Okay, as if the crustacean crime wave weren’t enough to lighten the dog days, here’s Nora, the piano-playing feline. & there’s an encore performance as well.
I dare you to watch either without cracking up.
What I don’t understand is how Nora’s humans managed to make the video without gales of laughter in the background.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Crustacean crime
So, the WSJ reports that crayfish rustlin’ is big business across many states (& Oz), both farmed & in the wild.
Now, this is interesting because it’s kind of unexpected to those of us who only encounter crayfish in a bouillabaisse along with a rather nouveau Beaujolais. I mean—I didn’t even know crawdads were big business, much less major crime. (I also wonder where you fence hot mudbugs?)
But the interestingness doesn’t stop with Astacidae. Drift on down the story & see where, “Maine lobstermen and Alaska crabbers have been said to shoot at people who pull up their pots. In June, a San Diego Superior Court judge handed down a 90-day jail sentence to a man who was found smuggling contraband lobsters in his pants.”
Well, damn—now, that’s what I call a crime story.
Seems that, just before lobster season commenced last October, Binh Quang Chau, 33, was apprehended by San Diego Fish & Wildlife wardens with six lobsters stuffed down his pants. Chau, a serial poacher, caught the wardens’ attention when they spotted “odd bulges” in his trousers.
(Obviously, Chau wasn’t wearing the skintight jeans you see around West Hollywood, where you can see whether the wearer has a penny or a dime in his back pocket.)
I was somewhat relieved to find that the critters were wrapped individually in newspaper before filling his pants. (Hey—keep that in mind when you’re reading your news online: if you ever want to smuggle contraband crustaceans in your attire, you can’t do that with electrons.) Even so, I wonder if PETA is getting on his ass—that has to be lobster abuse.
Chau got 90 days in the clink—this wasn’t his first offense, after all. & the story goes on to recount lobster thievery on a grand scale--& that’s just in La Jolla.
Well, this story reminded me of something I’d seen in one of those emails some time ago—a pet shop thief trying to hide stolen snakes in his (you guessed it) trousers. So I went on a Bing & found one story about a guy making off with a python crammed into his jeans from a Florida pet shop.
But pants-related purloining is not limited to the Serpentes suborder of Reptilia, or even to the male of the homo sapiens crowd:
A suburban Houston pet shop caught a thief on surveillance video jamming a tortoise in the pocket of his jeans & absconding.
& then there’s the woman who went into a Lansing, Mich., pet shop, cased the joint & then stuffed a young boa constrictor down her trousers.
& that’s only the first page of the search results.
I guess desperate times do call for desperate measures. & baggy trousers.
Now, this is interesting because it’s kind of unexpected to those of us who only encounter crayfish in a bouillabaisse along with a rather nouveau Beaujolais. I mean—I didn’t even know crawdads were big business, much less major crime. (I also wonder where you fence hot mudbugs?)
But the interestingness doesn’t stop with Astacidae. Drift on down the story & see where, “Maine lobstermen and Alaska crabbers have been said to shoot at people who pull up their pots. In June, a San Diego Superior Court judge handed down a 90-day jail sentence to a man who was found smuggling contraband lobsters in his pants.”
Well, damn—now, that’s what I call a crime story.
Seems that, just before lobster season commenced last October, Binh Quang Chau, 33, was apprehended by San Diego Fish & Wildlife wardens with six lobsters stuffed down his pants. Chau, a serial poacher, caught the wardens’ attention when they spotted “odd bulges” in his trousers.
(Obviously, Chau wasn’t wearing the skintight jeans you see around West Hollywood, where you can see whether the wearer has a penny or a dime in his back pocket.)
I was somewhat relieved to find that the critters were wrapped individually in newspaper before filling his pants. (Hey—keep that in mind when you’re reading your news online: if you ever want to smuggle contraband crustaceans in your attire, you can’t do that with electrons.) Even so, I wonder if PETA is getting on his ass—that has to be lobster abuse.
Chau got 90 days in the clink—this wasn’t his first offense, after all. & the story goes on to recount lobster thievery on a grand scale--& that’s just in La Jolla.
