The Barbaric Yawp

Mon, 16 Dec 2002 08:50:08 GMT

Testing navlinks again. Shucks and other comments.

Sat, 14 Dec 2002 19:20:31 GMT

OK, we're back to the "Woodland" theme. The navlinks still don't work, but at least comments are working again.

Sat, 14 Dec 2002 08:35:48 GMT

One of the things that attracts me most about blogging is that it allows me to shrug off the strictures of my daily editorial duties and wend my way to some elusive point, exploring a few of the marginally relevant paths less traveled along the way. Be patient. I do have a point and I will get there. Eventually.

My job involves attending quite a few forums and seminars on a variety of topics that often seem designed to try the patience of those who simply want to address some problem or other. Case in point: a recent Health Care Access Summit put on by a local foundation that is an integral part of the medical establishment.

I have been dealing with health care issues in almost every issue of my monthly magazine even though it’s plainly beyond the comprehension of even the most astute editor. In the naive hope that it would further my understanding, I accepted an invitation to attend the summit. The term “summit” is, of course, subject to a variety of interpretations. I’m not sure that mine matched that of the perpetrators.

I had just finished an extensive feature on complimentary health care providers and was highly sensitized to their roles in the unfolding drama. Complimentary health care is the politically correct term for chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists and others outside the medical establishment.

Perusing the list of more than 200 attendees at the summit, I was astonished to note that not one complimentary health care practitioner had been invited. So much for the inclusive approach.

One of my journalistic heroes is Hunter Thompson, who not only raised digression to an art form but also put to rest the nonsensical idea that the reporter can be an objective, detached observer. With that in mind, I took the first opportunity to become part of the story I was covering. I impertinently pointed out the lack of representation on the part of complimentary care providers. The lame answer I got: “Well, we couldn’t invite everybody.”

Everybody seemed quite satisfied by that answer, so I quit taking the summit seriously and set off to pursue my own twisted curiosity. After the keynote speeches, the summit broke into a number of workshops, each supposedly dealing with a facet of the health care crisis.

One of them dealt with drugs and the cost thereof. Now, I will freely admit that I studied pharmacology rather seriously, if informally, during the 60s and 70s. I was often accused of having what was then known as “an illegal smile.” Over the years, I learned that drugs were not the answer but only one of many questions.

I did a lot of research for my articles on health care and one of the interesting things I learned was that pharmaceutical companies spend about $30 million a day on advertising. Hey, a million here, a million there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.

One of the terms I heard mentioned often during the workshops was “the purple pill.” I have seen an astounding number of advertisements for this potion given the fact that I watch very little television. Since there was nothing very constructive to do much of the time, I decided to do a little informal market research. I started asking people about the “purple pill.”

One hundred percent of the people I asked had heard of it. Only about one-third could actually associate a brand name with it (Nexium™). Only one, a pharmacist, knew what it was designed to do (treat acid reflux, formerly known as heartburn).

For those of you who haven’t seen the commercials, some of them feature large, broken land masses ponderously moving together under the influence of unseen forces. Strange people in politically correct racial proportions stand atop these masses, looking off into space as if anticipating the Second Coming. What does this have to do with heartburn? Damn if I know, but it seems to have penetrated the American consciousness like nothing since Homer Simpson.

We’re getting dangerously near the point here. The government is wasting bazillions of our tax dollars fighting the wrong drugs. Pot, meth, smack and ecstasy are surely wrecking many lives, but not nearly as many as the perfectly legal drugs that are being pushed by heavy campaign contributors.

The countless legal drugs that are being foisted off on us as cures for all our ills are turning us into a drug-addled society. Don’t like how you’re feeling today? Take a pill. The pill won’t cure what ails you, but you won’t care. Mother’s Little Helper is only a prescription away. And if Doc Jones won’t write the prescription, Doc Smith will. They’ve learned from the pharmaceutical detail men that a pill saves a lot of dreary diagnosis.

Our medical paradigm is based on economics, not healing. You can make a lot more money by treating diseases rather than preventing them. There are a mind-boggling number of legal drugs out there. The FDA can’t even begin to test all the possible combinations. So the pharmaceutical industry relies on experimental animals. You and me.

Sat, 14 Dec 2002 07:48:52 GMT

OK, all you sophisticated bloggers out there. I'm getting my shorts in a twist because I can't get my navlinks to work. They show up on UserLand, but disappear when I post. The geeks at UserLand suggested I change my Theme. Did that. Didn't work. Any suggestions? Don't make me resort to Prozac.

Sat, 14 Dec 2002 07:12:29 GMT

Wed, 11 Dec 2002 05:20:50 GMT

Apparently not. Well, hell, if the folks at UserLand can't figure out what to do, I'm temporarily out of links. I'm just a beta geek.

Wed, 11 Dec 2002 05:16:09 GMT

Will the real navlinks please stand up?

