I just received an email about how I can “become the man that women desire.” And how I can pleasure my partner every time with a bigger, longer, stronger Unit!

Do people really buy this stuff from spammers? Some of the spams aren’t even written in comprehensible English, and some of them I can’t even figure out what they’re selling. In this case, I’m assuming that hoped the message would end up in a male in-box (or in someone’s box who dreams of being a man), and that this man had dreams of making his “unit” grow and grow and grow–until it became Magic Mountain.

I reiterate–I hate spam. Maybe if we threatened to cut off the units on spammers they might cease and desist. Or desist and cease.

At any rate, I have no desire to “become the man that women desire,” primarily because I’d first have to undergo a sex change operation which to me, doesn’t seem like a whole lot of fun.

This was sent to me by one of my strange, radical, liberal friends who is a passionate non-supporter of George Bush. And imagine that, my friend thinks that we should be concerned about pharmacies that think it’s okay for their staff to inflict religious beliefs into their practice and not fill prescriptions ordered by a patient’s physician. Imagine that, to find such a practice offensive.

Of course, I’m just venting out some sarcasm, and what ignites my passion more than anything is that this should even be an issue. That a pharmacist working in a public outpatient pharmacy should have the audacity to refuse to fill a prescription for birth control bills? Go work in a Catholic hospital if such outrageous customer demands offend you, is my answer.

I’ve already vented about this lunacy, and wasn’t really planning on doing so today, but my friend forwarded me the results of a survey done by Planned Parenthood. The results are important if you wish to spend your money at pharmacy chains which recognize the responsibility of their staff to do the job for which they are being paid, and those which think it is a-ok to allow their pharmacists to pick and choose which prescriptions they feel like filling.

In recent months PPFA surveyed the top 50 national pharmacy chains to determine their policy regarding pharmacists’ right to refuse to fill valid, legal prescriptions for birth control, including emergency contraception and categorized their responses based on our current pharmacy refusal policy.

The following pharmacies have not refused to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. Please give these chains your business.

Brooks Pharmacy/ Eckerd Corporation
Costco Pharmacies Albertson’s, Inc.
CVS Pharmacy Aurora Pharmacy, Inc.
Fagen Pharmacy BJ’s Wholesale Club, Inc.
Harris Teeter Brookshire Brothers, Ltd.
Kmart Pharmacy Brookshire Grocery Co.
Price Chopper Supermarkets D&W Food Centers, Inc.
Super Valu Pharmacies Dahl’s Food Markets, Inc.
Discount Drug Mart, Inc.
Doc’s Drugs Ltd.
Duane Reade
Familymeds, Inc.
Food Lion, LLC
Fred’s Inc.
Fruth Pharmacy
Giant Eagle, Inc.
Giant Food Stores, Inc.
Great Atlanta & Pacific Tea Co, Inc (A & P Supermarket)
H.E. B. Pharmacies
Hy-Vee Food Stores, Inc.
Kerr Drugs
Longs Drug Stores
Medicap Pharmacies, Inc
Medicine Shoppe
OMICARE, Inc
Pathmark Pharmacies
The Penn Traffic Company
Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co./Price Wise
Publix Super Markets, Inc.
Safeway, Inc.
Shopko Stores, Inc.
Target Stores
USA Drug & Beauty Market
Wakefern Food Corp, ShopRite
Weis Markets, Inc.

The next list of chains, according to the survey, have permitted their pharmacists to make “moral” judgments and have refused to fill prescriptions. And apparently the chains think that’s okay. Please avoid these chains and tell them why. I see that Rite-Aid is on the list. They have a number of stores in Seattle. While I hardly ever shop there (their stores always seem so dingy and moldy), I will avoid them completely. And let them know why. And Wal-Mart has so many negatives going for it–as well as a number of lawsuits brought on by thousands of employees–that it would have to be the last store on earth for me to ever set foot in it.

Ahold USA
Walgreens
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Winn Dixie Stores Inc.
Rite Aid Corporation

WHO warns against bird flu ’scaremongering’

Those are the headlines, I didn’t make them up. Apparently, the WHO thinks that the media and politicians are creating a crisis which doesn’t exist, and that may never happen. And creating an artificial crisis can easily lead to panic, when there really is no need to panic.

The World Health Organisation today warned against ’scaremongering’ as avian influenza gained a toehold in Europe.

As authorities in Turkey and Romania fight to contain the spread of the H5N1 virus among flocks, and other European governments grow increasingly jumpy, fears have risen that the bird disease could spark a human outbreak here.

