Well, this is certainly an interesting article. Moral relativism makes my heart sing.
OK, not that we're all not sick to fucking death of hearing about this... But Dana at Bobofett wrote something really moving about her sister-in-law Tina's death following a situation that was very similar to that of Terri Schiavo, but whose family made a different choice about her situation.
Dana's story of how her family let Tina go makes what the Schindlers have been saying and doing in regard to their daughter seem all the more horrid and heartbreaking and almost obscene. Terri's become some meat marionette, her parents pulling strings and saying "Look how alive she still is! Someday she'll dance on her own again!" Dana's in-laws, on the other hand, honored their loved one the best way they could by not suffering what was left of her to linger because they couldn't face the reality of her loss. If only Terri's parents had as much of a handle on the difference between hope and delusion... For their own sakes as much as any other reason, so that they could find closure and move on with their lives and remember their daughter as the person she was instead of the wretched, sad shadow of herself that's been suffered to persist in the past 15 years. Clearly, their love for her is immense - but in weaving this desperate myth of her potential for recovery, it's also taken on tones of delusion and obsession.
Dickwitted Senator Rick Santorum (and don't even get me started on why Congress should be a million miles from even touching this issue) described Terri's condition as being "close to the equivalent of someone with cerebral palsy", and to that I offer up a hearty "FUCK YOU!". Granted, CP is also a condition whereby a brain has non-functional portions, and Terri's physical appearance may in some ways mimic the symptoms of someone with CP... But a critical, categorical difference exists between her and someone like my own brother-in-law Mickey, who lives with severe CP. Mickey is an intelligent, personable, funny and vibrant person who has a a full and busy life despite his physical limitations. His corporeal existence is only a small part of who he is as a person. With Terri, on the other hand, her most basic physical existence is all that's left of her. There's no person in there. That anyone would dare to compare Terri with someone like Mickey for whatever reason is manipulative and infuriating.
What would Terri think, do you suppose, if her former self could see these pictures we see - this young woman whose obsession with being thin and pretty apparently led to her collapse, now a slack-jawed, middle-aged wraith in a granny gown, her father flashing carnival lights into her eyes to try to connect with her, and her mother still interpreting every vestigal twitch and groan Terri's lizard-level brain stem disgorges into her nervous system as a sure sign that her daughter's in there somewhere, fighting to come out? How horrified she'd surely be. How much she'd probably want to plead with her parents to let her go, and preserve her in their memories instead of in vacated, useless flesh.
The most terrible thing a person could be asked to do, I think, is make a decision about whether someone they love should live or die. Bill and I believed that we'd be up against that choice with our dog earlier this week, and... y'know, she's a dog, but it still tore us up. I can't imagine having to make a similar decision with a person. I empathize with her family and their anguish. Still, I would like to think that, given a fairly irrefutable set of facts such as a cerebral cortex that's turned into a lake of useless goo, I could make the choice to let someone go rather than force them to exist for years in an undead limbo, a horrible degraded mockery of who they were.
Here's hoping the shell of poor Terri gets some rest soon.
Ever since I turned 17 and went to my first blood drive in high school, I have been a regular blood donor. I have 0+ blood, the "universal donor" type, so I'm an equal opportunity hemorrhager. I often get comments from the staff about how deep red my blood is with ferric goodness. Nurses throw the goat when they see the fast and furious crimson tide splurting from my arm. Oh yes, I'm a rock star among donors.
So last week, I went to our company's annual Red Cross drive. I'd eaten a good protein-rich breakfast, drank lots of fluids, and was ready to bleed for a good cause. I completed my questionaire, joking with C. that I was glad I could at least check "yes" on a couple of the questions, because I'd feel so boring if I answered all "no"s... I was waiting for a table when one of the nurses came up to me with a concerned look on her face. She verified my SSN, and then informed me that I was "still banned from donating".
"Um, what? Why would I be banned? Was it something on my form?"
She looked embarrassed. "No... We sent you a letter a while back, didn't you get it?"
"No," I said, getting a little flutter in my stomach. "I never got a letter. What did it say?"
She blushed. "I can't discuss that with you. I'll need for you to call our main office to get that information." She handed me a pamphlet with the local branch's phone number on it.
Holy shit! "Um, OK..." I got up and walked out, embarrassed, my heart thudding in my chest. I wondered if my coworkers had noticed that I'd been turned away and were speculating as to why. I had to walk three blocks back up to my office, and with each step I was becoming increasingly freaked out. What could possibly be the problem? I'd been with one guy for the past 10 years, and I'd donated a dozen times in the past decade with no indication of problems. I'd never had a blood transfusion, travelled in a third world country, been bitten by a transvestite hooker, etc... So anything I could have, I'd have had 10 years earlier, and surely it would've been caught by one of their screening tests before now.
Still, I wondered to myself - was this the beginning of a bad chapter in my life? Would I look back on this warm late-spring walk as a last fragile moment before I found out I have some horrible malady? Visions of Lifetime channel movie ads, salted with phrases like "brave" and "heart-breaking", began dancing through my head. Hospital gowns. Head scarves. Weird scabs. IV's. Gah!!!
I finally got to my desk and, breathless, placed my call. The lady on the other end took a painfully long time finding my chart before she got back on the phone. "OK, we sent you a letter about this in June 2002 - didn't you receive it?"
"No..." (Goddammit, just get to the point.)
"I want you to listen to everything I have to say, not just the first part..." she started. Shit, this must be bad. "When we tested your donation in June 2002, we did a series of tests on it. One of these tests is a very sensitive test for Hepatitis C, and it came up positive."
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!
"...now, before you say anything, let me tell you that we did a second, more accurate test to verify the results, and that test came up negative. The first test was a false positive - you don't have Hepatitis C."
"For sure I don't have it? Should I go get tested by my doctor to make sure I don't have it?"
"No, that's not necessary; our tests confirm that you're negative.
"However," she continued, "Our policies have gotten very strict in recent years. Our current policy is not to use blood from anybody who's ever gotten a positive result for Hep C, even if the second test comes back negative."
"So even if you verify that I don't have it, you won't take my blood? Like, ever?"
"Unfortunately, until our policies change, you cannot donate."
"What if I do get a test done by my doctor and provide it to the Red Cross?"
"We can only use results from our own test houses."
"So that's it? I can never donate again? Even though it was a false positive?"