Well, this story reminded me of something I’d seen in one of those emails some time ago—a pet shop thief trying to hide stolen snakes in his (you guessed it) trousers. So I went on a Bing & found one story about a guy making off with a python crammed into his jeans from a Florida pet shop.
But pants-related purloining is not limited to the Serpentes suborder of Reptilia, or even to the male of the homo sapiens crowd:
A suburban Houston pet shop caught a thief on surveillance video jamming a tortoise in the pocket of his jeans & absconding.
& then there’s the woman who went into a Lansing, Mich., pet shop, cased the joint & then stuffed a young boa constrictor down her trousers.
& that’s only the first page of the search results.
I guess desperate times do call for desperate measures. & baggy trousers.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Healthcare state
Ah, let me add to the gaseous mass swirling the blogosphere regarding the UK as a model for healthcare. The BBC has skimmed some of the lib-con rhetoric & mounted an extremely understated defense of the Nation Health Service (NHS).
The cons are spitting foam, fulminating in overdrive that Obama’s proposed “public option” will be exactly like the NHS, & therefore we’re all doomed. Q.E.D.
What’s really interesting is their use of a “fact”—if Stephen Hawking lived in the UK, he’d long since be pushing up daffodils because the NHS wouldn’t have budged to keep even his brilliant ass alive—a fact, I point out, that is patently & easily proven completely false. Hawking is a British subject, lived all his life there, presumably with the help of the care provided by the NHS. Although of course, being an international celeb & having appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, he presumably is covered by private insurance, & thus able to tap into specialists without having to wait in the NHS queue.
(Now, the Beeb cites the Guardian & the Telegraph as quoting Hawking that he “wouldn’t be here if it were not for the NHS”. But that doesn’t mean the NHS has provided all Hawking’s care throughout his lifetime. & the quote doesn't mention the private option.)
The libs of course are having a field day shooting down the cons’ fallacious warheads, which, frankly, the cons are making really easy targets. Still even if the missiles aren’t armed that doesn't mean they don’t cause damage. The hordes of polyester-clad citizens storming Congressional healthcare town halls ranting about Obama’s death panels because they heard about them on Fox is proof that a rallying point doesn’t have to be true to be effective.
(Think back to Hitler’s “stab-in-the-back-by-the-November-criminals”. Whacking great porky pie, but irrefutably successful.)
So let me weigh in, since I happen to know something about the NHS. It was a revolutionary idea back in the 1940s: make healthcare available to the entire population on an equal basis, regardless of income or class. (Keep in mind that in both world wars Britain had a bit of a problem finding cannon fodder hale enough to schlep a Sten gun in rough terrain, so there was a geopolitical as well as social underpinning to the program.)
&, back in the 40s, it was probably state-of-the-art medical care.
But when I came upon it in the late 1990s it was pretty rickety. The coverage for various procedures varies by council area (what the Brits call “postal code healthcare”), so that if you live in one area you’re not covered for fertility treatments (or there’s a long queue waiting for treatments) but if you live in another you’re in like Flynn.
You’re assigned a doctor (a General Practitioner) according to the practitioner’s catchment area. & when you move, you’re expected to get treatment from the practice serving your new location. When I moved from Maidenhead to London, but Maidenhead was still more convenient because it was near my office, the entire system practically ground to a halt because I refused to have to break in a new GP.
If your GP orders routine blood work, you have to make an appointment for another visit—either in that same practice or in some other location because they’re not equipped for it. (When was the last time you visited your primary care doc & couldn’t get blood sucked out of you by one of the nurses or a lab tech?)
When I told my GP that it had been about a year since my last mammogram, so I wanted to schedule one, she looked quite puzzled. Why would I want that? Because it’s been a year since my last one. But here we do it once every three years for cost reasons; because (wait for it) only one in ten women is at risk.
Uh, that’s a double-digit percentage & there would be riots in the streets here if peri-menopausal women were told that their doctor thought it okay to spin the wheel with their chances of getting breast cancer.
