I am disappointed in this whole Easter bunny thing. It's nothing compared to Santa Claus. My kids get the idea that Easter is supposed to be a big deal, but after I filter out the religious crap and all the Jesus stuff, there isn't much left for them. Plus, the bunny doesn't have a very coherent story, as near as I can tell. With Santa there is a complete story. Maybe you don't get an "origin" like you would in a comic book, or "backstory" like you would in a movie, but at least you know where he lives, how he gets around, where the toys come from, how he gets in the house, why there arre stockings, and so on.
But with the bunny, where does he live? Is he human sized, or regular bunny sized? Can he talk? Does he keep a list? Where he does he get the candy, and how does he carry so much? How does he get in the house? Then I run into a problem that may arise from my own education. Is the bunny supposed to be responsible for the eggs out there, or am I? And if the bunny is supposed to be responsible for the egg hunt, how am I supposed to hide them in the back yard without the kids knowing I'm doing it? At night, by flashlight?
Easter eve around here (New England) is usually in the 20's at night and the snow is just melting. That would be a good egg hunt, under three inches of newly fallen snow. "Kids, your eggs are hidden out there, somewhere on our five acres, under three inches of snow." Then assuming there is no snow, if I put the eggs out too early, the raccoons and opossums will get them.
And as the kids get older it's getting harder and harder to come up with a reason to celebrate Easter without bringing Jesus into it.
"Daddy, why didn't we have school on Friday?"
"It was Good Friday."
"So?"
"It's the day a guy named Jesus was killed."
"And that's why they call it 'Good'?"
"Hmm, that's a good question. Some people think he came back to life three days later."
My three year old said, "But when your dead you stay dead."
Smart kid.
But my six and seven year old have gleaned it on the playground or something. Someone told them Jesus really did come back to life.
"I don't believe that," I said. "How could that happen?"
You always think there will be time. It's my own fault, really. I kept putting off "the talk". PLEASE! Talk to your kids. Warn them about religion before it's too late. I may start a program called R.A.R.E. The cops have D.A.R.E., the Drug Abuse Resistance Education. We need Religion Abuse Resistance Education.
Who would think that kids as young as six and seven are being exposed to these things? Then my seven year old says he thinks maybe Jesus did come back to life. He thinks it would be good if he did. I didn't want to give him nightmares, but I had to straighten him out. "If he came back to life," I said, "there is a lot more that goes with that story. Like after a person dies, if he was bad, he goes to hell and burns in fire and flames and suffering for ever and ever."
But something inside makes him want to believe it. But then again, he was looking for candy-filled eggs left behind by a magic bunny who has a lot of inconsistencies in his story, too.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Epiphany
I feel so foolish for not realizing it before. It should have been clear, the evidence was in front of me all the time. But I always discounted it. I said, "Of course these people want to live. There is nothing more valuable than a human life, right?"
Maybe the cancer patients with horrible pain, they might not cling to life as tenaciously, but the big fat person with a perforated colon or something, surely they want to live. They want us to do everything we can to pull them through.
I used to get confused by the notion that some things were worth dying for. Surely anything worth dying for is worth living for, isn't it? But some people are willing to die for causes they believe in. Some people die for Truth, Justice, or the American Way. Some people die trying to pull others out of burning buildings. Some people die fighting in Iraq for one side or another. Many people die for their religion. We may not agree with it, but at least it seems to make some kind of sense.
But now I know that some people are willing to die for Freedom, and the Freedom for which they gladly lay down their lives isn't always freedom of speech, or freedom of religion, or even the right to bear arms. It is the right to eat bacon double cheeseburgers. It is the right to inhale the exhaust of burning tobacco leaves. The right to ride your jet ski drunk.
And now I realize that there is another right that Americans feel is more important than living a long healthy life. It is the right to cable TV. A cable bill might be $1000 a year, but who can afford health care?
It finally occurred to me that people are making the choice to live in an unhealthy way and to not carry health care, and it may be a rational choice. If people choose to spend their money on cigarettes, alcohol, motorcycles, or calories instead of healthcare, who am I to tell them they should do anything else?
Live free or die, right?
There are plenty of people who consider the options and make different choices. They get a little exercise now and then, they only eat when they are hungry. They buy health insurance. They are deciding they value somethings more than the right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. In the rain. At night. While high.
And the others, well, autonomy id one of the doctor's guiding principles, right?
Maybe the cancer patients with horrible pain, they might not cling to life as tenaciously, but the big fat person with a perforated colon or something, surely they want to live. They want us to do everything we can to pull them through.
I used to get confused by the notion that some things were worth dying for. Surely anything worth dying for is worth living for, isn't it? But some people are willing to die for causes they believe in. Some people die for Truth, Justice, or the American Way. Some people die trying to pull others out of burning buildings. Some people die fighting in Iraq for one side or another. Many people die for their religion. We may not agree with it, but at least it seems to make some kind of sense.
But now I know that some people are willing to die for Freedom, and the Freedom for which they gladly lay down their lives isn't always freedom of speech, or freedom of religion, or even the right to bear arms. It is the right to eat bacon double cheeseburgers. It is the right to inhale the exhaust of burning tobacco leaves. The right to ride your jet ski drunk.