"I'm sorry, but that is the case. The good news, though, is that you can still donate for yourself if you have a surgery coming up!"
Yeah, great. Thanks for that little silver lining. It's comforting to know that my blood isn't so dicey that even I can't use it.
So there it is. One fucked-up test and a half-hours' worth of panic later, and I find that I am persona non grata with the Red Cross. I read on the Web that up to 30% of positives that the initial screening test finds are actually false positives, and false-positives tend to happen to people in the lowest risk categories. The Red Cross, then, must be turning away thousands of perfectly eligible donors every year because of this flawed test. And they wonder why they have chronic critical supply shortages?
My friend Kim forwarded me an email from some where she works who had also been turned away for an answer he gave on the initial questionaire. His comment: "IMHO, the San Diego Blood Bank has excluded just about anyone in San Diego County from donating by placing overly restrictive requirements on donors (if donors are honest and/or think long/carefully about their history). It's no wonder they have a shortage of blood."
I understand the concerns about keeping our blood supply safe, and I agree that erring on the side of caution is a good thing when you're talking about diseases that could sicken or kill someone if transmitted. Still, I think the Red Cross has become overly-paranoid and restrictive to an unreasonable degree. I realize that the tests they do cost money; it's obviously easier to just cull the high-risk folks from the herd rather than incur extra expense and effort to prove them safe. But when they get to the point of turning away low-risk people on very tenuous grounds, then complain about critical shortages, I'd say it's time to re-evaluate their policy and come up with a plan that doesn't keep so many eligible, willing people from giving to the cause.
Bah. My blood's too good for them, anyway.
If the below statement sounds like something that reflects your own feelings about the increasingly restrictive regulations that the FCC is trying to impose on broadcast media, then I'd encourage you to go to StopFCC.com and sign their petition:
SIGN THE PETITION FOR FREE SPEECH
We pledge our support for freedom of speech and expression on our airwaves, print, the Internet, broadcast, cable and satellite.
While we realize that the government has an obligation to protect our children, surely there needs to be a limit to what is regulated. Adults and parents are capable of making decisions about what to watch, read or listen to and are certainly capable of turning off or putting down anything that may offend them or their children.
As voting citizens, we ask our elected officials to consider your actions in attempting to further regulate television, radio, cable, satellite, print and Internet content.
We consider further censorship attempts to be unconstitutional and we will fight these actions by voting for a politician who cares about our rights as Americans.
Rob has written a great entry about the same-sex marriage thing, and has linked to another one at John Scalzi's site. Definitely worth a read.
The day that our government succeeds with enacting a Constitutional Amendment forbidding same-sex marriage will be a dark one for American civil liberties.
When the debate first came up, I thought that civil unions were the best option for providing gay couples with binding legal rights equal to those of married couples – things like rights of inheritance, medical benefits, power of attorney, joint tax-filing and adoption, etc.
The more I listen in on the debates and think about the difference between a civil union and a marriage, though, the more I feel like the defense-of-marriage people just don't have a logical base upon which to justify their opposition to gays being married instead of trying to come up with a "separate but equal" solution to address their civil rights. The Massachusetts Supreme Court apparently agrees, per this quote from a recent Time article:
"The Massachusetts decision laid out the case for why, in the majority's opinion, everything but marriage is not enough. The state senate had asked the court if it could establish civil unions to meet the constitutional requirement of equality for gay couples set forth in an earlier ruling. "The answer," the court replied, "is 'No.'" Why not? "Because the proposed law [establishing civil unions] by its express terms forbids same-sex couples entry into civil marriage [and therefore] continues to relegate same-sex couples to a different status ... The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.""
So. Either we're a nation committed to equal rights for all citizens, or we hitch ourselves up onto our back trotters like Orwell's pigs and declare, 'All are equal… but some are more equal than others." Currently, it seems to be hog heaven here in the States; but I'd like to think that could change...
Another point, this one more social than legal, is the failure of even a single argument against gay marriage to convince me that it cannot be equally applicable to a significant percentage of straight married couples as well - a condition that pretty much renders them self-defeating. Let's take a look at a couple of these angles:
"Marriage is a religiously sanctified union between a man and a woman". Really? So anyone who's gotten married in a non-religious ceremony – by a judge or a ship's captain or Elvis in a Vegas drive-thru – must not actually be married under that definition, right? Or how about couples like Bill and I who were "sanctified" in a church (pretty much to please our parents), but have no religious beliefs? Is our union invalidated by the fact that we don't actually have faith in a God? I won't even get into the crop of reality TV shows that get people to agree to marry each other for fucking entertainment and cash prizes. And yet the law says that all of us are as just married as the pious...
"Marriage is a biologically-based union that can only exist between two people who can procreate and raise children together." OK, what about couples who have absolutely no interest in having children, or for medical reasons cannot conceive? Is their union invalid because there will be no progeny issuing from it? What about those parents who adopt – how can their marital and parental rights be equal to those parents who conceived their children as nature (and/or a Higher Power) intended? Shouldn't the term for their relationship to the child be something different - "civil dependent and civil guardians", perhaps? No? As for biology, gay couples can conceive through artifical insemination or surrogates so that at least one of them shares a biological link with the child. The genetic link could even be mutual, in cases where the egg/sperm donor was a relative of the second partner. Regardless of whether the origin of a parent-child relationship is biological or psychological, though, the desired result is the same - two people partnering as parents to raise a child. By that logic, doesn't a gay couple fulfill the defined purpose of a marriage in this context by raising a child together as wholly as the straight couple who adopts does?
(FYI, anyone who chimes in here with "gays shouldn't be allowed to have children at all!" may as well just stop reading right now; in fact I'd invite you just to never come back to this site, period).
"Heterosexual marriage is the foundation of our society; gay marriage will destroy that foundation and the institution of marriage." What? So somehow it's wrong for countless thousands of competent adult American citizens to want to formally commit to stable, loving relationships with a sense of comprehensively binding responsibility to each other and any children they bring into their family? Isn't that the same reason the Bush administration has committed $1.5 billion to encouraging straight people to marry instead of just shack up? How is society's stability served by forcing these people to exist in a limbo where they have all of the emotional attachment of a straight couple but absolutely no right to commit themselves to that person in any societally-sanctioned way, just because they have the same kind of genitalia?
