Will Chapman

How many times have you heard someone suggest something is just not that complicated, saying, “It’s not brain surgery.”

Indeed we all probably appreciate that brain surgery is tricky.

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Perhaps it’s even harder than we thought, especially for doctors at a hospital in Providence, R.I., where according to an Associated Press item I clipped, doctors have three times this year performed brain surgery on the wrong side of a patient’s head.

“We are extremely concerned about this continuing pattern,” a health department spokesman was quoted as saying.

I guess one excuse from any of the three doctors involved could be, “You know, it is brain surgery.”

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A Sweet Talk reader spotted an item in another paper, dated May 31, that got his ire, reading how McClatchy Newspapers reported that since Jan. 1, FEMA has moved 710 Mississippi Coast households from trailers to hotel rooms, “where they receive three catered meals each day.”

They were moved out of the trailers because of concerns about air quality caused by fumes from chemicals used in the manufacturing of the trailers.

There’s a shortage of rental space in the area.

 It’s a bit amazing to consider there are still 710 families in this one community displaced almost three years after this storm, and to consider the cost of providing hotel rooms and three meals a day for so many, on top of what’s must have already been done in the two and half years prior.

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Another clipping in my file told how a Connecticut corrections officer was out of work, on leave related to a work injury, when he was spotted on TV taking part in a 40-yard dash — wearing women’s clothing including high heels — trying to win Hanna Montana tickets from a radio station promotion.

He not only was wearing heels and a dress, but was running carrying an egg on a spoon, all while he was too injured to work.

He didn’t win the tickets and odds are, he’s not going to win his next worker’s comp review either.

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An Afghan court recently sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that a three-judge panel said violated the tenants of Islam, with one judge saying it “humiliated” Islam.

The short report I clipped offers no details on just what the item was, but clearly freedom of speech and freedom of religion aren’t valued by everyone.

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Perhaps related to the item above is a quote I saw in something sent me by the folks at Process Printers.

The source wasn’t known, but I think the thought is worth considering:

• There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

And there was this one, with an interesting observation:

• Only in America do we have a general in charge of the post office and a secretary in charge of defense.

And then there was this one that I thought sounded a lot like some of our would-be leaders:

• Give me ambiguity, or give me something else.

WILL CHAPMAN is publisher for The Daily Iberian.