Defiance of science leading to unnecessary death is not unique to COVID-era America.
James Garfield, potentially one of the best Presidents of the United States.
James Garfield was a really cool guy.
He didn’t aspire to the presidency — he became an unexpected compromise candidate. But his Civil War record, and the high respect he had garnered in Congress for his modesty, integrity, intelligence, and dedication to the nation, made him a clear choice in 1880.
He was a strong but compassionate self-made man. He was deeply invested in opposing corruption, in protecting the civil rights of blacks, and in unifying a post-Civil War nation. He stood against the spoils system of governmental appointments, preferring a civil service that protected government from favoritism and partisan politics.
James Garfield being shot in the back.
On July 2, 1881, four short months after he took office, he was shot by a disgruntled office-seeker, Charles Guiteau. One wound hittin his shoulder was relatively trival. The key gunshot, deep into his back … still didn’t kill him outright, missing any of his major organs.
Instead, he lingered on for over two months as sepsis slowly, agonizingly, claimed his body with “tunnels” of pus and blood and infection.
And that didn’t have to be the case.
Germ theory was something relatively new, the mid-19th Century work of European scientists like Semmelweis, Snow, Pasteur and Lister. But the demonstrable results of its recommendations had been widely adopted by doctors.
Doctors in Europe.
Surely you don’t expect us to take seriously theories from some guy with a foreign name like “Pasteur” (or “Fauci”) do you?
In America, it was a fancy, newfangled, high-fallutin’, furrin’, totally nonsensical, un-American theory. Invisible creatures causing disease? We all know that’s due to bad air. After all, American doctors were the best there were, trained and hardened of the fields of the Civil War. There was nothing Europe had to teach us.
Besides … the idea of requiring doctors — professionals — to wash their hands before touching their patients? To not wear around their bloodied clothing, which demonstrated their dedication to their manly profession by the “robust stink of the surgery”? To clean their surgical instruments between uses? What sort of creepy, unbelievable, freedom-infringing, effeminate crap was that supposed to be?
So, yeah, Garfield had a serious bullet wound. But he had the finest physicians in the land coming to aid him, to investigate, to treat, to be part of the quest to save the great man’s life.
James Garfield on his deathbed, surrounded by lots of doctors with unwashed hands.
Exploratory surgery as we know it was out of the question. Doctors knew what to do if the wanted to find out what was going on inside someone, or find a bullet that was lodged within them.
You just stuck your fingers up inside of the body.
Your unwashed fingers, of course.
We know what we’re doing. We know better than those creepy Europeans with their “science” and know-it-all attitudes. They say we’re doing something unsafe. How dare they impose their standards on us? This nation is the greatest on Earth, and we stand for liberty!
Washing hands whenever you touched someone was bothersome. Washing surgical instruments equally so. Using disinfectants like carbolic acid was messy. American doctors treating Garfield declined to follow such namby-pamby recommendations, the so-called scientific discoveries of those Europeans be damned.
And so Garfield died a long, lingering, awful, unnecessary death.
* * *
Today there are still people insisting, against all evidence, that COVID-19 is a triviality, nothing worse than the flu. That not that many people get sick from it, that not that many who get sick actually die. That masks don’t limit the spread of the disease but are a tyrannical infringement on freedom. That vaccines are a conspiracy of foreigners and un-American people trying to force us to do things.
How many James Garfields have there been over the past twenty months, cut down before they could achieve their promise, due to the willful ignorance, stubborn stupidity, and misplaced nationalistic pride of people who reject science for what is convenient or soothing or politically comfortable?
How many more will die?
What more could we have possibly done? It must have been a Chinese plot!
We watched a lot more movies this year than usual — though only one in a movie theater. That was due to the pandemic lockdown, indirectly — that we had the Boy home with us from college after mid-March, as well as my mom living with us for a number of months early in the pandemic, meant lots of opportunities and impetus to watch stuff, whether streaming or on disc.
Looking through my Letterboxd diary, I have 57 entries for the year (compared to 33 in 2019). Of those 57, 45 were rewatches of something I’d seen before, sometimes recently. 44 were flagged with a “♥”; 13 were not.
Let’s look at the best and worst (subjective). The links are to my Letterboxd review for each flick.
The only freedom-taking is by idjits pretending the disease doesn’t exist.
I know I really shouldn’t waste the time, but I get so tired of this whole attitude — especially in the face of folk who have voluntarily been trying to keep each other safe, let alone folk who are losing their lives over this disease, including health care workers trying to treat others.
Also, I haven’t really written a blog entry about COVID-19. Lots of tweeting, but no blog posts. So maybe this will be that, too.
-To go to church -To go to work -To go to school -To have friends in your home -To leave your home -To dance at your daughter’s wedding -To celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving
Not to put too fine a point on it, but, no, it’s not.
Jim Jordan, Dolt
This, to me, epitomizes the self-entitled “FREEDUMB!” wing of the (mostly) Far Right, who, through paranoia or laziness or poor self-discipline or selfishness (or a combination of the above) think that anything that anything they want to do is Constitutionally and God-Given Freedom, and any limitation on it, for whatever reason, is Satanic and Un-American Tyranny.
All right, let’s start with a couple of premises.
The Science
First, there is a COVID-19 pandemic. You may have heard of it. To day, nearly a quarter million people have died. And of the roughly 11 million cases identified to date in the US, there’s no telling how many of them will suffer long-term debilitating health effects from the microclots that the disease promotes.
