more fun(damentalism) from the stupid parents file...

Parents Pick Prayer Over Docs; Girl Dies

By ROBERT IMRIE – 16 hours ago

WESTON, Wis. (AP) — Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.

An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said.

She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.

The girl's mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors.

She insisted her youngest child, a wiry girl known to wear her straight brown hair in a ponytail, was in good health until recently.

"We just noticed a tiredness within the past two weeks," she said Wednesday. "And then just the day before and that day (she died), it suddenly just went to a more serious situation. We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering."

Her daughter — who hadn't seen a doctor since she got some shots as a 3-year-old, according to Vergin — had no fever and there was warmth in her body, she said.

The girl's father, Dale Neumann, a former police officer, said he started CPR "as soon as the breath of life left" his daughter's body.

Family members elsewhere called authorities to seek help for the girl.

"My sister-in-law, she's very religious, she believes in faith instead of doctors ...," the girl's aunt told a sheriff's dispatcher Sunday afternoon in a call from California. "And she called my mother-in-law today ... and she explained to us that she believes her daughter's in a coma now and she's relying on faith."

The dispatcher got more information from the caller and asked whether an ambulance should be sent.

"Please," the woman replied. "I mean, she's refusing. She's going to fight it. ... We've been trying to get her to take her to the hospital for a week, a few days now."

The aunt called back with more information on the family's location, emergency logs show. Family friends also made a 911 call from the home. Police and paramedics arrived within minutes and immediately called for an ambulance that took her to a hospital.

But less than an hour after authorities reached the home, Madeline — a bright student who left public school for home schooling this semester — was declared dead.

She is survived by her parents and three older siblings.

"We are remaining strong for our children," Leilani Neumann said. "Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time."

The Neumanns said they moved from California to a modern, middle-class home in woodsy Weston, just outside Wassau in central Wisconsin, about two years ago to open a coffee shop and be closer to other relatives. A basketball hoop is set up in the driveway.

Leilani Neumann said she and her husband are not worried about the investigation because "our lives are in God's hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do."

big fish, little pond.

there haven't been many times in my life where I've felt overwhelmed by a situation. this is by design. I go out of my way to avoid failure. I set the bar REALLY low and generally do just enough to get by. I often fall short of other people's expectations based on "potential" but it rarely bothers me.

I've worked at my current job, off and on, since 1996. I've worked my way up from warehouse monkey to purchasing to my current position, "quotations department lead". the title is more impressive than it should be. I'm in charge of three people. one is a former manager, semi-retired, with about 30 years experience in the industry. he's great, and I never boss him around. another is a woman who has been doing the same job, badly, for 35 years. she's a dinosaur and an utter bitch. I just try to avoid her. the third is the former receptionist, not good for much. she has a bad attitude and has been talking about getting a job at REI since the day she was hired.

my job is to coordinate commercial projects. usually, someone else quotes the job, and when we win it, I take over. I bring the required material in and release it as necessary to the jobsite. for the most part, it's really easy. I typically juggle around twenty jobs at a time.

I've got one right now that's kicking my ass. it's a two million dollar condo structure in bellevue. I was provided a spreadsheet breaking down each unit's requirements and due dates. there are over five hundred individual units to coordinate. each has slightly different material. and due to the customer request, I have to release three separate orders for each unit. I'm having to keep track of around 1800 separate orders, making sure the material is here on time and the orders are printed for delivery per the schedule.

I'm not that good. at least not without, you know, WORKING on it.

I fucked up. I procrastinated and let the job slide a bit too long. I ordered some fancy faucets from germany six weeks before I needed them. it's now been twelve and some still haven't arrived. the customer is pissed. I'm catching hell from every angle for dropping the ball like this.

every job has problems. we usually end up expediting material in to cover for them. stuff gets broken, or the customer changes their mind, of the factory sends the wrong item... there's always someone to blame.

this time, it's me. I should have ordered the shit long ago.

I don't like this feeling of mortality. I like feeling invincible. like I said, my job is easy. I get paid pretty well considering what I have to put into it. but I really don't like getting yelled at. I don't like failing.

the last time I found myself in this situation was college. I had coasted all through school, and the first few years of college, on nothing but native intelligence, manipulating the system, and bullshit. when I got to advanced classes I realised I had no idea how to actually study. I'd never highlighted a book. I usually only skimmed them. I was terrible at taking notes in lectures. I'd never needed to do any of this before. I got to my fourth year of uni, and I quit. I was completely lost and figured it was too late to learn. it's not like I WANTED to be there anyway. so I left school 30 credits shy of a bachelors degree and $40k in debt.

