Community: It's about how we care for each other

In Kim Kommando's email today I clicked on this link about spotting counterfeit memory cards.

What bothers me the most about this isn't that there exist such things as counterfeit memory cards, but that

. . . [T]hey're even showing up in reputable establishments.

The ones in reputable stores are almost impossible to detect. That's because they come from the manufacturer itself. Well, they come from the manufacturer's employees.

Manufacturers don't use all the flash memory that they make. Some of it doesn't pass quality tests. The flash memory may be too slow. It could be prone to errors. They throw out those parts.

Unscrupulous employees will rescue the defective memory. They'll package it up with legitimate labels and boxes. Then they sell it as genuine for a tidy profit.

How, then, do we protect ourselves? To a large extent I trust the people who do the jobs I don't or can't do to be honest. What happens when they're not?

I work in healthcare. In the early 1990s there was a problem with an entire batch of sutures being incompletely or improperly sterilized. At the hospital I worked in we couldn't figure out why, suddenly, there were so many surgeries that didn't heal properly. Then, finally, the recall happened, and we found out that most likely the sutures used for sewing up these incisions were from that batch.

What if the CDC hadn't collected data on complications of surgery? What if they hadn't been able to trace back to that batch of sutures? What if the company had covered it up? Those thoughts bother me enough.

But what if people who work in medical supply companies are just- cheating? Not doing their jobs properly? I count on them to be sure to do the job correctly. I need those supplies to be sterile, sharp, absorbent, whatever it is that they're supposed to be. Not for me, but for my patients. For their safety.

We're all in this together. The economy, the ecology, the community. In the end, it's not about *I've got mine, and nuts to you*. It's about *I've got enough for now, and how are you doing? Are you doing ok?*

Isn't it? About caring for each other, about each other? It's about care. About Coeur, courage. Heart. Not profit. Not cheating. Care.

LOVE UNTIL IT HURTS By Daphne Rae: biography of Mother Theresa, who, when asked how she did so much, replied, "I don't. I do what's in front of me, and trust to God to do the rest." Mother Theresa struggled all her religious life with the concern that perhaps God wasn't there, wasn't listening- but she behaved as though each thing she did mattered, because it was what was in front of her.