Not Dead Yet

Goddammit.



Rumours of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.

This is the best fucking ad I have ever seen in my life.

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Tales of the Horrorspital, Part II

Calcium burn at one IV site

So, where were we already? Bemoaning the lack of adequate staffing at our hospital surgery recovery rooms? The paw in the above picture belongs to yours truly. It was actually the better of the available paws. The other had swelled up like a house but was not discoloured, so we went with this photograph for the "roast chicken" effect.

The nurse staffing situation was actually the least of the problems. Or the least enervating, anyway. Pain is pain, and bad as it is, it only hurts until you pass out or fall asleep or they bring you medication to numb it.

My roomie, on the other hand ... think ground glass in underpants. With all appendages tied, so you can't even get it out.

After the nice Vietnamese lady left, and before I regained consciousness, the hospital staff trundled in the Roomie From Hell. Naturally, when I awoke, I was otherwise occupied, as in, trying to get pain meds, but once that was taken care of, I began looking around. The Roomie From Hell (let's call her Dolores, shall we? Dotty for short? As in, that's what I was after two days of exposure to her?), for reasons that will never be clear to me, decided at this point to introduce herself. Thus:

RFH: Hello.

TPC: Hi. (All friendly-like.)

RFH: Can you take me upstairs please?

TPC: ??? (with a silent WTF? for emphasis)

RFH: Hello?

TPC: Yes. (Probly a mistake. I should've said, "NO!")

RFH: I need to go upstairs.

TPC: Uh, well, I'm sorry, Ma'am, I've just had surgery and I'm not mobile. Maybe you should press the call button.

RFH: I need to go upstairs. Can you take me to the operating theater? I'm supposed to have surgery at four o'clock.

TPC: (Squints at clock, which clearly shows the time as being 11, although it's not clear whether this is in the AM or PM) Ma'am, I'm sorry, I'm your fellow patient? And I'm not mobile, so I can't take you anywhere. Please press the button, and a nurse will attend to you.

RFH: (Begins to hum a song, and then talks to herself, first in Spanish (fluent, unaccented AFAICT), then in French.) Excuse me?

TPC: Yes?

RFH: Nurse?

TPC: No, ma'am, I'm a patient. The nurse will be along in a minute. (Begins to long for a larger dose of painkillers to drown out rather annoying RFH.)
Nurse arrives.

Nurse: What's the matter, dear?

TPC: (Cringes at the use of the word "dear." It's pretty obvious the patients are "dear" only in the sense of "expensive.")

RFH: Oh, nurse, could you have someone take me up to the operating theater? My surgeon, Dr. Blarney (I swear, that's what she said) is supposed to be operating on me at four o'clock.

Nurse: (Distinctly unamused) Uh, ma'am, why don't you try to go to sleep, you're not having surgery till tomorrow.

RFH: Are you sure?

Nurse: Yes, ma'am. Let me know if you need something to help you sleep.

RFH: Begins a lengthy gabbling conversation full of extraneous details about friends, family, dog, surgery, clothing, doctor, and blood while TPC desperately tries to sleep. No such luck.

Exeunt Nurse, edging out of room after fluffing RFH's pillow and sneaking away.)

RFH, stymied, picks up her cellphone and begins calling everybody she knows with details about her dog, car, surgery, clothing, and some fireman's luncheon at which she will donate blood. TPC desperately continues trying to sleep.

Some time later (the attempt to sleep was, apparently, successful) TPC is woken by the morphine wearing off and the gabble of voices. Apparently, RFH has now decided that she is actually at the firemen's luncheon and needs to go home.

Nurse: Ma'am, you're here for surgery.

RFH: This is America. You've heard of the Constitution, haven't you? You're holding me against my will!

TPC: (sotto voce) WTF?

Same arm, reverse side

Nurse: Ma'am, we're not holding you against your will. Your doctor will be here in the morning, I suggest you talk to him about it.

RFH: But I'm not supposed to be here. We finished the demonstration, and I have to go home now. My dog, she'll be all alone, and I've never left her alone in my life!

Exeunt Nurse looking annoyed

TPC: (Feeling sorry for the lady despite her obvious lack of anchor to reality) Ma'am, it's in the wee hours and your doctor will be here in a couple of hours more. Why not just take a nap now? I'm sure your dog will be fine, you were talking to your neighbour earlier, and you said she was looking after the dog for you.

RFH: I'm calling the police. I'm being held against my will. This is America. You can't do that to people here. (Calls 911)

Enter young policeman, looking confused

COP: Ma'am, are you Dotty?

TPC: (sotto voce) Hell, yeah, she is.

RFH: Officer, they're holding me here against my will, I've told them and told them that I need to go home, but they JUST won't LET me GO, Office, you've GOT to DO something ... gabble, gabble

COP: Ma'am, this piece of paper here? You signed it, Ma'am, that's your signature there? It says you're having surgery at this hospital. So, no, Ma'am, they're not holding you against your will. You're having surgery tomorrow and then they're going to release you. Do you understand me, Ma'am? Is there someone you'd like to call who could come down and help us explain this to you?

RFH: Gabble, gabble (punctuated with breathy, hand-wringing cries about the firemen, the demo, the blood samples, and other completely incomprehensible blatheramskate).

TPC: Oh, Deity, fucking kill me now. (very sotto voce. Not in front of the cops, and all that.)

Several more hours pass in a stupor, with TPC regaining consciousness at intervals.

Enter a short, brown, efficient-looking man.

MAN: Ma'am, are you Dotty?

TPC: (sotto not so voce) Holy Mother of God, can a person get a little shuteye in these parts or what? Excuse me? Can I help you? (This last addressed to the man)

MAN: No problem, I'm just here to take a blood sample. Dotty, could you roll that sleeve up for me?