I know many people would love to see our society at large fit a nice, uncomplicated Stepford profile that exactly synches with their own value systems – but, thankfully, the reality of American society is much more complex; it was intended to be from the first day a group of refugees hit the eastern shores and declared this land to be a haven for all people seeking the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Sure, that effort hasn't been without contradiction and barriers... but all told we've done pretty well so far in progressing beyond those limits, and the effort needs to continue.
The point is, society evolves. 40 years ago many states were still banning interracial marriage, until the Supreme Court declared doing so to be unconstitutional in 1967. 100 years ago, women weren't entrusted with the ability to vote. 200 years ago most folks in the South had no problem with enslaving black people and forcing them to labor for white people or die. 300 years ago folks in New England thought it was OK to strap nonconformist women to poles and burn them alive as witches. All of these positions seemed perfectly rational, even God-ordained to the people embracing them in their day…
Anyway. In light of logic, in light of the law, in light of all the gay people and couples I know who are successful, loving, reasonable, contributing members of our society and just want to be able to share their lives with someone they love and have the same rights as anyone else in doing so... There's no way I can be anything but completely supportive of legalizing gay marriage. I hope that increasing numbers of Americans consider the issue and come to the same conclusion for themselves.
Once upon a time, I earned a bachelor's degree in Political Science, with emphasis on International Relations and Military Affairs. I used to think I'd become a diplomat someday, before I realized I lacked the ambition and intellectual stamina to make it happen and let life take me elsewhere. So please bear with me as I dust off my foreign policy opinion cap and take a stab at being a pundit - albeit a very rusty, off-the-cuff one - for a few minutes...
Starting more or less where I left off on the last entry... Some would claim that trade sanctions are the sole cause for of the degree of suffering that's been endured by the Iraqi people in the years following the Gulf War. Certainly, the embargo has affected the average Iraqi's economic state and thus their ability to care for themselves and their children. However, the whole reason for the Oil For Food program has been to enable Iraq to sell oil for food and medicine. Their gov't could have brought Iraq out from under the sanctions years ago had they simply decided to change course and focus on building national strength through economic power instead of military might. Instead, though, Saddam has continued on his megalomaniac quest for firepower, and has robbed from the Oil for Food program, as well as made extensive deals under the table not to help his people but to underwrite his own Lifestyle of the Rich and Psychotic. His destructive ambition and his failure to comply with UN resolutions is the reason Iraq has continued to suffer despite global efforts to help its citizenry.
Speaking of aggression, however, a related question begs itself: Did the U.S. and its allies had any right to preemptively invade a sovereign nation without a U.N mandate? I have to say that we did not, although certainly our motivation in doing so differed from that of Saddam. No, I don't believe that we are only in it for the oil - sure, Iraq's resources put it on the map for us, but I don't see this as a Quest for Crude, and anyone who insists so is being overly simplistic and reactionary. Anyway... given the reality that we have invaded, I choose to believe that there is some potential for long-term good that may come out of it if the best-case scenarios do pan out. Big if, though... It's regrettable that we proceeded without the authorization of the UN. Yet I can't totally agree with those who would laud the dissenting members of the Security Council as being pure advocates for peace and the rule of international law. For all the finger-pointing about the US/Britain serving its own economic ambitions, what are France, Germany and Russia doing but the exact same thing? These particular governments didn't take this strong a stand against the U.S. and Britain just out of pacifist political philosophy and the concern for the Iraqi populace. Despite their protestations to the contrary, ample evidence has emerged they they all either trade with Iraq directly or else knowingly harbor companies that hold Iraqi oil money in their coffers, and they know that the true extent of this involvement is likely to be disclosed once the U.S. gains access to Iraqi records. These nations have been willing to turn a blind eye to the evil actions and intent of the Iraqi regime just as long as business is good and they're not the ones being targeted. Blood for oil, indeed.
The UN needs more proof of the violations, it says. But given that the very nature of the business of building a covert WMD program is, well, being covert about it, can we really afford to stand by and wait, UN inspectors playing Keystone cops while the evidence is shuffled around behind their backs and under their feet, until the black market of WMD within and pouring out of Iraq is so huge that no one can possibly refute its existence - at which point it would probably also be too late to close the Pandora's box of supply to extremists who would gladly use those weapons against our populace?
At any rate, whether it was the right or wrong decision to invade, the deal is done and now that we're committed we have to fight our society's collective sense of ADD when it comes to any controversy that just drags on a little too long to be entertaining anymore. We must support our forces in following through and finishing what they started no matter how long or ugly the fight becomes - because we've seen what happened when we failed to do in the '91 Gulf War and in smaller scale conflicts such as Somalia.
Victory will still be bittersweet at best; the only redemption we can hope for when all is done is that we end up finding sufficient evidence of WMD development in Iraq to help us at least partially justify the hideous rifts in foreign relations caused by our actions over the past few months - the fallout from which could end up being much scarier than any threat that Iraq alone could pose if we don't work hard to fix the damage we've done. I confess that the practical risk of that domino effect nagged at me much more when the push to war began than the more purist argument about Iraqi sovereignty I mentioned above. Fact is, we've done poked the beehive now - never mind that the bees stung us first.
However, despite my trepidation and personal conflict over whether or not there was a better course to take in all this, I guess enough Pollyanna exists in me so that I can still harbor a small hope that, in the end, we can actually help the Iraqi people more than we've hurt them, and assist them in recovering from decades of suffering at the nonexistent mercy of the monster who calls himself their leader. Humanitarianism toward the Iraqi people may not be our primary motivator in this war, but I believe that it does matter to us and we will make a good-faith effort to help them in a more comprehensive way than their own leader has cared to do. Maybe if we are successful at doing so, the frenzy of anger and resentment we've created in the Muslim world will subside and the world can get back to the business of making itself a better, safer place for everyone's children. Could happen...
So, when is a French fry not a French fry? Why, when the , that’s when!
Jesus wept… "Freedom fries"? "Freedom toast"? Now, far be it from me to defend anything Frog, but honestly... this penchant the Republicans have of coming up with shamelessly hokey monikers for things (“Homeland Security Department”, fer crying out loud? Sounds like Mr. Rogers (rest his soul) was given the job of naming new Cabinet posts...) is reminding me unnervingly of Orwell's "Newspeak". Will we all be drinking "Victory Roast" coffee instead of French roast soon? Will the act of employing a little tongue action in your smooching soon be termed “Patriot Kissing”? Double-plus-ungood, I say!
