![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nurse_jilly's journalLog in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more
| You are viewing nurse_jilly's journal Log in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more | Explore LJ Culture Entertainment Life Music News & Politics Technology |
|
|||||||
 |
|
|
|||||
|
Jilly the no-longer- traveling nurse  I debated whether to end this journal entirely, or just change the title. I couldn't see just leaving it here and going somewhere else, and I didn't want to start a whole new one here, so...why not just change the title? I've been here in Capital City for two weeks, and it seems like I've been here forever. Part of it is that I was here as a traveler a couple of years back, and I'm living in the same part of town I lived in then, only south of the main drag instead of north. I know pretty much where everything is, what supermarkets are where, and (very important!) where Wal-Mart is. I wasn't as familiar with this side of the main drag, so I was delighted to find things like a neighborhood Indian restaurant and grocery store right up the street. I know where the libraries are and have decided I like the older branch better than the new one. I've found the post office. And best of all, my new apartment is just over a mile from the hospital. My apartment is in a townhouse community and is spacious and quiet. I wanted a townhouse because I'm tired of people stomping around overhead and didn't want to live on a third floor somewhere. I'd actually been looking at another complex, but when I found this one I knew it was right. It's not a huge community, and though there are quite a few kids, it's not overrun and they seem to be well-behaved. I couldn't imagine living in an adults-only community! Downstairs I have a kitchen, dining area, and sunken living room with a *working* fireplace. Upstairs are two bedrooms and two bathrooms. I have a private patio and even a small garden plot (and yes, I do plan a tiny kitchen garden!) as well as a small area out front where I can plant flowers. OK, the hospital. It's HCA, which has its pluses and minuses as they all do. Decent benefits and retirement plan, pretty reasonable working conditions, and this particular one has an excellent reputation. The minuses are an antiquated computer charting system which I am already familiar with from other HCA hospitals, and maybe not the most up-to-date equipment. But everyone has been very positive and very welcoming. Probably the only place I've felt that welcomed was the one where I was last summer. I've done my mandatory week of nursing orientation and Sunday night I start actually working. Amazingly, they're not making me orient on days for a week either; I start right in on nights. I never could figure out why most places make you do day shift orientation first; it's a completely different animal from nights. One excuse sometimes given is "so you get to know the docs" but you don't see much of them during the day because you're busy running yourself to death. But then you have to learn a whole new routine when you go on nights, and that loses you another week. I'm delighted someone has actually seen the light! Current mood:  cheerful.Current music: whatever's on public radio right now. It's been a long time since I posted anything at all. Mostly I've been curled up in a ball here, trying to recoup. The last travel experience was so horrendous I was dubious about ever traveling again. I've tried, even looked at a couple of new companies, but I decided finally that what I really wanted was to settle down. I actually had started looking before the last assignment so precipitously ended. I knew there was a place I wanted to be, even if I kept traveling...somewhere I could come back to. I even knew where, just wasn't sure how to make it happen. I thought maybe I could travel somewhere within 2-3 hours of there and come back when I wasn't working, but what I really wanted was to settle down. So I started looking for permanent positions. I thought I would really like to get away from the bedside, but somehow, no matter what I looked at, they wanted *experience* at it. I don't know how you get "experience" if nobody will train you, but anyway.... In any case, I finally ended up putting myself in the hands of some very nice headhunters, Amy and Adriana. Amy found me a possibility in a small hospital in rural central VA. I went for an on-site interview and I could tell they wanted me. It was a nice hospital, quite modern for a small town, and it was a pretty town, with a state university there, but it just didn't feel right. Still, I thought I'd go ahead and fill out the paperwork. And why do itty-bitty hospitals have 10-page applications????? Meanwhile, Adriana had found me a possibility in a hospital in Capital City, which was where I really wanted to be. I thought it would be cardiac, which is really my