Katherine Whitbread

Civilization Engineer

[Rodney Smith Jr @iamrodneysmith]

Dear @WhiteHouse, my name is Rodney Smith Jr., founder of Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service in Huntsville, Alabama. Through our 50 Yard Challenge, over 6,000 kids across the country have signed up to mow free lawns for the elderly, disabled, veterans, active-duty military, first responders, and single parents. With America celebrating its 250th birthday this year and me also being born on July 4th, I wanted to humbly ask if a few kids from our program and myself could travel to Washington, D.C. to help mow the White House lawn for this historic celebration.

More than anything, I want these kids to see how a simple act of service something as ordinary as mowing a lawn for someone in need can lead to extraordinary places. What better lesson in community service than showing them that helping others can take them all the way to our nation’s capital? I’d also love to bring my American flag-themed mower in hopes that the President might sign it, so I can later auction it off and donate 100% of the proceeds to a nonprofit supporting veterans. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to highlight the importance of service, patriotism, and the impact young people can have when they choose to make a difference. 🇺🇸

[JB Rookcard @JBRookcard]

It appears there's nothing heard from Nicholas Jordan Wagter as he's still held involuntarily.

After the initial "48 hour hold," if the psychiatrists deem by certification continued "treatment," the involuntary commitment is extended to 30 days.

Pray for Nicholas Jordan Wagter.❤️🙏

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

@DisabledDoctor They’re probably afraid of a subpoena because they don’t get paid for court unless treated as expert

[Attorney General Ken Paxton @KenPaxtonTX]

Annelise Camp is fighting for her life and deserves a medical team that will fight just as hard. I'm calling on Texas Children’s to prioritize the treatment her family is seeking or allow adequate time to transfer her to a hospital that will. Will Memorial Hermann do the right thing and accept Annelise as a patient?

I am closely monitoring this case and will act to protect this child and honor her parents' efforts to save her.

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

Doc: well don’t blame me if you get a heart attack if you don’t take my drug

Patient: that’s the beautiful part. I can refuse your medication, HAVE a heart attack and you’ll still help me.

What patient WANTED to say: what’s the matter with you?! You KNOW I cannot hold you responsible for anything you do short of trying to have sex with me. And Yuck. If your intervention kills or maims me and I do blame you, you’ll find a supported way to ditch me. You cannot just ditch me because you don’t like me because you were wrong but you can find a way. Let’s stop pretending we have each other’s best interest at heart. This is a battleground not a collaboration.

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

Ah well. No one believes me. I continue attempting to demonstrate. I almost tried an IV drip but it was obvious quickly that it was snake oil because of all the fluff. Bad communication. Unreasonable claims. Once they got you, now they hate you. Terrible. It’s like handling dangerous animals.

[Kris Sims @kris_sims]

😭I thought I was reading this wrong, but nope

Carney government is giving out $2.7 million in bonuses to Alto bureaucrats

That’s the crown corporation that *hasn’t built a train yet*

You, the taxpayer, are paying bonuses to bureaucrats for imaginary trains

Can’t make this up

[Dr. Heidi Klessig @heidiklessigmd]

“Brain death” was invented in 1968 by 13 men at Harvard Medical School to free up ICU beds and facilitate organ transplantation.

Their original manuscript stated:

“There is great need for the tissues and organs of the hopelessly comatose in order to restore health to those who are still salvageable.”

This statement was edited out before publication as being too telling.

Their final JAMA article never asserted that these neurologically injured people were actually dead. The Harvard Committee described them rather as being “desperately injured,” and “a burden to themselves and others.”

Probably the world’s greatest expert on the topic of brain death, D. Alan Shewmon MD, describes it this way:

“‘Brain death as death’ began as a utilitarian legislative decree and has remained a conclusion in search of a justification ever since: a conclusion clung to at all costs for the sake of the transplantation enterprise that quickly came to depend on it.”

Utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer has called brain death “…a concept so desirable in its consequences that it is unthinkable to give it up, and so shaky on its foundations that it can scarcely be supported.” He has also called brain death “an ethical choice masquerading as a medical fact.”

