April 2008 Archives
The other night the phone rang while I was eating and watching Tom Jones, a film that looks great and is tons of fun despite its age of 45, and may that truly be said of all of us. In the scene I was watching, Tom is getting roughed up by his two pompously villainous tutors, and I hit the pause, pick up the phone, sit down, and when my eyes wander to the TV I get a shock...
Sorry for the light postings lately, gang. Nothing's wrong, I've just been sort of pensive about this and that, and the one thing you can't do in a blog is render silence as some sort of content. Should I make a video of myself drinking coffee and looking out the window, and put it up on YouTube, and then post it here? But I can put up a picture that approximately captures the mood, and so I have.
Normally I don't tell people about my own dreams or encourage them to tell me theirs, because I think there's something about the personal nature of dreams that makes hearing about someone else's excruciatingly boring. Often, while hearing someone recount this long story about long tunnels and flying grandfathers and such, I've wished for death—the teller's or mine, either way would be fine. But last night I dreamed I had somehow discovered some simple principles that, I suddenly realized, could be developed into a management-consultant training program deal that would make me millions. You know, the kind of simple, commonsense principles for thinking and planning that aren't commonly understood at all. And when I woke up? Nuthin.' Totally gone.
Of course, there was nothing there at all, I'm sure. But it felt like there was. So for once, I held it in my hands, the thing that would make my fortune, my "Maple Leaf Rag," my Pet Rock—and then, alas, gone. There's a certain desolate feeling in losing a fortune that was totally an illusion in the first place.
Of course, there was nothing there at all, I'm sure. But it felt like there was. So for once, I held it in my hands, the thing that would make my fortune, my "Maple Leaf Rag," my Pet Rock—and then, alas, gone. There's a certain desolate feeling in losing a fortune that was totally an illusion in the first place.
All I want to know is what I should eat. I eat vegetables, and lots of them. I eat meat. (Sorry. It tastes too good.) Beyond that, I'm pretty clueless. I know I should have complex carbohydrates—or at least I think I know that—so I went to Wikipedia to look up complex carbohydrates, seeking to know what I should eat to get complex carbohydrates. But technical stuff in Wikipedia is often written by technical people with no recognition that this information might be relevant to real-life situations. So the article left me with more questions, among them "What should I eat to get complex carbohydrates?" The entries on flour and bread were similarly vague.
Which left me puzzled yesterday morning, when I ran out of time for breakfast and grabbed the bag of rye bread as I ran out the door. I ate the bread at my desk, four or five slices, and regarded it glumly. Is it made with white flour? Yes, but the flour is enriched. Does that matter? No idea. It occurred to me, as I munched away, to wonder if the only real nutrition I was getting was from the caraway seeds. That seemed like the long way around the barn, somehow.
Which left me puzzled yesterday morning, when I ran out of time for breakfast and grabbed the bag of rye bread as I ran out the door. I ate the bread at my desk, four or five slices, and regarded it glumly. Is it made with white flour? Yes, but the flour is enriched. Does that matter? No idea. It occurred to me, as I munched away, to wonder if the only real nutrition I was getting was from the caraway seeds. That seemed like the long way around the barn, somehow.
I've got this tiny spot on my shoulder, where I got sunburned all the time as a kid. I've been meaning to go to the doctor about it, since it could be precancerous—but what if it's too late? What if I die from it? All I can say is I would want some good to come from it. So if I do, send a contribution in lieu of flowers to the American Precancer Foundation. Together we can find a cure for precancer. Except, of course, we won't actually be together—I'll be dead.
I've complained about the rampant flavorization of things that already have flavors, the unrestrained versionizing of things that were fine when they came one way and that was it. There's a limit to how many choices I want to make over pulp level and mineral additives in my orange juice, and it's frustrating when I have to look and look to find regular plain Triscuits. I've complained, I might add, and nothing has been done about it.
