Archive for the ‘Corrupted Culture’ Category
About The Time Magazine Attachment Parenting Cover
Thursday, May 10th, 2012
Time Magazine wants you to pay attention to their provocative picture. Why? What are they trying to say?
When looking at imagery, it sometimes takes a bit to get what the photographer/editor is trying to say. Here are some thoughts in no particular order.
1. Context: The image of a three year old boy sucking on his mom’s breast is being put on the cover of the Time magazine for Mother’s Day weekend.
2. Implication: Mothers are crazy.
3. Implication: Breastfeeding is crazy.
4. Implication: Attachment parenting is oedipal. (Look it up.)
5. Implication: Breastfeeding is sexual. The mother’s smug expression indicates that she’s enjoying the interaction just a little too much.
6. Time is desperate for attention and will get it. [Is getting it, obviously.] Also, I suspect the editor/writer watches Game of Thrones.
Bottom line, Time is pushing forward the idea that mothering is often, if not always, overdone. That too much emphasis is put on mothering. Attachment parenting is weird, sexual, and even abusive.
Mothering, in short, is being demonized as too powerful, crazy, and scary and that it’s abusive to children–nigh unto sex abuse.
The cover is a play on the Madonna imagery of Mary with the Christ child. It takes that image of selfless love and motherly devotion and turns it inside out into something selfish, narcissistic, and sexual.
As a mom who breastfed all her kids and beyond time when many are comfortable with — 18 months, 2 years, and 2 1/2 years consecutively — this cover is patently offensive.
Women who actually care about mothering are seen as crazy, wrongly-focused and weird. So, the solution is to conflate all moms with the admittedly extreme moms who go overboard.
But who is going to draw that line?
As Mika of Morning Joe noted, the Time article isn’t even about breast feeding — it’s about Dr. Bill Sears.
The picture is a picture of desperation. It is attention whoring but it’s at the expense of children, mothers, healthy breastfeeding, and the bond between mom and child.
Bill Maher’s Selective Outrage Over Outrage
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
Bill Maher, liberal, pretend libertarian and over all, failed comic, decides, finally, that the outrage over, well, everything, has finally all become too much. From his editorial in today’s New York Times:
When did we get it in our heads that we have the right to never hear anything we don’t like? In the last year, we’ve been shocked and appalled by the unbelievable insensitivity of Nike shoes, the Fighting Sioux, Hank Williams Jr., Cee Lo Green, Ashton Kutcher, Tracy Morgan, Don Imus, Kirk Cameron, Gilbert Gottfried, the Super Bowl halftime show and the ESPN guys who used the wrong cliché for Jeremy Lin after everyone else used all the others. Who can keep up?
This week, President Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, described Mitt Romney’s constant advertising barrage in Illinois as a “Mittzkrieg,” and instantly the Republican Jewish Coalition was outraged and called out Mr. Axelrod’s “Holocaust and Nazi imagery” as “disturbing.” Because the message of “Mittzkrieg” was clear: Kill all the Jews. Then the coalition demanded not only that Mr. Axelrod apologize immediately but also that Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz “publicly rebuke” him. For a pun! For punning against humanity!
The right side of America is mad at President Obama because he hugged the late Derrick Bell, a law professor who believed we live in a racist country, 22 years ago; the left side of America is mad at Rush Limbaugh for seemingly proving him right.
If it weren’t for throwing conniption fits, we wouldn’t get any exercise at all.
Please stop apologizing, Maher implores.
Here’s how the right’s outrage machine got started Mr. Maher–just for your edification. (I will admit, I worried about this tactic for fear it would stop being ironic and become the New Right’s political correctness.)