COVID-19 is spread primarily (though not solely) through droplets of spit and mucus expelled by humans when they talk, cough, sneeze, stuff like that. The more forceful the verbal or nasal exhalation, the more and further someone is spraying the disease, which can remain airborne for a time. Disease intensity seems to related to the amount of exposure, which is a function of both proximity and time.
To that end, public health and medical experts overwhelmingly agree that the best way to prevent the spread of the disease is to maintain a safe social distance (6-12 feet), reduce the time you are near people, and reduce the number of people you are near. Being in an environment with moving air (outside, preferably) is icing on the cake. Washing hands regularly is good. Staying primarily around people in your “bubble” is very good. Wearing a multi-ply mask is really, really good.
Not all people who get the disease show symptoms, either at the outset of the disease, or at any time. They avoid death, and most will avoid the long-term effects that have been charted. But they can still infect others, even while being asymptomatic.
The elderly and those with compromised immune symptoms seem most vulnerable. But people of all ages have gotten the disease, and died from it. There is no group that is immune.
That’s all pretty much science. If you disagree with the fundamentals there, nothing I write here is going to matter. If you think that the disease is a hoax, or is only like the flu or a cold, you’re wrong, but all I can suggest is education. And that you keep your distance from me.
The Economics
Oh, and one other item that isn’t science, but basic economics: we have a large, relatively healthy health care system in the US (hand-waving the economics of how it’s paid for). In an ordinary circumstance, we can deal with the peaks and valleys of accidents and illnesses and surgical needs, etc. There’s enough excess capacity in most of the system to deal with day-to-day problems. A hospital might have 20 ICU (Intensive Care Unit) beds, but normally only need 12 at any time; the other 8 are if there’s an emergency (a natural disaster, a mass shooting).
A certain percentage of COVID-19 victims require hospitalization, generally in ICUs. If that hospital that normally has 12 in the ICU suddenly gets an influx of 10 COVID-19 patients needing intubation and intensive care … what does the hospital do? Especially when every other hospital in town is in the same situation.
So bear in mind that a number of actions to reduce infection are not just to keep people from getting the disease, but to keep the numbers infected at any time below the maximum capacity of the ICUs in a given area. Because when ICU beds get maxxed out, people can’t get intensive care. They die. Maybe it’s the COVID victims. Maybe it’s the person with massive heart problems. Or the car accident victim. But if 22 people need ICU beds and only 20 beds are available, 2 people won’t get the needed intensive care. It’s math.
The History
Plagues and pandemics and epidemics are not new to the human race. And, in the face of them, the government has taken reasonable action to restrain their spread, the same way the government takes public safety and public health actions in other emergencies, disasters, or time of elevated danger.
So if there’s a fire, or a hurricane, or a toxic waste spill, or a landslide, I may find my personal freedoms temporarily restrained. I might not be able to drink water out of my tap for a time. I may not be able to go into my house. I may not be able to travel down a particular road.
In the case of public health and disease, quarantines and other actions have been taken in the past to help restrict the spread of disease. These haven’t always been popular, but their imposition didn’t seem to get the same fundamental “FREEDOM! LIBERTY! RESIST TYRANNY!” claptrap that this pandemic has produced. When public swimming pools were closed during the polio outbreaks in the 1900s-1950s — along with beaches, and theaters, and parks, and playgrounds — I don’t recall people saying that the Tyrants Were Stealing Our Freedom to Swim.
But, then, we’ve been living in a nation increasingly poked and prodded by fearmongers, by people telling others that you can’t trust the government. Can’t trust the media. Can’t trust the scientists. That personal freedom is the only good. That they’re all out to get you, and yours, and take it, and give it to the undeserving and dirty and outside and weird and Others.
After multiple decades of that tune, it reached a crescendo under Jim Jordan’s bestest buddy, Donald Trump, who not only used it to gather throngs to his side, cheering him on as their Messiah, but then started pooh-poohing the whole COVID-19 thing, basically because all he had to run for re-election on was a great economy, and taking steps to stop COVID-19 would depress the economy, plus it would be hard work and might not succeed, and it would be unpopular, and all those things would hurt his re-election chances.
Donald Trump still lost. And a good chunk of the reason for that was his (in)actions on COVID-19.
Which actions were egged on, and defended, and are still echoed by dolts like Jim Jordan.
So, what about those freedoms?
Let’s look at those freedoms being “taken away [by] government.” State and local governments have imposed various temporary measures restricting businesses and social contacts — all with precedent, remember — of various stringency over the last eight months. They have closed schools to in-person instruction. They have shut down in-person businesses (except “essential ones”) and other gathering places (theaters, churches). They have dialed that stuff up and down — e.g., as infection rates have dropped, allowing restaurants to re-open, but only to X% capacity and no more than Y people, distanced to 6 feet, and wearing masks except when not possible (like shoveling food in your mouth).
These seem to have been reasonable measures, and by and large they have worked to lower rates and keep hospital utilization within capacity. When they have not worked, it’s because people have ignored the restrictions (most of which, where focused on personal activity, were voluntary).
Jim Jordan disagrees.
Today your freedom:
To go to church
To go to work
To go to school
To have friends in your home
To leave your home
To dance at your daughter’s wedding
To celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving
Is being taken away government.
Let’s examine this, piece by piece.
