Stepp meet-and-greet at Politics and Prose yesterday. Perhaps there was a bit too much hype. I've been getting e-mails from people asking me what I had in store for her. Well, I had no interest in being banned from Politics and Prose and it's hard to nail someone (in the Colbert sense, not the Unhooked sense) who has the podium. So when Wonkette said that "this Q&A is not to be missed," I cringed a little. LSS was asked two dozen questions and only two of them could be considered negative.

Naturally, I was one of those two.

I refuse to pay for a recording of LSS talking, so, here's the gist of my question:

"You've referred to women as the traditional "sexual gatekeepers" who traditionally have the role of regulating teenage sexuality. Since you also claim that human beings need to learn how to properly love, are you arguing that a woman's role in a relationship is to be nothing more than to be loving? How is this role different from previous roles that women have had and shed such as the submissive homemaker?"

That's not a terrible question, is it? Of course I got no answer other than that she is only focused on women and how they're hurt by hooking up. She would never dream of speaking for men. Her husband would never forgive her! (The audience totally LOL'ed.)

I don't really buy that. If women are really the sexual gatekeepers, that implies that men are the sexual "keymasters." This is guilty of both being an oversimplified, cliched sexual metaphor and also of claiming men are best suited with their traditional status of "players." This goes back to men being the Lotharios while women are the damsels in distress. Men can handle hooking up with as many female partners as humanly possible. Women can't. We've moved past that. You can make the argument that the hook-up culture (I'll give LSS the benefit of the doubt and admit this exists even if she is only using the most extreme examples in her book) is empty and unfulfilling. But to say it hits women harder than men and using outdated gender roles as one's only evidence is insulting.

Other obnoxious comments from LSS yesterday were that women are naturally more romantic (using, I swear to God, the popularity of Norah Jones to confirm this) and that was just the way it is. Hooking up proves that this isn't "just the way it is" and her nine self-selected females she followed around for a year aren't going to prove otherwise. She went out of her way to choose nine girls who had a problem with the "hook-up culture." Her conclusions are therefore inherently flawed and for her to speak of this generation needing to learn how to love is fantastically condescending. The divorce rate is already at 50% so it's not like we need any help mucking things up even more.

I'm as uncomfortable with middle school oral sex rings as anyone else. And if Stepp's descriptions of high school are remotely accurate, then I'm not really comfortable with that either. Those are minors making dangerous choices that could have horrifying long-term consequences. Call me a prude, but I don't think 15-year-olds should be sleeping around and getting hammered every weekend. But for the love of God, please leave college students alone. Hooking up does not negatively impact grades. It does not turn people into emotionless shells. It is not a sign of addictive behavior. If someone is depressed because they're sleeping around and can't get a steady boyfriend, well, my advice would be to stop sleeping around. If people can't handle this as adults, then, well, the problem isn't the culture but the person. And if this person has a different sexual partner every week, well, you really can't blame my generation for that.

Reading Unhooked, I was stunned how many times I thought to myself, wow, these girls are really slutty. The use of sexual outliers doesn't impress me. Unless things have drastically changed in the two years since I went to college, I can safely argue that most women, and men, just aren't this sexually adventurous. The book is alarmist. If the people who were at Politics and Prose last night represent Stepp's target audience, then her target audience is significantly older than me. I resent the alarmist tone since it makes me and my peers look like deviants.

Here I am reviewing a book I haven't even finished yet. So, let me finish up with a few notes:

1. Laura Sessions Stepp totally signed my book. When I asked her to sign it to my name (which sounds an awful lot like my pseudonym Rusty) she totally recognized me. This isn't me being full of myself. My friends caught it too. This experience was both thrilling and frightening.

2. I obviously have problems with the way this book was handled by the author, but let it be known that Mrs. Stepp was a fairly good speaker who left a favorable impression on even the younger members of the audience. She was gracious to me even though I was transparently trying to trap her and it was cute to see her friends, family, neighbors and former students (she was a professor at GW) come out to support her. Would I want to be in a bar with her talking about blow jobs? Heavens, no. But she did leave a favorable impression. One friend told me she was expecting, based on how I treat her here, Laura Sessions Stepp to either be a judgmental demon or a total prude. She is neither. This is why I should stop going to events that feature people I mock. I am a big softie.