See, for years, decades even, the Left’s number one weapon in its arsenal has been outrage over nothing. Let me make a list:
Silent Spring (Environmentalism outrage)
The new Ice Age (Environmentalism outrage)
Sensitivity training (racism, sexism, minority outrage)
Poisoned apples (Environmentalism outrage)
DDT (Environmentalism outrage)
Any kind of cultural joke…ever. (See isms above)
Words, and worse, ideas, started to be censured. Like the prohibitionist knitting circle of yore, leftists have cluck clucked their way into power by being the church ladies aggrieved at every blond joke, straying eye, proper use of word (niggardly!!!), scientific disagreement, and on and on.
In response, the right of center side decided to throw the selective outrage back at them.
There’s a lot of pent up fury. How would you feel about being hectored over every meaningless and stupid aside (MACACA!!!!).
So, conservatives through New Media, are holding the left to their own race-baiting, sexist, offensive-language standards.
Big surprise! The left turns out to be more racist, sexist, degrading, closed-minded, and ugly than the right–something that minorities who have defected from the left know all too well.
And now, when Bill Maher is finally taking some heat for being the sexist jackass that he is, he’s crying foul.
In the years before New Media, everyone just wink-winked and chortled at how edgy and clever and brave Maher was while castigating conservatives who said far less offensive things.
Restricting speech on one side was such a great tool. Everyone hated conservatives and laughed at liberals. And then they realized they were the butt of the joke.
Now, liberals are hated too.
You’re welcome.
Liberals have themselves to thank for this fine politically correct mess.
See, I’m a free speech absolutist. Do I think it’s despicable to make fun of Sarah Palin’s kid and calling him a “retard”? Yes. Do I want to be able to use the word “retard”? Yes.
As in, Bill Maher is a retard.
To have any credibility whatsoever, he should have been decrying the politically correct war on words from the left years ago, but of course, that didn’t serve his political ends.
My concern on the right is that we’re becoming as bad as the left–that is, we’re actually starting to believe the outrage we’re pouring at the left.
My concern is that rather than being outraged at the leftists phony outrage and throwing it back at them, we’re becoming as politically correct and insufferable as them.
As long as Sandra Flukes exist and screech about inequality over nothing, the right has every reason to thrown their hypocrisy back at them.
The minute, though, we buy into political correctness and start being just like the lefty church ladies we loathe, the whole battle has been lost.
Humor, art, science, technology can only thrive where new, outrageous and edgy words and ideas thrive.
Conformity of language is conformity of culture. Stasis.
Free speech. Cherish it.
It would be nice if Bill Maher could have found his outrage at outrage when the leftist outrage machine has survived on outrage fuel. But then, Bill Maher’s not a great mind or comedian. The irony is lost on him.
Updated:
Bruce of The Conservatory notes what Maher really wants:
In essence, Maher wants to be able to say anything he wants and not have to apologize for it.
I agree.
Please, do so. And don’t apologize. That is fine with me.
But … and you knew there had to be one … that doesn’t mean what you say is consequence free. You still get to pay the price for what you say.
That’s really what Maher wants to see go by the boards, make no mistake about it. He really wants no-penalty “free speech”.
Sorry, no such thing. Never has been, never will be.
Updated again:
Great piece from Dorian Davis: Get a sense of humor.
The Atlantic’s Anti-Christian Bigotry: Tim Tebow Reveals The Press’ Hate
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
Imagine reading this in The Atlantic:
The Twitterverse is already taking notice of the “holy” pairing of last month’s sensation New York Knicks point guard Mohammed El Arabi with this afternoon’s sensation: New York Jets quarterback Abd Al-Ala Awwal. (We’re still getting used to typing that last one.) New York City’s professional sports won’t be lacking in the Qu’ran thumping department. As you may have already heard, the New York Jets have traded a fourth round pick to the Denver Broncos for Abd Al-Ala Awwal’s services. For now, the trade sort of puts a stop to the schadenfreude surrounding Abd Al-Ala Awwal and the Peyton Manning acquisition. So what now? Well jokes, of course. For some–the pairing of the very-Muslim, pro-life, Allah-loving Tebow and New York City might be bit odd. (However, we’re guessing there’s some cheering going on around the New York Post and Daily News sports desks). We won’t know how this will work out for the Jets until the fall. But with Allah, Mohammed El Arabi, and Abd Al-Ala Awwal on New York City’s side, who’s going to take the blame for next season’s losses?