Your freedom to go to church
This has been the camel’s nose under the door for Right Wing resistance to COVID-19 measures, because to some anything that interferes with a person’s actions that can be associated with religion is utterly sacred and cannot be imposed upon.
Various governments have put restrictions on churchgoing in person. Because, um, not to put to fine a point on it, but a bunch of people crowding together for an hour, chanting or singing, hugging, exchanging (depending on your denomination) bread or wine, etc., sounds like an awesome way to spread a disease like COVID-19.
Yet, somehow, churches have survived. Ours moved to Zoom. Every Sunday (and at least one weeknight), plus other virtual gatherings. When things were improving in the state, we started doing distanced worship in the parking lot (since shut down as the state has trended badly again).
Was this fun? Was the the best church experience ever? Nope.
Did I feel like my freedom to worship was being taken away? Of course not, silly. I was still “there,” with my congregation, singing hymns, saying high, sharing prayer requests, etc. Communion was a problem, but God is understanding.
I mean, there are places in the world where Christians are persecuted, where worship is hidden, worshippers killed if discovered. Christianity began with persecution from the authorities, including our founder being put to death.
Having to attend church via Zoom does not qualify you for sainthood as a martyr. Restricting in-person attendance during the pandemic to X% to a maximum of Y, spaced 6 feet apart, is not throwing Christians to the lions.
I’m reluctant to tell people how to worship. I’m happy to say that people who ignore these sensible restrictions when there are reasonable alternatives do not seem to be acting in a loving or Christlike fashion.
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Sounds like a great fit for the pandemic.
Your freedom to go to work
A lot of businesses were shut down in the early days of the pandemic. Some are being shut down again, as rates get worse. That’s awful, and causes economic harm, at large and for individuals who are furloughed.
Not everyone’s in that boat. I’m lucky enough to work in a profession (and for a company) that’s made Work From Home work. But that doesn’t help the bar owner whose bar is shut down because a bunch of people crowding around small tables and shouting to be heard over the music are likely to spread COVID-19 to each other.
So what do we do?
The easy answer is that, in a world where the US can borrow money at 0% interest, we should pay to keep businesses closed until it is safe, and for people who cannot work from home to be paid. This is, in fact, a problem we can throw money at. And we should. If it means not having more hundreds of thousands of people die.
In an emergency, your freedom to go to your workplace may be temporarily restricted. The building is on fire. The downtown district is flooded. There’s been a toxic waste spill in the parking lot. That restriction isn’t some Government Tyranny. It’s keeping you, and others, safe.
Your freedom to go to school
School via Zoom is not great. I get that. It gets better as the student gets older, but even my college sophomore has issues with it.
Beats getting a disease and dying, though.
Hey, you know what would have been great? If the federal government, seeing the problems of remote school attendance during the spring, had also thrown money at this problem to allow kids back to school in a safe, distanced fashion. That means construction. That means rearranging things so that maybe high and middle schoolers are remote and elementary kids are distanced in classrooms spread out across the district. Things like that. Rather than Trump sitting on his tiny hands all summer and then, when the fall rolled around, insisting that schools should just open and not worry about COVID-19.
Note that most schools are closing again. Not because the government is “stealing your freedom,” but because kids were getting sick. And teachers were getting sick. And staff were getting sick.
The idea that this is a binary decision between “we shut everything down and never go to school again” and “let the plague run its course and we’ll mourn them this winter” is as doltish as framing this as a “freedom” issue.
Your freedom to have friends in your home
So, how many people have been arrested for having friends in their home. Anyone? Anyone?
Zero.
States and localities have offered guidance, suggesting that, y’know, right this moment, having only a limited number of people at your house, from maybe another single household / “bubble” would be a really good idea, along with still maintaining social distance and masks and all that.
But the Social Distancing Police aren’t kicking in doors looking for gatherings. At most, big parties that break those guidelines (when those guidelines are actually put forward as civil restrictions) that force themselves into public view are, again, at most, broken up by any police that are called to them.
And, yes, these kind of events (et al.) have spread the disease and led to deaths. Great party!
Note: we have had friends in our home. We have followed the guidelines. We have socially distanced on the back porch. We’ve limited the households visiting at a time. We’ve rearranged things in our dining room, and living room, for social distance. We’ve done masks.
And we’ve also called off all sorts of events that normally would have had a bunch of friends over. Because we don’t want to die. And we don’t want any of them to die. And it would be one thing if the government was saying, “No friends over at your house FOREVER, because we HATE FRIENDSHIP, bwah-ha-ha.” But they are not. They are saying, “During this pandemic, this behavior puts yourself and others at risk, as well as the ripples of still others that might be infected by the attendees. Don’t be a lethal jerk.”
Don’t be a lethal jerk. Doesn’t seem to be a high bar.
Your freedom to leave your home
This goes right with the previous one. I’ve seen restrictions on (a) places you might go, and (b) distances you should limit yourself to traveling — but all of these have had plenty of exceptions, and only been under the most extreme circumstances.
Which, y’know, during a pandemic, as a temporary measure, makes perfect sense. Kind of like a curfew during an emergency (which has plenty of precedent). And as I don’t see checkpoints on the interstate, pulling people over and asking for their travel papers, I really have a problem taking this fearmongering seriously.