favorite thing. I was supposed to have a phone interview, but they didn't call, and I was totally devastated...this hospital had been recommended to me when I was a traveler, by a nurse who had worked agency at every one in the city. Come to find out, though, that they'd been hit really hard by the flu epidemic, to the point where administration folks had actually put on scrubs and pushed stretchers. (That's a good thing, in my opinion, let them get down in the mud and the blood and the crud where it really happens) The first call I got from them was from the manager of the Neurovascular ICU. Now I like ICU, but when it comes to mucking about in people's brains, no thank you very much! I was very nice, just thanked her and told her I thought I'd be happier with cardiac stuff, even though I really wanted to tell her that neuro scares the hell out of me. Adriana called me back and when I told her that the NVICU manager had called me she was astounded, since she hadn't forwarded my resume there at all. So she checked with them again, and on the following day I was called by not only the director of critical care, but the manager of the unit that *really* wanted me. Then the hospital recruiter called me, and before I knew it I was scheduled to fly up there and stay a couple of days, at their expense! So this week I flew up there on Monday and on Tuesday I talked to HR and to the manager of the unit, which is sort of a mini-ICU but no vents. We actually ended up talking for over an hour, and I felt right at home. It seems that she likes my experience, and I like what she is trying to do with the unit. It's very much a work in progress, and she wants me to be part of it. I have all but the *formal* offer....I know about what they'll pay me, what the benefits are, and when I can start. I've even started looking for a place to live. I guess that means I am no longer "Jilly the Traveling Nurse." We shall see where I end up. Current mood:  hopeful.Current music: Moya Brennan, "River". Well, I've been back here for a couple of weeks now. It's a relief to be away from that horrible hospital, and I now see it's a relief to be away from that agency as well. Things I have learned recently tell me it's a second-rate one, and I wonder that I was gullible enough to work for them in the first place. Well, in the balance my first experience with them wasn't THAT bad; River City was interesting and I learned a lot. But this one...yikes! And what I learned from talking to other nurses there and on the forums has made me quite glad not to be dealing with them anny more. So now I'm trying to decide whether I want to take a permanent job someplace or keep on traveling. Both have their charms. Traveling is good because I know it's only 13 weeks if I don't like it, but the downside is that I feel rootless much of the time. I would love to have a place of my own and be settled somewhere, but I'm not sure I want to be embroiled in hospital politics any more. I've toyed with the idea of moving to Capital City whether I actually get a job there or travel from there. Ideally I would find a travel position within 3 hours driving distance, get my schedule "blocked" (set up so that I work all 36 hours within 3 days) and come back home when I'm off. So, to that end, I've applied for a number of jobs, but I've only actually had an interview with one of them. That was at the hospital I worked at as a traveler in Capital City, but in the (mostly autonomous) heart hospital there. And I didn't get to talk to the manager, only the HR guy, who asked me some very good questions. But that was last Thursday, and I have yet to hear from anyone. I am dubious that anything will come of this. Back to the drawing board *sigh* In any case, I can't go anywhere until after the middle of February when I will welcome my new grandson into the world. He is a long-awaited blessing for my daughter and her beloved, and quite possibly the last grandchild I will have. I'm not missing his arrival! After that, who knows? Back to filling out applications and sending out resumes..... Current mood:  anxious.Current music: Moody Blues, "The Story in Your Eyes". I suppose I should be upset, crying and freaking out, but I'm oddly calm. My contract has been canceled, it's basically my fault...and I don't care. I'm just glad to be out of here. Last night I went to work and was informed that I was to float to a certain unit. It wasn't my turn to float, and I said so pretty strongly, but I had to go. When I got to the unit I was told to go to, I couldn't find anyone to tell me where to go or who to get report from. They didn't seem to be expecting me. The supervisor came up and I reiterated that it wasn't my turn to be pulled and I wasn't happy, and that this particular unit wasn't expecting me. She called staffing, who said I was indeed supposed to be there. But she got all defensive and said she would go look in the "pull