So-called “brain dead” patients are neurologically injured, not dead. Falsely labeling them as dead robs them of their protections under the law and violates their human rights.

@SteveTothTX @TXRightToLife @KenPaxtonTX

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

@lo_fye @kushika_twt I have Starlink so trunk lines don’t apply

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

@lo_fye @kushika_twt It is true that space is closer than Antarctica. But all that heat in Antarctica would probably be repurposed to grow food in summer or even somewhat in winter.

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

@dylanmatt hahahahahaha

[IT Unprofessional @it_unprofession]

Our HR department just migrated all our mandatory compliance training to a new gamified learning management system.

I received an automated email stating I had 48 hours to complete a module on data privacy or my badge would be deactivated.

I logged into the portal and was greeted by a cartoon badger named Barnaby.

Barnaby told me I was about to embark on a security quest.

I'm 44 years old.

I don't want to go on a quest.

The first module was a video about phishing scams produced like a high-budget daytime soap opera.

The actors were inappropriately attractive for a simulated accounts payable department.

The main character, Chad, left his laptop open at a coffee shop while he ordered a matcha latte.

A guy in a black hoodie immediately sat down and downloaded the entire corporate mainframe to a USB drive in four seconds.

Then the video paused and asked me to identify Chad's critical mistake.

The multiple choice options were leaving the device unsecured, using public Wi-Fi, or failing to foster a culture of vigilance.

I clicked the first one.

Barnaby the badger popped up and told me I was technically correct, but I lacked a holistic security mindset.

He deducted 10 "synergy tokens" from my digital wallet.

I didn't even know I had a digital wallet.

The next scenario involved a complex ethical dilemma about accepting gifts from vendors.

A supplier offered the protagonist a branded corporate fleece.

The video framed this as the first step toward international corporate espionage.

I was asked if accepting the fleece was a violation of the anti-bribery statutes.

I clicked yes.

Barnaby congratulated me and awarded me a bronze digital badge of integrity.

I tried to fast-forward through the next video because it was 45 minutes long.

The player immediately froze and a warning message appeared saying Barnaby notices you are rushing.

The video restarted from the very beginning.

I sat there for 45 minutes watching a dramatization of password hygiene while staring blankly at my monitor.

At the end of the quest, I had to take a 50-question final exam.

One question asked how long a visitor badge is valid under the new global security matrix.

I guessed 24 hours.

Barnaby appeared with a sad face and told me it was 12 hours.

I failed the module with an 84 percent.

The passing grade was 85 percent.

Barnaby informed me that my quest must start over.

I considered throwing my company-issued laptop out the window.

Instead, I sent an email to HR asking for an extension.

I got an automated reply saying the HR representative was out of the office on a corporate wellness retreat.

I clicked replay on the video.

Chad is about to leave his laptop at the coffee shop again.

This time I hope the hacker deletes my employee profile entirely.

[Kirk Lubimov @KirkLubimov]

This is why we don't have a true democracy without an elected Senate.

No one knows who this person is, and no one elected her.

Yet she has direct legislative powers and will infringe on Canadian's free speech for political and ideological reasons.
A random unelected person just removed Rights from you.

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

@Gosleepriya skin

[JB Rookcard @JBRookcard]

⁉️ WHERE IS Nicholas Jordan Wagter ⁉️

Day 11 since any known information.

Involuntarily committed as an psychiatric inpatient against his will.

@VGHfdn @VCHhealthcare knows.

⁉️ WHERE IS Nicholas Jordan Wagter ⁉️

Pray for the safety and deliverance of Nicholas Jordan Wagter.❤️🙏

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

I cannot think of a reason. I can understand why it's worth it to them. I would invite you to do whatever you want. They would certainly benefit more from exactly the same information if they paid you for it. The more they pay, the more they'll value it.

When I worked at a smaller place and there was really nothing they could do about the reason I quit -- which was basically that there was no opportunity for advancement unless you were in the family --, then there wasn't much reason to tell them why. I told them I left to try to get pregnant. But apparently they wanted to know the real reason so they sent someone who never talked to me and wasn't my boss to ask me. He pretended to be curious but his whole personality was incuriousness. So I told him the truth and he got back to them and then they knew.

