Ow! My liver hurts ….

I’m just sayin’ ….

So anyway, I had a tooth extracted earlier this week. All praise to the good dentist, who did a properly excellent job. And he was even nice enough to prescribe some hydrocodone. The pharmacy I use managed to cough up twenty generic hydrocodone/APAP (7.5×750 mg) for about fifty-five cents apiece. Eleven bucks? Twenty vics? Why would I say no?

(Cue ironic music.)

TAKE ONE TO TWO TABLETS
BY MOUTH EVERY 4 TO 6
HOURS AS NEEDED FOR PAIN

Now, let’s just stop and think about this for a moment.

Memo to Mississippi

A memo to the Magnolia State, a.k.a. the Hospitality State, a.k.a. Mississippi:

To: The State of Mississippi
From: B. D.
Date: April 28, 2010
Subject: Wesson Attendance Center

Dear Mississippi:

Hurry up and secede, already. Please?

A moment of stupid

Okay, just … just work with me here for a second.

Children.

Right. Whatever.

Why can’t children drive? That is, why is, say, a ten year old not allowed to get a driver’s license?

I know. It’s a stupid question, right? But if you stick around the internet long enough, you’ll come across it. Of course, sometimes that means admitting to reading some pretty strange stuff. I’d rather be caught, I suppose, looking at pornography.

Maybe.

Anyway, yes, something got me to thinking about the question, and such inquiries always annoy me. Yes, I understand, it seems obvious, and there are some things about which that ought to suffice, but of course it doesn’t. I mean, it will for now, but, really, it doesn’t.

There are all sorts of things you could say. Try setting a minimum qualification at all. Then apply it to every driver. Motor skills testing? Hey, if the kid can get the key into the ignition ....

Not only would it be an atrocious bureaucracy, but those who complain about the size and scope of the government should probably not throw their hats in with freeways full of children.

Which, in the end, is the most obvious point. Yes, we can posit some outcome of burdening the developing psyche with such sustained and repeated mortal responsibility. We can flip aimlessly through the pages of how much literature describing the attention spans of children, and just how hard and far we can tweak them before they break. At some point, it actually becomes a fascinating question, and damn it to Hell for that. But, when we arrange the factors, ponder their natures, and consider their magnitudes, one notion stands out so clearly among the rest―freeways full of children.

Driving cars. At eighty miles an hour.

Two words: Natural selection.

No, really. That’s your answer. If you’re ever actually there, in that moment, when someone says, “Well, like, why can’t―I don’t know―why can’t children drive?” You just look them square in the eye and say, “Natural selection.”

And if they don’t get it, so what? Fuck ’em. It’s a stupid question, anyway, and never actually seems to serve the rhetorical context in which it’s raised.

The Socialist prophecy

So they say, so they say:

The restructuring of society taking place, in the direct interests of the corporate-financial elite and at the expense of the working population, is not occurring unnoticed. The American and international working class will inevitably find itself drawn into struggle against the present, untenable form of social organization.

Hiram Lee invokes a recurring fantasy of the left, and while I do not scorn the underlying sentiment, I admit to a certain cynicism. Perhaps in other places around the world, populist anger might bring down governments, but the prestige and wealth of the United States is such that Americans are wary of risking it all for an unproven thesis.

Englehart’s View

The ever-increasing blogroll now includes Bob Englehart, editorial cartoonist for the Hartford Courant. Stop on by and give him some love. No, no, no. Not that kind. That’s between you and your keyboard and the old sweatsock you use to wipe up afterward.

Sonoma’s Disgrace, or, What Hatred Brings

I feel nothing. I must feel nothing, else I remember what hatred feels like. It’s easy enough to forgive, or, in my case, just let certain things be. I’ve long said that judgment, at a certain valence, isn’t mine. Thus, there is nothing to forgive.

But not this.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

If the sleeping beast awakes, I will never forgive those whose hateful call has roused it.

This is what the bigots won in California. This is what they fought for. This is what they wanted. And now they have it. Nor is it just Proposition 8. This is what every homophobe in the country fights for when they reject gay marriage.

Via the National Center for Lesbian Rights:

Clay Greene and his partner of 20 years, Harold Scull, lived in Sebastopol, California. As long-time partners, they had named each other beneficiaries of their respective estates and agents for medical decisions. As 2008 began, Scull was 88 years old and in deteriorating health. Greene, 11 years younger, was physically strong, but beginning to show signs of cognitive impairment. As Scull’s health declined, it became apparent that they would need assistance, but the men resisted outside help.

In April of 2008, Scull fell down the front steps of their home. Greene immediately called an ambulance and Scull was taken to the hospital. There, the men’s nightmare began. While Scull was hospitalized, Deputy Public Guardians went to the men’s home, took photographs, and commented on the desirability and quality of the furnishings, artwork, and collectibles that the men had collected over their lifetimes.

Ignoring Greene entirely, the County petitioned the Court for conservatorship of Scull’s estate. Outrageously referring to Greene only as a “roommate” and failing to disclose their true relationship, the County continued to treat Scull as if he had no family. The County sought immediate temporary authority to revoke Scull’s powers of attorney, to act without further notice, and to liquidate an investment account to pay for Scull’s care. Then, despite being granted only limited powers, and with undue haste, the County arranged for the sale of the men’s personal property, cleaned out their home, terminated their lease, confiscated their truck, and eventually disposed of all of the men’s worldly possessions, including family heirlooms, at a fraction of their value and without any proper inventory or determination of whose property was being sold.

Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Greene from their home and confined him to a nursing home against his will—a different placement from his partner. Greene was kept from seeing Scull during this time, and his telephone calls were limited. Three months after Scull was hospitalized, he died, without being able to see Greene again.

“Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years,” said Greene’s trial attorney Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa. “Compounding this horrific tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property or his beloved cats—who are feared dead. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life.”

I feel nothing, because I must.

(Greene v. Sonoma, via NCLR.)

Quote of the Week – Sedighi says what?

Via BBC:

“Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes.”

—Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi

Quote of the Week — Harkin on the Supreme Court

Via Politico:

“Why do conservatives always get the conservatives, but we don’t get to get liberals? What the hell is that all about?”

—Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)

Excuse me, but is that an explosive in your head?

‘Tis a grim reality that warfare should have a “cool” factor. And, of course, it can’t be pleasant to be the soldier in such a condition, but still … this is so damn cool:

The patient arrived in critical condition last month at the Bagram Air Base hospital in Afghanistan, with what American military doctors at first thought was an all too typical war injury: metal shrapnel from an improvised bomb lodged in his head.

A CAT scan showed that the piece of metal, about two and a half inches long, was probably a cartridge fragment — again, not at all unusual.

But as the patient, an Afghan soldier in his 20s, was prepared for surgery, the chief radiologist, Lt. Col. Anthony Terreri, took a closer look at the CAT scan. Stunned, he realized the object was an explosive round, primed to go off.

“It looks like we have a problem here,” he announced.

To the other, how would you like to be Major Jeffrey Rengel, USAF, the anesthesiologist who, after the evacuation of the operating room, was left to tend to the patient until the bomb squad arrived?

The surgical team recounted the episode for Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times.

Gorillas on fire (Did I get your attention?)

Jason Linkins at Huffington Post calls it “Todays Great Moment in Photojournalism”, and I make no critique on that either way. The image comes with Jason Schrieber‘s report for the New Hampshire Union Leader—

—and reminds me of a song:

The vision was a masterpiece of comic timing,
But you wouldn’t laugh at all.

And it goes beyond just that line. Five points for anyone who can tell us about the other half of the joke.