I’m fucking embarrassed to be an American under this administration. Give me a philandering smart-ass President any day over this jumping jimmy jingo crapfest.
So I've gone ahead and picked the worst possible time to embark upon another weight loss effort. My cube is positioned right next to the coffee area where my coworkers have deposited a massive pile of post-Halloween candy leftovers, which mock me with their slutty chocolately charms every time I go to and from my desk. “Honey, check out what we all about! You know you want us, sugar! Take two – we be small and shit!” It's all a slippery slope of temptation from here - in three weeks I'll be on vacation in the Gravy and Custard Capital of the World, and I'll return only to plunge headfirst into the myriad temptations of the Christmas season. Candy canes! Fudge! Christmas cookies! 5-pound boxes of See's candy and buckets of cheese popcorn from pandering vendors!
I still find myself fighting a sense of denial over my current proportions. My mental image of myself, who I really am, is stuck at size 8 and refuses to admit that I haven't been that size in, oh, going on 8 years now. I just never thought I would have any problem with weight control, and I guess a part of me has always clung to the notion that my excess plushiness is a temporary thing, which will just magically melt away someday without my having to make the kind of lifestyle changes that I know, deep down, I need to adopt in order to get back to where I want to be. I have always scorned women who get obsessed with diets and exercise, to whom the phrase "minute on the lips, lifetime on the hips" takes on mantra-like proportions as they righteously choke down half a side salad and a Diet Coke for lunch and declare themselves full. I love food. I loooooove food. I try hard to deny my love, but it's like the tides, relentless and eternal. And I loathe most forms of exercise. Bad combo.
The nail in my particular adiposal coffin came when I stopped living in places where I did a lot of walking - in college I walked everywhere, then afterward I moved to Corvallis, where both work and downtown shopping were a mile or two away from my house; even in Tucson, we lived a block off the U of A campus, so again everything was proximal by foot. Then we moved to California, where the Auto reigns supreme. I began eating fast food for lunch every day, and failing to make myself get out after work and take a walk instead of collapsing mindlessly in front of the TV or the computer. At the same time, my metabolism had begun to cool down from the blazing forge it was in my youth. Yet I lived with Bill, whose body still burns calories like a bonfire burns paper, and somehow thought I could eat the same way he did and have the same results - metabolism by proxy, I guess. So I got lazy, and I got plump, and yet I couldn't move myself to fight the proverbial Battle of the Bulge.
Relatively speaking, I'm not seriously obese; but I definitely have to dig toward the back half of the rack at Old Navy, and have given the whole Lycra-babydoll-shirt and lowrider pants trend a complete pass. Stores like Bebe and Charlotte Russe piss me off beyond reason, with the size 0 ass-grabbing rib-clinging handkerchiefs they call fashion. In a sense, I admire girls who don't feel shame over their Rubenesque proportions and will shop there anyway, readily wrapping their bulgy bits in tight shirts and hot pants, and to hell with anyone who doesn't like it if Baby got back. Carmen, a middle-aged spitfire of a Puerto-Rican mamacita who used to work with me, was always berating me for not wearing more fitted, womanly clothes. She herself has a marvelous sense of herself as a sexy woman no matter what size she is. As for me, I am the queen of subterfuge with my loose sweaters and relaxed-fit jeans. Sometimes these clothes probably make me look bigger than I actually am (reference those overalls I wore at the Halloween party); but there's room for doubt under there, and that's what I bank on. Besides, I have never liked form-fitting clothes, even when I was thinner - I get annoyed and claustrophobic when clothes cling to me. And there are things about me that I don't think are so bad - my cleavage has never been better. heh . But I miss my jawline and my waist; whereas my ass has definitely outworn its welcome.
Still, how I look is not who I am, and it bothers me to think that I am subject to assumptions or dismissals by people who judge me by my excess pudge - or to gossip and tongue-clicking by well-meaning relatives and friends who remember my skinnier days and fret when they consider the delta between then and now. So far no one's said anything much to me outright; but I know all too well that I have not been exempt from the type of scrutiny that I have observed (and shamefully participated in) regarding others in my situation. I've heard the wary laughs and weak protestations when I've made jokes about my own gain. I've noted the excessive enthusiasm put into compliments when I have visibly lost some pounds - like, "finally, she's doing something about it!". I get angry when I hear mockery of someone with weight problems from some person who I know does absolutely nothing to deserve their own slenderness; simply winning the genetic lottery gives one no right to be smug. I grit the enamel off my teeth as I suffer through one of my petite mother’s obsessive rants about having put on – gasp – 10 pounds in the wake of her double whammy of quitting smoking and having a hysterectomy… even though most women who’d done both concurrently would probably thank the gods that that’s all they gained. (If ever I wondered where these flourishing insecurities of mine were germinated…heh) On the other hand, I have the extraordinary luck to be happily married to someone who loves me unconditionally… Yet pure vanity still makes me wilt at the principle of being a woman that mens' eyes glance at and dismiss in a bar instead of fixing on hopefully; I hate the feeling of being a contender, but not making the cut for Varsity Cute. The crux of all this is, my outside does not match my inside, and I'm tired, so tired of the discrepancy between the two.
Yet all the weeping and whining in the world will not correct this situation… so I’m back on the horse, power-walking every day at lunch, ignoring the siren call of the fun-size Snickers in the candy bowl, drinking water like I've just swallowed a lit firecracker, making my peace with salads and Aspartame. I see the gaping maw of the holidays beckoning, but I am grabbing my fork and facing it with the steely eye of resolve. Wish me luck.
OK, this is the last thing I'm going to say about the We$terfield trial, promise... To anyone who had any doubts as to whether he did it, check out this article. The guy was set to confess, give up her body, and bargain for his life on the very day they found her. His lawyers knew he was guilty, and so did the prosecutors. He should have thrown himself on the mercy of the court right then. Instead, he forced the V@n Dams to go through the humiliation and pain of a trial where their lives were dissected in public, on the off chance that some technicality or unconvinced juror would bail him out and he could somehow get away with murder. Worked for O.J., right?
My feelings about his getting the Death Penalty? Nite nite, termite. If there's a Hell, I hope they're saving a spot in the Pit of Flaming Pig Excrement just for him.
OK, this subject of this entry is gross; the weak of constitution may want to skip it. You can't say you weren't warned.