Your freedom to dance at your daughter’s wedding
I know a lot of people who have put off weddings. Or wedding receptions. Or postponed funeral gatherings. Or major anniversary celebrations (cough). Or a dozen other social gatherings of this sort, big or small, happy or sad.
And I know others who have said, “Screw this, let’s have a big wedding, and a faboo reception, and drink and laugh and –” — ended up with the Masque of the Red Death, with attendees (or, worse, workers at the shindig) getting infected and dying.
People who are putting these gatherings off are guided by the restrictions — voluntary or (again, imposed through business restrictions) legal — aren’t just doing it because their spirits have been crushed and they feel compelled to obey the government. They’ve done it because these things aren’t safe, and people will get sick and die, and some of those people won’t even be the folk who got to enjoy themselves.
Nobody is happy about putting these things off. No bureaucrat, no petty tyrant, is chortling over imposing these disruptions. My wife and I didn’t say, “Whew! Now we have an excuse not to celebrate our 25th anniversary with all our friends and family, and then spend a few weeks in Hawaii! Thank God we dodged that bullet!”
You know what will be there next year, or even the year after that? Hawaii. And, one hopes, our friends and family. It simply wasn’t worth it having even one person die or face long term health issues, just to celebrate our anniversary. We can have a big shindig down the road. We had a satisfying personal shindig just in our household.
If your daughter decides to get married during COVID-19, there will be time to dance at a reception in 2021. Or, maybe, she had a small ceremony with just the immediate family, not two hundred of her and your closest friends, and you snuck in a dance anyway. This is an emergency. Suck it up. Guys who were serving overseas in war time didn’t get to dance with their daughters at their weddings, either, and they didn’t complain the government was stealing their freedom.
Your right to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving
See above, only more so.
I mean, I plan to celebrate Thanksgiving. And Christmas.
Will it be the same as the celebrations of past years? Nope. But, then, if I had broken my back, it wouldn’t be the same. If it was in the aftermath of a tornado, it wouldn’t be the same. If family loved one had died, it wouldn’t be the same.
And, guess what? It’s never the same. Things change, always.
So, yeah, we won’t have Thanksgiving dinner for 20. We won’t have our Christmas party. We’ll be restrained in gift-giving occasions.
We’ll work it out. We’ll make it meaningful because the meaning of those holidays is not in matching the guest list from last year. If it is, you’re doing it wrong.
The government isn’t canceling Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. They are asking people to be smart and responsible about it, and remember the risks of people dying because you wanted that big dinner get-together.
So why is Jim Jordan being a dolt about this?
Who knows? Maybe because he’s drunk the Trump Kool-Aid and denying the potentially harmful/lethal consequences of irresponsible behavior makes sense to him. Maybe he thinks it’s to his political advantage. Maybe he’s just a bad person.
But painting reasonable (if unpleasant) temporary measures to help slow down our edition of a global pandemic that has already killed at least a quarter million Americans (most likely far more) as some sort of government conspiracy to steal your freedoms is disingenuous at best. And to the extent that it encourages people to partake of actions that are dangerous to themselves, their friends and loved ones, and anyone else they come in contact with … it’s morally criminal.
I don’t enjoy wearing masks. But I do so anyway, because I’m a damned grown-up.
This started as a Twitter thread, but I wanted to get it down in my blog for the longer term.
There seems to be this weird myth going along amongst the anti-maskers, anti-distancing, anti-treating-#COVID19-as-a-serious-public-health-threat crowd, that their “opposition” are getting some special joy out of forcing people to obey all these restrictions, regulations, and shutdown activities that they are doing themselves.
Because the Founders, who regularly evacuated big cities during the summer, would have found mask-wearing a terrible, existential affront.
The idea that we’re all chortling over people being forced to wear masks, shut down businesses, and juggle questions of safety for ourselves, our kids, our parents, our friends, our communities … that idea is not just wrong, not just insulting, but this is maddeningly offensive.
I hate this. I hate all of this. Wearing masks. Treating my mom and in-laws like precious china and restricting myself to things that won’t, in passing, threaten them. Not traveling on vacation. Not having folk over for game day, or BBQs, or (99% likely) Thanksgiving. I HATE it.
Not knowing what is happening next, or when things will return to normal, or what normal will look like, is pretty awful, too.
And I say that as an introvert who, normally, would just as soon cocoon from the world and recharge my batteries. That little green “recharge is complete, better unplug or else you’ll damage the circuits” light is blinking.
This needful isolation is driving even me bats. So I sympathize with those who hate it even more than I do.
Too much of an often good thing.
Y’know what I hate more? People taking the measures I feel are moral imperatives to protect my family, my friends, myself … and spitting on them as some kook conspiracy, as some libtard craziness, as a hoax, as a political ploy.
Yeah, NOW they want to “be like Sweden.” Which only pursued its strategy because it had a robust, publicly funded, universally available health care system that it thought couldn’t be overwhelmed.
Spitting on science AND my own sacrifices as some unbelievable plot to steal some kindergarten sense of FREEDUMM! from people. And, in so doing, making this problem worse, and last longer.
Tantrums are unbecoming a nation that prides itself on strength and a history of resolve. Yet, here we are.
I have screen savers and digital frames of photos of the cool things our family has done: fun travel, enjoyable parties, get-togethers and the like. And I love those pix for the memories they recall, but they also taunt me because I can’t do things like that right now, because they are DANGEROUS to myself and my loved ones.
Probably not revisiting Greece any time soon. Assuming they’d let Americans back in the door in the first place.