I also recall news stories (in the broadsheets, not the tabloids) comparing the NHS unfavorably to healthcare in Europe. There was one example of two women, one in Britain & one in France, both with dodgy mammograms. The next day the Frenchwoman was in hospital getting a biopsy; the Brit waited a couple of months to see a specialist & some more time to get the biopsy.
There was another story that really imprinted on my mind: this one guy with heart trouble. He was on the NHS waiting list for some procedure (might have been bypass, or stent—at this distance I can’t recall), but died before his turn came. Here’s the kicker: his relatives intoned, “Well, he had the money to go private [get non-NHS care], but it was a matter of principle with him. He was entitled to NHS service so that's what he was going to get.”
I don’t have any answers to the broken system we have here—God knows I’ve rolled the dice going without insurance in the past, hoping I would just stay healthy; I know what a harrowing feeling that is, like continually walking a tightrope. & I’ve had “coverage” by Anthem, the worst insurance company you can pay premiums to.
But regardless of whether the NHS kept Stephen Hawking alive, I wouldn’t have the NHS on a platter. So it’s a good thing it is not what Obama is proposing.
The cons are spitting foam, fulminating in overdrive that Obama’s proposed “public option” will be exactly like the NHS, & therefore we’re all doomed. Q.E.D.
What’s really interesting is their use of a “fact”—if Stephen Hawking lived in the UK, he’d long since be pushing up daffodils because the NHS wouldn’t have budged to keep even his brilliant ass alive—a fact, I point out, that is patently & easily proven completely false. Hawking is a British subject, lived all his life there, presumably with the help of the care provided by the NHS. Although of course, being an international celeb & having appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, he presumably is covered by private insurance, & thus able to tap into specialists without having to wait in the NHS queue.
(Now, the Beeb cites the Guardian & the Telegraph as quoting Hawking that he “wouldn’t be here if it were not for the NHS”. But that doesn’t mean the NHS has provided all Hawking’s care throughout his lifetime. & the quote doesn't mention the private option.)
The libs of course are having a field day shooting down the cons’ fallacious warheads, which, frankly, the cons are making really easy targets. Still even if the missiles aren’t armed that doesn't mean they don’t cause damage. The hordes of polyester-clad citizens storming Congressional healthcare town halls ranting about Obama’s death panels because they heard about them on Fox is proof that a rallying point doesn’t have to be true to be effective.
(Think back to Hitler’s “stab-in-the-back-by-the-November-criminals”. Whacking great porky pie, but irrefutably successful.)
So let me weigh in, since I happen to know something about the NHS. It was a revolutionary idea back in the 1940s: make healthcare available to the entire population on an equal basis, regardless of income or class. (Keep in mind that in both world wars Britain had a bit of a problem finding cannon fodder hale enough to schlep a Sten gun in rough terrain, so there was a geopolitical as well as social underpinning to the program.)
&, back in the 40s, it was probably state-of-the-art medical care.
But when I came upon it in the late 1990s it was pretty rickety. The coverage for various procedures varies by council area (what the Brits call “postal code healthcare”), so that if you live in one area you’re not covered for fertility treatments (or there’s a long queue waiting for treatments) but if you live in another you’re in like Flynn.
You’re assigned a doctor (a General Practitioner) according to the practitioner’s catchment area. & when you move, you’re expected to get treatment from the practice serving your new location. When I moved from Maidenhead to London, but Maidenhead was still more convenient because it was near my office, the entire system practically ground to a halt because I refused to have to break in a new GP.
If your GP orders routine blood work, you have to make an appointment for another visit—either in that same practice or in some other location because they’re not equipped for it. (When was the last time you visited your primary care doc & couldn’t get blood sucked out of you by one of the nurses or a lab tech?)
When I told my GP that it had been about a year since my last mammogram, so I wanted to schedule one, she looked quite puzzled. Why would I want that? Because it’s been a year since my last one. But here we do it once every three years for cost reasons; because (wait for it) only one in ten women is at risk.