One sort of unexpected aspect to working in the same facility as a lot of recent immigrants is the realization that not all of them are familiar with, shall we say, restroom etiquette. While I'm fairly ignorant of what other alternatives to our modern commode system may exist in developing countries, particularly those of the Far East, I get the impression that many involve what boils down to squatting over an open hole. The concept of flushing, and what may or may not be flushed, is tenuous for some of the gals from our assembly labs. Although all but a couple of them seem to get the part about flushing after going, apparently some of them are not aware that toilet paper may be flushed; there are usually large wads of yellow-tinged damp TP jammed halfway into the flap of the little metal trashbins on the floor of the stalls (why they can't shove them all the way down, and thus at least spare the rest of us the sight of their soggy detritus, is beyond me; maybe they're afraid of the metal lid snapping shut on their hands). Others, conversely, apparently believe that any paper-like product can be flushed; this morning, I saw a 3"x 5" cardboard box from the maxi-pad dispenser floating in one of the toilets. Judging from the footprints I've seen on seats, it would appear that some users actually get their feet up on the toilet seat and squat atop it like they would a hole in the ground. This is one reason why the handy tissue-paper ass-gasket is an essential commodity in a public commode. Squatting is also sometimes part of the clean-up process; once in another building, I glanced over at the space below the stall divider after sensing movement, and saw parts of the gal next door that I've never seen on anyone who's diaper I was not changing. What tended to happen when this same woman was on the business part of her monthly cycle is something too disgusting to detail; let's just say I scrupulously avoided the stall she tended to use for fear of transmissable pathogens.
Anyway, I know the topic is kinda nauseating, but in a sense I find it culturally interesting. Reading a couple of articles like this one provide insight that explains some of the behavior I've seen. As an oblivious Westerner, I just never gave much thought to the fact that there are still parts of the world where, even though the inhabitants may have adopted Western dress and entertainments and vices, a flushing toilet is not necessarily familiar nor available to them. Or even desired, maybe? I wonder if there are any homes in the U.S. where the immigrant owners have elected to remove the porcelain thrones and build their own squatters' version over the drain?
Also, I wonder if anyone who administers orientation courses for newly-arrived immigrants has thought to include a lesson on modern facilities' use and etiquette - even just to let them know that, here, it's OK to flush TP? I suppose it's a difficult subject to broach - but I can definitely attest to the need for some education on the issue… If only so that those of us used to certain hygenic norms don't have to be faced with the disgusting detritus of ignorance when nature calls on the job.
Perhaps someone could start a non-profit organization with the goal of teaching excretory etiquette to our newly-arrived brethren. They could do fund-raisers, like sending kids out to sell toilet paper door-to-door, or perhaps cut a deal with sanitation companies to put little donation boxes in porta-potties. I think there's an opportunity to leave one's mark, perform a valued community service, and bring about cleaner and nicer public restrooms for all. Not my cup of tea, mind you - but surely someone could step up to the plate. Or bowl. Whatever.
Yeah, continuing in the vein of sparse entries... sorry 'bout that. Pretty soon I'll be back to having plenty of time to bore my half-dozen devoted readers with regularly updated trivialities.
In the mean time, a couple of quick items... just because I'm sick of seeing the name pop up in our "most popular search terms" list, I've gone back and edited the names in my entry about the V@n D@m child murder case.
I will say that I am very satisfied with the verdict handed out by the jury last week in this case, and I will feel justice has been done the day D@vid Westerf!eld is strapped to a gurney and pumped full of potassium chloride. How anyone - anyone - could look at all of the evidence and NOT think this bastard did exactly what he's been convicted of is beyond me... but apparently there are a core group of conspiracy hounds out there that are just certain the guy's been railroaded and that the parents are actually culpable in some fashion, despite so much as a shred of evidence to support their view (as opposed to, say, the girl's BLOOD in Westerf!eld's RV and on the clothes he was so desperate to get cleaned, her hair in his bedsheets, his erratic flight out of town that weekend, his prediliction for kiddie bondage porn... Hello???). These people are offended by the parents, so they are determined to judge them guilty for their child's death, even though the only way of supporting that conclusion involves a series of ridiculously weak assumptions (Dan!elle's hair and blood got into Westerf!ield's home because he was having an affair with her mother - yeah! And she killed the kid and framed him for it, knowing that he wouldn't disclose the affair even if he was facing the death penalty for a crime he didn't commit! Or wait - the dad killed her, then snuck out to his neighbor's home and planted his daughter's blood, prints and hair in DW's RV and on his clothes! The wily sod!) These people should be introduced to the principle of Occam's Razor... which per Merriam Webster can be interpreted as saying that "explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities." These folks can indulge in wild speculation all they like, but the available facts all point in a single direction... and thankfully, the jury agreed.
Anyway, in other news, my folks made it to my house just fine, of course. We've had a nice few days of visiting, shopping, horse racing (War Emblem, Schmar Emblem - that nag surely didn't live up to the hype in yesterday's race!), etc. I have high hopes that the rest of the visit, as well as their trip back, will be equally copacetic. And then I'm looking forward to a long period of down time this fall with nothing, just nothing, going on... =)
Yeah, continuing in the vein of sparse entries... sorry 'bout that. Pretty soon I'll be back to having plenty of time to bore my half-dozen devoted readers with regularly updated trivialities.
In the mean time, a couple of quick items... just because I'm sick of seeing the name pop up in our "most popular search terms" list, I've gone back and edited the names in my entry about the V@n D@m child murder case.
I will say that I am very satisfied with the verdict handed out by the jury last week in this case, and I will feel justice has been done the day D@vid Westerf!eld is strapped to a gurney and pumped full of potassium chloride. How anyone - anyone - could look at all of the evidence and NOT think this bastard did exactly what he's been convicted of is beyond me... but apparently there are a core group of conspiracy hounds out there that are just certain the guy's been railroaded and that the parents are actually culpable in some fashion, despite so much as a shred of evidence to support their view (as opposed to, say, the girl's BLOOD in Westerf!eld's RV and on the clothes he was so desperate to get cleaned, her hair in his bedsheets, his erratic flight out of town that weekend, his prediliction for kiddie bondage porn... Hello???). These people are offended by the parents, so they are determined to judge them guilty for their child's death, even though the only way of supporting that conclusion involves a series of ridiculously weak assumptions (Dan!elle's hair and blood got into Westerf!ield's home because he was having an affair with her mother - yeah! And she killed the kid and framed him for it, knowing that he wouldn't disclose the affair even if he was facing the death penalty for a crime he didn't commit! Or wait - the dad killed her, then snuck out to his neighbor's home and planted his daughter's blood, prints and hair in DW's RV and on his clothes! The wily sod!) These people should be introduced to the principle of Occam's Razor... which per Merriam Webster can be interpreted as saying that "explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities." These folks can indulge in wild speculation all they like, but the available facts all point in a single direction... and thankfully, the jury agreed.