And, again, introvert talking here. I am not the party-three-nights-a-weekend type. But even I need more direct social contact than I am getting.
For various folk to take having to wear a mask to visit their local Costco as some intolerable personal offense, when I am watching the clock run out on being able to travel with my mom to some of the places she’s always wanted to go … is infuriating.
Tantrums are unbecoming for [see previous caption]Nobody wants this. Everyone hates this. And in some cases that translates into redirected hate, or at least anger, against people who are making the situation worse, by being self-indulgent, rebelling against sensible measures, and helping further spread this disease. Throwing away the sacrifices already made. Killing and crippling more people, and forcing shut-downs to last longer.
Yes, please, record your stupidity for posterity. Assuming you have one.
Or worse, those who encourage such irresponsible behavior in their words and deeds, to politically benefit themselves at the cost of goddamned freaking HUMAN LIVES.
This guy. THIS guy.
I am an adult. As such, I acknowledge I cannot do everything I want, and, in fact, am at times morally restrained from doing things that are attractive, things I want to do, things that would be fun, because the cost to myself and (most importantly) others would be too high.
A lesson we all learn. Sometimes repeatedly.
And sometimes, when temptation is too high or the risk too great, we actually restrict people from doing things. Sometimes temporarily — closing a road because of a possible slide, taping off a crime scene, check-points to find drunk drivers on a holiday weekend — and sometimes permanently.
That’s what being a mature adult is about. Not about stamping one’s foot and demanding “FREEDOM!” from restriction. That’s what six-year-olds do, because their worldview is strictly about them and their wants. Adults are supposed to be different.
We all do, honey. Now shut up and go to your room.
Liberty is not libertinism. Freedom is not about ignoring the freedom of others. We live in a society, not some Libertarian / Hobbesian war of all-against-all. Unless we want our lives to be nasty, brutish, and short.
Ah, the social contract. What we agree to do for each other, for mutual safety and prosperity. I remember those days. Good times, man, good times.
Argue, if you care to, about the facts. About what is actually needed. About how we get to the point where the survival-needful restrictions on our liberty (and economy and convenience and pleasure) can be eased. Have an honest, serious, greater-good discussion about that.
But don’t act like this is a cosmic battle between the Defenders of Liberty and the Right to Party Hearty vs. the Cackling Evil Hordes of Burka-Mandating Authoritarianism. Because you are not only profoundly wrong, but you are being profoundly insulting.
So today in The Time of #COVID19 I braved the grocery story for the first time in a couple of weeks.
Step 1: A mask. I did this quickie DIY no-sew version, subbing a couple of scrunchies for the rubber bands, adding a coffee filter.
The results were … certainly a dashing style decision. Alas, the print on my Chronic Cellars bandana was mostly covered over, otherwise some nifty skulls would have added a cheery note.
Stylishness during the Plague is important. Just ask those folk in “The Masque of the Red Death.”
Scrunchies + glasses were a problematic combo, but it held together pretty well. Off to the local King Soopers (Kroger)!
Crowds were mid-afternoon light, lighter than usual.
While nearly every customer I saw was wearing a mask of some sort (and some had on gloves), most of the workers were not, which I thought was kind of interesting. Not that I expect Clean Room standards or anything, but it still felt weird.
“Green chilies are just down there, on Aisle 10, past the self-destruct key station.”
The paper aisle is still stripped to the bone, unless I want organic wax paper (which is definitely not suitable for some of the purposes I would be going to the paper aisle for).
Fortunately, we’re still well stocked from a pre-Plague CostCo run.
Most of the staples — bread, eggs, milk, produce, ice cream — were in good shape. There was even some flour in stock. But almost no pasta, and all canned tomato products were very popular.
It was eerie being so alert about other folk … pausing while someone stood in front of the lettuce, rather than walking up and reaching around them … letting them stroll along rather than passing them within the magic 6 feet.
And when I got back to the car, loaded the groceries to the trunk, got in, took off the mask, Purelled my hands … I found myself still worrying about contamination on the bags, the boxes, the produce, etc. Lots of hand washing before and after putting the groceries away.
We’re fortunate in having enough food in the freezer and pantry that we can go to the store on an infrequent basis. So we’re probably good for another couple of weeks, unless we run out of something unexpected.
Which is, at best, delusional. At worst, it’s simple self-justified prejudice.
Oh, you British press. You don’t sweat over whether you’ll be invited to the next US Presidential Press Conference, so you’re free, free, to ask irritating questions …
On his trip to the UK, Donald granted a single interview. It was to Piers Morgan (a one-time “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant), who actually raised some difficult issues for Donald to answer. While his farcical answers about climate change drew the most national press attention, I found his answers about transgender folk in the military to be even more indicative of … well, something unpleasant.
Morgan pressed Trump about his self-trumpeted support for LGBT* folk, in the face of multiple actions against that community, in particular transgender people, and specifically booting them out of the military.
'You have to have a standard and you have to stick by that standard.'
Trump trotted out a singular reason — the incredibly high cost of dealing with transgender folk in transition. The problem is, not only is that not what his administration argued in court about the ban, it’s also simply not true.
Quoth Donald:
Because they take massive amounts of drugs — they have to — and also, and you’re not allowed to take drugs, you know, in the military, you’re not allowed to take any drugs, you take an aspirin. And they have to, after the operation, they have to, they have no choice, they have to. And you have to actually break rules and regulations in order to have that.