Or better yet, this:
The Twitterverse is already taking notice of the “unholy” pairing of last month’s sensation New York Knicks point guard George Carlin with this afternoon’s sensation: New York Jets quarterback Christopher Hitchens. (We’re still getting used to typing that last one.) New York City’s professional sports won’t be lacking in the The God Delusion-thumping department. As you may have already heard, the New York Jets have traded a fourth round pick to the Denver Broncos for Hitchens’ services. For now, the trade sort of puts a stop to the schadenfreude surrounding Hitchens and the Peyton Manning acquisition. So what now? Well jokes, of course. For some–the pairing of the very-Atheist, abortion loving, God-hating Hitchens and New York City might be bit odd. (However, we’re guessing there’s some cheering going on around the New York Times and Wall Street Journal sports desks). We won’t know how this will work out for the Jets until the fall. But with biology, George Carlin, and Chris Hitchens on New York City’s side, who’s going to take the blame for next season’s losses?
And then read this:
The Twitterverse is already taking notice of the “holy” pairing of last month’s sensation New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin with this afternoon’s sensation: New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow. (We’re still getting used to typing that last one.) New York City’s professional sports won’t be lacking in the bible-thumping department. As you may have already heard, the New York Jets have traded a fourth round pick to the Denver Broncos for Tebow’s services. For now, the trade sort of puts a stop to the schadenfreude surrounding Tebow and the Peyton Manning acquisition. So what now? Well jokes, of course. For some–the pairing of the very-Christian, pro-life, God-loving Tebow and New York City might be bit odd. (However, we’re guessing there’s some cheering going on around the New York Post and Daily News sports desks). We won’t know how this will work out for the Jets until the fall. But with God, Jeremy Lin, and Tim Tebow on New York City’s side, who’s going to take the blame for next season’s losses?
The aforementioned was actually written.
God-hating. Christian-despising. American-loathing.
Our modern media is very out of touch with America.
The Culture War IS The Fiscal War: Feminism And The Big Slutty Lie
Monday, March 5th, 2012
People like to separate fiscal conservatives from social conservatives. It’s impossible to do.
The nut of Sandra Fluke’s argument is this: pay for my contraception. If it doesn’t work, pay for my abortion. If I decide to have the kid, but not work and do something like “community organizing” or “reproductive rights activism”, pay for my lifestyle choice. [More on Sandra Fluke here.]
And herein lies the problem with a purely libertine argument: Someone has to pay for all this freedom.
True personal liberty comes with a lot of personal responsibility.
The way it stands now, though, feminists are pushing for the state to take care of everything.
At the least, a man should pony up a condom to have sex, but no. A woman is too afraid to have this discussion, evidently, and refuses to force the man to buy and wear a condom. Were she mature enough to have this conversation, her sex life would be “free” so long as the condom wasn’t defective or broke.
Then, of course, whether the woman is on the pill or using condoms, there’s always contraception failure. The woman will have to live with the STD or baby consequences. And again, she’ll want the taxpayer to pay for that, too. Antibiotics and prenatal care aren’t free, after all. Worst, she wants people of conscience to pay for her abortion. They, in turn, feel forced to pay a hitman to kill an innocent person.
A truly “free” woman would pay for her choices, but the fact is, that these choices can all be very expensive.
In the past, when sex was more the provenance of two monogamous and committed people, the man and woman would negotiate these things. And if a “mistake” did happen, the man would “do the right thing” and marry the woman.
Old fashioned? Maybe. Cost effective for the taxpayer? Absolutely. Good for the fabric of society and for that child? No question.