Anyway, in other news, my folks made it to my house just fine, of course. We've had a nice few days of visiting, shopping, horse racing (War Emblem, Schmar Emblem - that nag surely didn't live up to the hype in yesterday's race!), etc. I have high hopes that the rest of the visit, as well as their trip back, will be equally copacetic. And then I'm looking forward to a long period of down time this fall with nothing, just nothing, going on... =)
So did you hear in the news about the guy who's suing a bunch of fast-food chains because they didn't provide adequate warning that he'd develop obesity and heart disease if he ate massive quantities of their food on a regular basis? If not, here's an article on it...
Zac commented that, in the unlikely event that he won his suit, "we should all get a piece of the pie a la class action".
Rather than rewording my reply, I'll just choose the lazy route and copy it verbatim from email:
"No doubt! I had NO IDEA that eating a massive pile of starchy tubers deep-fried in pure fat and covered with salt would be BAD for me! Besides, I was TOTALLY manipulated by that huckster in the clown suit to go in and order the Big Mac Extra Value Meal with a vanilla shake - he said their food would make me happy - and it's, like, 5x bigger than their Happy Meal, so of course it should have made me 5x happier! Insetead it just made me 5x bigger! The lying bastard!
"This guy should be counter-sued by the fast-food people for frivolous litigation. Or the court should order him up some punishment like the bulldog in the Looney Tunes episode where the little dog gets sick of the big dog beating the crap out of him for bringing him meat without any gravy so he straps the bulldog down while he's asleep and sticks a funnel in his mouth and says "Here's your GRAVY!" and pours like a 55-gallon drum of it down his throat. Ahem. Anyway, that's what I think."
Jesus. Pretty soon people will actually begin suing their parents for suffering them to be born. I think that, when a judge dismisses a specious lawsuit, he should have the option of sentencing the would-be plaintiff to a public pelting with rotten tomatoes. Just line people up and let them have a go at the silly git with moldy produce. Maybe that would help...
OK, y'all, I’m requesting that you send out some good thoughts for Bill's dad Larry - he's been in the hospital since Friday afternoon with heart problems. Bill went up to Phoenix on Saturday to see his dad and then to help cover his brother's care while his folks are out (his brother Mickey has cerebral palsy, for any who don't know. Mickey is also building a remarkable new career as a minister-at-large, offering up heaping plates of salvation to the likes of convicts and homeless people, but that's another entry…). Anyway, we don't know what their dad's prognosis is yet - lots of tests are being done. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure two years ago, but had been doing extraordinarily well until this happened. We're all crossing our fingers that this cause of this sudden setback is going to be something treatable/managable and that he'll be home and back on the road to health very soon!
Ironically, the night before we'd watched the very sad episode of "ER" where Dr. Greene spent his last days with his children before passing away, and then had a discussion about our own fear and sadness about our parents' eventual passing - only to have those fears shoved in our faces the very next day. Bill lost his half-sister Bunny a few years ago and we've both had other relations to whom we were not very close pass on, but besides Bunny neither of us has lost someone from our immediate family. We know those days are coming, though - albeit hopefully not for a while to come - and it's frightening to consider. Dying is something we all have to face, but surprisingly little in our life helps us prepare for it, either for ourselves or for those we love. We hesitate to talk to our loved ones about their wills and their memorial preferences because it seems "morbid" and we don't want to think about it; but I think that both the acknowledgment and discussion of mortality is important and helpful in the long run. I hate thinking about it, I hate that it will happen to anyone I love, let alone to me... but I want to be able to accept it and deal with it in the best way possible when the time comes, and I want to know what those I love want me to do when it's their turn to go. Even if it means finding a source who can/will, um, preserve remains in clear lucite, which is what Bill has indicated he wants for himself... (and yes, he actually means it - I'm sure he'd be glad to share his rationale if you asked him). For the record, I want cremation and scattering in a park or forest, and "Moonlight Sonata" played at my memorial. Also, both Bill and I want a big, raging party held in our honor once everyone's up for it - with optional bagpipes (Wee) or fireworks (me). Just FYI.
OK, enough of my Grim Reapering. Sorry for laying another morbid entry on ya - but there it is. I'll try to keep the focus more lite-n-lively from now on!
Anyway, alone for the weekend, I kept busy by rearranging my office. I finally painted the last wall that needed doing, and I swapped the location of the desk and couch, ridding myself of the desk's oppressive overhead cabinet in the process. The fact that I managed to do all this heaving of heavy furniture on my own without causing myself grave injury is something about which I'm both proud and more than a little surprised. I like the layout about a hundred times better than before - the chi is flowing much better, as my Feng Shui-conscious friends might say - and the sleeper bed still folds out OK, so it's all good. I also gave the hot tub a good spring cleaning on Saturday, and baked oatmeal cookies to share with my coworkers - the chicas are always bringing in goodies, so it was my turn to reciprocate. I kid sometimes that Bill needs to leave town more often so that I can get things done… but all told, I'd still rather have him around. And not only because he's much better at lifting heavy items. =)
OK, y'all, I’m requesting that you send out some good thoughts for Bill's dad Larry - he's been in the hospital since Friday afternoon with heart problems. Bill went up to Phoenix on Saturday to see his dad and then to help cover his brother's care while his folks are out (his brother Mickey has cerebral palsy, for any who don't know. Mickey is also building a remarkable new career as a minister-at-large, offering up heaping plates of salvation to the likes of convicts and homeless people, but that's another entry…). Anyway, we don't know what their dad's prognosis is yet - lots of tests are being done. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure two years ago, but had been doing extraordinarily well until this happened. We're all crossing our fingers that this cause of this sudden setback is going to be something treatable/managable and that he'll be home and back on the road to health very soon!