book" on my unit. I said never mind, I'm here, I'll just figure out what I'm supposed to do, but she insisted. So I went to try to find the shift leader to find out what to do, and he informed me that I was supposed to be on another unit, which he was also shift leader for, and directed me there. By the time I got there, I was already, as we say in Tennessee, a day late and a dollar short. I found the nurse I was to get report from, who said it had been a horrible day and this was probably the heaviest group on the floor. Wonderful. So I got report and tried to figure out really quickly where things were and how the floor worked. That was harder than expected, as, unlike the unit I'd been pulled to the week before, it was not a particularly friendly place. But I muddled along and did the best I could. I did my assessments, my blood sugars, did my own vital signs because the one CNA on the floor was nowhere I could see, and started my ten o'clock meds. I remembered that I needed to draw labs from one patient so I went to look for the label and couldn't find it, decided I would have to order and print the label, and was doing so when along came the supervisor. She said the shift leader would be coming to get report on my patients "and you can go home and you can talk to [the manager] in the morning." I was shocked and upset for a minute and she went on to say that "she wouldn't have someone in the hospital who didn't trust her." ??? Oh well. I knew I had screwed up, made the wrong person mad, and would get my contract canceled. I went downstairs and cleaned out my locker and went on back to my apartment. I probably should have been upset, but I was relieved. I packed up all my clothes before I went to bed and decided I'd do the rest today. Only today the manager didn't call me. I thought that was pretty weird, but I assumed that if she hadn't I should go in to work tonight, so I did. That's when I learned she had called my agency and terminated my contract. Damn nice of her to call and tell me! But pretty consistent with the lack of class this hospital has shown since I've been here. So what now? Well, for the immediate future, back to what passes for home, regroup, and decide what I want to do next. I've pretty much decided to move to Virginia, probably to a city that's become one of my favorites, but I don't know if I'll take a permanent job or travel from there. It might be ideal, at least for awhile, to find a travel position two or three hours from there, get my schedule in a block (pretty easy if you work nights and/or weekends) and come home in between times. But what I'd really like to do is work in a cardiology practice, a stress or electrophysiology lab, or even cath lab. I guess I'd even settle for a cardiology floor if it came right down to it. Anyway, Merry Christmas, y'all! Current mood:  relieved.Current music: Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas special. I am counting down the days. I hate this place more every time I go in. Even the one in Capital City was better than this, because I pretty much liked the people I worked with, and I knew I wouldn't get pulled (heck, there we usually got people pulled to us!) River City was better too, (except for the 3 times I got pulled to units I knew nothing about) because most of the time I went to ICU where I felt pretty much at home. Last weekend started with a thud as I got pulled. Now, according to our manager, we are not supposed to take an assignment if we are pulled, only float, doing admissions, IVs, whatever. I told the staffing person that, but was informed that I *would* take an assignment as she "had a desperate need for nurses on that unit." I was further threatened that if I refused the manager would call the administrator on call (the subtext being that my contract would be canceled). So I went on up there and it was the usual disaster you walk into when being pulled. It wasn't that I had a huge number of patients...actually there were only 3 and an empty bed...but the floor was barely controlled chaos. It looked like everyone up there was a traveler with the exception of one LPN, and a traveler was in charge. No clerical person whatever (well, I'm used to that now). Oh yeah...and after I got situated I found that there were *two* other RNs working as CNAs. Well, one left at 11, but still, how did someone who's used to that floor get to do that, and I had to take patients? Also, there was a CNA who was working extra hours as a sitter, yet he was hauled out of his patient's room and told to do vitals, etc. I found that out when I went to put a patient's oxygen apparatus on her, found her wet from neck to shoulders, and was told by her nurse (who seemed to be busy chatting with a couple of people from another floor), "Just get K to help you." K and I cleaned her up and changed the bed, and that nurse never showed up in the patient's room at all. My own patients weren't