But Michael Ryan, the UN health agency’s pandemic alert chief, sought to calm public concern about the role of migratory birds, after the virus spread from its Asian hotbed across Russia and into the rest of Europe.

‘Clearly migratory birds may be implicated in spreading this disease and we may see avian influenza in other countries because of that,’ Ryan said.

‘But there are many, many other reasons for bird die-offs in populations, be it infectious or toxic,’ he said when asked about probes into wild bird deaths elsewhere in southeastern Europe.

I suppose that there are some who advocate killing off all of the migratory birds, “just in case.” And maybe kill off all of the water fowl, chickens–basically, kill anything with wings and feathers. Maybe even the flightless Kiwi bird down in New Zealand. That’ll take care of the problem.

At any rate, the fear factor is getting out of control, and even the WHO is seeing that. The news reports stuff like, “and over 60 people have died it from it so far!” like that’s something to worry about. A little over 60, between 1997 and now, out of how many hundreds of millions who have been exposed? Overall, about 120 cases in total. So let’s do the math. Over the course of 8 years, and probably 1 billion or more people exposed to it, the bird flu has infected 120 people and killed 60–with most deaths being due to a delay in seeking help, or a lack of adequate medical care.

The WHO should be working with local governments to clean up their barnyards. If chickens weren’t kept in such filthy conditions, then they might be healthier and not so vulnerable to the flu in the first place. I know that the local markets are quaint and picturesque, but they also treat live animals and birds horrendously, are dirty, and are great breeding grounds for disease.

Ditto for the factory farmed poultry. Birds crammed in cages so small that they can’t even open their wings, sitting under bright lights, pumped up full of hormones and antibiotics–and to say nothing of less than sanitary conditions in many of these factories. And then people wonder why they get sick.

You want to prevent bird flu? Try preventing it among the birds as a first line.

Forbes

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season has officially tied the previous record–in 72 years of hurricane record keeping, 1933 held the honor of being the busiest season on record, with a recorded 21 tropical storms. Until now.

Hurricane Wilma is making her way in the northwestern Caribbean, and while at the moment, she is more of a threat to Honduras and the Yukatan Pennisula in Mexico, the possibility exists that she could enter the Gulf. So of course, oil prices are rising just in case. Cool, I really like that logic.

Wilma may reach hurricane status by tomorrow. But even if she does crash into the any of the Gulf states, it’s a small consolation to know that at least Michael Brown is no longer in charge of FEMA. One dork less is always a plus.

The cure for infertility? Have sex. And not safe sex. The real thing.

I suppose that this is the dream of the ultra-neocons–not to just teach abstinence only education, but to completely omit that sex happens in the first place. Sort of like this couple in Germany, who after 8 years of marriage, could not seem to conceive the child they wanted. So off they went to a fertility clinic, which found that both of them were a veritable garden of sperm, eggs and hormones.

So why no baby?

A clinic spokesman said: “When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: “What do you mean?”.

“We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate.”

The wife is 30, the husband 36. Rather amazing in this day and age how they can be that much in the dark, unless they never watch television, go to the movies, read the newspaper, read books, read magazines, look at the Internet, or talk to another human being who isn’t a Catholic priest. Do they have friends or siblings with children? Did they bother to ask how they managed to achieve those bundles of joy? Or were they just waiting for the stork to come flying through?

The Sun

Lester Crawford, better known as the ex-commissioner of the FDA, is being a bad boy. Santa’s not going to like that, and won’t bring him a bag of goodies. Plus, there seems to be a lot more than meets the eye, or the public as the case may be, regarding the approval of over the counter status for emergency contraceptive Plan B. The situation is getting as murky as it gets, even by FDA standards (and they have a pretty sleazy history.

The former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration declined to cooperate with an inquiry by the Government Accountability Office into the agency’s controversial decision to reject nonprescription sales of an emergency contraceptive.

According to congressional staffers who have read the draft GAO report but were not allowed to copy it, the document has several footnotes indicating Lester M. Crawford did not respond to requests for an interview.

Okay, so what’s up with Lester? There have already been calls into investigating his resignation and the reasons behind it–one does not just abruptly resign as FDA commissioner as if it was a job delivering pizzas. Quitting a post that he apparently wanted, only two months into his tenure, is not a sign that all is well and honest. We already know that he lied to the Senate, about making a decision on Plan B, just to get himself confirmed–so this is definitely not an honest man we’re dealing with.