RFH: (Complies while engaging man in a lengthy conversation about her youth in Argentina, spec. Buenos Aires, her education at a French convent, her subsequent marriage and move to the US, her membership in the local Democratic Party, et cetera ad infinitum ad nauseam, winding up with her own declamation about what an interesting person she is)

TPC: Oh, Christ. (semi-audible groan, combined of parts physical pain and parts guilt about being not-very-nice to an apparently impaired and elderly woman - also parts sheer crabbiness from meds and lack of sleep)

Man leaves, silence reigns, TPC passes out, only to be wakened by TWO screaming nurses.

NursieChorus: WHAT have you DONE? Oh, my GAWD! What has she done? What happened to you? Who did this to you?

TPC: (Abandoning all further thoughts of sleep) WTFFFFFF??

NursieChorus: Oh, my GAWD. Can you believe this? What are you doing, Dotty? Who did this to you?

TPC: (Wonders WTF is going on but daren't ask. Not in the mood for further gabbling details of woman found dead in her bed or whatever. Hears, with relief, the dulcet tones of ...

RFH: Well, a man came up here, he said he was from the fire department, and he wanted a blood sample, so I gave him some blood ...

NursieChorus: WTF??? Dotty, there are no firemen here.

Apparently, the man was actually a hospital employee who had been sent to get a blood sample, which Dotty generously provided. While in the same generous mood, she apparently decided to provide a poop sample, too. Apparently, the man then fled. Dotty, discovering that her fit of generosity had, so to speak, spilled over onto her dressing gown, took it off. We leave the audience to imagine the result.

Dotty spent the next X hours until surgery railing at me for failing to get her wheelchair, find her dressing gown, find her coat, dress her, and take her upstairs for surgery. She punctuated the raillery with a hearty breakfast, complaining all the while that she was STARVED, yes, simply STARVED, and a person couldn't get a thing to eat around here.

Over the next two days, she somehow managed to persuade a really sweet gay man to wash her disgusting pooped-on dressing gown and insisted to anyone who would listen that I had stolen her lamb-lined floor-length leather coat. In between, she hissed the following repeatedly through the curtains that separated us.

RFH: You think this is funny, don't you?

TPC: Oh, jeez, wouldja leave me the fuck alone?

RFH: I can hear you laughing over there. You took my coat, it cost a thousand dollars! And my Democratic Party keychain, and my watch, and my bracelet. You think I don't know. But I do. I know you took them. And now the two of you are standing there behind the curtain, laughing and staring at me.

TPC: Goddammit, where's my book?

RFH: Why won't you take me upstairs? I need to go to physical therapy!

TPC: Look, I've told you before, I'm a patient just like you. I've just had surgery. I can't walk. I sure as hell can't take you anywhere. Now please, leave me alone!

RFH: You're just angry because I'm using logic on you.

TPC: WTF x n???

RFH: Why don't you just come over here and help me get upstairs?

TPC: Lady? I can't walk. But if I could? I wouldn't be pushing you upstairs, I'd push you through that fucking window. It's a three-storey drop. Now leave me the fuck alone, goddammit.

I don't think I slept more than two hours at a stretch the entire time I was saddled with Dotty. And how glad I was to get out of there, you'll never know. I was definitely ready to kill someone by the time I made good my escape.

Poor thing, it really wasn't her fault, though. Her surgeon had her on a pretty toxic combination of drugs and a psychiatrist or geriatrician should have been monitoring her. I think she was suffering temporary psychosis. Ah, whatever, lookit, I'm still feeling sorry for the bitch, and after she deprived me of sleep during the worst hours of my life, at that.

Part I of the saga here.

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2008 Elections: Something You Can Do

As you probably already know, Senator Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, recently fell and broke her hip. She is home now, but her condition appears to be worrisome. Senator Obama has canceled political events this week to fly home and be with his "Toot," (diminutive of Tutu, Hawai'ian for "grandmother"). She is currently being cared for by Senator Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng.

Mrs. Dunham has followed the elections with interest, even going so far as to have a corneal transplant performed earlier this year so she could watch television coverage of her beloved grandson's campaign. Her birthday is on 26th October (this Sunday), and if you want to send her a "Get Well" card or a birthday card, or a simple note of thanks for having raised the Senator to be the fine human being that he is, you can do so simply by addressing your card or note to:


Mrs. Madelyn Dunham
In care of: Obama for America
Honolulu Headquarters
1050 Ala Moana Blvd.
Suite D2590
Honolulu, HI 96814

Thank you, Mrs. Dunham, for instilling in your grandson those worthy values that have made him so important to so many people all over the world. We here at La Casa de Los Gatos sincerely hope you recover and get to see your grandson and great-granddaughters in the White House.

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2008 Elections: Wheels Flying Off

The Crooked Talk Express.

Story o'the morning: Raw Story tells us that Dan Abrams (unlike so many of the other Lickspittles of the Press Corpse) called attention to the rather sad condition of Jaws McAncient's bus recently (click the link to see the video clip).

Apparently, after promising no new taxes, McAncient announced that he was prepared to raise Social Security taxes, and "nothing is off the table." He seems to be channeling the current Wastrel-in-Office's father — remember old "read my lips" George Teh First?

Of course, his campaign spokesidiot, one Tucker Bounds (was your mama high on somethin' when she named ya?) has rushed to reassure the conservatives of America that just because John McCain said he was going to raise taxes doesn't mean that John McCain speaks for the campaign of John McCain. Or something confusing of that nature. It's kind of sad, really, when the campaign spokesman disavows the views of the campaigner on the grounds that he doesn't speak for the campaign. Really, who speaks for the campaign of John McCain, if not John McCain?