Barack Obama and his merry band of slutty misfits want to have all the fun and none of the responsibility of the consequences should things not go just the way they’re supposed to in the sexual arena (and when do they ever?).
So, in the last year of a horribly failed presidency, President Obama wants the focus to be on “contraceptive rights” when there are no such thing. It’s a great way to distract from the statist policies he’s employing: He wants to diminish the role of faith in the public space, and in the place of men/husbands/fathers, he wants an all-powerful state to pay for, mold, and control the next generation. Or kill them.
If this fight feels primal and visceral, it is because it is. The cultural war that the left has started has had dire public policy consequences. The welfare state has failed.
We have a nation of fatherless children living in poverty because their mothers bought the feminist lie that having sex like a hound-dog man, outside of marriage is “empowering”.
Single mothers are faced with the bitterness of powerlessness.
Defend that, liberals. Explain how living in poverty, alone, with multiple children, no education, an STD and no father is better than a two-parent family, feminists.
Answer: It isn’t.
There will be no apologizing from me. The feminist movement as symbolized by the useful idiot Sandra Fluke has lied to and cursed a generation of women. Meanwhile, putting future generations of responsible tax paying men and women on the hook. [Update: Dana Loesch on faux rage.]
The culture war is a fiscal war. And America’s children are the losers both ways.
Teri Cristoph of Smart Girl Politics to Women: You’re Being Used. Teri says:
Knowing that women voters are leaving Obama, the left has deliberately waged a war designed to scare them into thinking their birth control will be taken from them. EMILY’s List calls these disenchanted women voters “defectors” and they’ll stop at nothing to get them back.
The use of the word “defector” by the left is supremely insulting. A defector is someone who switches allegiances, usually in a manner deemed to be traitorous. Got that? If you are a woman who voted for Obama in ’08 but don’t like what he’s done as president and don’t plan to vote for him again, you are considered a traitor by the left. Newsflash: Women are not born with a genetic allegiance to the Democrat party and its liberal causes. Plenty of us prefer to think for ourselves.
Democrats are running scared knowing that a significant number of women are wise to the fact that the economy has tanked, true unemployment is around 25 percent, and our president is wholly unequipped to deal with any of it. They also know that women voice their discontent at the ballot box. So they are waging this war against women. They use people like Sandra Fluke to distract from the real issues at stake this election season. They use women as pawns in their political game.
Yes, there is a war against women in 2012 and it’s certainly no fluke.
UPDATE & ASIDE:
What Rush Limbaugh should have done in the face of the attack by Mean Girls (emphasis on girls–women don’t act irresponsibly and then want to be personally bailed out):
There are many conservatives who unfortunately allow the left to take their morality and use it to stifle their dissent. Limbaugh should have gone on the attack. He should have said “no apology” and exposed her for the partisan hack that she is. Do I care if Fluke fucks 50 guys? No, but I do care if she uses her position to gang up with other mean girls (and guys) to ram a political mandate down the throats of companies who do not believe in what she is peddling.
Standing up to mean girls is hard. I am in the process of writing a book on men’s attitudes towards marriage and society and it is damn hard to get individual men to be interviewed. If I ask questions on the internet or in an anonymous setting, I am flooded with comments from men. I recently had over 3200 men answer a poll about paternity fraud, but try to get just a few men to talk in person? That’s tough. And most are very concerned that their name will not be published. I don’t blame them. The mean girls are out in society in full force.
If Rush Limbaugh can’t stand up to the mean girls, who can?
Via Instapundit
More on Fatherhood from LaShawn Barber.
The New Hollywood Blacklist: What You Can Do To Help Conservative Hollywood Fight Back
Monday, March 5th, 2012
Imagine being afraid you’ll lose your job because you believe the people to blame for 9/11 are the Islamofascists who plotted it. That’s what one Hollywood writer, Daniel Knauf endured. Here’s what he said:
Toadies in the MSM assert that there is no Blacklist in Hollywood.
And they’re right.