But wait, the whole situation with Plan B is beginning to stink, even worse than Lester Crawford’s dirty underwear.

The draft report, which is being reviewed by the FDA and members of Congress, describes the agency’s decision-making process on Plan B as highly unusual because officials in the commissioner’s office were directly involved and the FDA office directors who normally rule on applications refused to sign the rejection letter. An FDA advisory panel earlier voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal.

In addition, the GAO report indicates that the decision to reject the application was made months before it was announced in May 2004 by Steven Galson, then acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. The report says the rejection was discussed at a January 2004 staff meeting when Mark B. McClellan, now head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was FDA commissioner. It was unclear yesterday whether McClellan spoke with the GAO.

The GAO can demand documents from federal agencies but can’t force anyone to actually talk. So unless they kidnap Lester Crawford, tie him up and beat the crap out of him, he can refuse to discuss the subject.

The FDA also declined to respond to the GAO report. The agency has until Oct. 26 to comment on the findings, which are scheduled to be released next month.

You know, not only does the FDA need a new commissioner, its entire hierarchy needs to be dismantled and rebuilt. The organization as it exists now needs to be scrapped, and a real regulatory agency needs to be established in its place.

Washington Post

You mean, that there are some nurses who actually don’t like their jobs? Oh no, that can’t be.

But it seems that the penal system is bleeding nurses. And their shortage–though politically incorrect–has nothing to do with the number of nurses graduating. Or the lack of student places in nursing programs. Or the shortage of teachers. Or any the lack of nursing scholarships. Or any of the “comfort” measures that the healthcare experts, at large, try to convince themselves lie at the heart of the nursing shortage.

MRSA didn’t drive them out of Lancaster County Prison, say five nurses who quit their jobs in June: Management did.

The nurses — about half of the staff at the prison — said they left within three to four weeks of each other after changes in their schedules and working conditions by a new nursing supervisor made their jobs intolerable.

Their service at the prison ranged from 10 years on the job to two years. All of them said they had loved their work and had no intention of leaving.

Imagine that, half the nurses left because the management sucked big time. I know that’s a shocker for the triple Phds holed up in academia, or the politicians looking for hand-outs from the healthcare industry. Nurses are not supposed to care about their jobs, they’re just supposed to fill vacant holes.

Six of 10 nurses quit. And they didn’t quit because of stressful working conditions, but because the new nursing supervisor was a dork, who seemed to believe that the nursing staff was composed of slave labor to be at her beck and command.

But it wasn’t stress created by the crowded cells and the growing prison population, the nurses said. Instead, they pointed to changes made by Amy Strausbaugh after her hiring as a nursing supervisor in late spring.

Cauler, a 5½-year prison employee, resigned after she was disciplined for sending an e-mail regarding a prisoner with MRSA to a correctional officer and for “harassing” an inmate who, she said, was hoarding his medications for sale on the cell block rather than taking them.

Elizabeth Haddox, with 2½ years’ service, said her hours were changed five times in about a month, impossible for a single mother to handle.

Janice Brotzman quit after two years for several reasons. Once, she said, she was ordered to be at work in 35 minutes after phoning to explain that her father was dying. Her schedule also was changed three times.

Donna Witmer, a 10-year veteran, said she couldn’t get clearance from superiors to return to work after a medical leave. When she finally got the OK, she was moved from day shift to 4 p.m. to midnight.

A fifth nurse, who asked not to be identified, had been working 32-hour weekends because of child-care reasons — she said she was the only nurse in the prison all weekend long — for two years. But Strausbaugh put her on 4-to-midnight, the nurse said, and told her, “It’s your job or your children.”

I tend to believe every word quoted from these nurses, because I have personally seen this type of thing happen myself. Supervisors and managers, cut from the same grain as Strausbaugh, seem to desperately cling to the old adage of self-sacrificing nurses, who have no life beyond the workplace, and who have been taught obedience above all else.

Strausbaugh’s explanation is as follows: “My mission there is to provide quality, cost-effective medical care for the countians who are the most needy,” she said.

Well she’s certainly doing a fine job of it, by mistreating her staff so that they all quit. Nice going, Amy. People like you are one of the prime reasons that a nursing shortage exists. Perhaps you too, can choose between your job and your children, or maybe when a loved one is dying, you can also have a jackass scream at you that you’ve got to come into work.