3. When I am finally done with this book, I will be posting the Top-10 funniest quotes. There are some doozies.

4. A big thank you to The Bee in DC for Photoshopping that picture. It is much appreciated.

By Popular Demand

Here's the Late Night Shots forum regarding me reposted in its entirety. It's not that hateful or offensive, but inquiring minds want to see it and who am I to deny them?

(The last post doesn't make any sense to me so I'd be grateful if someone would explain it to me.)

the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: Curious on 02-16-2007 12:59 pm Report as shockingly offensive
Does anybody find it interesting that this guy rips on LNS left and right on his blog, but whenever he goes to smith point he has nothing bad to say or nothing to say at all.
When he went in november all he could say was how nice everyone was.
Then he was there again wednesday night (apparently) and hasn't said a word about it.
Is he a closet non-hater? Or is he just one of the 99.9% of bloogers that spew hate on the internet because they are afraid to confront anyone in person?

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: to Curious on 02-16-2007 1:04 pm Report as shockingly offensive
where can i find this blog?

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: his best work on 02-16-2007 1:05 pm Report as shockingly offensive
was by far the "90 watts" and "mr potomac" bit.

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: Zapatista on 02-16-2007 1:05 pm Report as shockingly offensive
The later. Personal blogging is the most self-centric, pompous, no-it-all, bullshit that you can read. It basically is just an outlet to declare how important/smart/funny oneself is.
The forum could be considered blogging but it is for the most part anonymous and it is a free for all joke format.
Overall I hate the I hate DC guy and if someone points him out to me at SP, me and LD will knock his lights out.

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: TheNurse on 02-16-2007 1:07 pm Report as shockingly offensive
Charmingly, a number of DC Bloggers have signed up for LNS recently. I used to have to read personal blogs for work (believe it or not) and became familiar with some in the DC blogging scene…They've ALL signed up for LNS recently.

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: Curious on 02-16-2007 1:10 pm Report as shockingly offensive
whyihatedc.blogspot.com
if he hates dc so much why doesn't he leave, seems a little strange. Probably a very insecure and non-social person.

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: .... on 02-16-2007 1:10 pm Report as shockingly offensive
I read his blog everyday. I once wrote him an email and he wrote me back. Just asked him alot of questions about himself and his blog and his reply was pretty hilarious and self-deprecating.

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: Pet Peeve on 02-16-2007 1:10 pm Report as shockingly offensive
There is a large band of closet cases in DC who claim to hate LNS, yet somehow they can't stop talking about it. The concept of any of us crashing parties where we disliked the people or watching some online forum where goth hipsters discuss the hottest new suicide techniques just wouldn't happen.

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: Bloggers' Logic on 02-16-2007 1:11 pm Report as shockingly offensive
"Hey look, I found the word 'chink' on someone's MySpace page. Members on that site all must hate chinese people."

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: Gretchen Wieners on 02-16-2007 1:26 pm Report as shockingly offensive
You know what? It's not my fault you're in love with LNS or something!

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: hbjumpkick on 02-16-2007 1:31 pm Report as shockingly offensive
I will beat any blogger up.

RE: the whyihatedc blog guy?Posted By: Spelling WASP on 02-16-2007 1:36 pm Report as shockingly offensive
I think Barrington Muffleberry, Danielle Peckerton and Thaddeus Jude would be excellent starting points, HBWW.

Notes

1. Just got my Laura Sessions Stepp book in the mail. I doubt I'll be finished with it by the time I have my epic meeting tomorrow night, but I'll be trying my damnedness.

2. I was in New York City for the weekend and I didn't have Internet access. So, sorry for not responding to the dozen or so e-mails I got in that time period. I missed some pretty good stuff. Late Night Shots dedicated a forum to me and a member asked that someone describe what I look like so he could kick my ass. A Metrobus killed yet another person. The sidewalks still aren't clear on major roads. The usual stuff.

3. Home sick today so sorry for such a lame post.

Our Streets Are Death Traps

Sure the icy sidewalks and roads are a nuisance, but not as much of a nuisance as the speeding bus of death that killed two Alexandria women.

The two women were on Seventh Street NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood and had the "walk" signal to cross Pennsylvania Avenue when a northbound bus turned left onto the avenue about 6:40 p.m., said Lisa Farbstein, a Metro spokeswoman.

This is unbelievable. Either a train is hitting some track workers on the Yellow Line or someone gets plowed over by the H8 bus on 16th and Park. Whatever it is, it's becoming all too common. I mean, I complain all the time about the Metro being soul-crushing. But soul-crushing is way better than organ crushing. Organs are tangible. I like my organs. I shouldn't have to worry about them everytime I cross the fucking street.