It’s not necessary because Hollywood is a very, very small, very, very ruthless town, where a few key words spoken in the right ears can absolutely wreck a career–code-words like “difficult,” “high-maintenance” and “uneven.” When you can obliterate a fellow professional with a few well-chosen phrases, why maintain something as crude and inelegant as a Blacklist?
How dare anyone even suggest that there’s a Blacklist against conservative artists and performers?
Blacklists are for mouth-breathers.
Blacklists are for knuckle-draggers.
Blacklists are so… so… Republican.
And so I kept my mouth shut. And a funny thing happened: The longer I was forced to withhold my opinions and beliefs, the brighter they burned in me. Funny. Oppression has a way of doing that to the oppressed.
Ask any Soviet defector…
For years, I bit my tongue, nodding and making non-committal sounds while listening to the most virulently noxious Leftist spew imaginable: Explicit rape-murder fantasies directed toward Palin, Coulter, Malkin and Ingraham; blithely expressed wishes of cancer, assassination and mutilation of Bush, Cheney and Limbaugh; the snide denigration of “civilians” (i.e. anyone not in the entertainment business) in the “flyover states” (i.e. everywhere except New York and east of the Golden State Freeway–Pasadena, for instance is a “flyover state”); and, of course, the endless venomous, profanity-laced screes against the Tea Party.
Even more shocking was the rampant hypocrisy, the endemic corruption, the casual thievery–from producers ordering custom built doors and windows for their homes from the construction department, to having their Beemers and Benzos topped daily with gas by Transpo. All on the studio dime.
Meanwhile, any actress or female writer can tell you that the Casting Couch is alive and well in contemporary Hollywood. And it’s absolutely fascinating just how many male producers and execs time their set-visits to coincide with nude-scenes…
And forget about “diversity.”
Please, go read the whole thing.
Hollywood and the Left use their political correctness–sexism, racism, environmentalism–as a sword and a shield. They would skewer Rush Limbaugh, destroy him, and happily do it while their own side commits grievous insults of the worst, most virulent kind. More here.
They do it so people will be afraid and so people will shut up.
And many in Hollywood are afraid and have stayed quiet. Who wouldn’t be afraid of being Black Listed? Andrew Breitbart gave them courage and a voice.
Across this fruited plain, there are all sorts of folks either too cowed or too weary to take on the liberals.
The folks in Hollywood have to endure the leftist mentality in the surreal insanity of an utterly narcissistic culture. They need help. They need an army of Breitbarts.
So what are conservatives doing to help the Hollywood types?
Are we buying Robert Davi’s music CD’s and watching his movies? I interviewed him. Get to know him here. See what he said about Andrew Breitbart here.
Are we supporting Gary Sinise’s charities?
Are we signing up for Daniel Knaup’s new production? Sign up here. (Just need an email.)
Are we listening and buying Five for Fighting’s music? See what John Ondrasik says here.
Are we watching Chuck to support Adam Baldwin? Buying Firefly (something you should do no matter what, anyway, because it’s perfect.)
Are we supporting Patricia Heaton, off of Twitter right now, as she bravely stands for what’s right?
Are we standing for Kirk Cameron while he stands for traditional values? Do we stand for his free speech even if we disagree with him?
Are we downloading the Children’s app [full disclosure: I am helping promote the app -- business sent to me via Andrew Breitbart, by the way]: CherryTree? It’s for children. It’s safe. It’s free. And it’s being developed by Hollywood conservatives Dan Kessler and Allen Covert. These men, by the way, are wonderful. I had the joy and honor of walking around CPAC as these two Hollywood men, locked in liberal land, received hugs from adoring conservative fans.
If Andrew showed us anything, he demonstrated an absolute faith in the conservative movement–from conservative moms doing Tea Parties fearing for friendships to Hollywood actors fearing for livelihoods.
We need to do better helping each other, building each other’s businesses, hiring each other, buying each other’s products and promoting the work of dedicated conservatives–some risking everything.