When Morgan noted that the costs of hormone therapy were relatively small, and less than the amount the Pentagon spends on Viagra prescriptions, Trump went on:
Well, it is what it is. Look, massive amounts, and, also, people were going in and then asking for the operation, and the operation is $200,000, $250,000, and getting the operation, the recovery period is long, and they have to take large amounts of drugs after that, for whatever reason, but large amounts, and that’s not — the way it is. I mean, you can’t do that. So, yeah, I said, when it came time to make a decision on that, and because of the drugs, and also because of the cost of the operation, people were going in —
Morgan noted the number of transgender folk who had served with distinction. Trump replied:
Well, I’m proud of them, I’m proud of them, I think it’s great, but you have to have a standard, and you have to stick by that standard. And we have a great military, and I want to keep it that way, and maybe they’d be phenomenal, I think they probably would be. But, again, you have very strict rules and regulations on drugs and prescription drugs and all of these different things and — they blow it out of the water.
How many ways is this inaccurate? Let me hit a couple, speaking in the context of having a transmale son who is going through treatment, etc., at the present time.
Actively serving military personnel are, in fact, “allowed to take drugs” that are prescribed. To take a simple case, military personnel can be diabetic and still serve, even as they have to take insulin.Indeed, the Trump Administration’s own self-justifying re-study of transfolk in the military found that “roughly three times more cisgender men want testosterone supplements than transgender patients.” And, of course, most famously (and as Morgan points out), the Pentagon spends significantly more on Viagra for serving personnel than it has ever spent on hormone treatment for trans folk.
Speaking anecdotally, the required hormone treatment is not “massive,” and is, in fact, not even all that frequent. It’s certainly less obtrusive or regular than insulin shots.
In no world except, perhaps, high fashion is gender reassignment surgery — “the operation” — a six-figure number, even a low six-figure number. That’s an order of magnitude higher (based on the Pentagon’s own numbers) than even full-blown surgery, something that not all transgender folk go in for.
The idea that transgender folk are enlisting in the military in “massive amounts,” just to get gender reassignment surgery — which doesn’t remove from them the obligation to serve, potentially in combat zone — seems … a bit far-fetched. Okay, it seems like a paranoid delusion.On the other hand, is it any different from someone saying, “I’m going to join the Army so I can get trained for free in XYZ … and so that I get access to VA benefits for the rest of my life”?
The other point worth noting is that this is only a small fraction of the arguments previously raised by Trump’s Administration in court as to why they couldn’t possibly have trans folk serving (even though they’ve been serving with distinction). Those arguments included:
Arguments about “unit cohesion” in the face of transwomen being grouped with ciswomen (or transmen being grouped with cismen) — an argument a federal judge noted echoed arguments as to why blacks couldn’t possibly serve alongside whites, or why women couldn’t possibly be admitted into the military.
Arguments (based on debunked studies) about whether trans folk were mentally or emotionally stable.
Despite Donald’s expressed sentiment that trans folk would be “phenomenal” in the military, despite fact checking by the interviewer, despite the noted track record of openly trans folk serving in the military … Donald just won’t have it.
Which raises the question: is it simply because he personally thinks trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)? Or is it because he feel he can score points among supporters who think trans folk are icky and deluded and unfit (no matter what he says publicly)?
Neither says much about the coherence of Donald’ statements or his moral leadership.
Pizza! Breakfast of Champions! https://t.co/iovqMJqNnC #health #pizza
Sure, it has more fat than a bowl of cereal (even with whole milk). But it has a lot fewer carbs, less sugar (no mid-morning crash), more protein (feels more filling), and is a wash as to calories.
Just … heat it to a decent temperature, please. We’re not barbarians.
Monsanto’s weed-killer is, ironically, bringing down its new corporate owner.
Monsanto (now owned by German pharma giant Bayer) took a huge hit in court last week, with a jury finding that its star product, Roundup, is a carcinogen.
On Wednesday afternoon, German chemical giant Bayer sustained another costly legal defeat related to Monsanto, the US seed and pesticide giant it subsumed last year. A US District Court jury in San Francisco awarded plaintiff Edward Hardeman $80.3 million—including $75 million in damages—after ruling that Monsanto’s blockbuster glyphosate-based Roundup herbicides had caused his case of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
[…] On Thursday, yet another glyphosate trial opened in the Superior Court of California for the County of Alameda. The plaintiffs, a married couple named Alva and Alberta Pilliod, claim long-term exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them both to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Theirs is the first of more than 250 Roundup cancer cases consolidated before Superior Court of California Judge Winifred Smith.
Roundup is highly valuable to Monsanto, not just as a remarkably effective weed-killer, but by letting it sell Roundup-resistant seed, which makes weed-free farming terrifically easy (plant your seeds, spray it all with Roundup, and just the stuff you want grows). Monsanto has earned oodles of money that way — which is why Bayer’s stock has taken such a hit.
The company’s share price has plunged nearly 25 percent since the phase-one verdict on March 18, and by more than 40 percent since mid-August 2018, when a California Superior Court jury awarded school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson $289 million in damages after ruling that Roundup exposure had caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. (The award was later reduced to $78 million—roughly equal to the damages decided in the Hardeman case.)
