Man Stops Traffic at 17th and K to Demand $200 Million
Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
Judge Throws Out WTU Suit Over Teacher Layoffs
Vegetate to Close at the End of the Month
Morning Roundup: Rain Won't Go Away Edition
The AP's Brett Zongker is reporting that former D.C. mayor and Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry has been admitted to Howard University Hospital in preparation for a kidney transplant.
Hospital spokesman Ron Harris says 72-year-old Barry was at the hospital Thursday for a surgery scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday. Harris says the six-hour procedure has a 95 percent success rate.As you'll recall, Barry, 72, blamed his most recent instance of failing to file a tax return on time due to being distracted by his impending transplant. He has been undergoing kidney dialysis for some time. We wish the Council member a successful surgery and speedy recovery.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
So once he gets his new kidney, what excuse will he use for not paying taxes this year?
I'm thinking it will involve either The Great Gazoo or Mister Mxyzptlk.
I personally think they're one in the same. Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time?
For as clever as the comments on this blog are they couldn't be more inhumane. Renal transplant surgery is a life-saving (and life-threatening) measure! Reagrding the commentary on transplanted chimp organs or whether someone in his right-mind should undergo transplant surgery @ Howard University Hospital, I must say this blog may be a haven for abject racism. For the record, HUH is one of the oldest medical training institutions in the country. It has produced and continues to produce international leaders in the medical community. Not the least of whom is Dr. Clive Callendar the creator of the National Minority Transplant Education Center. Please google him and for that matter Lasalle Lefalle,MD. Hopefully you bloogers will have your taxes (and everthing else) in order should you become critically ill;lest you become victims of cruelty similar to your own.
cali: welcome to dcist. the chimp jokes have nothing to do with race around here. it's a long-standing discussion in reference to our most prolific commenter, one monkeyrotica, esq.
just don't want you to wade into the battle unprepared...
Yeah! Shock Monkeyrotica! The only person you should have a beef with is IMGOPH for double-dipping in the cheese dip at the DCist Expose Yourself party. All that dip contaminated.
IMGOPH. I kid. I kid.
Now explain the case of mistaken identity between Barry and your President. I don't expect to change your group. Just happened upon the Barry story and this blog and was blown away!
A couple of points.
1. Washington, DC is home to several excellent hospitals, so the specific hospital one chooses for surgery is a personal choice. While Washington Hospital Center is better at kidney transplants, it remains his choice.
2. Most if not all of our comments about Barry were earned by him. At the absolute minimum he is an embarrassment to Washington, DC. That has nothing to do with race.
3. If our comments appear to be inhumane, so be it. Free speech allows us to say as we will and it allows you to comment on it. Les jeux sont faits.
4. I really don't think any commenter looks in the mirror before commenting, nor expects someone commenting about them to do so either. With the exception of Monkey we are all adults here.
see response from "Carla"
I appreciate your points...and free speech. I agree that DC has great hospitals (including Howard University Hospital). Not sure by which measures WHC is better at kidney transplant though. Certainly not a fan of corrupt politicians. As a transplant to DC not sure how Barry remains an elected official. I hear he has done great things for Seniors. Still was shocked by the lack of compassion exhibited given the critical nature of his medical condition.
You see, the recovery from my kidney transplant caused me to not be able to file my taxes from 2009-2017.
Thinking you don't have to pay your taxes is a blood-borne illness. This new kidney doesn't stand a chance. Poor little guy.
Marion Barry filed his kidney by accident. It happens all the time. Why, one day I threw out my kidney beans and the next day, out of the ground came a magical beanstalk. The vines twisted their way to the Orange Line and made a mess of the day. The Washingtonians thought they had it bad until a fat assed giant crawled down and made his way to Ben's Chili Bowl. That my friend is another story. The moral of this story is: If you smoke crack and you are the mayor. Don't get caught.
wow, that was.....deep.
How many years has Barry been on the transplant list? Most programs won't give someone over 70 a kidney unless they've already been on the transplant list for several years. This smells fishy to me.
pass that info along to tom sherwood, kojo, loose lips, and every other local political reporter. see if any of them are willing to do the legwork.
Not a chance in hell anyone would touch this story.
Maybe he's not getting a human kidney. Maybe he's getting a kidney harvested from a dead 200lb face-eating chimp. Or maybe he's getting some special Steve Austin bionic kidney that gives him special cyborg urinating powers. You'll be able to find Barry by the trail of shattered urinals and commodes cut in half by his high-velocity laser-like urine stream. Maybe!
It's entirely possible that Barry's crack dealer is now in the organs market.
Tom Sherwood already reported that the kidney is from a direct donation - a friend of Barry's is giving him her kidney, thus bypassing the wait list.
A direct donation? Really? So no knockout drops or bathtubs full of ice were involved? Unlikely. The Travis the Face-eating Chimp assassination coverrup continues unabated, and dcist is all too happy to perpetuate the fiction that a "lone monkey," acting alone, mauled some lady for no reason and, conveniently, was executed before he could stand trial.
Travis died so Barry could live. End of story.
add that to the wikipedia page and people will be quoting it as gospel truth from now to the end of time.
Thanks, Sommer. Do you know if he is required to report this donation to the IRS?
Somewhere in a Ward 8 squat, a young man is waking up in a tub of ice with a note...
Would it have been cooler for the Mayor to have been caught with powder'd cocaine cause a lot of you seem to think that crack cocaine is the bastard son of the Devils
Dandruff. It comes from the same papa....just cooked and filled with other jems of enlightenment. Let the man suffer in peace. He's done his time. He's ya mayor.
Now, get off m'lawn!
so basically there's a 95 percent chance Barry will continue to f@&! things up and be fodder for DCist until he dies a natural death (no doubt owing many years worth of taxes).
there's also a five percent chance that DCist will have to increase their posts about free ice cream 'n stuff.
May his surgeon be just as skilled as his accountant.
Well, at least he got the stimulus bill passed before going into surgery. Oh, wait.... wrong guy. My bad.
At least he paid his back taxes BEFORE going under the knife. Whewwwww!!
Just like Barry. Whatever action there is, he gets his cut.
Wow this reeks of shadiness. First, who in their right mind gets a transplant done at Howard U Hospital? Second, 12 weeks of dialysis - and a transplant already? Sounds unethical to me. Way too quick. Third, who's paying for this operation anyhow?
Knowing Barry maybe he is using some infrastructure reconstruction money.