"He may be practical," responded Democratic analyst Tanya Acker, "but a straight talker he is not." She suggested it was time to be "done with this myth of the straight-talking maverick who says one thing and holds fast to it for 35 years. That's just not true."

"He's gotten in the habit of even denying that he said something the day after," Sekoff agreed.

Mark Halperin illustrates some of McAncient's remarkable yet unremarked flip-flopping in Time magazine.

The National Journal has also noticed that the "straight talk" isn't quite as straight as pictured.

Just last week McCain found himself pushing back against his own campaign when his communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, went on cable television twice in one day to criticize Barack Obama's overseas trip as "political."

[...]

"Well, I can only give you my opinion -- and I will talk to her -- but the fact is I'm glad that he's going to Iraq, and I'm glad that he's going to Afghanistan, and it's long, long overdue," McCain said.

Speaking to reporters just hours later in Grand Haven, Mich., McCain attempted to clarify his statements from the bus: "We just had a discussion about whether his trip was political or not -- to Afghanistan and Iraq. I offered to be with him. And I'll look forward to his conclusions when he finishes that part of his trip. If he has political rallies in other places, obviously then it's a political trip."

Meanwhile, the WaPoo, normally given to fawning adulation of McAncient and stern-toned queries or dismissals of Obama, finds the courage to smack the oldster upside the head with a dead fish for his blatant lies about his younger rival. The NYT (registration required) agrees. And Ben Smith, over at Politico, notes that McAncient and his Rovian myrmidons have backed off the false charges in that ad.

It's kind of sad, really. McCain used to be a quirky individual with a sharp wit (and sharper tongue, which was amusing as long as one was not the intended target). Once upon a time, he had the courage to call Jerry Falwell what he was, a hatemonger. Now it seems he can't tell his arse from a hole in the ground.

Ms. Manitoba has accused me of unrepentant ageism in my depiction of McCain. It's not his age, per se, that is drawing mockery. It's his incapacitation. He's showing the effects of old age (or perhaps something else, say PTSD, or Alzheimer's, or the many medications he ingests) despite being relatively young.

Bertrand Russell was physically and intellectually far superior in function to McCain well into his nineties. George Bernard Shaw was productive and active till a fall incurred by pruning a tree knocked his kidneys out and put him in his grave at the age of 94. Grandma Moses published her autobiography at the age of 92 after beginning a new career in her seventies.

McCain, on the other hand, suffers from lapses of memory, confusion, belligerence, changes his positions oftener than a weathervane, contradicts himself, claims he never said or did things when there are records of him saying and doing exactly such things — it's sad. If he really is suffering from some sort of mental disorder, it's cruel to let him swing in the public eye. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to find out that the Bushies have just left McCain to twist in the wind to take our attention away from whichever revolting unprincipled shmuck they plan to replace him with right before the elections. At which time, they'll put all the pressure they can on the poor old warhorse to step down.

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2008 Elections: More Entertainment!

Can John McAncient pass the Commander-in-Chief test?



Hey, anyone who confuses Sunni and Shi'a, accuses Iran of training al Qaeda, hires an "advisor" like Carly "outsourcing is rightsourcing!" Fiorina, tells Americans who don't have $100 million in their bank account (which would be, like, 99.5% of us) that our fears about the obviously faltering economy are entirely psychological, thinks Purim is the "Jewish version of Hallowe'en," voted against insurance coverage for birth control but FOR insurance coverage for viagra ... ah, why go on? Just watch and be entertained. Oh, yeah, and he thinks David Petraeus is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Scary!

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2008 Elections: A Question For Women

And the men who love and support them. Please watch this video clip first:



Do you agree with Senator McCain? Twice, he voted against measures that would have required insurance companies to cover birth control. Mind you, these same insurance companies cheerfully cover Viagra (sildenafil, also known as Mycoxafloppin), a drug known to have very dangerous side effects including death. So Senator McCaincient has no problem with giving old guys boners but a huge problem with giving women control over their pregnancies.

Interesting. In his own words:

"John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench."

More about McCaincient's blather and misogyny available here.

Finally: Is it just us, or was that lengthy pause on McCaincient's part reminiscent of a certain Dumbass McChimpitude on 9/11?

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2008 Elections: ColbertNation to Teh Rescue

Stephen Colbert is a very, very wicked and very, very funny man. See for yourself:



Note to McCain's staff: Please don't put him in front of a puke-green screen again. He looks ancient and ill. It's a barfalicious colour and provokes nausea among many viewers.

Also, what's with that blinking? According to this site, it might be symptomatic of any of these conditions:

* Nervous system disorder
* Parkinson's disease
* Stroke
* Anxiety

Which is it? Has he got Parkinson's? Has he had a stroke? Does he have something wrong with his CNS? Or is he suffering from anxiety because he's lying through his teeth?

Given that the man still has not released his medical records to the public, and has not released his psychiatric records at all to anyone, these are legitimate questions.

Members of the fourth estate, do your duty, instead of making yourselves the story. McCain MUST release his records TO THE PUBLIC, not just to handpicked operatives who are not permitted to take copies with them to doctors for further analysis. Three hours to examine nearly 1,200 pages of medical records is simply inadequate. Think about it: that's between six and seven pages per minute. You can't even read trashy fiction that fast.

You kids get off my lawn!

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2008 Elections: Telling The Truth

Was it just yesterday? Or the day before? That senile warmonger John McInsane had the big brass balls to tell Barack Obama he was going to instruct Obama about how peaceful Iraq was and how things are going so fucking well in Iraq? Let's see, here's a few pertinent spittle-fleckings:

[...] McCain added, he [Obama, Ed.] will change his position on the war because of the success the U.S. is having there. “Sen. Obama was driven to his conclusion by ideology, not by the facts on the ground,” McCain said. “Success in Iraq is undeniable.”