As a home gardner, I love Roundup as much as anyone. But increasing evidence that its got some nasty effects led me to stop using it at home. Which doesn’t mean that the replacement weed killer I’m using won’t cause me to grow a second head, but that’s a story for another lawsuit.
Now if only they could find a pharmaceutical company with any interest.
A means of sharing the birth control burden with men (other than through condoms) has been a long time coming, and researchers working with a testosterone / progestin gel (dabbed anywhere on the body daily) seem to be coming close to an answer.
A bigger problem seems to be that pharmaceutical companies think there’s little to no market for such a thing, meaning the research isn’t exactly well-funded. Apparently they believe that men either are happy to fob off the responsibility for contraception to women, or that somehow they will be “un-manned” if they aren’t spraying copious sperm in all directions.
I disagree with their pessimism, but that may just be my own twisted sense of personal responsibility and lack of chest-thumping insecurity.
Medical guidelines change. That doesn’t mean they are useless.
So a few things to know about health science.
Science as a whole is complicated and rarely conveyed well through half-glimpsed headlines. Popular media uses flashy headlines and forceful stories to assert stuff; stories that say that there are new indications of hints of trends of possible explanations for future consideration either don’t get written or are punched up to be read as more definitive.
Health science is really complicated, largely because we frown on human experimentation and therefore have to observe things much more indirectly and over time. Further, there’s no such thing as perfect health (no matter how many people want to sell you a pill or diet for it), just trying to optimize the battle against biological entropy.
There are few absolutes in health science, because every individual case has variations — genetics, lifestyle, environmental factors, medical history. The recommendation to “talk with your doctor” isn’t just advertising-speak; it’s an acknowledgement that broad truisms and “guidelines” only go so far, and that everything is a speculative cost-benefit exercise. It’s like tax advice, only a zillion times more complex.
Science in general is an ever-evolving body of knowledge. It’s not that things are “true” one day and “false” the next, or that scientists are constantly changing their minds, it’s just that what is known, what connections are made, is constantly advancing, the picture becoming less unclear over time.
So over the weekend we got blaring headlines saying “Doctors now say don’t take aspirin to avoid strokes, heart attacks.” Which can lead people to either roll their eyes at how “those doctors are always changing their minds,” or else a panic that “I’ve been doing it wrong and now I’m going to die!”
Neither is the case.
Even digging just a bit below the headlines indicates that the reason the guidelines have changed. Low dosage aspirin, for example, has always carried a certain level of risk (from bleeding, for example), but (as health science is always about compromises) that risk was considered offset by incremental reductions in risk of stroke and heart attack.
But now there are identified better and less-risky ways of addressing those stroke and heart attack chances — a preference for exercise and diet, use of statin medications, etc. Given that, taking an aspirin a day becomes less beneficial compared to its risks, in some cases, and so, in some cases, is no longer recommended.
It’s really about that simple.
And even that’s not an absolute. The guideline changes are for older adults without a history of or a high risk for heart disease. Doctors previously, for that population, might have suggested a children’s aspirin daily just to avert future problems. Now they probably won’t. But they might still if there are existing or potential conditions — past strokes, heart attacks, stents, open-heart surgery — because, again, the risk equation is different at that point, with the observed benefit for those populations outweighing known aspirin risks.
These are also not tablets (so to speak) passed down from the heavens; these are recommendations from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. Guidelines from other organizations may (and do) vary.
So, don’t lose faith in the medical profession; for all its flaws and human characteristics, it’s still the best game in town. Read past the headlines for more information than has been thrown out there to gather clicks and eyeballs. And, of course, “talk with your doctor” before making any sort of change (though maybe don’t bug them Day 1 of new guidelines coming out, because they’re still trying to digest and evaluate what it all means, too).
I grew up in a family paranoid about tetanus. If there was any sort of potentially infection injury or puncture (especially, but not exclusively, the proverbial rusty nail), records were consulted as to when I got my last tetanus shot. Nobody ended up growing a second head, and nobody got tetanus, and it all seems perfectly natural to me.
But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that anti-vaxxers include tetanus shots in their holy regimen of Not Getting Vaccinated For Nuthin’.
Still, I suppose I have to admire this particular anti-vaxxing family’s dedication when, after having seen their kid nearly die of tetanus, with treatment including a month in the hospital, a tracheotomy so that he didn’t suffocate, and another month of rehab … they still refused to administer a tetanus shot for him.
Unlike measles anti-vaxxers, this isn’t going to infect anyone else. On the other hand, the hospital stay cost over $800K, and someone (i.e., other insurance holders, one way or another) will end up paying for it.
A lot of us (ahem) get less sleep than we should during the week. But, hey, there’s the weekend, amirite? Sleep in on Saturday, maybe even Sunday, catch up on those Zs, feel all better, right?
In the small study, Colorado researchers demonstrate that getting only five hours of sleep each night is associated with health consequences like eating more after dinner, weight gain, the delayed release of the sleep-linked hormone melatonin, and reduced whole-body insulin sensitivity. More importantly, these effects don’t go away after a weekend of sleeping as much as you want if your unhealthy sleep patterns resume after the weekend.
Oops.
One particular item might catch your eye:
Most of the health consequences they observed are commonly associated with disrupted sleep, but eating more after dinner might sound a little strange. The researchers explain that consuming more calories at the wrong time of day is associated with metabolic disruption, and so the fact that the sleep-deprived group ate almost 500 more calories after dinner than the well-rested group suggests that insufficient sleep messes with multiple pathways associated with metabolism.