Uh, that’s a double-digit percentage & there would be riots in the streets here if peri-menopausal women were told that their doctor thought it okay to spin the wheel with their chances of getting breast cancer.
I also recall news stories (in the broadsheets, not the tabloids) comparing the NHS unfavorably to healthcare in Europe. There was one example of two women, one in Britain & one in France, both with dodgy mammograms. The next day the Frenchwoman was in hospital getting a biopsy; the Brit waited a couple of months to see a specialist & some more time to get the biopsy.
There was another story that really imprinted on my mind: this one guy with heart trouble. He was on the NHS waiting list for some procedure (might have been bypass, or stent—at this distance I can’t recall), but died before his turn came. Here’s the kicker: his relatives intoned, “Well, he had the money to go private [get non-NHS care], but it was a matter of principle with him. He was entitled to NHS service so that's what he was going to get.”
I don’t have any answers to the broken system we have here—God knows I’ve rolled the dice going without insurance in the past, hoping I would just stay healthy; I know what a harrowing feeling that is, like continually walking a tightrope. & I’ve had “coverage” by Anthem, the worst insurance company you can pay premiums to.
But regardless of whether the NHS kept Stephen Hawking alive, I wouldn’t have the NHS on a platter. So it’s a good thing it is not what Obama is proposing.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Women in cammies, part II
Following up on yesterday’s post, here’s more from the NY Times on military women on the frontlines in Iraq.
It’s interesting to me (having suffered through 20 years of narrow-minded arguments why women shouldn’t 1)serve in the military at all or 2)fill combat roles) how pragmatic all the systems are when it comes down to it.
Accommodations for privacy and some semblance of safety turn out not to shatter a fighting force from within. Sex goes on yet women aren’t getting knocked up and leaving in droves. Supply officers order devices from REI to allow women to pee on the run (figuratively speaking).
And nowhere in the three pages of this story is there mention that PMS factors into any activity, from command decisions to operating the turret gun on a Humvee.
Back when the Navy was first bruiting about the idea of assigning women to sea duty, I well recall the reaction from Navy wives around Norfolk was embarrassing: you can’t have women with men on ships! The mixed sexes will have, you know, sex, and it’ll be the female sailors’ fault! (No notion that their husbands might be expected to keep it, you know, zipped.)
But it turns out that, while there has been fraternization, the women are there (and in Afghanistan and Iraq and at other duty stations) to do a job.
Just imagine!
It’s interesting to me (having suffered through 20 years of narrow-minded arguments why women shouldn’t 1)serve in the military at all or 2)fill combat roles) how pragmatic all the systems are when it comes down to it.
Accommodations for privacy and some semblance of safety turn out not to shatter a fighting force from within. Sex goes on yet women aren’t getting knocked up and leaving in droves. Supply officers order devices from REI to allow women to pee on the run (figuratively speaking).
And nowhere in the three pages of this story is there mention that PMS factors into any activity, from command decisions to operating the turret gun on a Humvee.
Back when the Navy was first bruiting about the idea of assigning women to sea duty, I well recall the reaction from Navy wives around Norfolk was embarrassing: you can’t have women with men on ships! The mixed sexes will have, you know, sex, and it’ll be the female sailors’ fault! (No notion that their husbands might be expected to keep it, you know, zipped.)
But it turns out that, while there has been fraternization, the women are there (and in Afghanistan and Iraq and at other duty stations) to do a job.
Just imagine!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Women in cammies
The NY Times reports that the exigencies of a six-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in the increasing deployment of women in combat.
This etches cracks in one of the biggest taboos in the country. Both the military and Congress have clung to the double standard that not only demeans women and reinforces the idea that they’re incapable of fulfilling all the obligations of citizenship (therefore relegating them to permanent second-classdom); it prevents the armed forces from tapping into the broader resources of the nation.
Of course, the Navy integrated women into combat missions in 1993. Today women are among the senior pilots of F-14s, the quintessential symbol of machismo on screen and off, and they serve on all manner of ships—including (now) submarines.
