medical malpractice

So I'm on the BBerry but I don't remember how to blog via text message. Frustrating how I have too much technology to remember.

Also, I should blog about how technology insulates us, allowing civil discourse between people who, in the real world, couldn't stand each other's presence.

But that isn't why I called you here. I came up with another groaner.

What do you call the liquid that you pour on vetches to keep them alive?

Ivy fluids.

Reality shows through

Another TV related complaint. Well, not really a complaint because I'm not yet sure how I feel about this. If by the end of this entry I turn out to be ok with this, then fine. If not, you should go back to the beginning and reread, replacing the voice in your head with Folger's Crystals.

On the way to work I heard about a new Reality series on some cable network (specializing in programming for the insomniac or the I-have-been-locked-in-a-basement-by-Kathy-Bates crowd) which tells the story of real people with OCD. One wonders if they replay it again afterwards but that's just a tangential point. This is from the same network that puts us up close and personal with interventions. So just when you thought you have hit rock bottom, smile for the camera.

Why do these shows exist? I think I have been wrestling with that since grad school. Ostensibly, the goal is to have us see that everyone has problems so that we feel more in line with the world when we confront our own skeletons late in the night when we think we are all alone. But these shows don't show us reality. In reality, one person has a cold, one has arthritis and one is in therapy and doesn't want to talk about it with me or some Nielsen family.  A "reality" show that documents 4 people in the space of an hour, all of whom are addicted to crack, beat their dogs and then wash their hands 10 times, left hand first, either so that the world doesn't end, or that they can feel really, really clean isn't showing me that I am part of my world.

The purpose is quite the opposite: it is to show me that everyone ELSE has problems and I should count myself lucky that my only issue if that my bills pile up as quickly as my laundry, and neither gets dealt with until it is a day too late and something stinks.

In case I do have problems, these shows reassure me that, if all else fails and I find myself sitting in a box that I call home, while eating what's left of the shoe polish that the king hobo left for me in exchange for my left ear, I can still get on television as a cautionary tale for everyone else. How comforting.

I'm still not sure how I feel. Should I be celebrating that I am not that low? Should I be jealous that I'm not on television? Should I feel guilty that I watch these shows, or ashamed that anyone else does? Should I be resigned to this and see that at least we don't have another insipid sitcom on the air?

Suggestions for my reaction are welcome. Tell me how I feel and I'll remind you of your opinion.

not to be insensitive

I was walking around today and I saw someone wearing a shirt that said "Walk for a Cure." I have seen others that make similar statements, like "Race for the cure" and "March for a cure."

I'm confused. Why would we need doctors then? What kind of ailment can be resolved by walking? I should stop reading shirts.

I just saw another one... "Walk for Hunger." Does that mean I should walk so that I can become hungry or walk somewhere where I can get food to stop my hunger?

I'm angry

Just stumbled on a TV show about "Platinum Weddings" -- weddings which have a budget of $500,000. That makes me angry. Have a reasonable wedding and solve the problem of world hunger with the balance. No one has the right to spend that kind of money. It should be criminal. Sure, I can appreciate that some people have earned lots of cash and have the right to use it how they will but how can anyone sleep at night knowing that they spent enough money on a one-shot party to pay for food, housing and education for entire families.  I'm no socialist but human nature should drive us towards common sense, not towards selfish stupidity.

And if you stumble on this and happen to be a person who had one of those weddings...

a) for shame

b) can I borrow 10 bucks?

It's a mad mad mad mad world

So I was on the youtube this morning, looking at the most viewed videos (there's only so many times I can relive the 80's) and I stumble on this guy name Phil Defranco, or something like that and he goes on some rant for 3 minutes about how basically, everything is horrible and we all need to be made aware that everything is horribe. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world that some random stranger has the ability to tell me what he thinks about things. Then I notice, good heavens but he's angry.

My question du jour (which means "Tuesday") is, Is there more anger in the world these days?

