don’t need you telling me how sick I am

Neil Young has it right.  I don’t watch commercial TV very often, but every time I do I am amazed at the percentage of ads touting drugs for anything from high blood pressure to incontinence to depression, usually featuring a happy couple leaping through a field of flowers, accompanied by a litany of side effects(nausea, dizziness, cardiac arrest).

Are we all that sick?

If you have something seriously wrong with you, say heart disease, you’re much better off trusting the expertise of a medical professional rather than choosing your medications like you would a soft drink.  For a lot of these other ailments, may I suggest just sucking it up?  “enjoy life!” exhorts an ad for allergy medication, as the allergy sufferer (after popping a pill) goes for a bike ride or plays in yard with their grandchildren.  I’ve had allergies all my life, don’t take pills, and somehow manage to hike, garden, and visit the park, and yes, enjoy life, albeit with a wad of kleenex in my pocket.  Or how about those antacid ads telling you to go ahead and eat that greasy pizza and then pop a Prilosec?  If greasy pizza gives you indigestion, maybe your body is trying to tell you something–like “that’s not good for you, don’t eat it”.

There seems to be an American attitude, encouraged by pharmaceutical companies, that nothing is supposed to hurt, one bit, ever.  That every ounce of physical or emotional pain must be banished , even at the risk of far greater injury (as evidenced by that voice over of side effects).

A recent study showed that women taking incontinence drugs have a SIXTY PERCENT higher risk of cognitive decline.  This is the type of incontinence that causes urinary urgency and some leakage when you cough or sneeze.  Apparently the drugs that affect the urinary pathway are anticholinergics, which affect blood levels of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter in the brain.  Now this leakage is embarrassing and annoying, but it can be controlled with exercises or in severe cases minimally invasive surgery.  You can also wear a pantiliner.  All this sounds better than a sixty percent higher risk of cognitive decline, doesn’t it?

You’d have to be suffering from cognitive decline to be attracted by that ad for Cialis where the happy couple romps through fields and drinks champagne only to end up in…separate bathtubs.

 

 

under the banner of heaven?

There was an article in the paper today about the 437 children removed from their homes in a polygamist Mormon compound in West Texas.    State child welfare officials believe that underage girls are being married off to older men, and there is evidence of physical and sexual abuse on the ranch.

If true, this is reprehensible, and while I’m reluctant to see the government interfere in people’s lives, these young women need to be protected from abuse, and be free to leave the sect once they reach adulthood. However, I’m unsure how ripping 437 pre-pubertal children from their homes (there’s no evidence they’ve been physically or sexually abused) accomplishes this goal and the articles discussion of “culture shock’ raises some disturbing questions.

Apparently the children are modestly dressed and preternaturally polite.  They have never watched television or played video games, so they are “lacking in pop culture” (wow, what a loss) They’ve never eaten processed food, as the sect believes in eating only sustainably grown food from their own ranch. The foster parents have been instructed to feed the children such odd items as “chicken, rice, and fresh fruit and vegetables” because they are “unfamiliar with processed and junk food”.  They’ve been homeschooled, which apparently also raises a problem as they are “ahead of public school students their ages.”

So tell, me, in their ultimate wisdom, how is Children and Family Services improving the lives of these kids?  They not only taking them away from their parents, they are giving them the dubious benefits of junk food, junk culture, and inferior education.  Hopefully theyll soon learn not to be so darn polite, either.  I don’t condone the sexual practices of this sect but society at large could learn from some of the other aspects of their subculture.

working class heroes

I can’t get too upset about Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania, even though I would have loved to see her lose in an upset and be finally rid of her pesky presence.  Pennsylvania is a strange state.  When I was little I lived in the coal-dusted college town of Washington, PA, and one of my earliest memories is my mother screaming at my father that she didn’t want to spend another day of their life there and that there was absolutely “nothing to do on a Saturday night”.  That Saturday night bit I definitely believe.  Once my husband and I were driving through Pennsylvania and due to a problem on the interstate, got detoured into a town near Washington.  People–I’m not kidding–came out onto their front porches to watch the excitement.  You could hear them whispering to each other:  “Thelma, did you ever see such a sight in all your born days?”.  Several years later our family visited a friend who was working as a public interest lawyer in Williamsport, PA.  The poverty there was quiet, but pervasive and depressing.  While there, I took my young children to a playground where they struck up a friendship with some local children.  These children–pale, skinny, and none-too-healthy looking–took a break for a lunch of jelly beans and Twinkies, and–this is what brought tears to my eyes–offered to split their meager excuse for a  lunch with my kids.

Obama and Clinton never ate jellybeans for lunch and I wish they would stop pretending that they did.  And I wish they’d put down their bowling balls and shot glasses and stop referring to “working people”.

I wonder when this term arose.  Did it arise from an era when there truly was an aristocratic class who did nothing but indulge their hedonistic appetites and order subordinates to work around their estate and slave on their farms and factories?  Or does it signify a difference between white and blue collar workers?

Whatever its origin, the working waters today are significantly muddied.  Corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers DO work.  They catch planes here and there, attend meetings, make decisions under high pressure, and generally speaking sacrifice most of their life for money and prestige.  Whether their contributions to society are commensurate with their pay is another matter, but ultimately irrelevant.  Some of these people may owe their position to a family name and/or trust fund, but many others have gotten their through a combination of talent, hard work, and luck.

Athletes and movie stars earn millions, but again, through a combination of factors, they have reached a pinnacle that many aim for, but very few reach.

Out of the economic stratosphere, professionals like doctors and lawyers spend lots of time and money training, and also work long hours.  How about professors, who spend an even longer time in school, have a great deal of expertise in their given field, and teach big loads of classes?  What about mothers, who work for absolutely no pay taking care of the most vulnerable members of our society, young children?  What about volunteers?

Because none of these people drive a truck are they not working???

As for the blue collar/white collar division, it’s similarly ludicrous. Lots of white collar workers–administrative assistants, customer service people, retail workers, and bank tellers, to name a few–earn way less than skilled tradesmen.

Instead of creating class divisions, it would be far better to honor the contributions that every individual makes to society.  We are all workers and all work, and all people, have value. 

Politicians are fascinated with social engineering, and their favorite method seems to be tinkering with the tax code.  Republicans favor big corporations; Democrats allegedly favor “working people”; nobody really benefits except accountants.  I admit it’s tempting.  I’d love to see a tax break for midlist literary novelists, or a special tax on pesticides, or a tax credit for buying free range meat.  But these are matters best handled by initiating cultural change, or increasing regulation within a specific industry.  This type of social engineering oversteps the bounds of government and almost always produces unintended social consequences.

Better we should, as I said, honor everyone’s work and consider the work of the government to ensure that everyone in our country has the basic necessities of shelter, food, health care, and education.  No matter what they do for a living, no one should have to eat jellybeans for lunch.