So the other day I start brushing from a new tube of toothpaste that I had just grabbed off the shelf because toothpaste is toothpaste. Except all of the sudden whoa Nellie I was startled to find that my mouth was all vanilla-ey, like I suddenly had a mouthful of custard. Look at the tube: "Refreshing Vanilla Mint." I mean, they just don't warn you, it could have been jalapeno popper-flavored toothpaste, for all I would have known, or smoked salmon flavored or just anything.
This trend that I rail against has actually been praised by Virginia Postrel, who's so smart that I just assume I'm wrong. So Virginia, if you're in town, I have a tube of toothpaste you're welcome to. And I'll add toothpaste-choosing to the ever-lengthening list of things into which I clearly need to put more effort. (Sigh.)
So the other day I start brushing from a new tube of toothpaste that I had just grabbed off the shelf because toothpaste is toothpaste. Except all of the sudden whoa Nellie I was startled to find that my mouth was all vanilla-ey, like I suddenly had a mouthful of custard. Look at the tube: "Refreshing Vanilla Mint." I mean, they just don't warn you, it could have been jalapeno popper-flavored toothpaste, for all I would have known, or smoked salmon flavored or just anything.
This trend that I rail against has actually been praised by Virginia Postrel, who's so smart that I just assume I'm wrong. So Virginia, if you're in town, I have a tube of toothpaste you're welcome to. And I'll add toothpaste-choosing to the ever-lengthening list of things into which I clearly need to put more effort. (Sigh.)
Look, there are almost always elections going on wherever you are, and it's kind of a pain to watch the results come trickling in. So I've posted this, because it pretty much applies beautifully to any election you're concerned about.
Reading the live-blogging coverage of the Pennsylvania primary from The New York Times, where they're waiting for the actual results to come in but have to say something, anything, in the meantime, I came on this choice bit:
"The question, obviously, is what the numbers are."That's putting it in a nutshell, don't you think? But of course they're trained to get to the nub of things.
Well, I voted in the Pennsylvania primary, and I hope my vote saves the world. For whom did I vote? Well, let's put it this way. I think a big part of being a politician is helping people live together despite their conflicting interests. I think that compromise, far from being a bad thing, is a very good thing usually, and people who can make it happen should be in positions of power. And then there's the orcs.
The orcs, that is, from Lord of the Rings. In one passage, two orcs are fighting, and one stabs the other in the throat. Then the orc gets a bit carried away:
The orcs, that is, from Lord of the Rings. In one passage, two orcs are fighting, and one stabs the other in the throat. Then the orc gets a bit carried away:
He sprang onto the fallen body, and stamped and trampled it in his fury, stooping now and again to stab and slash it with his knife. Satisfied at last, he threw back his head and let out a horrible gurgling yell of triumph. Then he licked his knife, and put it between his teeth, and catching up the bundle he came loping toward the near door of the stairs.I voted for the candidate who, in my humble opinion, was less likely to act like that in a disagreement. When they're relatively similar on the issues, that sort of thing makes a good tie-breaker.
I was shopping for dinner last night and saw the most amazing monstrous leek ever. I hefted the thing, shook it like a Viking testing the mass of a new war-hammer he was considering buying, and saw a lady looking at me dubiously from a long way away. Look all you want, lady! I got the best leek in the store!
I took it home and got out my favorite cookbook. If you like French food more than you like working to make money to buy it in restaurants, you should have this book: At Home With the French Classics, by Richard Grausman. He begins his discussion of leeks with this:
I took it home and got out my favorite cookbook. If you like French food more than you like working to make money to buy it in restaurants, you should have this book: At Home With the French Classics, by Richard Grausman. He begins his discussion of leeks with this:
Leeks, known in France as the poor man's asparagus, are generally used in America only by those who can find them.I wondered if asparagus (asparaguses? asparagi?) are known in France as the rich man's leek. (This is the kind of thing I wonder while other people are wondering how to make more money.) And I admired the unassailable logic of the second part: I've lived in America all my life, and I've never seen a person using leeks if that person couldn't find leeks to begin with. Grausman says that 12 leeks serves 6, but he didn't see my leek from last night. And that's all I have to say about leeks. I also had a chicken breast that came from the most monstrous chicken ever. This chicken undoubtedly shook the ground when it walked, and blotted out the sun as it passed by. It's breakfast time now but I'm not terribly hungry, if you really want to know.