According to this article, all of the nurses who quit have new jobs, but the jobs in the prison are still vacant. The county pays new nurses without experience less than $14 an hour, so I imagine that those jobs are going to be sitting open for a long time to come. My 16 year old niece makes $12 an hour bagging groceries, so why on earth would a person with training and a highly marketable skill take the job? And they get to work with Amy Strausbaugh, no less.

What this article points out is that no matter how health care systems whine and bitch about the so-called nursing shortage, they, themselves, lie at the core of it. This is a prime example. They hire some crazed bitch as a supervisor, and then the county showed that they considered Ms. Strausbaugh more important than the nurses. So the nurses quit, and now they’re paying through the nose for temporary agency nurses, but hey, they still have Amy at the helm. And even if potential hirees don’t wince at the poor pay, they probably flee like the devil is after them, after being interviewed by Amy.

Now if the county were truly interested in finding and keeping nurses, they’d get rid of Amy–give her three minutes to pack her desk and get the hell out of town–and raise their salaries. Who knows, they might even be able to get some of the old nurses back.

LancasterOnline

As if choosing a Bond with a chewed up face and a no smoking ban wasn’t bad enough–Miss Moneypenny will not be featured in Casino Royale, the upcoming Bond film. Why? She is featured in Ian Feming’s book of that name, which is the first in the Bond series, so there is no reason to remove her. Plus, she serves as continuity for the series.

And Moneypenny is not the reason for the downhill trend of the franchise. It was poor scripts, the decision to sacrifice story for stupidity, and a move away from a story line based more on Bond’s ingenuity rather than silly gadgets.

The decision to axe Moneypenny, who appears fleetingly in Ian Fleming’s original novel, is the biggest indication yet that the film will deviate substantially from the spirit of previous Bond outings.

I can’t imagine that I would pay to see this new Bond in the theater. Of course, we may all be shocked and it may turn out well, but that surely doesn’t seem to be the case. Stripping the film of “Bondisms” such as smoking and Moneypenny, and choosing an actor who more resembles a member of the Russian mafia rather than a British secret agent, isn’t encouraging.

Please please please–let’s make this Bond movie a real learning experience, and have James not only not smoke, but discuss the dangers of tobacco use. And have him drink orange juice shaken not stirred. And let’s take away his license to kill. And maybe he can lecture about the evils of sexual activity outside of marriage.

Forgot to mention–Q will not be in the movie either. I don’t want to even go there….

Telegraph.com

JAMES BOND will be banned from smoking in his latest film as it could have a bad influence on children — but murder and torture are just fine, Daniel Craig said yesterday after being confirmed as the new 007.

I guess we have to get our priorities straight. Smoking no but murder yes. Children may be damaged from seeing James Bond smoke, but not from seeing him bash in the face of his opponent, or from watching him blow someone’s head off with a machine gun.

James Bond has vices. He smokes. He drinks. And he practices unsafe sex. But now that we’ve banned James from having a cigarette, which is in complete opposition to the character created by Ian Fleming, are we going to forbid him from having a martini, “shaken not stirred?” Or is drinking still okay? I guess the political correctness police haven’t gotten there yet.

And the big question; will James practice safe sex? Will we get to watch him fumble with a condom bag, or will the “girl” confess to having an outbreak of genital herpes?

Bleech, I say. How is James going to sit in a casino without a cigarette, and announce, “The name’s Bond, James Bond?”

It does seem like the producers are really out to deliver the final death knoll to the James Bond franchise. First, their choice of the new Bond. Actor Daniel Craig does not look Bondish–his face looks like it has been around the block one too many times. He reminds me of something you might find in Lord of the Rings, or at the least, a Bond villian. Not Bond. The producers said that they were replacing the 52 year old Pierce Brosnan because they wante a younger actor. Well, I have news for them. At 52, Pierce is in better shape and looks younger than 37 year old Craig.

And now their new “gritty” and “younger” Bond will be cigaretteless. That’s half of his cool, down the drain. At least a cigarette might have given him a hint of the Bond persona.

Oh well. I’l stick to the old Bond DVDs, the Sean Connery/Roger Moore classics, which are blessedly free from political correctness, and don’t make excuses for being fantasies.

TimesOnline

Today is the birthday of Charles Everett Koop, M.D., best known for his tenure as Surgeon General of the U.S. from 1981 to 1989, when he defied Ronnie Reagan and dared to mention the word “AIDS.” Reagan would have preferred that the AIDS epidemic be ignored, and indeed, it wasn’t until 1987 that the word “AIDS” actually was publicly uttered by the president.

