Category Archives: Life In These United States

Military Intelligence: Still an Oxymoron

Yesterday I saw two different military-related items on the Interwebs that made me shake me head. And no, neither of them was the moronic Army major who refuses to go to Afghanistan because he thinks Obama isn’t a natural born citizen. Both of these stories could be blurbs in some Bizzarro World version of Reader Digest‘s “Humor in Uniform.”

Item #1! This AP headline:

warsmoking.png
Are you mad, Pentagon?! We can’t have soldiers in war zones smoking! It’s dangerous! People could be killed!

Item #2! The tweeting of irabrooker alerted me to this insane headline at NPR’s news blog:

corpseeater.pngThe thrust of the article is that the Pentagon is trying to develop a self-sufficient “clean-up” robot that could fuel itself by consuming various forms of waste, including dead bodies. I’m just surprised that this technology is being pursued now. Corpse-eating robots sounds more like an idea from the fertile, maniacal brain of Dick Cheney. Or maybe he wanted robots that would feast on hope and kittens.

We Built This Country on Obscure References

fourth.jpgFor several years in my feckless post-collegiate youth, I had the same plans every Fourth of July. Two friends of mine shared an East Village apartment with roof access. So every Independence Day, we’d go up there, grill up some grub, drink some beers, and watch the fireworks. The festivities were occasionally enhanced by a live band, or a roving hitman with a squirt gun full of vodka. It was like something out of a Smirnoff Ice commercial, but with more body fat and fewer douchebags.

The fireworks were the highlight of the evening. Partly this was because the roof gave us an awesome vantage point to view them. But mostly, it was because of a weird, dorky tradition amongst my friends. I have no idea how this started, but before long it became just as much a part of the holiday as blowing off your pinky with an M-80.

Basically the game was, as each rocket’s red glare burst in the air, at the exact moment when a normal person would say ‘oooh’, you had to yell out an obscure American history reference. Preferably, one with negative connotations. And you had to scream it out in the same kind of voice heard in that timeless patriotic anthem “America! Fuck Yeah!”

Obscure scandals of yesteryear were the most popular choices. Nothing can make a whole bunch of dorks laugh harder than suddenly screaming out TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL! or XYZ AFFAIR!

Presidents were okay, but not the really big ones, obviously. Thomas Jefferson? No. But Franklin Pierce? Solid!

And since the Fourth of July is about America, anything American was fair game. Whether it be YELLOW NUMBER 5! or RIP TAYLOR! or CASSINGLES! These were initially frowned upon, but permitted once we’d burned through more strictly-history-oriented references like GEORGE WALLACE! and THE BULL MOOSE PARTY!

So what would you yell out during the fireworks this Fourth of July? Let’s hear some suggestions, fellow patriots.

“We’ve Tried Nothin’, and We’re All Outta Ideas!”

I have no idea what to think about this AP article, which covers Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old boy stricken with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who refuses to get chemotherapy. In fact, he refuses to the point that he “vow[s] to resist chemotherapy by punching or kicking anyone who tries to force it on him“.

This is a folk remedy that’s been practiced for generations, known as Punching Therapy. Once you find out you’re sick, you start punching things indiscriminately. It proves to the Hoary Disease Gods that you are very, very upset with them. Researchers have yet to determine its effectiveness, because the big pharmaceutical companies are afraid of alternative medicines! And also because anyone who approaches a practitioner gets clobbered.

At least this young man has some level-headed parents who will no doubt steer him towards a more reasonable…

“The kid says he’s not sick and the mom says she’ll treat it if it’s an emergency,” [his doctor] said of the Hauser case. “With cancer, if it’s an emergency, it’s too late.”

“Why act one second before you have to?! I also like to park on train tracks and pull away just before I’m crushed by a freight caravan!”

But these parents aren’t endangering their son’s life for the fun of it. No, there’s a totally reasonable explanation for this insane decision (and by reasonable, I mean just as stupid).

His family belongs to a Native American spiritual group that “advocates natural healing.” Unfortunately, it’s not one of those cool peyote cults that goes on mystical journeys into the farthest reaches of consciousness. Nope, this is one of those groups that wants you to become one with Mother Earth by dying as slowly and painfully as possible. Which just goes to show that even one of the most oppressed peoples on the planet can have colossally moronic religious views.

The family’s attorney says, “The Hausers believe that an injection of chemotherapy into Danny amounts to an assault upon his body, and torture when it occurs over a long period of time.”

Sure, chemo’s no fun. But you know what else is assault and torture on your body? CANCER.

I’m not sure I buy the religious excuse. The article says Daniel had one chemo treatment, then stopped. If the family objects so strongly to Western medicine and is so committed to “alternative treatments”, why’d they go to a doctor in the first place? If you keep kosher, you don’t pop a slab of bacon in your mouth, chew it, then spit it out; you just don’t touch bacon.

My suspicion: Daniel went in for a chemo treatment but didn’t like it (not that anyone does) and refuses to go back. On top of this, everyone’s freaked out about the dire reality of their situation. So the family’s decided to hide under a pile of coats and hope that somehow everything works out okay.

My 2-year-old has had two ER visits already. They were for relatively trivial things, but in both cases I had to hold her down while doctors poked and prodded her. It’s heartbreaking. I think I understand at least a glimmer of what this family going through. What I don’t understand is why they’d stick their heads in the sand and figure that cancer (CANCER!) can be cured by echinacea and an Enya CD.

But if that’s what they want to do, and it harms no one else outside of the family, then fine. Why bother getting the justice system involved, or putting doctors in arm’s reach of a punch-happy teenager, if they all clearly have a death wish? That way, valuable tax dollars are saved, no doctors are hurt, and the family’s happy because their wishes are respected.

Or they’re all dead. You know, whichever.