We're all looking for peace, aren't we? Our hearts' ease? Well, good luck with that. What I do have on offer today is the second-best thing: a spot-on Dylan parody. This film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, came out late last year and I only heard about it a few days ago because nobody tells me nuthin.'
It's a parody of music biopics, as you might guess, and the Dylanesque tune starts with the lyrics " Mailboxes drip like lampposts in the twisted birth canal of the coliseum/ Rim job fairy teapots mask the temper tantrum O' say can you see 'em" and by the time you get to "The mouse with the overbite explained how the rabbits were ensnared," you'll probably be most of the way toward at least temporarily forgetting what's bothering you. There's a Barack Obama commercial at the end of the clip, which isn't my idea. No free lunch, gang. But enjoy...
Just this once, for today, I'm going to write about someone else's life because my own daily life has been boring in the extreme. This friend of mine writes to me and his other fishing buddies this morning that he flew down to the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago for an impromptu fishing trip. He describes meeting the plane at the airport—a plane that slowly is revealed as a private one—the drinks at the lodge, the various other luxuries. (The fishing was actually kind of tough, but no matter how rich you are, you can't make the wind stop blowing if the wind wants to blow.)
And it gradually becomes apparent that our friend has gone fishing with some rich guy in the most luxurious way possible at one of the best fishing spots on the planet—free, gratis, and for nothing. He got this because he's knowledgeable, amiable, and because he runs a fly fishing shop. In this gang of anglers you're expected to report on a trip when you come back, and you're expected to balance practical information and amusing asides. The "Lessons Learned" section typically appears at the end of the report, and the first two items on his list are these:
And it gradually becomes apparent that our friend has gone fishing with some rich guy in the most luxurious way possible at one of the best fishing spots on the planet—free, gratis, and for nothing. He got this because he's knowledgeable, amiable, and because he runs a fly fishing shop. In this gang of anglers you're expected to report on a trip when you come back, and you're expected to balance practical information and amusing asides. The "Lessons Learned" section typically appears at the end of the report, and the first two items on his list are these:
1) Flying private is the ONLY way to goI have myself often been struck by how poor I am. I walk around Philadelphia or New York or Washington or London or Paris. I browse catalogs and travel brochures. I watch cars go by, or hang out with my relatives, who all made piles of money in real estate while my own dad pursued his own dream—being a college professor. (Intellectual riches, and other inner riches, are all very well but just try and buy a plane with them and see how far you get.) I didn't miss any meals growing up and I haven't missed any lately. I'm not poor poor. But like my friend, sometimes it comes home to me how different my life is from rich people's. The only thing is that the last time he realized that, it was because he went on a fancy fishing trip, and the last time I realized it was because I didn't. I went to the same office those four days that I'm going to this morning, and in fact, you'll have to excuse me but I need to get my clothes out of the dryer.
2) I'm very poor
I really can't take this talk about to what extent, if any, Hillary Clinton can relate to average folks. People think that she can, at least some do, because she was cheated on. Well, sure, she certainly was. She was cheated on. By her husband. Her husband the president. The president, I should point out, of the United Freaking States. If that necessarily helps her understand the problems of ordinary folks, I'm missing something.
I still think that if she were hungry and if I, a more or less average person, were the only food around, she would cheerfully crack open my bones and suck out the marrow without giving it a thought. The Pennsylvania primary will be history in a week and as a Pennsylvanian concerned for his marrow, I'll be awfully glad.