Koop wasn’t any less conservative than Reagan and his cronies (although Reagan seems almost daringly liberal compared to the Bush team), but he realized that politics and medicine don’t jive. A deeply religious man, he also realized that it was his responsiblity, as Surgeon General, to attend to the health needs of the nation. And at the moment, a new, misunderstood and rather deadly epidemic was underway.

I truly admire Koop. He is a hero, in that he refused to succumb to the ranklings of the Reaganites and pretend that AIDS was just a passing phase–and once it killed off all of the undesirables, it would go away. But instead of obediently obeying the President like a good little conservative, instead, Koop became the nation’s chief spokesman on the AIDS epidemic, creating untold controversy with his vocal support for early, candid sex education and the use of condoms. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.

Just a few more details; he was born on this date in 1916, and served as chief surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia from 1948 to 1981. I shudder to think how far out of control the AIDS epidemic in this country may have gotten, had not Koop intervened and reversed the paralysis of our government.

So is the new James Bond going to carry around condoms and ask his “girls” if they’ve bugs in their crotch?

According to some, that’s exactly what he should be doing. Political correctness strikes again, it seems.

According to the latest “study” and I hesitate to use the word when discussing this nonsense, fictional character superspy James Bond was voted as the champion of unsafe sex by the medical world.

The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has released a study on 87 movies and came to the conclusion that films like “Basic Instinct”, “American Pie” and the James Bond movie “Die Another Day” showed frequent acts of sex, where the partners don’t use protections for sexually-transmitted diseases, the risk of HIV or birth control.

Dr Hasantha Gunasekera, the leading author of the paper and a research fellow in children’s health at Sydney University in Australia, said: “The study showed there were no references to important consequences of unsafe sex such as HIV transmission, spread of sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancy.

In Die Another Day, released in 2002, there is no reference to contraceptive use in the sex scenes between Bond, played by Pierce Brosnan, and the leading female characters played by Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike.

I’m truly amazed at the incredible “research” that is popping up these days. James Bond doesn’t discuss safe sex with his partners. Yeah, and? James Bond is a fantasy character, who moves in a fantasy world where all women are beautiful, tuxedos never get wrinkled, martinis are shaken not stirred, gunshot wounds don’t cause bleeding, where a single mortal (James) can take down an entire army, and super villians always are the losers. That is the land of James Bond, where incidentally, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies do not exist. Sex does not have consequences, only pleasure.

If the authors of this study think that the Bond movies are supposed to be some kind of learning experience, and that they would somehow be enhanced by James flipping out a condom, well, then there’s really not much else to say. “Die Another Day” was one of the worst movies ever made, to say nothing of being the absolute worst Bond movie ever to hit the screen. But I can see that the idiotic plot and pathetic acting would really have been improved by the insertion of safe sex.

James: By the way, before we start screwing, I need to know if you’ve ever been tested for HIV. It really wouldn’t do for an agent on Her Majesty’s Secret Service to be catching and spreading STDs.

James: So do you prefer latex, lubricated, flavored, or what? I’ve got 150 different types of condoms, courtesy of Her Majesty.

Now that would really enhance a Bond movie, don’t you think? Wouldn’t diehard Bond fans really enjoy a discussion about STDs? Let’s make James Bond the purveyor of safe sex. Not only does he have a license to kill humans, but he has a license to kill STDs.

Dr. Gunasekera is obviously not playing with a full deck. While people are getting blown away in Bond movies, he is concerned that James may pick up a social disease. I think this doctor needs to get a life.

Gunasekera said: “Pretty Woman was the only movie with the vaguest reference to condom usage. Julia Roberts’s character gives the character played by Richard Gere a selection of condoms to choose from early in the movie. We then assumed a subsequent sex scene was protected sex.”

Well, that movie was a little bit different than a Bond flick. The movie was about a prostitute and her John, and so slipping in safe sex and condoms fit with the story line.

But even cuter are Dr. G’s observations about the movie Basic Instinct. According to the good doctor, there were six episodes of intercourse, and gasp–no condoms, no birth control measures, and no public health consequences.

Basic Instinct was filled with a line-up of characters who were borderline or full-fledged sociopaths. To say nothing of a roving homicidal maniac mincing bodies with an ice pick–and these characters are supposed to be concerned about safe sex? Surely you’re joking.

Let’s discuss those sex scenes. Foreplay is sitting around in a police station, crossing and uncrossing legs, wearing a short skirt and no underwear. Foreplay is also getting slammed into a wall, and having your carotid artery sliced by an ice pick. Safe sex, anyone?