The Seattle Times responds with an editorial that basically informs McInsane of what everyone else with a working brain cell already knows: the aged, cranky, nasty old Republican nominee is fuller of shit than a constipated cow. A pertinent snippet:

McCain is having a jolly time pretending he is the only candidate with enough cachet and experience to lead the U.S. on military matters, even offering to squire Obama around Iraq.

McCain's posturing would be silly one-upmanship if the costs of the war in Iraq and at home were not so enormous and never-ending. McCain has the wrong position. He supports continued military involvement in Iraq. Obama, more credibly, vows to end the war and bring troops home.

Kudos to the editorial writer! More than two-thirds of the American electorate is utterly sick and tired of this bogus war. Bombing the helpless populace of a small country that has done nothing to us is nothing less than a war crime. A war crime that has, incidentally, destroyed our economy and is threatening the combined economy of the rest of the world.

Does anybody remember the last time McInsane went to Iraq? March of this year. Protected by about 100 Marines, in full body armour, with helicopter gunships overhead, McInsane was photographed (at taxpayers' expense, of course) strolling about in Baghdad, proclaiming it safe. The old geezer conveniently forgot to mention to anyone during his recent spittle-flecked rant that his army escort would not let him go to the Shorja market where he had his picture taken last year, because it was "too unsafe."

Of course, someone who can't tell Sunni from Shi'a and doesn't even know how many troops we have in Iraq is hardly the authority on the war. If only fate wasn't tempted to give the old man the smackdown every time he opens his mouth and switches feet. Pertinent snippet:

McCain's comments about Mosul being "quiet" have also been criticized. On the day he made them, 30 Iraqis were killed by suicide bombings in the Mosul area.

Meanwhile, the town of Hit, near Baghdad, didn't want to be left out of the rush to smear a little egg on the erstwhile candidate's face. A suicide bomber in that town, no doubt having read or heard McLame's comments, rushed off to glory, taking ten people with him and wounding 12 others.

McLame displayed his usual tin ear on the issue:

McCain, speaking to reporters in Milwaukee, refused to acknowledge a mistake, saying that "I said we have drawn down. And we have drawn down."

Gee, where have we heard that refusal to admit making a mistake before? Oh, yeah, the previous two terms of Gee Dumbya Pumpkinhead.

In an attempt to defend the senile warmonger, his advisers said the flap amounted to nothing more than "nitpicking" about "verb tenses."

"It is the essence of semantics," said a frustrated Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser, on a conference call organized by the campaign. "We're having this call about a verb tense."

Wow, they sure have learned their lessons well. They're borrowing from the arsenal of Karl Rove and Bill Clinton. Next they're going to tell us what the definition of "is" is. Good work, kids! No, let's rephrase that: Heckuva Job, Johnny!

In other convincing evidence of the peacefulness of Iraq, thousands of Iraqis turned out to protest the U.S. presence. Intelligence (a quality Mr. McInsane seems dreadfully short on) officials announced today that our progress in Iraq basically sucks wet monkey ass. The scheduled elections are already getting the Sunni mad at each other. Progress! Peace! Missing Limbs! Awakening Councils!

Is there anyone in Iraq that we haven't pissed off yet? Well, maybe McInsane's definition of "progress," "success," "drawdown," and so forth are not exactly the same as Merriam-Webster's or Oxford's OED, or, let's be honest, any fucking body else's.

Tell the truth, Mr. McCain. If you remember how that's defined any more, that is. And don't forget to tell all those American servicemen being blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan why you refuse to sign Jim Webb's GI Bill that would give them better benefits than the pile of steaming crap the Bush misadministration's been trying to feed them for the past X years.

Crossposted over at Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus

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2008 Elections: The Right Hand Knoweth Not

Whose pants the left hand is in. The Keystone Kops are running the military, folks. And with Gee Dumbya in charge, that's probably just one of the things they're running.


The NYT tells us that Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the nation approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue. Caveat: Login required, it's free. Pertinent snippet:

"the U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times. It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway."

"The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia," Mullen wrote.

Did anyone tell him that John McInsane, perennial try-hard for the position of Preznitwit, just released campaign ads with pitchas of General "IPlanToRunForPreznitwitSomeday" Petraeus?

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Another "stumble," Gramps?


Gee, Gramps, you refused to sign the GI Bill authored by Senator Jim Webb because you said soldiers wouldn't keep going back to get shot at if they had better access to education. But you're pretty darn willing to use them to raise a little money, huh? So much for "supporting the troops."

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Politics: McNasty

Readers of this blog know quite well that we swear like a longshoreman. That's just us, people. We try not to do it too much in real life around children, old folks, and the religiously observant, but we is wot we is and we talks how we talks.

We draw the line at using profanity in anger at our nearest and dearest. We might mutter under our breath a "Holy quacking duckshit, wouldja leave me alone, awreddy" or "Jeez, do we have to go through this again?" but we never call our dear friends &mdash or even our exasperating and saints'-patience-trying cats nasty names.

So when we read this morning that John McNasty, current senile, doddering Republican nominee for President, once addressed his wife thus:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

&mdash we were shocked. WHAT? You talk to your wife like that? The woman whose money has paid for your political career for decades now? Even if you don't owe love and kindness and respect to your life-partner, you sure as hell owe them if you're living off their money!

Calling your wife a cunt in public in front of strangers and minions is pretty damned low in our book. Responsible adults who are furious at each other over inappropriate comments or public putdowns or even jokes that hurt, don't go all ballistic on each other and start calling each other names and making vicious remarks. Trollop? You call your wife a trollop?