too bad, actually, a couple of pulmonary types, one with a sitter, the other just as pleasant a guy as most chronic lungers *aren't*. The third was a fresh post-op who'd had a radical resection for prostate cancer. He was also Hispanic and I was told had minimal English. He arrived shortly after I did along with an Anglo couple who may be neighbors or employers or some such. He later told me the man was "the best friend I ever have in this life." He actually spoke more English than he'd been given credit for, and I think understood more than he spoke. I have a similar situation with Spanish, so between his pidgin English and my pidgin Spanish we did quite well. He was a *very* busy patient with frequent vital signs, a catheter that wasn't draining quite as much as I'd have liked, and a wound drain that was draining far more, IV fluids and antibiotics, pain medications, etc. I was in his room at least 4 times an hour, or so it seemed. He was a very pleasant gentleman and really quite nice-looking for his age...in another situation I might have given him more than a passing glance. In any case, that night ended in a manner quite unlike most. First, the atypical chronic lunger asked for his anti-nausea pill and yet another cup of coffee, and when I brought them, he said, "I appreciate all y'all do for me." Then, as I was finishing up in my surgery patient's room and started to leave, he smiled at me and said, "Thank you for taking such good care of me." Good heavens, appreciation from not one, but TWO patients? Unheard of...and worth far more than bonus pay. The next two nights it was back to my own unit, and business as usual. Now I'm coming up on the pre-holiday weekend, and also scheduled to work Christmas Eve. Most places don't work their travelers on holidays because they have to pay them too much. This place won't be like that because it basically runs on travelers. In fact, I heard from travelers in my unit who worked Thanksgiving that the hospital put their regular folks on call and yanked the travelers around everywhere. It figures. Countdown to the end in progress...17 shifts to go. Current mood:  apathetic.
Well, the picture becomes more and more murky. The new manager is Nurse Micromanager, apparently, a total control freak. The first dictum handed down is that all travelers will hand their timesheets to her and she will scrutinize and sign them....and word is that she wants the *exact* minute we clock in and out, not the rounding to the nearest quarter hour the companies want. Okay, well and good...but the first time my timesheet's not in by 10 a.m. on Monday and I don't get paid that week will be the last time I do it! I've already notified my recruiter and will send her the manager's phone number so they can call her instead of me when the timesheet doesn't get there. Next thing is that there are *compulsory* unit meetings this next week, all at times which are grossly inconvenient for me, either 6 or 10 a.m. I'm not going to be very amused at having to get up at what is MY middle of the night to drag my butt in for a meeting that promises to create more problems than it solves. Oh, and the schedule! Well, the schedule is still a mess. I had asked not to be scheduled 4 in a row with the fourth night being Christmas Eve, and even given her several possible alternatives, but she chose to ignore my request. I have signed up to be put on call, but somehow I doubt that will happen, even if, as in previous years, they close the unit. Not to mention I got taken out of my weekend rotation this coming week. And then there's the fact that on a number of nights there are 4 nurses scheduled, which sounds to me like we're being used as back-door float pool...kinda like the National Guard getting used as a back door draft. (You do NOT want to get me started on that!) Is it any wonder I'm seriously thinking of settling down in a permanent, non-bedside job? Color me fed up. Current mood:  grumpy.
Yep, that's right. I hate it. I don't like the hospital or the city. I like the people I work with okay, and the unit is very nice, but I don't like it. There are things going on that I don't understand and they make me uncomfortable. Staffing over most of the hospital sucks. There is no phlebotomy, so nurses have to do their own lab draws (actually, the patient care techs can do them, but they can't draw from IV lines, so it falls on the nurses much of the time anyway). On nights there is no clerical staff, so all of that has to be done by the nurses too, unless the techs happen to have clerical training and the time to use it. On my unit, it's quite a bit the opposite. Most nights there are three nurses, but rarely do we have more than 6 patients, not that I'm complaining about THAT; I just wonder how long it will be allowed to go on. Now some of the nurses who have been out sick or having surgery are returning, and on many nights there will be even more