The sexual encounters in this movie tended to be somewhat violent, based on crude lust rather than love and affection. The relationships between the different characters were dysfunctional at best, deadly at worst. I can see Michael Douglas groping Sharon Stone at the nightclub, trying to control his frenzied urge to screw her, and then scream, “Are you on the pill? Will there be public health consequences if we engage in sex?”

Or when he basically rapes Jeanne Tripplehorn (even though she was willing, it was still violent)–right before he slams it into her, she should have cried out, “Oh darling, I don’t know if I’m HIV negative. Wait, we need to get our blood checked before we can continue.”

The report also criticises films for portraying cannabis and other recreational drug use with no harmful consequences.

Uh, excuse me? No consequences for using drugs and getting wasted. Please watch Basic Instinct again and note how functional all of the characters are, and then what they do in their spare time. Drug use and drinking were very central to many of the scenes, and not in a very complimentary way. You got the idea that these characters were heading down the road to hell.

I don’t see anything wrong with inserting references to safer sex on a TV show, for example, or even a movie which may lend itself to that. But to point a finger to a Bond movie, and expect that he’s going to bag his dick in a condom, or expect that psychotic characters such as those in Basic Instinct are going to be concerned about contracting herpes, is ludicrous.

I think that Dr. Gunasekera has way too much time on his hands, and really needs to get out more. Sitting at home and obsessing about James Bond’s sex life is really not good for the soul–or the brain.
TimesOnline.com

My facts were a little wrong. I overestimated the toll that the bird flu has taken thus far on humanity.

As of Oct. 10, 2005, the World Health Organization reports 117 confirmed cases of H5N1 bird flu in humans (please note, there is more than one type of bird flu). So far, only 60 people have died. And while that number appears to be about 50%, you also have to remember that many of these people live in rural areas in countries that don’t have the most modern of medical equipment. They may also have waited until they were quite ill before seeking help, thus increasing the risk of death from this disease.

Yes, I know. In the words of John Donne (yes, I am getting literary), “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. No, I am not defaming Hemingway. Donne knew all about tolling bells 300 years before Hemingway sat down at his typewriter. But I’m getting way off the subject of avian viruses….

The deaths of the 60 people are sad and tragic. But probably hundreds of millions of birds have been infected with this virus in some of the most populous regions of the world–we’re talking about places that make Manhattan appear like a deserted island. So in perspective, 117 cases out of maybe 1 billion who have been exposed to it? The reality is that right now, people face a very low risk of picking up a case of the bird flu.

And even though the public has been sufficiently primed to expect the worst, now with the news that the 1918 Spanish flu was an avian flu that mutated, it still needs to be put into perspective. The flu epidemics of 1957 and 1968 were also mutated avian flus, but they only caused a slightly higher death toll than regular flu seasons.

Are we all dead yet from the bird flu? No? Good, that’s a relief. From reading some of the news stories that are appearing, it sounds like the pandemic has begun and millions have already succumbed. This sensationalist hysteria is really grating.

Here’s a word of advice. Don’t drink raw chicken or duck blood. Keep the chickens out of your bedroom when you go to sleep. Hint: the vast majority of people who have gotten sick have had exceedingly close contact with infected birds, like dining on raw infected meat teeming with germs, or gulping down blood. Yuck–that’s the next best thing to slitting open one of your own veins and pumping in the virus.

And over the course of two years, only about 150 people have acutally been confirmed with having bird flu. Which seems, at least to me, that it is not highly contagious between bird and human.

I know that this is a huge consideration for most people, but have you thought about getting your iPod a costume for Halloween? You know, dress the little box up as a witch or Frankenstein?

Just in case you have the urge, and want to burn $39.99, you can purchase a costume for your iPod to wear on Halloween–so that none of your neighbors will recognize it when it goes around trick or treating. I have to say, people do think up extraordinary methods of making money, and why not? If you want to dress up your iPod, then there should be a place where you can buy cutie costumes.

The costumes are really cute. And I know that my little pink mini-iPod would look just darling in one of them. But for $39.99, I think that little Pinky will have to make do au natural this Halloween. Maybe I’ll tie an orange ribbion around her and prop her up on a mini-pumpkin.

But just in case you feel that your iPod deserves the best, check out the costumes at iattire.com.

Hell if I know. But I thought that this essay was interesting. It’s actually a press release from the group that runs Project Censored, not an essay that I swiped from someone else’s blog or from a newspaper.