And now I realize that there is another right that Americans feel is more important than living a long healthy life. It is the right to cable TV. A cable bill might be $1000 a year, but who can afford health care?
It finally occurred to me that people are making the choice to live in an unhealthy way and to not carry health care, and it may be a rational choice. If people choose to spend their money on cigarettes, alcohol, motorcycles, or calories instead of healthcare, who am I to tell them they should do anything else?
Live free or die, right?
There are plenty of people who consider the options and make different choices. They get a little exercise now and then, they only eat when they are hungry. They buy health insurance. They are deciding they value somethings more than the right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. In the rain. At night. While high.
And the others, well, autonomy id one of the doctor's guiding principles, right?
Friday, March 7, 2008
Those psychiatrists are crazy
I will start by saying I am a bystander in all of this, that I have not been diagnosed or accused by any of these guys, but I am beginning more and more to see through the sham that is psychiatry and psychology. I am not a scientologist or anything like that, those guys are just as crazy, but the psychiatric profession is scaring me more and more. I know that mental illness is real, and that it is a huge burden for indiviuals and for society. But it is part of the greater problem of over-treatment in health care today. I know there are raving lunatics who think god or the C.I.A. or whoever is talking to them from the fillings in their teeth, or that the orbiting mind control lasers are responsible or something. When I was in medical school I met a guy who claimed to be Ross Perot's son (this was a black guy) and when the cops came for him he was sitting on the front porch with a shotgun waiting for them.
But the real crazies who have real organic problems, can be treated by internists and neurologists. The rest is just a slowly creeping expansion of unscientific, even magical, thinking into medicine. When up to 26% of people get diagnosed at some point in their lives, then you have to start wondering. First people noticed that antidepressants might lead some people to kill themselves, then they noticed that perhaps they don't do anything at all.
I can't do as thorough a job of writing it as the March 1 Economist, which discusses this in detail, but suffice it to say the evidence supporting anti-depressants is pretty thin. Yet 10 billion doses of anti depressants were taken in 2004. Ka-ching $$$.
Is this any different than televangelists selling hope? For modern man looking for the answer to life, the universe, and everything in science, they turn to this. And medicine obliges, and big pharma obliges.
Selling hope, happiness, and solutions to existential crises in pill form. And the methods of science are applied to happiness, and the illusion of objective truth is created.
"The statistics say the pills make people happy, therefore it must be true." This is the same fallacy that puts a dollar value on human lives. Human lives can't be measured in any meaningful way with dollars, and happiness can't be measured with statistics and surveys of subjective symptoms. It's like trying to catch moonlight in a pail.
The illusion of objectivity is disturbing. We say these problems are a result of too much or too little dopamine, too much or too little serotonin, or norepinephrine, or GABA. Which is exactly what people thought about black bile, green bile, phlegm, and blood. I predict in twenty years, instead of calling people "sanguine" or "melancholic" or "phlegmatic", they will be dopaminish. Perhaps we could sell snake oil labeled "Sero-tonic", and people can be seroterrific when they feel good.
And even the blood/black bile/green bile/phlegm theory was simply the theory of demons and evil spirits updated for the times.
Anyway, I feel GABAish, so I am going to sign off now.
But the real crazies who have real organic problems, can be treated by internists and neurologists. The rest is just a slowly creeping expansion of unscientific, even magical, thinking into medicine. When up to 26% of people get diagnosed at some point in their lives, then you have to start wondering. First people noticed that antidepressants might lead some people to kill themselves, then they noticed that perhaps they don't do anything at all.
I can't do as thorough a job of writing it as the March 1 Economist, which discusses this in detail, but suffice it to say the evidence supporting anti-depressants is pretty thin. Yet 10 billion doses of anti depressants were taken in 2004. Ka-ching $$$.
Is this any different than televangelists selling hope? For modern man looking for the answer to life, the universe, and everything in science, they turn to this. And medicine obliges, and big pharma obliges.
Selling hope, happiness, and solutions to existential crises in pill form. And the methods of science are applied to happiness, and the illusion of objective truth is created.
"The statistics say the pills make people happy, therefore it must be true." This is the same fallacy that puts a dollar value on human lives. Human lives can't be measured in any meaningful way with dollars, and happiness can't be measured with statistics and surveys of subjective symptoms. It's like trying to catch moonlight in a pail.
The illusion of objectivity is disturbing. We say these problems are a result of too much or too little dopamine, too much or too little serotonin, or norepinephrine, or GABA. Which is exactly what people thought about black bile, green bile, phlegm, and blood. I predict in twenty years, instead of calling people "sanguine" or "melancholic" or "phlegmatic", they will be dopaminish. Perhaps we could sell snake oil labeled "Sero-tonic", and people can be seroterrific when they feel good.
And even the blood/black bile/green bile/phlegm theory was simply the theory of demons and evil spirits updated for the times.
Anyway, I feel GABAish, so I am going to sign off now.
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