Not just metabolic mess-up, but, one might hypothesize (ahem) additional opportunity to snack might play a role.
(In case you’re wondering as you read the article, ad libitum means “as much or as often as necessary or desired,” in translation “at one’s pleasure” or “as you desire”. It’s where we get the phrase “ad lib” from.)
Anyway, that’s kind of disheartening. I mean, I know I should get more sleep than I do, but I know I also treasure my evening hours consuming media and blogging and other stuff that the workday doesn’t allow. That it means I’m causing other problems than just yawning fits isn’t good, especially when that whole “500 calories” thing kicks in. And, worst of all, it seems I can’t even count on the weekend to make up for it.
Sigh.
Well, regardless, TGIF (in a couple of hours). Time for bed.
In apparent reaction to the measles epidemic going on in the Pacific Northwest — caused, it seems, by enough kids being opted out of measles vaccines that herd immunity has been compromised — the bold GOP leadership of the state of Arizona is acting courageously and forthrightly on the matter: by expanding opt-out exemptions for vaccines.
Disregarding warnings by public health officials, an Arizona legislative panel on Thursday endorsed three bills that critics say will erode immunization coverage among Arizona schoolchildren. The House Health and Human Services Committee approved all three bills in contentious 5-4 votes that were split along party lines, with Republicans favoring the measures and Democrats voting in opposition.
[…] One of the measures — House Bill 2470 — not only expands vaccine exemption categories in Arizona, it gives parents additional leeway by removing the requirement that they sign a state health department form to get a vaccine exemption. “When a parent only has a government statement that they have to sign in order to qualify for an exemption that they don’t agree with, that is coercion. This allows them to either sign that or make their own statement,” said committee chairwoman Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, who sponsored all three bills. “We are talking about a policy decision now for parents and we should attribute the best expectations on parents, not the worst.”
[…] Barto maintains the three bills she sponsored are about parental rights and freedom, and not about making any kind of a judgment on whether vaccines are good or bad. “We are here to acknowledge vaccines have a place, but it’s every parent’s individual right to decide the vaccine’s place in the child’s life,” Barto told committee members.
Which would be all fine and good if the choice to vaccinate only affected the kids in question. But that decision affects everyone — every child, baby, adult, especially those with compromised immune systems — that child will come in contact with.
Barto said the bills are about patients and she’s upset that some people who choose not to vaccinate their children, or who question vaccines are being bullied. “We shouldn’t have that type of attitude towards one another,” she said. “It’s not a one size fits all option for every child. … We need to look at the data, look at the science and recognize that there’s research on both sides. That’s my aim here, to strike that balance.”
No, really, there’s not “research on both sides.” Vaccinations work, the risks the carry are minimal, and the lives potentially saved are not just the kids being “protected” by anti-science parents, but the lives of everyone they touch.
To the extent that swearing is cathartic, it makes perfect sense that doing it can relieve stress and make you more calm and lead to positive health outcomes.
Unless doing it causes your mother to inflict blunt force trauma about your head and shoulders. So consider that health factor, too.
All those hands and germs and sighs and growls and stuff make those buckets of x-ray baggage pretty viral, and not in a popular way.
And how often do you think those touched-by-everyone buckets get cleaned?
I might keep my eyes open for a Purell station after going through my next TSA checkpoint. Except that won’t wash off my wallet, my luggage, or whatever else was sitting in those buckets.
(Other high-virus places in the study: any sort of payment keypad; stairway railings; passport counters.)
We all know that a “normal” temperature is 98.6°F (37°C), right?
Uhhhhh, no, not so much.
That number was based on German research done 150 years ago, with a thermometer that wasn’t well calibrated and used a less reliable method of taking body temps. Not only does the average “health” temp appear to be different than that, but it even varies at different times of day, by gender, height, weight, and, heck, probably by phase of the moon.
Of course, we stick with a single, standard number because, well, that’s easy. We don’t have to think about it. And for most purposes, it’s correct enough to be useful. Plus, it’s what comes pre-printed on all the fever thermometers out there.
But it’s worth remembering that easy, simple, universal answers usually aren’t, and characterizing something as “normal” is almost always asking to have that characterization challenged.
We were very much a margarine household when I was growing up in the 60s-70s — soft margarine in tubs was a convenience, as well as being (per the accepted wisdom of the day) healthier than all that milk fat.
Today, I’m more than happy to deal with regular butter (just as spreadable when not kept in the fridge, which isn’t necessary if you eat it on a regular basis).
Reading the history of margarine — why it was actually such a useful idea, the fight against its spread (so to speak) in the US, and how it peaked then fell — is an interesting glimpse into food fashion and how things were not always as they are today, and won’t be tomorrow, either.
I can believe it’s not butter: The rise and fall of margarine
You may not have seen the commercial in years, but you’d recognize the setup instantly. Sweeping chords play and a day-dreaming, bespectacled housewife sighs as the screen does that fuzzy flashback fade. There are quick shots of vaguely fairy tale locales—an Italian palazzo, stately fountains, a rose garden straight out of Beauty And The Beast—and our suburban soccer mom reappears in flowing gown and sparkling jewels. Then we pan to the best gem …
A change in how certain brainwaves sync up during deep sleep seems to be associated with getting memories to stick around for the long term. The challenge is, normal brain changes during aging interfere with this very process.