(h/t to Toby for directing me towards the story.)

LSS WaPo Chat

I know, I know. It's been nothing but Laura Sessions Stepp and Late Night Shots 'round these parts. It beats me complaining about the Metro, right?

(Of course, the Metro remains fucked. How was everyone's commute this morning? Wasn't that great when there were no trains headed towards Silver Spring for 20 minutes due to some problem at Woodley Park? Or when the trains would come every seven minutes and they would inevitably already be full? Fuck Metro.)

So, Laura Sessions Stepp. She has a WaPo live chat starting in about ten minutes. Please feel free to submit a question.

In case you don't want to spend the next hour or so being called a dirty little slut, here's the review of her book Unhooked which is coming out tomorrow. It's a deliriously negative review and it makes me smile.

Here's an excerpt from the book that made me smile, then giggle, then chuckle, then guffaw:

"In a smorgasbord of booty, all the hot dishes start looking like they've been on the warming table too long."

*Speechless*

Party Crash

I wouldn't be living up to my duties as a Late Night Shot tormenter if I didn't mention that everyone's favorite collective of prepsters, turbos, and sorority sluts will be throwing themselves a Valentine's Day singles party tomorrow night at 9:30 at Smith Point (Wisconsin and O). The plan is to have everyone bring a single acquaintance. This will increase the number of single people which will bump up the chances of some asshole in a blazer securing a "Wednesday night takedown." I've read the term "Wednesday night takedown" so many times in their stupid forums that I think my eyes are going to start bleeding.

And, I swear to God, I just got kicked out of Late Night Shots again. Literally this second. Seriously, before I could even hit "Publish Post" they had kicked me out. Now I need to come up with another e-mail address. Or employ spies. This is freaking impossible.

Of course I'll still be at Smith Point tomorrow night wearing my finest blazer and drinking the finest cocktails. I will also be on my best behavior. Hopefully everyone remembers how charming I was when I met them all on Election Night. Come on, Reed. Remember Election Night? You told me you were trying to clean up the forums. It was a good conversation.

What do you think the over/under is on when I get kicked out? I'm betting 10:35. Maybe 11:15 if the acquaintance I bring is slutty enough.

UMD and I Have Something in Common!

My hatred for the University of Maryland still runs strong. However, we both hate Duke University. So, congratulations to the Maryland basketball team for defeating Duke yesterday. Further congratulations to the student body for not rioting after beating a team that's now below .500 in conference play. The discretion was unexpected and appreciated.

To all my readers who don't really "get" sports, rooting for the Duke Blue Devils is like rooting for the New York Yankees. They always have the best talent and the best coaching, but the douchebagginess of their players and student body is second to none. Popped collars everywhere. Of course we all know that Duke's lacrosse team has been all over the papers for a rape that didn't happen and some crazy racism that did. Skinning bitches and thanking one's grandfather for their cotton t-shirts is certainly not a way to get good press.

This Duke hatred would appear kind of random, wouldn't it. Well, no. Big Head Rob reports that Why I Hate DC mascot Laura Sessions Stepp did a good deal of research for her new book Unhooked at Duke University. Great.

Again, for those who haven't been paying attention, Duke is an outlier when it comes to sexual deviancy. If someone told me LSS would be doing sex research at a major university, I would think to myself, "Please God don't let it be Duke." There's no better school to support your pre-made conclusions that today's college students and young adults are total sluts.

Even more annoying, the story has been done. Janet Reitman of Rolling Stone did an absolute hit job on the hook-up culture of Duke. Reitman's report focused more on post-feminism than on "the kids aren't alright" angle that you just know LSS is going to work with. Reitman falls into the same trappings as any stupid LSS article, but Reitman at least has the decency to not be so alarmist and condescending. If LSS talks to the same people as Reitman though...oh fuck.

From Reitman's article:

Sex at Duke is a sport most students participate in, on some level or another. Boys report that it's still a little tough to get a girl to get freaky -- anal sex, for example, is still rare enough that ''any Duke guy could look at a lineup of girls and point out the one who likes it,'' notes one male student (''usually the girl who's drunk and coked out of her gourd at a party at 4 a.m.,'' he adds). But traditional intercourse is common, and oral sex nearly ubiquitous, regarded as sort of a form of elaborate kissing that doesn't really mean very much. ''Everybody gives blow jobs now,'' says Naomi. ''Before,'' she adds -- meaning a pre-Monica/pre-Britney ''before'' -- ''it used to be you'd have sex and then give one.'' But now, girls give them freely -- on their own initiative, she says. (They also tend to get as much as they give, at least according to Duke men.)