Sheesh. If we tried that on our partner, we'd be nursing a very bald head right quick.

The combination of extreme age, vicious temper, and lack of self-control are not exactly inspiring us with confidence right now. This man is aspiring to be president? Haven't we already had close to eight years of a nasty bully holding that job? We need a cool-headed reflective individual who neither "misspeaks" nor lies nor reacts inappropriately.

The book in which that, and many similar, incidents are detailed is titled The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter. It arrives in bookstores next month. Cliff blogs over at The Agonist. He says he wrote the book because:

"The public certainly has to know what this guy might do as president," Schecter says. Examples like the ones in his book "should worry people, quite frankly."

There actually was a time back in 1990 when we liked John McCain. We lost a lot of respect for him when he failed to protect his adopted daughter, Bridget, from the nasty smears of Karl Rove. Incidentally, where the hell is Bridget these days? Meghan McCain is all up in teh news alla time, but Bridget is invisible. Wonder why.


We lost more respect for the man when he publicly embraced all those people who had walked jackbooted over him and his family. We can't wait to read Cliff Schecter's book. This election is a pivotal point for the country, and we need to know as much about each candidate as we possibly can.

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Politics: No Excuse For Apathy

Photo credits Reuters

At the age of 89, Maimun Yusuf must be the oldest person ever to run for public office. Ms. Yusuf ran as an independent in the coastal state of Trengganu in peninsular Malaysia, and her determined stance has won her supporters to help with her campaign. Raw Story tells us:

Maimun Yusuf now has her own blog, and a page on the popular social networking website Facebook. Footage of her campaign has also been uploaded on the video sharing website Youtube.

Tok Mun, as she is affectionately known, attracted the support of members of Malaysia's diverse communities. Brian Ong, a former Yalie, helped her get online, while Gopi Munusamy and YK Sim have moved to Trengganu to help her get to the electorate. Before they started driving her around, Tok Mun was bicycling from village to village, appealing for votes.

"I am happy that these young men have come from far to help me. I hope that I will reach the young voters now that I'm online," said Maimun, who can hardly read or write.

Trengganu tends to be fairly conservative, and has unfortunately lined up with Kelantan behind the PAS, Parti Agama Islam se-Malaysia. While we don't like the retrograde mentality of the PAS, especially with regard to women's issues and religious orthodoxy, we do not think of the PAS as an "Islamist" party in the style of radical Islam so much as a bunch of ancient dodderers committed to their right to tell everybody else how to live their lives.

Tok Mun makes her living selling kain songket, traditional handwoven silk/cotton with gold brocade. It looks like this:


Traditionally, it is worn by both men and women, wrapped around the waist under a short fitted jacket.

Regrettably some PAS mental antique won the election instead. However, Tok Mun's candidacy impressed and touched so many that people have stepped up to pay her campaign debts. Check out her bilingual blog.

Tok Mun on her rusty old bicycle

If a nonagenarian can invest her life savings and schlep around dirt roads on her ancient rusty bicycle to make her country a better place, we have no excuse not to get involved.

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B.A.D. To The Bone

Healthcare Bill of Rights image from Project HealthCare

Around Blogtopia (y,Sctp!) this morning. Stopping to nibble here and there. We rediscover Brian's home on the Net (well, one of them. The fellow has many lairs).

Blogrolling appears to be down. Dammit. We spent most of the first week of February figuring out how to use the damn thing, and blogrolling everybody and their sister-in-law. We coulda just hand-hacked the HTML. Sheesh. We can't help but wonder, somewhat guiltily, if Blogroll Amnesty Day crashed Blogrolling?

All you people! We're working on adding you, it's just taking time.

Meanwhile, check out what today's Featured Blogger has to say.

Over at American Street (our new fave hangout since they gave Cosmic Christian Cosmetician Sister Nancy a guest spot), Comrade Kevin holds forth on health care policy and the likelihood of universal health care for all Americans. It's an impassioned and moving piece, and Comrade, we are pleased to have met you and even more pleased that you are saying what needs to be said.

Kevin Tongzhi, you speak for more of us than you know. Some of us are young, with chronic ongoing health problems, but the number of older people is large and growing. And anyone over forty years of age knows, a lot of health problems come with age. Cancer, for example. It's not a young person's disease, as a rule. You have to live long enough to get it. Adult-onset diabetes, stroke, heart disease, Alzheimer's, COPD, and that unavoidable scourge of even the fittest over-forty: arthritis. We won't even discuss how the joy of an athletic youth bears fruit in midlife with ACL injuries and missing cartilage, "replacement previously used" tendons, bursae at various stages of inflammation, and torn or frozen rotator cuffs. Oh, yes, and all the RSIs, most significantly carpal tunnel which is inevitable for computer users, among others.

We quote only the smallest snippet from this eminently readable article:

However, taxes will need to be raised. How much and on whom is a matter of debate. The fairest system would increase taxes directly proportional to income. Those living in poverty could not afford the increased tax load and would benefit from universal coverage the most. Not just because they are often the ones fleeced by greedy Big Pharma, but that with more money in their pockets, less bankruptcy and less poverty would result. These people would have more more at their disposal and no matter where they spend it, they would thrust more capital into the system and increase the economy. I’m not nearly naive enough to believe that people will best spend their money to benefit themselves. The money not spent on healthcare might be spent on cell phones, lottery tickets, or computer games systems but at least these people would be able to add money into the economy rather than draining it by contributing nothing at all.

I think taxation would then need to begin at a minimum income that would be adjusted for inflation periodically. Those who make more would ultimately be taxed more. That’s how we do it now to fund a variety of other social services. A Compromise that includes a Democratic tax raise in return for a promise of deregulation to appease Republicans is the best solution.