Wed, 11 Dec 2002 04:35:12 GMT

Some exciting news about substance abuse has been uncovered by those insightful academes at Harvard. The School of Public Health has just released a 1999 study in which more than 14,000 students participated at 119 colleges in 39 states.

The heart-stopping conclusion? Sports fans binge drink more often that those who are not fans. How do you say "Duh!" in Latin? The study was funded by a private foundation, thank God, and not our tax dollars.

More startling conclusions from the study: "...because of their heavier drinking, sports fans are more likely to experience problems including legal difficulties, sexual violence and problems with their school work."

Perhaps no one has pointed out to the scholars that the word "fan" is derived from "fanatic," defined as "...a person with extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion, politics, etc." Since sport is plainly a religion for many, the connection should be obvious.

According to one of the study's authors, Henry Wechsler, advertising is to blame.

"The alcohol industry places a large proportion of advertising around sporting events," he said. "This group of people is heavily marketed for alcohol use."

Not so, says Jeff Becker, president of the Beer Institute.

"The scientific evidence says advertising doesn't cause people who don't drink to drink," Becker said. "It doesn't cause people who drink to drink more."

Oh, really? Then what, exactly, is the purpose of all those moronic commercials featuring Australopithecine males and bimbotic females? The liquor industry is apprently spending billions of dollars in an altruistic effort to keep otherwise unemployable people working in the ad industry. Admirable.

***

Back in America's heartland, Ohio is attempting to curb underage drinking by using pop culture references from the 1980s. Signs posted at liquor stores say, "If you don't know who shot J. R., prepare to be carded." Hot damn! I haven't been carded in a good 25 years.

Another variation on the theme: "If you've never done the moonwalk..." Ah! Now I feel more culturally literate. I not only moonwalked, but did it onstage while singing "When I Was A Lad" from HMS Pinafore. I guess that makes me old enough to drink. Well, I'm at least old enough to remember when Michael Jackson was black.

And a final version that's a bit cruel to those of us of middle years: "If you think a turntable is a piece of furniture..." One Geritol, straight up, water back.

***

Food is not the only thing that's fast at Burger King. Police in Illinois arrested four people for selling cocaine at the drive-thru window of a BK. Customers would allegedly phone ahead and ask for a particular employee. They would then place an order at the drive up microphone, pull up to the window, and have their snort delivered in a BK bag. You want fries with that?

***

Now that there's at least one other clergyman blogging away here at Salon, I feel less reticent to address the burning theological issues of the day. Such as WWJD? As a minister, I can find no fault with those who ask "What Would Jesus Do?"

I do, however, have a problem with those who think they know the answer. Jesus was a fiery radical who was so unpredictable that even his disciples rarely had a clue as to what he would do. If Jesus has become more predictable over the last two millennia, the fault lies with us and not with him.

I can't decide whether to laugh or cry over those who took this idea to its illogical extreme by asking "What Would Jesus Drive?" I'll go out on a theological limb and claim to know the answer to that one. He wouldn't drive. He'd walk. There's a fair amount of historical evidence that he actually did this. There is no evidence he drove anything more sophisticated than a donkey.

So why do I have this recurring nightmare about Jesus climbing out of a boat on the Sea of Galilee, hopping into an SUV, and driving off over the waves?

Tue, 10 Dec 2002 00:13:04 GMT

Testing links.

Mon, 09 Dec 2002 16:29:14 GMT

Do not adjust your set. We are temporarily experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by...

Sun, 08 Dec 2002 00:19:53 GMT

Consider the limerick. As poetry goes, it is considered the bastard stepchild at best. And yet, some of the greatest literary lights of the ages have succumbed to its tawdry allure. Among notable practitioners are Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Ogden Nash.

That mad poet Edward Lear was one of the most prolific of the limiricists and as responsible as anyone for its slightly bawdy image. The five-line poem orginated, oddly enough, in County Limirick, Ireland, near the village of Croom. In that vicinity, a group known as the Maigue poets would gather in taverns during the 18th century to regale each other with their creations. There was undoubtedly a fair amount of collateral damage inflicted on innocent bystanders.

While perusing some old files recently, I came across some examples of the genre that I regurgitated back in 1989. Rather than immediately destroying the files, I allowed my curiosity to get the best of me. The occasion was the centennial of Washington state. In honor thereof, I undertook one of those obsessive projects that had no hope of ever making me any money, but was challenging and stimulating. Writers do things like that all the time.

The resulting collection was called Washericks. There were no less than 100 limericks, each containing at least one Washington state place name. You may not recognize some of these names if you're not from this corner of the country, but you can certainly appreciate the effort that went into some of these rhymes.

A busty old girl from Mazama

Claimed she was the last Red Hot Mama.

She'd ape Sophie Tucker

And look for some sucker

Who'd take her to lunch in Kalama.

***

Some radical kids in Ephrata

Were playing with explosive data.

With naive aplomb

They fashioned a bomb

And all that is left is a crata.