I still think that if she were hungry and if I, a more or less average person, were the only food around, she would cheerfully crack open my bones and suck out the marrow without giving it a thought. The Pennsylvania primary will be history in a week and as a Pennsylvanian concerned for his marrow, I'll be awfully glad.
There's been a lot of talk in the news lately about what people cling to in uncertain economic times. Personally, I like noticing that the seasons are changing. Just a few weeks ago, the trees were bare and skeletal, and the cold air gnawed on their bones like a scavenger. But yesterday, I was out walking, and those same trees were smiling in the sun, admiring each other's new foliage like women at a garden party, showing off their new spring frocks. And when I got home, I got out the old (well, new, they still make them) push mower and mowed the lawn for the first time this year. I like it when spring comes. If you want something to cling to, that's my suggestion.
The Times has a more useful piece than the last-mentioned in the form of an editorial about the Large Hadron Collider, which some people think will create a black hole or other form of funky matter that will end the world. The editorial points out that the same fears were raised by the same worrywarts about another machine, which was turned on and the world didn't end. It's like the boy who cried wolf: You can only claim that a particle accelerator will literally cause the end of the world so many times before people stop taking you seriously. And why overstate things anyway? Maybe if a black hole were produced, it would only eat a couple of counties or something. Plus which, the collider is in Switzerland. Do the Swiss seem like people who would run unnecessary risks? The fact is, some people just plain worry too much:
I mean honestly: "Despite Tough Times, Ultrarich Keep Spending." This is "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" masquerading as a very, very thin excuse for a newspaper story.
That sounds like a still life, and yesterday, for me, it was. Most of the trees and many of the smaller plants are blooming, and it's visually beautiful but the physical effects on some of us are less so. Something is rotten in the state of me, just like every other spring I can remember since college. If I were simply stuffed up, that would be fine. But in some people congestion creates an inflammation that makes you woozy and lightheaded, and the general reaction to the pollen makes me deeply exhausted. Mostly I laid in bed, occasionally reading, or just petting the cat in a half-doze. The warm air wafted in the open window, along with the sounds of cars going by and people calling to each other, dogs barking, the buzz and clank of yard tools, airplanes going by, and the occasional gust of wind as the sky darkened and storm cells went past in a stately glide, like sailing ships. So you see I'm not really complaining. It was very pleasant to just lie there, dozing and thinking. Even if you don't have allergies, you sometimes need that.
I did rouse myself to pick up my taxes, since it was the only opportunity. I love my accountant service—I thought for sure I'd have to pay a whopping amount this year, but just like in previous years they actually figured I'm due a refund, in an amount that either is whopping or very nearly whops, depending on how you define it. A tidy sum, at any rate. I don't know how they do it, and although I'm sure they're very scrupulous it's clear they don't want me to (ahem) overpay. Have you ever traveled in a developing country and gotten on a bus with a smiling, carefree driver who proceeds to barrel that bus along the edge of mountain switchbacks with sheer cliffs inches from the wheels? You close your eyes—you don't want to see—and you just hope that the driver is enjoying his life as much as you're enjoying yours. Then the ride ends and you get off, happy to have arrived in one piece at your intended destination, and trembling just a little. That's how I feel when these people get me a refund every year. They make me happy but it's a nervous happy.
Then I went to get stuff at the supermarket for sandwiches. There was a sale on both Virginia and tavern ham, so I asked what the difference was. The woman at the counter said that tavern ham has a smoky flavor. "I guess that's because everyone's smoking in the tavern," I said, miming it, and she laughed. Usually I get a look of silent, bovine incomprehension when I say things like that.
And those were the two most constructive things I did all day. I'll be more of a Puritan today, at least as far as getting things done, but yesterday was pretty nice, all in all.