Oscars: All About Boomers
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
Who ever thought that the Boomers would kill the youth culture? They’ve managed to.
It’s all old-aged melodrama now. Reality doesn’t apply to Boomers. They will not get old.
Shhh…don’t tell them, but they’re old.
I don’t necessarily mind that people are reassessing their activity level and what it means to be old.
Still, the self-indulgence of these folks is grating. Perpetual adolescence by an entire generation is lame.
P.S. Where was Jack Nicholson?
Also, why the Grammy’s were better than the Oscars.
Ohio Shooter: From A “Totally Broken Home”
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
As more information is coming out, it seems like a friend attributes a “broken home” to T.J. Lane’s pain. He was living with his grandma, according to a friend.
The story will be about bullying, though.
The Prescription Drug Crisis: It’s A Cultural Problem
Monday, February 27th, 2012
Jason D. Fodeman, M.D. internal medicine resident, writes an interesting post about the prescription drug crisis. He says:
The tragic death of Whitney Houston has once again shined the spotlight on the abuse of prescription drugs and the doctors who prescribe them. Legislators, experts and pundits are blaming physicians for liberally prescribing narcotics, but an honest debate must also examine how government policy has helped foster this crisis.
The abuse of prescription medications is not limited to Rodeo Drive and the Upper East Side. It is a national problem. From Crenshaw to Harlem, and practically everywhere in between, it plagues the practice of good medicine in both the inpatient and outpatient settings.
Inevitably, doctors with the power to prescribe these medications have found themselves at the center of the storm. Are physicians avaricious enablers looking to profit off the addiction of others or are they merely pawns desperately trying to stay afloat navigating the system legislators and regulators have established?
His answer is no, that’s it’s more complicated than that. I’m afraid physicians are being let of the hook. Please go read his whole post.
Chiropractors (and I am one) work with many pre and post-surgical patients suffering with back pain, joint problems, head aches, etc. The vast majority of patients use at least one medication. Most, many more. A scary number have used meds for non-medical reasons. They are not alone.
In the last couple years, easily over 50% of the patients are on some form of anti-depressant. Nearly 100% of patients who went to their MD’s first for some ache or pain are prescribed narcotics or muscle relaxants. No, that is not an exaggeration.
There is nothing quite so appalling as seeing a patient “not there” due to some psychotropic med or who is suffering drug withdrawals from trying to get off a narcotic for a relatively innocuous discomfort.
My feeling is that the medical profession, while harried and pressured by patients, just don’t see the harm in the medication. Most view it as an objective good and a benefit in the modern medical world. And while medications, and even narcotics, are indeed amazing advances, they are dangerous because they are so powerful and effective.
Very few docs watch their post-surgical or quasi-surgical (trying to not have patient go to surgery) patients closely. Many give huge prescriptions for narcotics instead of being circumspect and forcing the patient to come back for more meds if there’s trouble or prescribing something less pain-masking but easier to wean from.
A patient has to be very medication-wary themselves and press the doctor for alternatives.
Pain medication of the narcotic variety are psychologically as well as physically addictive. They remove the feeling of pain everywhere — body and mind. People don’t realize what pain they’re living with until it’s not there. Dangerous.
The solution to the problem of over-prescribing: doctors need to get into the mentality of least interventionist policy necessary. They also need to better monitor patients on psychotherapeutic and pain meds.
Most importantly, patients need to educate themselves. There’s this notion that narcotics or psychotropic meds are no big deal. Many friends and patients are shocked when I tell them something like this:
Caffeine –> Speed –> Ritalin, Adderall, and Dexedrine (ADD medication) –> Crystal meth
Those are stimulants, just as an example. There’s a reason why kids are smashing Adderall and snorting it. It’s a rush and it is more powerful than regular old speed.