You can feel Laura Sessions Stepp's head about to explode. I can't imagine what she would do if I told her the anecdotal (and unconfirmable) story I heard about a Duke girl penetrating herself with a champagne bottle in a bar to impress some guys. I assume it was the thin end. I didn't ask follow-up questions.

So, Laura Sessions Stepp and her college-aged narc friend Alicia (read Big Head Rob's post for details on this traitor) have gone for the easy kill. The Duke hook-up culture has been well documented over the past year. We all know how bad it is. Using Duke to support conclusions regarding the behavior of my peers is grossly unfair.

I really hate Laura Sessions Stepp.

WhyIHateDC Christmas

***UPDATE BELOW***

February 15, 2007 is the release date for Laura Sessions Stepp's new book Unhooked.

In her second book, journalist Stepp (Our Last Best Shot) gets an inside perspective on the "hookup," which has become the "primary currency of social interaction" between the sexes in high schools and colleges...Inspired by a series of articles she wrote on eighth-grade oral sex rings for The Washington Post in 1998 ("two years before the popularity of oral sex in middle schools percolated through the media"), Stepp avoids breathless sensationalism, preferring instead to explore the meaning of "hooking up," its fallout, potential long-range consequences for women and men, and the factors that have allowed such a shift to take place-wisely asking, "Where are young women's teachers?" rather than "What is wrong with these girls?"

Oh dear Christ. And, yes, I pre-ordered it. How can this not be worth the $16? I am going to absolutely devour this text as quickly as possible to make sure the most hilarious excerpts end up on this blog by around February 19th.

Special hat tip to the anonymous commenter who led me to this Mediabistro link.

UPDATE: Oh thank my lucky stars. She'll be speaking at Politics and Prose on February 21. That's a short walk from my house. Please leave suggestions for what I should ask her in the comments.

Goodbye, Vickie Lynn

And it seems to me you lived your life

Like a candle in the wind

Never knowing who to cling to

When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you

But I was just a kid

Your candle burned out long before

Your legend ever did

If You Think I'm Painfully Unfunny...

Check out what was on Page C1 of the Post.

It's so cold that:

· Metro's escalators are frozen in place . . . oh, wait. That's not the cold.
· Britney Spears put on underwear.
· Gilbert Arenas changed his jersey number to Below 0.
· David Lee Roth said he'd tour with Van Halen again

I like the last one, because the joke implies that DC is actually Hell. It's still not funny, but I'm sympathetic with the sentiment.

And Britney Spears underwear jokes! Those are contemporary and topical! Hilarious!

This is Like High School All Over Again

So, it happened. I just got kicked out of Late Night Shots. I received no notice. My e-mail address is no longer recognized by the system. It'll be hard for me to go incognito since, in the spirit of friendliness, I met with a bunch of the LNS bigwigs at their Election Night Party and told them my real name. They'll be on the lookout for me. At least I got 20 new members in to their invite-only organization over the last 24 hours. The response I got from the last LNS post was truly magnificent.

I have no idea why I was kicked out. Well, I mean, I know, but I don't think I violated the terms of service. If any lawyers or law students want to tackle that and tell me what I did wrong, that would be much appreciated.

I am of course curious to know how many people have been kicked out of Late Night Shots for posting derogatory things regarding various races, religions, and/or genders. I suppose it's a blessing in disguise that I am no longer associated with people who think the real victims in rape accusations are the men and who think being at a frat party or wearing something a little scandalous qualifies as consent. Obviously whoever made the decision to boot me is ignoring the real cancers in their organization.

What a bunch of fucking turbos.

(I am so proud that I was a member of LNS for six months and I still don't know what "turbo" means.)

That's Much Too Vulgar a Display of Power

While reading The Washington Post article on racial profiling in Georgetown and Adams Morgan, I had an epiphany. No, I wasn't surprised that the MPD was picking on blacks and Hispanics. I mean, duh. Remember, any black guy in Georgetown has been deemed "unusual" by one of the MPD's higher-ups. This is no surprise.

I was more shocked to realize that our new Police Chief may in fact be possessed by the demon Pazuzu. To wit:

I hope black people and Hispanics remember to be very careful walking down those stairs on M Street.