of us. To me this suggests one thing...floating. Now, I don't mind floating *on occasion*, so long as I'm being floated to some area in which I'm reasonably competent, but the word I am getting is that travelers float first, and I'll be damned if I'm coming in every shift to go somewhere else. If I wanted to be in float pool I'd have signed on for it! And...last week the manager who hired me was fired. I still don't understand the mechanics of that, but it scares the hell out of me. When I first got here I heard rumors of some kind of screaming match between one of the nurses and the secretary who had been doing the schedule, resulting in a communique that all schedule requests and changes were to go through the manager or her superior, a person of whose existence I had been previously unaware. A week or so later, I heard that the manager had resigned. The word was that she was going to cath lab at another hospital in the system. Thursday she stopped by the unit to let the day shift know she'd been fired...from cath lab, from the whole hospital, and apparently from the whole system. Nobody really knows what happened, but apparently there's going to be some serious uproar in HR. This morning our secretary was talking about some changes being made. She mentioned that probably most of the travelers would not be extended, but that didn't particularly bother me, as I have NO intention of extending my contract. Neither do two of the other three who started when I did, and the other traveler, who's been there for almost a year, had spoken of moving on. My concern is more in terms of my contract being canceled before it's over. I can deal with that, I guess, if it happens after Christmas, but I need the money up until then. I'm starting to think about looking for a permanent job... Current mood: worried.Current music: Moya Brennan, River. I don't like it here. Plain and simple. But I don't want to go to what passes for "home" because it's not any more. I just want this assignment to be OVER. The unit is okay, pretty much. It's not a hard job; I think I said earlier that it was actually boring a lot of nights. The people I work with are nice, although a lot of them are refugees from units that are not happy places, and some are real burnout cases. The bitching from the regulars can be pretty wearing. Nights are long, much of the time spent just sitting around. And (shhhhhhhh!) sometimes we are painfully overstaffed, which is not the case in the rest of the hospital. I have read more books and spent more time online at work here than anywhere I've ever been. Last night I got a look at the next schedule, and that REALLY pissed me off. My understanding when I signed on was that I'd be working weekends, and hopefully not ALL the holidays. I don't work Thanksgiving (oh yippee) but I'm down for both Christmas Eve and New Year's Day night. Not only that, but Christmas Eve is the fourth night in a row for me, and I don't DO four in a row. Nor does one of the other travelers, who is down for four in a row the following weekend, and she's pregnant. On top of that, everyone is working one or both of the holidays except for one traveler who for some reason is not scheduled for ANY! Fair? I don't think so. And then there's the living situation. My apartment is actually quite nice, if small. It's easy to keep clean and there's plenty of room for me. I hate the driveway and the parking, but I can live with it. However...and it's a BIG however...there is the matter of my upstairs neighbor. I have never seen her (I assume it's a her, most of the residents here are travel nurses and female) but I have to HEAR her, and she walks *very* heavily. On top of that, she has a dog. Now, it can't be that big a dog, because it barks in soprano, but when it runs through the house it sounds like a damn Clydesdale! And when she goes out and comes back, it does that for at least five minutes. Then it sits down and scratches and thumps on the floor for another five minutes. To make matters worse, it desperately needs its nails cut...just imagine a Clydesdale with jingle taps on its shoes. This morning I saw my neighbor come home just ahead of me (at least I assume it was her, looking at where the car parked). Oh goody, I thought, maybe she'll go to bed! Ah, but it was not to be. Just as I started thinking about crawling between the sheets, she decided to VACUUM HER APARTMENT...the entire place...and the damn dog ran around in circles the whole time. If I ever have to live in another lower unit I will shoot myself. On the other hand, for once we had interesting times last night. I came in to two patients and one on the way. My partner was one of the regulars, an LPN who's almost finished with his BSN. We decided he'd take the one coming and I could have the two who were already there. My two didn't look awfully complicated, as most of our patients don't, but of course there had to be a curve