Here are the order for narcotics:
Codeine (e.g. Tylenol #3) –> Hydrocodone (e.g. Vicodin) –> Oxycodone (e.g. Percocet, Oxycontin)
Percocet and Oxycontin, well all of these drugs, but especially these last ones are highly sought after as street drugs for a reason. I watched a post-surgical friend go through withdrawals, have trouble sleeping, get the shakes, etc. As his friend, I knew that he wasn’t feeling pain from the surgery anymore. He had a great surgeon, who was paying attention, but was still a wee bit lax. So his wife and he talked and he agreed that he was wanting the medication because it felt good but that he wasn’t feeling pain so much. He was scared by this and so were we and so, his wife helped wean him. It was a tough week. And this was a guy who had needed the medication very badly. He recovered fine, but he had to gut it up for a few days.
Here are the order for muscle relaxants which are also addictive (did you know that? most don’t). Good site about meds generally:
Carisoprodol (Soma). This drug’s dosage is 350mg every eight hours as needed for muscle spasm. Soma is typically prescribed on a short-term basis and may be habit-forming, especially if used in conjunction with alcohol or other drugs that have a sedative effect.
Cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril). This medication can be used on a longer-term basis and actually has a chemical structure related to some antidepressant medications, although it is not an antidepressant. Usually it is prescribed as 10mg every six hours as needed to relieve low back pain associated with muscle spasm, or it can also be prescribed as 10mg at night as needed to help with difficulty sleeping. Flexeril can impair mental and physical function, and may lead to urinary retention in males with large prostates.
Diazepam (Valium). Valium is usually limited to one to two weeks of use, and the typical dosage is 5-10mg every six hours as needed to relieve low back pain associated with muscle spasm. Because of its habit-forming potential, and because it changes sleep cycles and makes it very difficult to sleep after stopping the drug, Valium should not be used long term. Patients should also note that Valium is a depressant and can worsen depression associated with chronic pain.
Mind you, most patients with back pain alone are on multiple medications. After two meds, no doctor can predict the interaction.
Both patients and physicians are far too casual about their medication use. I haven’t even included anti-inflammatories or anti-depressants or anti-psychotics (over used now for depression and/or ADD off-label), or NSAIDs.
Did you know that the NUMBER TWO cause of death in the United States is prescribed medication poisoning?
“Deaths and hospitalizations associated with prescription drug misuse have reached epidemic proportions,” said the study’s lead author, Jeffrey H. Coben, MD, of the West Virginia University School of Medicine. “It is essential that health care providers, pharmacists, insurance providers, state and federal agencies, and the general public all work together to address this crisis. Prescription medications are just as powerful and dangerous as other notorious street drugs, and we need to ensure people are aware of these dangers and that treatment services are available for those with substance abuse problems.”
While Dr. Foderman is right to bring attention to this very important issue, I think he lets doctors and patients both off the hook.
Americans are far too pain-avoident these days. Unwilling to suffer even a tiny amount, patients are asking for and getting, or just being given, very powerful medications that have far worse consequences than the discomfort would itself.
This is a cultural problem as much as it is a medical one. Escaping from pain creates more pain.
Bonus: All the celebrities who have died from prescription med overdose. Add Whitney Houston who had Xanax, Valium, and alcohol in her system.
I Know You Are, But What Am I?