Ironically, the night before we'd watched the very sad episode of "ER" where Dr. Greene spent his last days with his children before passing away, and then had a discussion about our own fear and sadness about our parents' eventual passing - only to have those fears shoved in our faces the very next day. Bill lost his half-sister Bunny a few years ago and we've both had other relations to whom we were not very close pass on, but besides Bunny neither of us has lost someone from our immediate family. We know those days are coming, though - albeit hopefully not for a while to come - and it's frightening to consider. Dying is something we all have to face, but surprisingly little in our life helps us prepare for it, either for ourselves or for those we love. We hesitate to talk to our loved ones about their wills and their memorial preferences because it seems "morbid" and we don't want to think about it; but I think that both the acknowledgment and discussion of mortality is important and helpful in the long run. I hate thinking about it, I hate that it will happen to anyone I love, let alone to me... but I want to be able to accept it and deal with it in the best way possible when the time comes, and I want to know what those I love want me to do when it's their turn to go. Even if it means finding a source who can/will, um, preserve remains in clear lucite, which is what Bill has indicated he wants for himself... (and yes, he actually means it - I'm sure he'd be glad to share his rationale if you asked him). For the record, I want cremation and scattering in a park or forest, and "Moonlight Sonata" played at my memorial. Also, both Bill and I want a big, raging party held in our honor once everyone's up for it - with optional bagpipes (Wee) or fireworks (me). Just FYI.
OK, enough of my Grim Reapering. Sorry for laying another morbid entry on ya - but there it is. I'll try to keep the focus more lite-n-lively from now on!
Anyway, alone for the weekend, I kept busy by rearranging my office. I finally painted the last wall that needed doing, and I swapped the location of the desk and couch, ridding myself of the desk's oppressive overhead cabinet in the process. The fact that I managed to do all this heaving of heavy furniture on my own without causing myself grave injury is something about which I'm both proud and more than a little surprised. I like the layout about a hundred times better than before - the chi is flowing much better, as my Feng Shui-conscious friends might say - and the sleeper bed still folds out OK, so it's all good. I also gave the hot tub a good spring cleaning on Saturday, and baked oatmeal cookies to share with my coworkers - the chicas are always bringing in goodies, so it was my turn to reciprocate. I kid sometimes that Bill needs to leave town more often so that I can get things done… but all told, I'd still rather have him around. And not only because he's much better at lifting heavy items. =)
Caution: Tess gets all serious and soapboxish on a depressing subject. Can't say you weren't warned!
Today a U.S district judge in Oregon dismissed Attorney General Ashcroft's attempt to invalidate an Oregon law legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill, mentally competant patients (see the story).
The law was enacted in 1994 and reapproved by overwhelming majority after opponents put it back on the ballot in 1997. Eligible individuals must be diagnosed by at least two separate physicians as being terminally ill with no hope of recovery, and a psychological review must be made to confirm that they're mentally competant, not suffering from depression, and are making a rational, self-motivated decision. It's a pioneering piece of legislation, and I'm proud that my home state is leading the fight for people's right to die with dignity and according to their own wishes, instead of suffering needlessly or else taking their life in some other, more traumatic way (and risking having it not work - now there's a fun outcome; still dying of cancer, but now with half your face blown off!).
There's a website for advocates of this law, called Compassion in Dying, that provides good information on the issue and the law. Also on this site are downright heartbreaking testimonials from survivors of people who chose, in desperation, to end their lives via nasty means (usually firearm-related) because they felt they had no other choice to avoid suffering. In one sad case, a man with cancer kissed his wife goodbye, went out to the front lawn so he wouldn't mess up the house, and shot himself in the head. Under the Oregon law, he could have stayed in his bedroom, his wife by his side, and passed away in comfort, in peace, and intact (as it was, his wife was given the bonus of finding his dental plate in the yard several months later... What a lovely memento).
Surely the folks mentioned above would have preferred a more peaceful end to their lives. Further, in many cases they might well have chosen to keep on truckin' a little longer, knowing that they had the option to go when they were ready, instead of in haste before they lost their window of opportunity. In fact, assistance-in-dying proponents note that the majority of people who are given the option do not end up using it and instead die naturally... but the balance of their days are eased immeasurably by the peace of knowing that they are making a choice, instead of being consumed with fear and apprehension of impending helplessness and suffering.
The fact that we allow this kind of suffering to happen in today's society is brutal and cruel, I think. Pain medications can only do so much; in many cases, the patient is either unable to take a sufficient dose to eradicate the pain (because their lawsuit-shy doctors don't want to risk inducing an lethal overdose), or they succumb to a drug-laden stupor that may as well be death, except that the medical bills keep accumulating and their loved ones are stuck in grieving limbo. How can anyone say this is better than someone having the ability to orchestrate their end, say their goodbyes, and leave the earth gently, lucidly, and on their own terms?
I refuse even to entertain the notion that it's "God's will" that these people live or die and that He's the only one who can end their suffering. Bullshit. Let's pretend for a minute that I even believed that someone was up there calling the shots… What kind of God would want to see someone suffer horribly, any more than He'd want physicians to withhold treatment when the cancer is first diagnosed because it's "His will" that the person get sick? If you really think God's the only one who can decide when someone should die, you'd better pray hard that you're never in a position where you're begging Him for that death because you're in agony and don't have any way out of it until He calls uncle for you. Good luck with that. Almost no one ever thinks it's going to happen to them before it does.
Our society has become so consumed with denial of mortality and the notion that no malady is incurable, that there's always hope for a miracle cure (not to say people shouldn't have hope - only that they shouldn't let it blind them), that often there's a refusal to accept that sometimes it's just not going to get better. Sure, we have the technology to keep a body breathing, a heart pumping, a nervous system manipulated long past the point where, in past times, nature would have dictated that a person's number was up. However, there is a difference between living and existing... And far too many terminally-ill patients are forced into unreasonable, lingering demises that do bear no resemblance to "living", because of the medical profession's well-meaning but sometimes unreasonable mandate to prevent death at all costs and under all circumstances barring actual brain death. The fact is that everyone has to die, and if someone is facing a death that's painful, bleak and certain, I think it's a moral imperative to give them the option of retaining some dignity and succor via a less horrible passing if their rational preference is such.
Hope is good; it can be miraculous. But when even the best and most fervent hopes doesn't pan out, then people should be able to decide for themselves how to proceed. It's their life, their death, and so it should be their choice.