Progressive Ideals: Rooted in American Values

By Peter Phillips

The term progressive is widely used by contemporary writers, politicians, and liberals, but an understanding of what makes up a progressive agenda is generally unknown. Many people have a vague sense that progressives are left-of-center folks mostly concerned with societal fairness and governmental transparency. This notion is rooted in the Progressive movement that occurred in the US between 1900 and 1914. According to Richard Hofstadfer in his book The Progressive Movement, 100 years ago our grandparents and great grandparents faced the accumulated evils of political bosses, banking trusts, railroad greed/overcharging, unjust taxation, millionaire senators, yellow-dog journalism, and cities filled with pollution and tenements. A nationwide multi-party political movement of mostly middle class working people emerged that sought political reform, increased governmental regulation, city sanitation, and objective media. The movement was closely tied into women suffrage and the formation of the NAACP.

Progressives in the 21st century continue in this tradition of democracy building and open transparency of corporate and political power. Progressive values are rooted in the American traditions of equality, fairness, due process, and democratic decision making at the deepest level possible. Progressives recognize that institutional power, both public and private, has created inequalities of race, class and gender, and that democratic governmental regulation is needed to make necessary social justice corrections for humanity worldwide.

Progressives believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Bill of Rights, open access to corporate and governmental information, democratic media and individual human freedom. Progressives believe that human freedom includes the freedom from hunger, homelessness, unemployment, environmental pollution, discrimination based on physical attributes and long imprisonment for non-violent crimes.

Progressives encourage socio-economic/political systems that maximize individual participation, self-actualization, loving interpersonal relationships and healthy environments.

Progressives are a diversified bunch, who come from all political parties with a full range of human characteristics.

More importantly, progressives seek personal life styles that reflect their core values. Simplicity is highly valued through a life of slower natural foods, sustainable consumption, efficient living spaces, and a daily consciousness of striving for human betterment through social action.

Social action based on progressive values is possible locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. It is action emerging from real internalized values that lead people to self-actualization and right livelihood. One step at a time can lead us to a progressive future.

Imagine a society with regionally sustainable economies, self-actualizing people, crimelessness, and general equality. Such a life is possible, not just for us but for the world.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research group at www.projectcensored.org.

Okay, the latest news. A large number of Americans follow the “don’t ask don’t tell” theory when it comes to STDs–you know, those sweet little diseases that you spread by screwing around. According to a survey conducted by MSNBC.com and Zogby International, of 56,000 adult men and women, only about one-third ask their partner if they’ve got insidious microbes crawling around their private parts.

Just 39 percent of people who took the survey always ask whether a new partner is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, or other STDs. Nearly one-third said they never check on a prospective partner’s sexual health status, and among those with less than a high school education, almost 50 percent never discuss the issue of STDs with a new partner — troubling statistics given the deadliness of AIDS and rising rates of genital herpes and other diseases.

I would agree, it’s nice if everyone can sit down and discuss the various microbes growing in their body, and it would be really nice if everyone was honest enough to admit what they’ve got cooking “down there.” But there is a great deal missing from this survey.

Let’s face it, a lot of people just want to get laid. And that may prevent them from being totally honest, especially when plied with alcohol or other drugs. Another major factor to consider is that many people haven’t a clue what they’re infected with, especially women. An example is gonorrhea. While guys generally get these painful lesions on their dick, a woman’s lesions may occur internally and painlessly. She may remain blissfully unaware that she’s got the clap until more serious damage occurs. But by the time that occurs, she may have infected the entire line-up of the UCLA Bruins.

The same with HIV. Unless you have been tested, or perhaps are aware that a person you recently had sex with is infected, there is no way of telling your HIV status. So merely asking someone if they are HIV positive may get you an honest “no” answer, simply because your perspective partner doesn’t know, or doesn’t think so, or never considered the possibility.

So unless you’ve got the test results in hand, and know that you’re partner hasn’t screwed anyone else between the date the tests were done and right now, you’re best friend is the lowly little condom. Personally, I think it’s a great leap of faith to take someone you don’t know very well at his or her word–that they’re squeaky clean.

You can read about the highlights of the survery at MSNBC.com

Religion and medicine. The clash of absolutes. Not all the time, but some of the time, when heads and brains that are made of steel refuse to yield or compromise.

There is a delightful essay in today’s NY times, write by a cardiac surgeon who had an Orthodox Jew as a patient. Things turned out quite differently than he anticipated. Religious laws, rules and regulations are often interpreted quite differently when it comes to health and medicine. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions. An adult in their right state of mind is entitled to make a choice, and there the story ends. But when it comes to an infant, it is another matter.