But the land and air forces have held back. Although they’ve put women in combat support roles, the distinction being that you go in harm’s way but just aren’t equipped to defend yourself.
Even now, the Army and Marine Corps are using semantics to disguise the fact that they’re sending women to perform combat duties. That’s to spare the sensibilities of Congress, who would much rather rail about protectin’ American womanhood 8000 miles away than providing them with comprehensive and affordable healthcare here.
So it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
This etches cracks in one of the biggest taboos in the country. Both the military and Congress have clung to the double standard that not only demeans women and reinforces the idea that they’re incapable of fulfilling all the obligations of citizenship (therefore relegating them to permanent second-classdom); it prevents the armed forces from tapping into the broader resources of the nation.
Of course, the Navy integrated women into combat missions in 1993. Today women are among the senior pilots of F-14s, the quintessential symbol of machismo on screen and off, and they serve on all manner of ships—including (now) submarines.
But the land and air forces have held back. Although they’ve put women in combat support roles, the distinction being that you go in harm’s way but just aren’t equipped to defend yourself.
Even now, the Army and Marine Corps are using semantics to disguise the fact that they’re sending women to perform combat duties. That’s to spare the sensibilities of Congress, who would much rather rail about protectin’ American womanhood 8000 miles away than providing them with comprehensive and affordable healthcare here.
So it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Powerpointless
It’s a cheap shot, I know, but it rather warms my soul to read this story in the WSJ about the high crimes & misdemeanors associated with PowerPoint.
It’s not a completely one-sided rant, because—after all—PPT basically a neutral tool for communication; it’s what you do with it that’s evil. PPT doesn’t kill people; people kill people.
Really, it is rather like having a Glock with a chambered round holstered under your Armani jacket: you’re standing up with the remote control & your 56 slides (the electronic equivalent of Arlo’s eight-by-ten-color-glossy-photos-with-circles-&-arrows-&-a-paragraph-on-the-back-of-each-one-explaining-what-each-one-is), reading every bullet point & then flogging it thoroughly into the ground before moving on. & the entire room has to do your bidding.
(I’m convinced this is partly responsible for people bringing their laptops & smartphones to meetings & tap-tap-tapping throughout the hour, occasionally raising their heads to bark, “I missed that last—what were you saying?”)
Web 2.0 & all-round guru Guy Kawasaki has a mantra governing PPT: 10/20/30. No more than ten slides; no more than 20 minutes; no smaller than 30-point font (meaning: no more than four bullet points per slide). Would that more business people learned from the master on this.
(Years ago I was told that a PPT presentation should be only the framework of what you’re going to talk about. If someone can pick up the preso & grasp your entire case without hearing your spiel, you’re doing it wrong. Most of the world is doing it wrong.)
In my own company, it’s infinitely worse: we use PPT for what should in all sanity be painstakingly built in documents: the one that just eats my lunch is the business plan. Our business plans are 98 slides long minimum. (What this also means is that management doesn’t have to read the biz plan; it’s presented to them in ephemeral form & they can pronounce judgment by shooting from the hip, not via thoughtful analysis.)
Well, really, it doesn’t matter what any of us says; PPT has taken over & resistance is futile.
It’s not a completely one-sided rant, because—after all—PPT basically a neutral tool for communication; it’s what you do with it that’s evil. PPT doesn’t kill people; people kill people.
Really, it is rather like having a Glock with a chambered round holstered under your Armani jacket: you’re standing up with the remote control & your 56 slides (the electronic equivalent of Arlo’s eight-by-ten-color-glossy-photos-with-circles-&-arrows-&-a-paragraph-on-the-back-of-each-one-explaining-what-each-one-is), reading every bullet point & then flogging it thoroughly into the ground before moving on. & the entire room has to do your bidding.
(I’m convinced this is partly responsible for people bringing their laptops & smartphones to meetings & tap-tap-tapping throughout the hour, occasionally raising their heads to bark, “I missed that last—what were you saying?”)
Web 2.0 & all-round guru Guy Kawasaki has a mantra governing PPT: 10/20/30. No more than ten slides; no more than 20 minutes; no smaller than 30-point font (meaning: no more than four bullet points per slide). Would that more business people learned from the master on this.