I did rouse myself to pick up my taxes, since it was the only opportunity. I love my accountant service—I thought for sure I'd have to pay a whopping amount this year, but just like in previous years they actually figured I'm due a refund, in an amount that either is whopping or very nearly whops, depending on how you define it. A tidy sum, at any rate. I don't know how they do it, and although I'm sure they're very scrupulous it's clear they don't want me to (ahem) overpay. Have you ever traveled in a developing country and gotten on a bus with a smiling, carefree driver who proceeds to barrel that bus along the edge of mountain switchbacks with sheer cliffs inches from the wheels? You close your eyes—you don't want to see—and you just hope that the driver is enjoying his life as much as you're enjoying yours. Then the ride ends and you get off, happy to have arrived in one piece at your intended destination, and trembling just a little. That's how I feel when these people get me a refund every year. They make me happy but it's a nervous happy.
Then I went to get stuff at the supermarket for sandwiches. There was a sale on both Virginia and tavern ham, so I asked what the difference was. The woman at the counter said that tavern ham has a smoky flavor. "I guess that's because everyone's smoking in the tavern," I said, miming it, and she laughed. Usually I get a look of silent, bovine incomprehension when I say things like that.
And those were the two most constructive things I did all day. I'll be more of a Puritan today, at least as far as getting things done, but yesterday was pretty nice, all in all.
Look, before I say anything, I'm a pretty solidly committed environmental dude and all that. That's why I was listening to Living on Earth this morning in the first place. But part of the show was about the reintroduction of wolves into the wild, because the wolves used to be there in the first place, and it was very predictable. You had the Crusty Ranchers saying they didn't understand the rationale and they'd certainly shoot any wolf they saw. Because, we're given to understand, they're laboring under some sort of delusion that wolves will kill their cattle. Tisk tisk, ranchers! Such outmoded prejudices you labor under! Then we had some new, up-to-date ranchers—they gave up their advertising jobs in Phoenix, Arizona, and started ranching—and they wanted "to ranch holistically, in tune with the entire ecosystem, and that means predators."
Well, the reintroduction happened, but there were some problems, and one holistic rancher allowed as how "there's been a lot of wolves that have been taken back out of the program due to wolf-cattle interactions."
"Wolf-cattle interactions!" I'd say that's a rather broad and general way to describe what likely happened, which is that the wolf ripped the cow's windpipe out. I wonder how this will affect the program to reintroduce the tyrannosaur?
Well, the reintroduction happened, but there were some problems, and one holistic rancher allowed as how "there's been a lot of wolves that have been taken back out of the program due to wolf-cattle interactions."
"Wolf-cattle interactions!" I'd say that's a rather broad and general way to describe what likely happened, which is that the wolf ripped the cow's windpipe out. I wonder how this will affect the program to reintroduce the tyrannosaur?
Busy busy busy, sorry for slow postings. Yesterday I had to roar into the city to attend a Sierra Club meeting. I do the local group's newsletter. I have to rush to beat the traffic and always get to the Whole Foods store early. I get food, pick up some things (like crystallized ginger, say) that you can't get locally, and people-watch. Lots of people have dreadlocks or piercings or whatever. And they care that their food is organic. I don't, really. Some things aren't food, I agree, but the thing I mostly care about is the flavor. But I do feel alienated from most of the shoppers there, and I always wonder if I'll be stopped and asked for my papers, like a refugee on a train going through Czechoslovakia in 1943. Then we have the meeting. It's held in a cramped, cluttered, ugly little room in the bowels of the store, and when people visit, thinking that if they go to a Sierra Club meeting they're going to somehow be refreshed, to on some level breathe the cool air sighing through the mountaintop pines, they look around, quietly shocked. Everyone talks about reports and petitions and committees and rallies and all that. And again, I just sort of nod seriously. All I really care about is doing newsletters. It's sort of like a sexual fetish that people can't explain—they're into latex or whatever because they just are. I just like newsletters. I think I could do a newsletter for a bridge club or a group of antique tractor enthusiasts and be happy, if the newsletter were a good one. I feel guilty, sometimes, listening to all the talk about forming committees. I wonder if I care about the environment at all, or if all I really care about is the outdoors. The more involved you are with the Sierra Club, the more time you spend in front of your computer. It's one of life's little ironies.