Monday, February 27th, 2012
Sticks and stones and all that. Oh civilized lefties. I’m copying it all for posterity:
Murdering, Lying, Thieving, Rat-F*** Republican Pieces of Sub-Amphibian Sh**…
…mendacious, death-loving, frothing, lamprey-mouthed, inhuman, abominable, atrocious, verminous, rapacious, sadistic, bullying, invasive, grasping, psychopathic, twisted, warped, animalistic, belly-crawling, mouth-breathing, illiterate, innumerate, know-nothing, imbecilic, sheep-raping, horror movie extras masturbating into wads of money while fantasizing about war collateral damage…(inhale)…puppy-torturing, vacuous, mindless, nihilistic, evil, diseased, soulless, morally bankrupt, greedy, insecure, envious, kleptomaniac charnel-house mascots stewing in universal hatred for all life…(inhale)…toxic, ugly, bestial, humorless, loveless, compassionless, demonic human-shaped ruins forever slouching toward Bethlehem in search of some fresh nightmare to wreak on the defenseless via other people’s money and heroism…(inhale)…Satanic monkey-shit-throwing, cowardly, chickenhawkish, parasitic, baby’s-candy-stealing, wife-beating, minority-purging, syphilitic Confederate poltergeists with erectile dysfunction…
…perverse, prurient, crocodile-eyed, necrophiliac mass-producers of human misery and gleeful destroyers of truth, justice, and the American way…sepulchre-hearted human deserts walking the Earth only to look for more victims…silly, stupid, ignorant bastards proud of every good thing they’ve never done, every person they’ve never been considerate toward, every fact they’ve never learned and will never acknowledge, and every virtue they will never possess or even attempt to comprehend…preternaturally drunken, bleary-eyed, zombie-like, empty vessels who wander aimlessly until given instruction by their masters…unthinking, unquestioning, unfeeling diabolus ex machina mockeries of the human condition, perpetually acting out a burlesque of the basest and least interesting psychological dysfunctions…
…face-chewing, self-devouring, medieval barbarian museum dioramas and depraved Nazi homunculi preserved in formaldehyde to frighten children…sick, ominous, loathsome, Nosferatu-impersonating Gollum-acolytes feasting on the flesh of our society while complaining about its taste…tax-evading, sommelier-abusing, election-buying, yacht-aficionado hemmorhoids flying flags of convenience and berating their six-year-old Chinese employees for requesting bathroom breaks…
Republicans, you vile, repulsive, scum. You’re not leading this country. You’re not contributing to this country. You’re not even part of this country. You are the maggot-ridden rot that arises in this country’s damaged flesh; you are the vultures constantly picking at us to see if we’re weak enough yet to become your next meal; you create problems where none would otherwise exist, just to further weaken America and quicken your own insatiable appetites; you are garbage, and you are traitors. And you are not welcome in this country anymore.
What I like is the nuance.
Because A Baby Is Just Like a Vas Deferens (Tube that goes to the Penis)
Friday, February 24th, 2012Georgia female legislators think they’re funny but really they’re just insultingly stupid:
A group of Democratic women from Georgia, frustrated by recent bills limiting women’s reproductive rights, decided it was time to turn the tables on the men.
Their proposed bill would amend the state’s current abortion law by banning men from getting vasectomies.
“Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation of vasectomies, said Rep. Yasmin Neal, a Democrat from the Atlanta suburb of Jonesboro, in a video statement on Wednesday. “The day has come where men should face the same pressure and invasion of privacy that women have faced for years.Neal, who spearheaded the bill, tells NBC News her intention is to “shin[e] light on the double standard women face in the United States.”
The anti-vasectomy bill borrows some language directly from H.B. 954, a recently drafted anti-abortion bill in Georgia that would punish abortions performed after the 20th week of pregnancy with prison sentences between one and 10 years.
So, according to them, a new life, a baby, is just like a tube that is a conduit for sperm; just like it.
To demonstrate:
That small tube that transports semen from the seminal vesicle is the vas deferens. Snipping it is a rather non-invasive, and nearly always, reversible procedure.
In contrast, this is a 9 week old fetus, well within the normal gestational age for abortion.
This is also known as a baby–a small one, mind you, but a baby.
These Georgia legislators are harming their case by trying to analogize the procedures.
If a man could carry a baby, I would say his rights ended where the baby’s began.
This is a civil rights issue. Once the mother is pregnant, a new person’s rights need to be considered.
Until I see a man cradling his vas deferens and the tube starts talking, the analogy is worthless and stupid.
That these women think so little of babies says so much about them.
via @sistertoldjah