(Years ago I was told that a PPT presentation should be only the framework of what you’re going to talk about. If someone can pick up the preso & grasp your entire case without hearing your spiel, you’re doing it wrong. Most of the world is doing it wrong.)
In my own company, it’s infinitely worse: we use PPT for what should in all sanity be painstakingly built in documents: the one that just eats my lunch is the business plan. Our business plans are 98 slides long minimum. (What this also means is that management doesn’t have to read the biz plan; it’s presented to them in ephemeral form & they can pronounce judgment by shooting from the hip, not via thoughtful analysis.)
Well, really, it doesn’t matter what any of us says; PPT has taken over & resistance is futile.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Noticias del sud
So, word comes that the host of a “true crime” show in Brazil is under suspicion of having hired hit men to commit murders.
Evidently Wallace Souza was killing the proverbial two birds: knocking off rival drug dealers and jacking up the ratings for his “Canal Livre” show.
Both his TV competitors and the cops began to get suspicious when Souza’s crews kept showing up at murder scenes before anyone else. Sometimes even before the cops.
In addition to being a “reality” show host, Souza is an ex-cop and a state legislator. You just can’t make this stuff up.
And, lest you think this is just too whacky to happen here, I’m sure that FoxNews is even now trying to figure out how they can go Souza one (or five) better. Probably by knocking off NPR reporters.
Evidently Wallace Souza was killing the proverbial two birds: knocking off rival drug dealers and jacking up the ratings for his “Canal Livre” show.
Both his TV competitors and the cops began to get suspicious when Souza’s crews kept showing up at murder scenes before anyone else. Sometimes even before the cops.
In addition to being a “reality” show host, Souza is an ex-cop and a state legislator. You just can’t make this stuff up.
And, lest you think this is just too whacky to happen here, I’m sure that FoxNews is even now trying to figure out how they can go Souza one (or five) better. Probably by knocking off NPR reporters.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
This sporting life
You may or may not have followed the Michael Vick story—the football player for whom having 11 steroid-infused behemoths piling on him once a week wasn’t violent enough, & was running a dog fighting ring. The evidence of his criminality was so egregious that he didn’t have the chutzpah to plead not guilty; but by pleading guilty he was sentenced to only 23 months.
Released from prison he was reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. His home team, the Falcons, won’t touch him with a barge pole, but if he can prove himself able to throw a football, some team probably will and he’ll be back in the tall cotton.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has a few comments on this travesty, which should enrage any person of sensibility. Which excludes any sports fan who thinks that the only thing that matters is that their team win, whatever the cost and however morally reprehensible the members of that team may be.
Here’s my vision of cosmic justice for this son of a bitch and all his dog-fighting pals (the ones who ran the business and the ones who paid for it): when they die (as soon and as painfully as possible), the ever-afterlife should be all the dogs they mangled and murdered tearing them apart again and again. Whenever the shreds of their miserable carcasses are scattered over the terrain of Hell, they are sucked back together like a motion picture special effect so another dog can rip them apart again.
Except that it would only extend the pain of the dogs’ existence. Maybe I’ll use mechanical dogs.
Released from prison he was reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. His home team, the Falcons, won’t touch him with a barge pole, but if he can prove himself able to throw a football, some team probably will and he’ll be back in the tall cotton.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has a few comments on this travesty, which should enrage any person of sensibility. Which excludes any sports fan who thinks that the only thing that matters is that their team win, whatever the cost and however morally reprehensible the members of that team may be.
Here’s my vision of cosmic justice for this son of a bitch and all his dog-fighting pals (the ones who ran the business and the ones who paid for it): when they die (as soon and as painfully as possible), the ever-afterlife should be all the dogs they mangled and murdered tearing them apart again and again. Whenever the shreds of their miserable carcasses are scattered over the terrain of Hell, they are sucked back together like a motion picture special effect so another dog can rip them apart again.