So I was fretting about sickness among my loved ones and all yesterday and I'm in the grocery store, and what do they have but beautiful ripe strawberries. Just the thing, I thought, to counter existential dread. Ingmar Bergman made a film about this very idea, more or less. I'm not entirely kidding. They're ephemeral, yes, but very sweet. Worked for me, that's all I can say.
First the weather, chilly, overcast, raw, with incongruous great explosions of yellow, mauve, and other colors as the trees and bushes start to bloom. A perfect metaphor for my mood lately: bleak, but aware of blessings I should count. Could be worse.
But you find inspiration not only in places you don't expect, but in places where inspiration is so commonly sought that it's a cliché. I'm talking about a book about George Washington—Washington's Crossing, to be precise, by David Hackett Fischer. The man strove all his life to do things well, to be disciplined, to be fair and treat people properly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know about the slavery. I attribute that to peer pressure—all his friends had slaves, after all. I'd bet lots of people would like having slaves if they just tried it once. And for another thing, there are lots and lots of slaves today. Anybody who's all sniffy about George Washington might want to consider getting at least equally sniffy on behalf of people who are slaves right now.
But I digress. Washington, for all his qualities and accomplishments—he became President of a country that wouldn't have even existed without him in the first place—wasn't a whiz kid for whom everything always went right. The Revolutionary War was mostly disastrous setbacks that came about in part because he'd have poor intelligence and would guess wrong. After the Americans lost New York to the British, Washington was near despair, but he reached down inside himself and found the wherewithal to keep going. He also remembered that not everything was his fault. More than once, his troops would just run away when the British came. From the fifth chapter, "The Fall of New York," of the abovementioned:
Washington and his aides came galloping down from Harlem and arrived as the Connecticut militia were running for their lives, their officers among them. Washington was enraged. He "three times dashed his hat on the ground," and shouted, "Good God, have I got such troops as those!" Weedon wrote that "the general was so exasperated that he struck several officers in their flight. ... It was with difficulty his friends could get him to quit the field, so great was [sic] his emotions."
I don't know what sort of person is offered as an inspiring example to kids today. Probably not individuals at all, more like people working cooperatively in groups to accomplish things. But even when George was one of the dead white males we were encouraged to admire, they didn't focus on his bad days, or tell us that we'd have bad days too. All right, they did talk about the winter at Valley Forge, especially since we lived right near Valley Forge. But that was presented as a group misfortune, with everyone huddled around fires together. The teachers never told us that Washington's own compatriots would, at times, drive him nuts. The dude on the dollar bill, blowing his stack and throwing his hat on the ground! Just wonderful. I don't know if I actually love George Washington, but if I did, it would be for that.
The results are in, and it seems multitasking, like democracy, doesn't work in real life. I can vouch for this: I have a small row house with the kitchen on the first floor, and it's very tempting to put pots on to boil and run to my office upstairs to continue searching for that one piece of information that will solve all my problems. Trouble is, you can get lost in your searching while the pot boils dry and eventually starts glowing a cheerful dark red. You smell the sinister odor of overheated metal and run back downstairs, reflecting on the futility of multitasking. And I have a specific guideline I'd like to offer to help keep your home insurance premiums low: When you're cooking, make it a point to stay on the same floor as the heat source.
Well, it's been a long winter! First the cat's extended problems, then my mom getting pneumonia, and the other day my brother-in-law had emergency bypass surgery, so I feel a little drained of wit and whimsy. I can get myself into a mood of wistful elegy with no trouble at all, but I don't know how much the marketplace needs of that. I met some friends last night to plan a fishing trip, and first we tried this place that happened to be full of loud music and young people. They were laughing and drinking and talking and taking pictures of themselves, and I think that if I wheeled up a truckload of wistful and elegiac observations, I wouldn't have gotten a nickel for them.