I'm to the same point at work. I'd never had to do much before now. I was always able to find quick and easy ways to cheat, ways of doing things more efficiently and yet taking as long as everyone else, and enjoying the surplus free time. as long as I was doing just a teensy bit more than those around me, that was good enough. who cares that I could do it with 20% of the effort they needed? if I really WANTED to, I could do just about anything in this company. I've been offered management positions and turned them down. too much work. too much risk of failure.

and it's not like this problem I have now will be difficult to dig myself out of. for the most part, each floor follows the same basic plans. room 613 is pretty much the same as room 713, I just have to make sure I catch any modifications. otherwise, I can just copy the order (most people would re-enter it by hand) and have it ready. I just can't procrastinate. I have to keep at this, not slack off, and make sure I stay six weeks ahead of things, at least. I can't pull shit out of my ass at the last minute anymore.

that's difficult during the day. there are too many distractions. too many phone calls, too many fires to put out. so I have to come in on weekends, when there are no distractions, to get everything set up. I'll basically have to work two saturdays a month for the next year or so to keep up on this. my incentive is not getting yelled at. well, and overtime. the extra money is nice too..

I need to work my way back to that little pond... life needs to come with cheat modes. you know how much easier things would be if there was an invincibility code?

ouch.

my parents came up for a quick visit today and dropped off some new furniture for us. my mom bought new furniture for their house, couch, loveseat, etc to match their remodeling, and offered us their old leather furniture. a huge green couch, a comfy green chair and two ottomans... it's a nice upgrade over the ugly brown hand-me-down couch we had, especially as saku had used it as a scratching post.

problem is, the couch wouldn't fit in the elevator, and we're on the second floor. I fuggered up my back something fierce getting it up the stairs with my dad.

it's an unusual back pain for me, since it's quite high on my back, right on my spine about mid-back. I've had back problems for years, but it was always located in my lower back. this kinda sucks. I haven't been able to sleep (hence the posting at 1am), and it's really difficult to get comfy. I had miyuki dig her elbow in real good before she fell asleep and that offered some temporary comfort. I've decided to medicated with a very stiff white russian and some painkillers, hoping that'll help me fall asleep.

I suppose it's still worth it, getting new furniture (to us, at least). we also got a nice dinner out of the deal, since my mom wanted to go to anthony's for a late birthday dinner (she didn't get to go when they were up in january). I still speculate they went out of their way to deliver the furniture (three hour drive) to "even things up" between me and my sister. sis lives fives minutes from them and abuses them for free babysitting more or less constantly. we only see them about once a month and don't get nearly as many perks. then again, I don't live in vancouver washington and have three demon children, so I'm not not really complaining.

no to try to sleep again. hoping it works this time. need to go into work in the morning to fix some fuckups. for once, they're my own mistakes, I got lazy and fell WAAAAAAY behind on a two million dollar condo job, and I'm getting yelled at from every angle on that one. I gotta screw around less at work and actually pay attention to deadlines from now on, at least one those big jobs. oops. hey, at least it's overtime...

daylight saving time sucks.

the guy who invented daylight saving time can eat my ass. with a spoon.

I've never understood it. you're not actually CHANGING anything. if farmers (or whoever DST is actually supposed to benefit, I've never actually been sure - most people just assume it's those damn farmers) want to get up when it's light out, maybe they should just get up an hour earlier in the summer? it's not like anything changes if your clock says 6am or 5am. it's still the same time. the planet is at the same exact point in its daily rotation. you're not SAVING anything, you're just moving it around.

seriously, what is the fucking point? I've been cranky all week. I haven't gotten enough sleep. I've had to get up an hour early every day, and I can't fall asleep an hour earlier at night.

plus, there have been numerous studies that have shown the whole notion is retarded.

did you know that changing out clocks doesn't actually save any electricity, and actually uses more? granted, usa today and wall street journal aren't exactly peer reviewed scientific journals, but they get the point across.

then there's the fact that more people are killed in crosswalks immediately following a time change, due to the sudden darkness you're not used to driving in. see this for further details.

in the spring, you've got a whole lot of people who are waking up earlier than they're used to and trying to drive to work now. it's causing more accidents. the commute to work this week has been hellish. not to mention the fact that by moving DST up six weeks, I'm now driving to work in the dark. again. and yet it's light until 7:30pm. what is the fucking point of that?

last week, it was already light out when I left for work at 7am. and it got dark around dinner time. that seems perfectly reasonable to me. in another six weeks, switching the time wouldn't matter as much, it'd be getting light much earlier and I'd still drive to work in daylight.

I really fucking hate DST. I don't know anyone who actually thinks it's a good idea. so why do we even bother with it?

the masses need to heed the words of rilo kiley. we need to rise up with fists, and slaughter the sick fuckos who mess around with our time. it's OUR time dammit, we don't have to let them change it up on us, arbitrarily, twice a year!