Technically, there was another reason. The whole place ran on a database coded by the dad and therefore was precarious. It was a good database as far as they go. But he was trying to retire.

In general, I like to try to support the transition from first to second generation of a family business which is by far the hardest transition. But the kids were not really into it. A few years later, it closed.

But when I worked for Apple, I enjoyed my exit interview very, very much. I got to say all kinds of "illegal" things. The mini manager, my direct guy, tried to POLICE my language. But the big manager, the one who talked to Steve directly (before Steve died), checked him. It's an exit interview. Let her talk.

I already knew that Steve had called the big manager upon the AppleTV release. This one manager with decades of service and who ran the flagship store was the only person at Apple that could tell Steve that the AppleTV was CRAP. And he did. The user interface was disgusting. It was a big fat failure. I wasn't supposed to know about that interaction but I did. So I referenced that experience as I described how Apple is deaf.

At first, Apple ran like a pirate fleet with everyone doing the right thing with initiative and pushing the customer service. But by the AppleTV time, Apple ran like a religion.

I also knew the big guy was Catholic. So I knew how to pick the right metaphor.

I asked him. If you are the only person at Apple who can tell the Emperor that he is naked and the place is running like a Church (don't say the wrong thing!!!! blasphemy!!!), I asked him what does that make you?

I don't care if he came away with "a cardinal" or "the court fool" or "the only hope for truth to wedge in". It was fun to say all of that stuff.

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

@KettchUK @Silversandal1 @_motherslug Well worth it if they can act on your information

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

I think some people are worked up that they sell the information for $10000 for full access to anyone. Stats Can argue they have “anonymized the micro data”. Critics find that process that works only if the subscriber opts not to cross reference it.

In the pre-Internet era, an expensive thing existed called a reverse directory. If you knew someone’s name, you could look them up in the phone book of course. But you couldn’t easily reverse engineer someone’s name from their address and certainly not from their phone number. Unless you bought a reverse directory.

The city or county maintains property ownership records and you could try to find who owns a specific property (but not who lives there). That’s a far cry from having contact information for a whole neighbourhood or a list. The reverse directory was a list.

If you didn’t want to be on the list, you could pay extra to have them not include your address in the Yellow Pages and then therefore, it would not be included in the reverse directory. No way to tell of course without buying one. But your phone number was open season.

The StatsCan privacy support is thought by critics to include assumptions that are no longer true.

One of the new sources of income for grocery stores is identifying you through blue tooth and payment and gamification (points/memberships/cash back/discounts) and selling your data.

It might be asking a lot to expect the government to be up to date on hacking and cracking and privacy. Just look at medical records! Because he ordered a diabetic MEAL (having heard they taste better than the mush he was getting with no molars), someone anonymously coded him as diabetic despite no clinical and never one sugar test. We couldn’t get that straightened out because the person who put it in the chart is the only one allowed to remove it. So people don’t trust the government to actually protect privacy. Some people think it’s just another source of income like for the grocery store. The argument that the government needs to know how many of whomever is where in order to take care of you will only move you to the point you are already feeling respected, understood and taken care of.

How about you? What do you think about the mad and the madness?

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

Their is a red letter edition of the bible. Whatever the scholars generally agree is something that Jesus actually said is red. Anything that Jesus very much possibly might have said because it’s perfectly in character is pink. The rest is black.

Wait until you get to the part where someone begat someone who begat someone else.

I like Ephesians. I got on the armour of God and I hope I’m a peacemaker.

[Katherine Whitbread @practicethewild]

I wish your people had supported you better. I guess for some a failure to acknowledge it is like saying it’s not important which clearly it IS. And worse since a mom’s death is clearly important to most people, the message is really that YOU don’t matter.

It is possible that the offending manager thought it was more supportive to say nothing. But given the poster’s response, I think it was probably not a response meant for her best interest.

Anyway, I hope that I have the discernment to say nothing when that’s the choice that helps the poor human who has suffered a loss.