We went to a quieter place, and the ones who were committed handed over deposit checks. We're going here: Christmas Island, or Kiritimati in Gilbertese. It's a year off, so I have a little time to earn the money. The only plan I can think of at the moment is to sell a kidney to some ailing millionaire in a country where this can be done in a discreet way, but I'll try to think of something better over the weekend. The mere prospect of a week fishing in the tropics, even if it's a year off, is quite cheering. It's the fishing, of course, and the friends, not necessarily in that order, and it's the colors. I decided long ago that it's like looking at sapphires and emeralds in the glow of a lamp, except that the whole world is lit from within and colored like gems. Here's a picture I took in the Bahamas that'll give you the idea. There are too many people and cats and other creatures who are having problems with their health or other things, and it can be depressing, but you just have to hang in there and after a while you can have fun again. Like I say, sometimes the mere prospect is cheering enough.
We went to a quieter place, and the ones who were committed handed over deposit checks. We're going here: Christmas Island, or Kiritimati in Gilbertese. It's a year off, so I have a little time to earn the money. The only plan I can think of at the moment is to sell a kidney to some ailing millionaire in a country where this can be done in a discreet way, but I'll try to think of something better over the weekend. The mere prospect of a week fishing in the tropics, even if it's a year off, is quite cheering. It's the fishing, of course, and the friends, not necessarily in that order, and it's the colors. I decided long ago that it's like looking at sapphires and emeralds in the glow of a lamp, except that the whole world is lit from within and colored like gems. Here's a picture I took in the Bahamas that'll give you the idea. There are too many people and cats and other creatures who are having problems with their health or other things, and it can be depressing, but you just have to hang in there and after a while you can have fun again. Like I say, sometimes the mere prospect is cheering enough.
Years ago a friend got me reading this astrologer who's very upbeat and optimistic. I wouldn't buy a certain stock on his say-so, but upbeat optimism is nice to spend 11 seconds with every morning. But this particular morning, part of the 11 seconds read like this: "Medicine amuses the patient, while nature effects the cure."
Now, it's very nice and comforting to think of nature as this warm, nurturing mother figure and to have what's essentially a religious faith in its power to heal. But nature includes rattlesnakes and volcanoes and tooth decay and all sorts of other pernicious influences. I mean, think about it: If nature has her way, we'll all eventually die. Medicine, especially the much-reviled "Western" medicine, really does have effects, people. If I were a podiatric surgeon and had reattached eight or nine severed toes yesterday and then read that crack this morning about medicine merely keeping the patient amused, I'd have been ticked.
Now, it's very nice and comforting to think of nature as this warm, nurturing mother figure and to have what's essentially a religious faith in its power to heal. But nature includes rattlesnakes and volcanoes and tooth decay and all sorts of other pernicious influences. I mean, think about it: If nature has her way, we'll all eventually die. Medicine, especially the much-reviled "Western" medicine, really does have effects, people. If I were a podiatric surgeon and had reattached eight or nine severed toes yesterday and then read that crack this morning about medicine merely keeping the patient amused, I'd have been ticked.
A good friend had a massive heart attack some months ago, and just yesterday my sister called to say her husband was getting a quadruple bypass as we spoke. Personally I'd just as soon skip all that bother, even if it seems like all the cool kids are doing it. They both had risk factors I don't, but I might just casually visit a doctor anyway, since I haven't had a checkup in a few years. Relatively recently I've had a cat and two human friends jerked back at the last second from the cliff's edge between Here and Gone, but they had to have big scary operations to do it. Operations are bad. If it's a choice between having my rib cage cracked open or having a salad for lunch, I'm going with that second thing.