Working in the NICU, the situation arose several times and in all cases, the baby received a transfusion. In the majority of cases, I would have to say that the parents appeared relieved that the decision had been taken out of their hands. They didn’t want to go agains their faith, but they didn’t want their baby to die either. There was only one case where the parents abandoned the infant after he had received blood, declaring that now he “was tainted.” Whether that is part of JW doctrine, I have no idea. But the baby was put up for adoption, and the parents never returned.

So here we have different interpretations of the faith. In the NY Times essay, the surgeon confronts the patient, an Orthodox Jew, who needs a heart valve replaced.

“The kind: two choices,” I said. “Mechanical, made of plastic and metal, or biological, a pig valve.”

He surprised me. No rage, no rejection. A tiny smile.

“So doctor, what do you suggest?” he asked.

“You are 77,” I said. “A pig valve would be best. You would not need blood thinners; it’s safer. Is a pig valve O.K.?”

I expected a long discussion of the laws of keeping kosher. No. His head straightened, a direct look, not a blink. A quick response. “Jews believe, above all, that saving lives is the most important,” he said. “Please save mine. Use a pig valve.”

The surgeon expected a very different answer, according to stereotypes that of course, the Orthodox Jew would be horrified by the thought of a non-Kosher pig part in his body. But as the patient explained, there are times when one must go beyond the day to day rules and regulations–and in fact, his religion even requires that one do so.

And so, the surgeon successfully performs the procedure. But the surgeon is still concerned–despite what the man says, will having a pig valve sitting in his chest cause him some deep psychological trauma? Will he have second thoughts?

I remove the valve of rock and suture in the pig valve. A nice fit, I think. Perfect for his heart. But for his mind?

Several days later, the intensive care unit behind him, back in his room, close to discharge.

I dare to ask him, “How are you with your pig valve?”

He smiles, a garden grin. “I am stronger, better, alive,” he says. “One does not always need to keep kosher.”

I can’t help myself. I can’t stop laughing; only grabbing the chair keeps me from collapsing on the floor.

This really is one of the best essays I’ve read in a long time.

NY Times

It is somewhat comforting to know that the U.S. is not the only nation in the world that houses despicable dorks. And the dorks I am referring to are the ones who loot and steal following a disaster–not for survival but for greed. Seems that Pakistan is coping with the same problem.

In the quake-stricken areas, meanwhile, shopkeepers clashed with looters Monday, and hungry families huddled under tents while waiting for relief supplies after Pakistan’s worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble…

In the shattered streets of Muzaffarabad, where at least 11,000 people died, an Associated Press reporter saw shopkeepers scuffle with people trying to break into businesses. They beat each other with sticks and threw stones, and some people suffered head wounds. No police were nearby.

I am assuming that these shops did not contain food, just from the way it was reported. If it was food that these people wanted, then I apologize for insulting them. Some of the people have been without food and water for a few days now, and the need is immense. But if the shops in question contained non-edible merchandise, and were being looted because some asshole was hoping to make a fast buck, then they deserved to be hit over the head.

Anyway, this is a major disaster in a poor country, and aid and assistance has been slow in coming. One reason is the remote location of the quake, high up in the mountains. International aid is beginning to flow in from Turkey, Britain, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Russia, China and Germany also offered assistance.

But again, a bright note. Pakistan accepted India’s offer for assistance, which is a major breakthrough. Fingers crossed for good will and peace between them.

Globe and Mail

President Bush was asked today for his position regarding Roe v. Wade.

His response: “I don’t care how people get out of New Orleans.”

A friend sent this to me in one of those forwarded emails. I thought it was funny, but then, I wondered, is it true? With Bush, you just never know the limits of his intelligence. Maybe he really does think that Roe vs. Wade is about boating, and just can’t figure out what the fuss is about.

Since hurricanes have been a big part of life here for the past few months…well, we are now officially the second busiest season on record. Vince is the 11th hurricane and the 20th named storm. There were 21 storms in 1933 (names didn’t start yet) and 19 named storms in 1995. I remember the 1995 season well, only because it was the first time that naming ever reached the letter “R” and the category 3 hurricane which developed was named Roxanne (after me, I assume).

An average season spawns around 10 tropical storms, of which six become hurricanes. So this year, we’ve had double output. But only about six weeks to go until hurricane season officially ends. Hang in there.