ball somewhere, and danged if one of them didn't come up with some lab work that indicated *maybe* she might have a blood clot in her lungs, so off she went for a CT scan. The other had come in with a potassium of 2.4, which is sort of incompatible with life, but she was getting IV and oral potassium and seemed to be doing better. The first one came back from her CT scan, and before too long I got the word that it was negative for blood clots. My partner's patient came up from ER and he got her settled in. We were notified of another patient to come from an outlying hospital, but an hour later we heard that he'd decided he wasn't going anywhere but home and had left there AMA (against medical advice). We kicked back for a peaceful night.... So I'm sitting there, minding my own business and doing a job search online, when the monitor starts alarming. I look and it's my partner's patient, and she's alarming bradycardia (slow heart rate) in the 40s. Then her rate goes back up to the 50s...then down again...and keeps going down, 35, 32...I grab the crash cart and he goes tearing in the room and tries to wake her...heart rate is in the 20s but she responds, sort of. "How about some atropine?" He runs to get the drug. Patient is pale and clammy, but she's responding after a fashion. Heart rate at the lowest I saw on the monitor was 18. Since I'm the RN I get to push the atropine, half a dose at first with no effect, then what the hell, give her the whole thing. And the heart rate starts going up...40s...50s...oh boy, finally a nice happy 74! We breathe a sigh of relief, wrap up the observation, and he goes to chart. Later he told me that the patient and her family had described episodes at home where she got pale and clammy and "felt real weak." "Wanna bet she buys herself a pacemaker?" he said. Yeah, I bet she does. But I won't find out, because they just called and put me "on call" for tonight; there's one patient in the unit and two other nurses on the schedule. I could get called in for another floor, though I hope not. I'm nervous about staffing levels everywhere else. I REALLY don't like it here. I'm starting to think about a permanent job somewhere. Maybe not bedside, although I might think about that if the position were just right. Well, we'll see. I have until the end of January to think about it. Current mood:  depressed.
OK, where was I when so rudely interrupted? Offline for a few days, for one thing, but I'll get to that in due time. After the first day I hoped things would get better. On the second day we were in computer lab doing our mandatory education units, when the blonde from the office came in to tell us that those who'd had their pics made for badges the day before would have to pose again, as the file was somehow corrupted. "Is anyone surprised?" she asked, and I have to admit we all laughed. In between doing the computer learning modules, there was a lot of information trading about hospitals; I've found that traveler orientation is one of the best places to find out about such. In the afternoon there was instruction on the electronic med administration program, which was the same one I used on the last assignment, so that, at least, was a piece of cake. In the middle of that I got a call from my recruiter asking me if I was all set to move into my new apartment that day. Uh, no, I was told that it wouldn't be ready until Wednesday so I hadn't planned to move on Tuesday, and besides, I was not planning to move in the dark. I did go and get the key and look at it, though, and take in what was in my car. It proved to be small, but quite nice. I finished moving in the next day, after returning to what passes for home to retrieve the rest of my stuff. I was supposed to have internet, and for some reason, I couldn't get connected. Calls and calls, to the landlady and to Comcast (grrrrr), and it wasn't until FRIDAY that I found out it had never been connected in that particular unit. The earliest they could promise me was Monday, but they did say they'd make an effort to get someone there on Saturday. I felt like I was in exile! Meanwhile, I went Thursday for my first day of unit orientation. This is what a friend of mine refers to as a "hot sheets" unit...mostly 23 hour observation patients, low risk, for stress tests and the occasional heart cath. (When I asked her what "hot sheets unit" meant, she said, "Oh, you know, the kind where you can have three different patients in the same bed in a 24 hour period!" Yep, I know.) The patients are easy enough, but the paperwork is HORRID! And this hospital is not yet computer charting. (Supposedly that's coming in February) I worked again Friday night, still orienting, and I go in for the last night of that tonight. This coming Friday I'm on my own, and actually the unit will be run on weekend nights almost entirely by travelers. And Saturday I finally got back online! Current mood: relieved.