Except that it would only extend the pain of the dogs’ existence. Maybe I’ll use mechanical dogs.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The red-headed league
A friend sent me this story in the NY Times, reporting what I’ve known for some time. First hand.
Back in college I was having surgery under local anesthesia. I kept jumping on the table until the anesthesiologist squirted a wider area around the knife.
Then, a few years ago I was being prepped for arthroscopy on my right shoulder. After a series of nurses came through asking me each time that it was the right shoulder they were supposed to be cutting into, the anesthesiologist came in. She asked the usual questions about things that might choke me while I was under. Then she—a redhead herself—said that since I was part of the league, she would make sure to supersize my dose of anesthesia.
At that time she told me that (as reported in the Times) it had long been known anecdotally amongst the gas-passers that redheads needed more anesthesia than the rest of the populace. But she said that studies were starting to emerge supporting this.
Then, a few months after that, I was being prepped for laparoscopic surgery. When my anesthesiologist—another redhead (someone should do a study about the incidence of redheads specializing in anesthesiology)—came in to ask about the stuff that could choke me while under, I pointed to my hair and said, “It’s red…”
He knew exactly what I meant and was already planning to up the juice. (He also kindly threw in a prophylactic to prevent post-surgery nausea, which for me is the worst part of the whole ordeal.)
So it’s good to know the word is getting out and that my fellow flame-hairs need no longer suffer.
Back in college I was having surgery under local anesthesia. I kept jumping on the table until the anesthesiologist squirted a wider area around the knife.
Then, a few years ago I was being prepped for arthroscopy on my right shoulder. After a series of nurses came through asking me each time that it was the right shoulder they were supposed to be cutting into, the anesthesiologist came in. She asked the usual questions about things that might choke me while I was under. Then she—a redhead herself—said that since I was part of the league, she would make sure to supersize my dose of anesthesia.
At that time she told me that (as reported in the Times) it had long been known anecdotally amongst the gas-passers that redheads needed more anesthesia than the rest of the populace. But she said that studies were starting to emerge supporting this.
Then, a few months after that, I was being prepped for laparoscopic surgery. When my anesthesiologist—another redhead (someone should do a study about the incidence of redheads specializing in anesthesiology)—came in to ask about the stuff that could choke me while under, I pointed to my hair and said, “It’s red…”
He knew exactly what I meant and was already planning to up the juice. (He also kindly threw in a prophylactic to prevent post-surgery nausea, which for me is the worst part of the whole ordeal.)
So it’s good to know the word is getting out and that my fellow flame-hairs need no longer suffer.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Passing of an era
They’re dying off, now—almost gone, in fact—the veterans of World War I. Britain just lost its last two within a week of each other last month, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch. France has none left, there’s one in Australia, and our remaining veteran is Frank Buckles, 108, of West Virginia.
Patch’s funeral in Wells Cathedral was attended by soldiers of the Western Front combatants: Britain, France, Germany & Belgium. And ordinary Brits, for whom the First World War has vastly deeper meaning than for us, came to honor him—and his comrades.
(In fact, Radiohead just released a single, “Harry Patch, In Memory Of”, honoring Patch.”)
Patch went through most of his life without mentioning his experiences. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he was persuaded to recount them. And even after all that time they still disturbed him and he wished he hadn’t dredged them back up. His repeated statement was, “It wasn’t worth it. War wasn’t worth one life.”
Really, it’s a lesson I wish we’d learn, but not bloody likely.
Patch’s funeral in Wells Cathedral was attended by soldiers of the Western Front combatants: Britain, France, Germany & Belgium. And ordinary Brits, for whom the First World War has vastly deeper meaning than for us, came to honor him—and his comrades.
(In fact, Radiohead just released a single, “Harry Patch, In Memory Of”, honoring Patch.”)
Patch went through most of his life without mentioning his experiences. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he was persuaded to recount them. And even after all that time they still disturbed him and he wished he hadn’t dredged them back up. His repeated statement was, “It wasn’t worth it. War wasn’t worth one life.”
Really, it’s a lesson I wish we’d learn, but not bloody likely.
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