The concept of going off on a rant could be said to be a relatively modern invention -- only since the observational comics (with Lenny Bruce and George Carlin in the lead) has it been socially acceptable to spout off for half an hour about how we're all idiots and we are in a society built on stupidity, irony and all-around uselessness. So now we have the Dennis Miller's, the A Whitney Browns and the random blogger all who spend their time bemoaning how we're all getting screwed at the drive-through, how our political tendencies reveal deep spiritual corruption and how if we deconstruct our society we reveal that if ignorance isn't bliss, it certainly is good for a giggle.

But is this all new? Is this all a function of a new breed of anger? If we go back to biblical times, what was the prophet, yelling his message from some hill top, but a ranting and raving blogger who claimed that the muse descended and told him to warn everyone that they all suck and they'd better just CUT IT OUT or god will stop this planet and turn it right around and you'll be thrown out of the house and have to sleep in the yard, Mister! Fast forward a bunch of years and you have the nutjob on the corner who is yelling much the same thing but because god has issued a statement disassociating himself with anyone wearing a sandwich board, or who claims inspiration came from a voice in a Beatles song, we consign this ranter to the role of "town drunk" (which begs the question -- maybe the prophet drinks to make the voices stop, not start), or high school gym teacher.

I think that technology has affected us in two ways -- one, it has made the angry person accessible to the masses, and handed the ears of the masses to the angry person. With all those channels and stations, there has been a need to fill airtime with something, and what sells? Passion and raw emotion. Thus, the angry people are given the soapbox because even if we aren't influenced by their pearls of wisdom, we will be amused and buy whatever toilet paper advertises during their breaks, when they take a breath and get all riled up again.

Secondly, I think technology has increased the flow of data and you know what ticks us all off most? Stuff. The more stuff we know, the more stuff we have to get rid of. In the closed agrarian society of all those years ago, the average guy could get mad at only a few things every week, and they were pretty cyclical. Not enough rain, too much rain, the 10 people I know annoy me ("and hey...what's the deal with the plague? Who was the ad wizard who came up with that?") and when no one is paying attention, how I hate god. Now, the constant influx of info gives us a chance to know and absorb and then spit out so much more. Maybe, the rants and all the yelling is proportionately the same as it ever was, representing the certain percentage of all the responses and since there is more stuff and more responses, we see more anger. Maybe, like one of the theories behind the increase in any disease, what we have is a higher awareness of it (possibly also because the bidirectional flow of information via technology makes us more able to see the anger all around us) but the overall number or at least percentage has remained the same.

Are we generally angrier? Is there more to be angry about, or are we just more in tune with all the anger out there?

And what's the deal with "tuna fish"? We don't call salmon "salmon fish"!

Speech titles

I'm thinking of starting up a lecture series, starting with passover (and I'm thinking of these off the cuff)

1. Leaven on A Jet Plane -- Keeping Passover in flight

2. My Four Sons -- Ernie, what does he say?

3. Spill The Wine -- The Art of War

4. A plague on Both your Houses -- The Lamentable tragedy of Egypt

5. The Hag-God-Dah -- puting the divine into Divinner

6. The Egg Kittel -- you are what you wear

7. A Bittersweet Symphony -- Lettuce infotain you

8. Are you Kid-ding me? My two cents

9. Amerlia Bedika -- how precise must our cleaning be?

10. The First Aid Kitniyot -- So you found some chametz on chol hamo'ed?

11. Shirat ha-yum -- how to keep the second days delicious

More as I hit my stride...

by the numbers

Just a boring little game -- songs that have a thematic connection. But on this one, i need a little help. I am not familiar with the 49 and 59 songs. Someone tell me ones I know and like.

The group is called "the one after 909"

Hey 19 (steely Dan)

29 Palms (Robert Palmer)

'39 (Queen)

49 Mercury Blues (Brian Setzer Orchestra)

'59 (Brian Setzer Orchestra)

Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams)

1979 (Smashing Pumpkins)

Pop Song 89 (REM)

TIE -- 99 Luftballon (Nena) AND 1999 (Prince)