Yaknow, we'd love to see the corporations pay their fair share of the fucking tax bill. Ever since Snuffles McPigboy took power those bastards have kept their foot on our neck while siphoning off whatever squeezes out of our prone forms by way of dollars. It's time for this obscenity to stop.

Either that, or it's time to hang the lot of them from the nearest high structure.

OK, American Street is way bigger than we are, but the health care issue really burns our ass. We'll link to smaller blogs tomorrow, we swears!

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Health: Alzheimer's Reversal

PET scan of a human brain with Alzheimer's courtesy of NIH/National Institute On Aging

This is good news indeed, for those of us with aging parents, or, worse yet, those who are feeling the first touch of Alzheimer's. Nasty, nasty disease. And till now there has been no cure, or even treatment, really.

A new scientific study documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, according to the Journal of Neuroinflammation.

The study shows how a cytokine (soluble protein) known as tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF), which normally regulates transmission of neural impulses in the brain, interferes with regulation when it is present at elevated levels. The brains and cerebrospinal fluid of Alzheimer's patients show elevated levels of this cytokine.

Injection of an anti-TNF therapeutic called etanercept shows improvement within minutes. Etanercept (trade name Enbrel) binds and inactivates excess TNF. Etanercept is FDA approved to treat a number of immune-mediated disorders and is used off label in the study.

The study was authored by Edward Tobinick M.D., assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCLA and director of the Institute for Neurological Research, with coauthor Hyman Gross, M.D., clinical professor of neurology at USC.

The study is titled “Rapid cognitive improvement in Alzheimer’s disease following perispinal etanercept administration,” and is available with the accompanying commentary, entitled “Perispinal etanercept: Potential as an Alzheimer’s therapeutic,” on the Web site of the Journal of Neuroinflammation.

Let's hope it helps one of our favourite authors, Terry Pratchett.

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Back At Last!

It was a long visit home, and of course, I got sick going and coming. Unhealthy air in planes. Temperature changes. Long flight. Stress.

Nevertheless, it was necessary for reasons to do with the Aging Parental Units' health. Father has come completely unmoored in his 90s. Sometimes he speaks of things that happened 70 years ago as if they were in the present. In mid-sentence, he snaps back to the present, and then again to the past, as if nothing holds him anymore. Nothing to hold his mind, and the fine intelligence that he once bore.

Mother is as sharp as ever, to my great surprise. She's had multiple strokes, the most recent one the spur for this visit. Talking about the sale of her house (which occurred half a decade ago), she suddenly asks why I dealt with "that lawyer." "What lawyer?" I ask, mind only half on the conversation, and she named the lawyer, whose name, of course, I'd completely forgotten. The little electric jolt of recognition was followed briefly by a mental picture of the firm's letterhead and a round-faced woman I dealt with. How can a brain suffer so much trauma, yet thread its way around bits of data so unfailingly? She can no longer walk and can barely speak above a whisper, results of the past series of strokes. Yet her mind is perfectly clear, and she speaks about golfers (??) and the international monetary system with equal ease.

She's still as crazy as ever, despite her obvious high level of mental function. One of the more interesting conversations about politics turned suddenly into a tirade about a former neighbour and "her genies, who make holes in the wall and bit my foot off." No use pointing out that her foot was still there, quite visible and palpable.

In any event, it's all over and done with. And we had some very good food for our pains, which is all that really matters, innit? Shelter, clothing, and food are the basics, and if any (or all) of them be good, one can be quite happy.

And then there are kittens:



Iz mai bokss! No leaving.

Kittens are not one of the basics, but are essential for maintaining one's equanimity.

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Health - Male Fertility

Historically, it's always been the woman's fault if a couple tries, and fails, to have a child, or even a whole passel of children. The "curse of a barren womb" was, I think, the term of art. Of course, such a mindset completely ignored the many people who were only too happy not to have children, not to mention the many totally unfit parents we still have among us.

However, that was before reproduction was something other than the mindless satisfaction of a biological urge. Admittedly, there are still those who have no access to reproductive control, or choose not to use it. But we, as a species, are getting close to the time when every child is a wanted child. And if you have ever interacted with an unwanted child, you realize just what a blessing contraception is.

One thing that we are finding: Infertility is not necessarily the fault of the female partner in a heterosexual relationship. Another thing: All behaviours have reproductive consequences regardless of the gender of the person indulging in such behaviours.

Until fairly recently, it was assumed that women who planned to have children (and really, what woman didn't? Except, of course, for bitter old maids who hadn't found a man to love them, or had abnormal uterii or cerebra) had to be scrupulous about their behaviour for fear of finding their reproductive capabilities diminished.

Fucking around could lead to STDs, which could render a woman sterile. Smoking could lead to cot death. Abortion could leave her uterus inhospitable to the future sacred fetus. Alcohol could result in developmental disorders of the sprog. Yadda-yadda-yadda. You get the picture. Note: The link to Lifesite about the future sacred fetus is completely bogus and should not be perused unless you're looking for amusement.

Only now are we hearing about all the things that men can do to destroy or impair their fertility. For example, while cot death has undeniable links to pregnant smokers, exposure to cigarette smoke after after birth is even more dangerous. Sez Auntie Beeb:

He found that for every hour a newborn was exposed to tobacco smoke, the risk increased.

So even if the woman does not smoke, if her husband, partner, parents, flatmates, or even landlords smoke, the risk to the infant exists and grows by the hour after birth.

Alan S. Brown and Catherine A. Schaefer warn in Am.J.Psychiatry:

Researchers estimate that compared to a male fathering a child in his early 20's - there is double the chance of the child getting schizophrenia when the father is age 40, and triple the risk of schizophrenia when the father is age 50. (though, for most people this means the risk goes from approximately 1 in 121 when a man is 29, to to 1 in 47 when a man is age 50 to 54).