***

When babies in old Mukilteo

Find problems with their suckleteo,

They import some titties

From down in Tri-Cities

And you can hear them chuckleteo.

***

Marine master sergeant Will Kemper

Was constantly losing his temper.

"I live in Cowiche

And that makes me bitchy,"

He said, "but my fi is still semper."

***

A bicycle rider named Danny

Was usually clever and canny,

But he lost his toe clips

While riding through Moclips

And put a new crack in his fanny.

***

A sexy young lady named Taylor

Was heard to exclaim, "Hello, sailor!

Come up to Port Townsend,

I'll show you the rounds and

Go fishing in my Boston Whaler."

***

A nasty old coot called Torquemada

Got thrown off the Spanish Armada.

He came to Port Orchard

Where he could be tortured

and stay at an inn called Ramada.

***

A young Casanova named Meany

Was hurriedly passing through Cheney.

You're anticipating

That I'm contemplating

A line here that's very obsceney.

***

A rest room that needs no description

Contains this beguiling inscription:

"Don't diddle in Cashmere

Or you'll get a rashmere

And have to go get a prescription."

***

A zombie who rose from his casket

Would carry his head in a basket.

"'Twas in Anacortes

I got rigor mortis

And worms ate my flesh in Tonasket."

***

There once was a fellow named Dooley

Who wanted to blow up Grand Coulee.

A miscalculation

Was his ruination

And now he's in Ultima Thule.

***

There's been a Norwegian migration

From Ballard because of inflation.

And now there's a blonde array

living in Pend Oreille

Pondering predestination.

***

There was a young fry-cook from Twisp

Whose accent was marked by a lisp.

He played with his penith

While cooking in Zenith

And got the thing fried to a crisp.

***

Instead of throwing tomatoes, why not try writing a few about your place of residence? It'll never make you rich, but it's a helluva lot more fun than watching "Fear Factor."

Wed, 04 Dec 2002 05:27:26 GMT

I have been an avid reader of the late Frank Herbert's works for more years than I care to remember. For those of you who have been living in a cave on some remote desert planet, Herbert created a world, indeed, a universe, called Dune.

The massive six-volume series is considered to be among the best science fiction has to offer. It brought us a future so vividly realized and so intricately detailed that some of us got lost and never quite came all the way back.

No wonder, then, that we had high expectations several years ago when Dino DeLaurentiis and David Lynch joined forces to attempt the unthinkable: making a movie from the book. They even gained Frank Herbert's assistance.

It was bound to be a disappointment since a movie could not possibly hope to match the Dune so many of us had created in our overactive imaginations. The critics savaged it with a viciousness that hadn't been heard since they pilloried 2001: A Space Odyssey. Interesting that the latter film is now included on many of the all-time ten best lists.

The film version of Dune has improved with age, as well. When you realize that it was more true to the letter than to the spirit of the book, it gets better. Perhaps nothing did more to improve the original film version than the recent made for TV version. The producers tried to take advantage of the critical failure of the original by calling the new version Frank Herbert's Dune. I think Frank would just as soon not be associated with this one.

Produced by the Sci-fi Channel, the TV version manages to steal all the worst features of the original film without stealing any of the better ones. Then it managed to come up with a lot of new bad points on it's own. One of the joys of the first version was David Lynch's gift for taking already strange characters just a skosh further off the wall. The TV version wasn't even in the ballpark. They did, however, manage to add in enough excruciatingly boring scenes to make it drag on for four hours. John Hurt looked thoroughly embarrassed in the starring role and should have.

Frank's son Brian Herbert might have learned from this experience, but didn't. This time the result is not all bad. Herbert Senior left behind voluminous notes on the universe he created with the apparent intention of writing a series of prequels to Dune.

Herbert Junior is a mediocre sci-fi writer at best, but he's no dummy. He hooked up with Kevin Anderson to publish three books in this prequel series. The impact that his father's work had can be judged by the fact that all of the new Dune books hit the top of the best seller charts.

Unfortunately, they contain none of the sublety or complexity of the elder Herbert's originals. That's not to say they're not whacking good reads. Kevin Anderson wrote many of the grocery store bestsellers spawned by the Star Wars phenomenon. He also set the Guiness Book of World Records standard for "largest single-author book signing." For whatever that's worth. He didn't sell that many books by being a lousy storyteller.

The new series of Dune books can't match the originals, but Frank Herbert created a universe so spellbinding that most of us who ate up the original series are also buying the new books. We are enchanted by the Dune universe and have a seemingly unquenchable appetite for more details, even if the writing isn't quite up to snuff.

I saw the fourth book in the new series while supposedly Christmas shopping for others. Professor Pavlov would have been proud of me. I snapped it up immediately and read the first chapter right there in Barnes and Noble. Christmas shopping could wait. I needed to find out about The Butlerian Jihad.

Like any victim of addiction, I can't really help it. I'm just Dune my thing.