 (if you can't see the pic, click on the box to view) Activists send female underwear to Burmese embassies Martin Hodgson Friday October 19, 2007 Guardian Unlimited Activists exasperated at the failure of diplomacy to apply pressure on Burma's military regime are resorting to a new means of protest against the regime's recent crackdown: sending female underwear to Burmese embassies. Embassies in the UK, Thailand, Australia and Singapore have all been targeted by the "Panties for Peace" campaign, co-ordinated by an activist group based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The manoeuvre is a calculated insult to the junta and its leader, General Than Shwe. Superstitious junta members believe that any contact with female undergarments - clean or dirty - will sap them of their power, said Jackie Pollack, a member of the Lanna Action for Burma Committee. "Not only are they brutal, but they are also very superstitious. They believe that touching a woman's pants or sarong will make them lose their strength," Ms Pollack told Guardian Unlimited. So far, hundreds of pairs of pants have been posted, according to another campaigner, Liz Hilton. "One group sent 140 pairs to the Burmese embassy in Geneva," she said. The campaign was a serious attempt to allow ordinary women to express their outrage at the regime's response to democracy demonstrations led by Buddhist monks, Ms Pollack said. "Condemnation by the United Nations and governments around the world have had no impact on the Burmese regime. This is a way of trying to reach them where they will feel it," she said. "The junta is famous for its abuse of women: it is well documented that they use rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities. This is a way for women around the world to express their outrage." The Burmese government has claimed that 10 people were killed and nearly 2,100 arrested, but dissident groups estimate that dozens or even hundreds died during the recent crackdown and its aftermath. A message on the activists' website reads: "This is your chance to use your Panty Power to take away the power from the SPDC. You can post, deliver or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy any day from today. Send early, send often." An official at the Burmese Embassy in London was unable to confirm if any garments had yet been delivered. OK, girls, ante up! Send these guys your panties! This is one of the more creative protests I've heard of. Here are some embassy addresses: "Not only are they brutal, but they are also very superstitious. They believe that touching a woman's pants or sarong will make them lose their strength," Ms Pollack told Guardian Unlimited. So far, hundreds of pairs of pants have been posted, according to another campaigner, Liz Hilton. "One group sent 140 pairs to the Burmese embassy in Geneva," she said. The campaign was a serious attempt to allow ordinary women to express their outrage at the regime's response to democracy demonstrations led by Buddhist monks, Ms Pollack said. "Condemnation by the United Nations and governments around the world have had no impact on the Burmese regime. This is a way of trying to reach them where they will feel it," she said. "The junta is famous for its abuse of women: it is well documented that they use rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities. This is a way for women around the world to express their outrage." The Burmese government has claimed that 10 people were killed and nearly 2,100 arrested, but dissident groups estimate that dozens or even hundreds died during the recent crackdown and its aftermath. A message on the activists' website reads: "This is your chance to use your Panty Power to take away the power from the SPDC. You can post, deliver or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy any day from today. Send early, send often." An official at the Burmese Embassy in London was unable to confirm if any garments had yet been delivered. "Not only are they brutal, but they are also very superstitious. They believe that touching a woman's pants or sarong will make them lose their strength," Ms Pollack told Guardian Unlimited. So far, hundreds of pairs of pants have been posted, according to another campaigner, Liz Hilton. "One group sent 140 pairs to the Burmese embassy in Geneva," she said. The campaign was a serious attempt to allow ordinary women to express their outrage at the regime's response to democracy demonstrations led by Buddhist monks, Ms Pollack said. "Condemnation by the United Nations and governments around the world have had no impact on the Burmese regime. This is a way of trying to reach them where they will feel it," she said. "The junta is famous for its abuse of women: it is well documented that they use rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities. This is a way for women around the world to express their outrage." The Burmese government has claimed that 10 people were killed and nearly 2,100 arrested, but dissident groups estimate that dozens or even hundreds died during the recent crackdown and its aftermath. A message on the activists' website reads: "This is your chance to use your Panty Power to take away the power from the SPDC. You can post, deliver or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy any day from today. Send early, send often." An official at the Burmese Embassy in London was unable to confirm if any garments had yet been delivered. OK, ladies, ante up! Send these guys your panties NOW! It's the least you can do for our brothers and especially our sisters in Burma. Here are some addresses: United States of America: Embassy of Union of Myanmar 2300 S Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008 Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations: 10 East 77th St. New York, NY 10021 United Kingdom: Embassy of Union of Myanmar 19 A Charles Street, London W1J 5DX UK Canada: Embassy of the Union of Myanmar Sandringham Building, 85 Range Road, Suite 902-903 Ottawa, Ontario Kin 8J6 Canada Someone have the addresses for the embassies in Australia and New Zealand? Current mood:  amused.
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||