The Washington Post recently published an article claiming that paternal age was directly linked to incidence of autism.

With every decade of advancing age starting with men in their teens and twenties, the new study found, older fathers pose a growing risk to their children when it comes to autism -- unhappy evidence that the medical risks associated with late parenthood are not just the province of older mothers, as much previous research has suggested.

Of special concern is the finding that the risk for autism not only increases with paternal age but also appears to accelerate.

When fathers are in their thirties, children have about 1 1/2 times the risk of developing autism of children of fathers in their teens and twenties. Compared with the offspring of the youngest fathers, children of fathers in their forties have more than five times the risk of developing autism, and children of fathers in their fifties have more than nine times the risk.

Diabetes can reduce a man's fertility. Hot baths or hot tubs can impair sperm counts. Keep your laptop away from your goonies or risk childlessness. No more tight underwear or swimwear, you might damage the Sacred Sperm. And forget that tropical holiday interspersed with rolling in the hay as a babymaking aid.

While I can't help feeling annoyed by the increased nannyism in favour of the Sacred Sprog, it might help men to develop an inkling of the tremendous invasiveness society feels entitled to practise upon women in their reproductive years. Pretty soon, we'll have a professional breeder class who will not be permitted to drink, smoke, do drugs, holiday in the sun, wear tight clothing, or attempt trophy offspring at advanced ages for their ego-gratification.

I say, freeze the repro bits and go out and sow your wild oats. Then when you're good and ready, and if we haven't all killed each other and the earth off yet, you can settle down to reproduce at leisure.

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Politics - You Lose Money When Cheated

AKA, Department of The Obvious. Was there anybody on the planet (with the exception of the Big Pharma dudes, of course) who didn't hear "Medicare Plan D will not negotiate discounts," who didn't think, "Aha! Shrubby's cronies rip us off again!"

Anyone? Because, guess what, children? They ripped us off again! Yes! To the tune of $15 billion. Fifteen billion dollars of our money went straight from the treasury into the pockets of the drug companies so that Boy George could tell us we can't afford to keep more sick children healthy and covered by insurance for, oh, three years, yeah, that's right. Five billion a year for SCHIP, covering an additional 2-5 million children - can't afford it because, let's see, we already spent over $200 billion on Teh War That Nobody (Except Georgie And Congress) Supports, plus there was that $15 billion we dropped on Grammy's meds 'cause Your Gubmint didn't think Grammy should bargain for discounts.

The Medicare prescription drug benefits offered by private insurers operate with "high administrative costs, sales expenses and profits," the report said.

Staff for Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by California Rep. Henry Waxman, based their conclusions on proprietary cost and pricing data obtained from 12 insurers that provide drug coverage to more than 18 million Medicare patients.

"The cost and pricing data obtained by the committee reveal that use of private insurers to deliver Medicare drug coverage is driving up costs and producing only limited savings on drug prices," the report said.

I am so fucking furious about this, it's a good thing I am not going out into the world today. Or I'd rip someone's head off for looking at me wrong.

How much more of this lying, weaseling, cheating shit has to come out before we kick these thieves and thugs out of office? Instead, the rabid dogs of the right (wrong!) wing are baying for the blood of the Frost family who have two children with brain damage as the result of an accident and who bravely spoke out for the SCHIP program.

Will these same dogs start baying about how our own government refused to let Medicare negotiate for discounts on medication? I doubt it, somehow.

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Health - Memory Loss

As we get older, we notice our mental functioning changes. It seems harder to commit friends' names, addresses, phone numbers, and other small details to memory, and harder to retrieve information that was committed, on demand. Other changes include a "reset to zero" of memory at any time and as a result of any stimulus. For example, you might walk into a room with a specific intent, to retrieve a book or locate an object, but once there, and faced with some other stimulus (like a bookshelf needing dusting, or papers to put in the recycling bin), and the memory resets to zero so that you no longer remember what your purpose was in entering the room.

Sometimes this can take on ridiculous overtones, as when one enters a room, engages in a task unrelated to the original purpose of entering the room, leaves the room for some other location, thinking "I'm sure I forgot something," and upon entering the other location, remembers, "Oh, yeah, I went to the bedroom to get the new shirt," returns to the room, and promptly forgets once again why one is there. Repeat two or three times, and your frustration level is right over the top.

What can you do to prevent this type of mental dysfunction, short of having a new brain installed?

Several things that are good for you generally are also good in preserving memory, or at least slowing memory loss:

• Exercise
Moderate daily exercise, meaning 20-30 minutes at least three times a week if not every single day, of walking, swimming, aerobics, or anything else that gets your body and blood and other associated fluids moving, is good for your mind and brain.
• Diet
A diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables, and fiber from whole grains and legumes, and low in nutrition-free calories and saturated fats, will keep your body and your mind in good shape.

A diet high in saturated fats and nutrition-free calories (sugar, soda, candy, fast-food) is undeniably linked with hypertension and diabetes. These conditions are linked to memory problems. Also, the higher your blood pressure, the greater your likelihood of a stroke, which can permanently and irreversibly impair mental function.


• Monounsaturated fats
Fats like olive oil have an important protective benefit for the brain.
• Antioxidants
in the diet also help the aging brain.
• Nutritional supplements
are also necessary after a certain age. Of these, the most important for memory function are Vitamins B6 and B12.

You might be taking a B-complex daily, and consider that sufficient. However, recent studies are showing that the older you are, the more difficulty you have absorbing Vitamin B12, which plays a crucial role in memory and nerve function.

Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) deficiency is common among people over age 65. A study of healthy men, aged 70 to 79 years, showed that supplementation with pyridoxine for 3 months improved memory performance, especially long-term memory (unable to find a cite at present). However, deficiency of this important vitamin may begin much earlier, especially if your gastric system is not in good working order. You should not take more than 2 mg of Vitamin B6 per day unless under the supervision of a physician. However, you should inform your physician of all nutritional supplements you take, and the amounts, including the nutritional value of your diet.

Vitamin B12 can improve cognitive function in elderly people who have been diagnosed with a B12 deficiency. Cognitive impairment is an important manifestation of vitamin B12 deficiency. Cognitive decline due to low levels of vitamin B12 is a greater problem in elderly individuals since cobalamin deficiency increases with advancing age. Supplementation with vitamin B12 showed improvements in cognitive function among elderly people with vitamin B12 deficiency and cognitive decline, even in people without obvious signs of B12 deficiency.

I take a high dose of B12 combined with the RDA for B6 in a no-shot pill that dissolves on the tongue.


• Other nutrients (nutraceuticals?) shown to improve memory:
  • Lecithin;
  • zinc;
  • iron;
  • ginseng.

Fish oil, preferably derived from fatty fish like sardines, salmon, mackerel, etc., in their natural state, is also excellent for the heart and brain. I'm a little leery of fish oil capsules which make you burp fish for hours and are much likelier to go rancid when not associated with a fresh, fresh filet of fish.

The latest issue of Science News has an article on the beneficial effects of turmeric, which is the spice that gives the yellow colour to curry powder. I haven't read the study, but the spousal equivalent assures me that it was tested in curry powder form, and prevents the buildup of plaque in the brain. I don't use commercial curry powder ever since I learned to make my own, but I will investigate further. I highly recommend the use of turmeric, which has many health benefits (that I will research and cite in due time). It is used to impart a golden colour and a slightly astringent flavour to foods.

Use it sparingly on any animal product - fish, eggs, meat - or in vegetables. I will post recipes in due time.

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Workers' Rights - Encouraging News

Image courtesy of Experience Works

For all those older workers feeling kinda blue about their prospects in a brave new world. A recent study by Towers Perrin conducted for AARP indicates that employers need to work to keep older workers or face a skills gap.

by 2016, 39 percent of the population in the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations will be aged 50 or more compared with 30 percent in 1996.

At the same time, the percentage of the labor force that falls in the traditional working age -- 15-49 years -- will have fallen from 51 percent in 1996 to 45 percent in 2016, the study predicted.

"Many analysts are predicting growing labor shortages in tomorrow’s workforce," the study warned.

Music to my ears. I'll be working till I'm 90, I'm sure.

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Health Care: We Will Get Old - if we're lucky

Aging ... if we're lucky we age. If we're lucky, we get to pass through all the different ages ... 5 years old ... 13 ... 21 .... 35 years old ... 40 .... 55 ... 62 (maybe retirement) ... 76 ... if we're lucky. And if we're supremely lucky, we'll age with good health care.

There's a really good article about all this in the April 30, 2007 edition of The New Yorker. The article is "The Way We Age Now" by Atul Gawande. Here's an excerpt:

Several years ago, researchers in St. Paul, Minnesota, identified five hundred and sixty-eight men and women over the age of seventy who were living independently but were at high risk of becoming disabled because of chronic health problems, recent illness, or cognitive changes. With their permission, the researchers randomly assigned half of them to see a team of geriatric specialists. The others were asked to see their usual physician, who was notified of their high-risk status. Within eighteen months, ten per cent of the patients in both groups had died. But the patients who had seen a geriatrics team were a third less likely to become disabled and half as likely to develop depression. They were forty per cent less likely to require home health services.

Little of what the geriatricians had done was high-tech medicine: they didn’t do lung biopsies or back surgery or PET scans. Instead, they simplified medications. They saw that arthritis was controlled. They made sure toenails were trimmed and meals were square. They looked for worrisome signs of isolation and had a social worker check that the patient’s home was safe.

How do we reward this kind of work? Chad Boult, who was the lead investigator of the St. Paul study and a geriatrician at the University of Minnesota, can tell you. A few months after he published his study, demonstrating how much better people’s lives were with specialized geriatric care, the university closed the division of geriatrics.

“The university said that it simply could not sustain the financial losses,” Boult said from Baltimore, where he is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. On average, in Boult’s study, the geriatric services cost the hospital $1,350 more per person than the savings they produced, and Medicare, the insurer for the elderly, does not cover that cost. It’s a strange double standard. No one insists that a twenty-five-thousand-dollar pacemaker or a coronary-artery stent save money for insurers. It just has to maybe do people some good. Meanwhile, the twenty-plus members of the proven geriatrics team at the University of Minnesota had to find new jobs. Scores of medical centers across the country have shrunk or closed their geriatrics units. Several of Boult’s colleagues no longer advertise their geriatric training for fear that they’ll get too many elderly patients. “Economically, it has become too difficult,” Boult said.

But the finances are only a symptom of a deeper reality: people have not insisted on a change in priorities. We all like new medical gizmos and demand that policymakers make sure they are paid for. They feed our hope that the troubles of the body can be fixed for good. But geriatricians? Who clamors for geriatricians? What geriatricians do—bolster our resilience in old age, our capacity to weather what comes—is both difficult and unappealingly limited. It requires attention to the body and its alterations. It requires vigilance over nutrition, medications, and living situations. And it requires each of us to contemplate the course of our decline, in order to make the small changes that can reshape it. When the prevailing fantasy is that we can be ageless, the geriatrician’s uncomfortable demand is that we accept we are not.

Time to join the Grey Panthers, methinks.

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