As for me, I consider Oregon's law to be a checkmark on the list of "Why I should move back there". Of course, I don't ever want to have to make that choice. But I absolutely want the option to do so should I find myself in that position. Anyway, I hope other states follow Oregon's lead and provide the same right to their citizens. There's enough suffering in the world.
So it seems they found the remains of the little girl who was taken from her house, which is not far from our neighborhood, nearly a month ago. By all appearances, their pedophilic neighbor was the one who took and killed her. If this is true - and while he hasn't been convicted yet, the evidence against him is pretty definitive - he should be fed alive to starving pigs, the bastard.
But what about the parents? I was listening to local talk radio yesterday after work, and was amazed at the vitriol and disgust being lobbed at D@mon and Brend@ V@n D@m due to the rumors that they were having a "swing party" in their garage at the time their child was apparently taken from their home. One host is all but lobbying for Child Protective Services to go in and take their other two children from them because of their supposed negligence and perversity. I'm troubled by all this self-righteous condemnation.
Even if these prurient little rumors are true - that the wife partied at the local pub on a "Girls Night Out", then brought some people home for, uh, adult entertainment - I can't see that being sufficient reason for blaming these folks for the abduction/murder of their child. Yeah, they were in the garage with the door locked; but how many other parents have had friends at their houses after their children are asleep, and have moved to another part of the house, or maybe outside in their backyard, where they won't wake up the kids, and thus are not in the best position to monitor them? How many have consumed alcohol when doing this? I've known plenty of great parents who have done exactly the same thing when I've been at their home. My own parents did, on occasion. For that matter, how many parents have rooms in different parts of the house - maybe even different floors - from their children, and lock the door of their own room when they're he'n and she'n? Are they being particularly vigilant when they're getting busy? Do they always get up afterward and do one last check of the house, or do they go to sleep, reasonably sure that things are the way they left them and their kids are just fine? 99.5% of the time, aren't they right? Sure, it's not perfect parenting; but I don't think it's necessarily criminal negligence either. The children were healthy and napping out at 10 pm, tucked away in their own beds in a quiet, upscale neighborhood, just like a thousand other nights of their life. They had at least one parent home all night. Regardless of what the parents were doing to entertain themselves in the wee hours that violated the public's sense of morality - and there are only rumors about this so far, no facts - they were in their home and being relatively discreet, and there's just no way they could have predicted that someone would dare to enter their house that night and take their child from her very bed. Whether they were drinking Cokes and playing darts in that garage, or drinking tequila and playing with each other is, I think, somewhat irrelevant. Yeah, maybe the guy somehow knew what they were up to and knew they'd be distracted; maybe intoxication and other distractions meant they weren't as vigilant as they should've been - I still don't believe that makes them culpable for his invasion of their house and his abduction and murder of their child. And what if the guy did come in before the mother even got home, while the father was there sleeping? In that case, how would the situation differ from any other parents'?
That's not to say that nothing about their reported behavior that night is troubling to me. If they did in fact notice the intrusion alarm blinking, indicating someone had come in, and noted an open outside door, I'd question why they didn't take a moment to check on their kids at that point, if for no other purpose than to make sure one of them hadn't gone outside for some reason. If they were lucid enough to notice the alarm, they should've been lucid enough to decide to check their kids. Maybe if they'd raised the alarm earlier, within a couple of hours of the abduction, there could have been a slightly better chance of catching the guy before he got too far and did what he did. He had an entire long night to do his evil undetected; if a search had been initiated in the pre-dawn hours, who knows what may have happened differently?
But that's all easy to say in hindsight. It's easy to condemn them for the things they did or did not do; but any one of us can look at times in our life where we dismissed or ignored or explained away an apparent warning sign - or made a big deal out of it, only to find that nothing was really wrong. In a perfect world, we'd always be able to act soberly, respond appropriately, be vigilant against even the most unlikely of dangers, and never make an assumption that results in misfortune. The V@n D@ms were fallible, but so are a lot of us; I'm sure they will be tormented for the rest of their lives about what they should have done, what they wish they had or had not done, that night. They made decisions and assumptions that allowed a predator to sneak by them, and they lost their little girl. That's punishment enough. Leave them alone.
So... Yes, boys and girls, it's time to play ROLLING BLACKOUTS! Who will be lighting candles and singing "Kumbiyah" tonight instead of watching "Weakest Link"? Who will be eating cold, congealed leftover Chinese takeout instead of piping hot, microwaved leftover Chinese takeout? Who will not be able to log onto the Tribes 2 server but will instead be weeping hot tears of denial onto their keyboards as they behold their dark, dead monitor screen? Nobody knows - because advance notice is NOT in the rules when you play this game! You pays your (exorbitant wad of) money, you takes your chances!
So I guess you've inferred that we had another Stage 3 alert here in SoCal today, which means random patches of the city's grid shutting down for an hour or so at a time (random to the general public anyway - it's considered to be a "security risk" to give us much in the way of advance warning, so for most people, the first sign of a blackout is - well, when everything shuts off). It's half amusing, half appalling that this is Southern California - arguably one of the most technologically, culturally, and financially advanced chunks of real estate on the globe - yet our power supply is about as reliable as that of, say, a village in Myanmar with a generator run by locals who chew betel leaves like Trident and occasionally forget to remember that they must periodically refill the diesel tank lest the "lightning god" get upset and stop providing the spark they need to watch "Magnum P.I." reruns on the town's one battered old black and white TV set.
Deregulation is a great idea, in theory... unless it is unleashed in an industry providing a basic building block of civilization as we know it and controlled by an oligopoly eager to recoup some cash lost through bad investments and subject to pretty much no restraints nor normal market controls (electricity being a relatively inelastic good; in other words, our demand for it isn't really going to go down all that much even in the face of increased prices - it's not exactly a luxury item for most of us. Sure, we'll bitch and moan about our bills, but the fridge still needs to be cold, and no matter how easy Vincent Price made it look, candelabras are a pain in the ass to haul around the house at night). So here we are, going broke paying the electric bill yet never knowing when the off switch may be triggered for our patch of the grid, casting us into darkness and, even worse, suffering us to reset all our digital clocks.
Viva la California! Covet our climate and our semi-soft-cheese lifestyle if you will, but rest assured - it comes at a premium.