Did You Enjoy That Pagan Holiday?

My father-in-law declared to his family members a few years ago the they (he and the wife) would no longer be celebrating Christmas. No tree, no decorations, no lights, no presents, no traditional family gathering, no turkey dinner. Nothing. It was over, as far as he was concerned. The timing of this announcement added an even stranger feel to it all, as it was immediately following the funeral of a very sweet lady they referred to as "Grandma Great," his wife's mother. The old man never has been known for his tact, so it really wasn't all that odd.

Seems he had gotten himself and his wife involved with one of their local churches in the little rural Oregon town where they live, a Church of God Adventist Church. Shades of Garner Ted Armstrong. The pastor of this church is an avid deer hunter, just like the old man, and owns many guns and thousands of boxes of ammo, and probably believes, like the old man, that Barack Obama plans to come fer them guns right after his reelection. And right off the bat the pastor of this little church convinced the old man that the true Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday. So the old man, who by the way rules his house with an iron fist, declared that nothing must be done on the day of rest, now Saturday. This includes driving a car, except to drive to church, amongst other things, which is a good thing when you think about it, because the rest of us are safe from him dropping in. We should have seen what was next coming.

So okay, I got off the track for a minute. The old man declares there will no more Christmas at his house. And his reasoning? Because Christmas is a "pagan holiday." He mentions something about pagans burning children in a fire, and gets a strange wide-eyed look in his eyes. So, the rest of the family is aghast, but the old man cares not one whit, because of course, he is righteous, and the rest of us are pagan worshippers from 'way back. He and his long suffering wife will have no more of that paganistic gathering of the family around the tree for exchanging gifts (might be a clue there), and they will instead be eating that night nothing more than righteous macaroni and cheese and potato salad. Hallaluya.

The old man knows me, sorta, so he E-mails me something off the internet written by someone named Werner Keller, as a way of convincing me he's right, and he questions me as to whether I "lie to my children." I want to be flippant and reply that children are supposed to be lied to, but I can see he's serious. He's not talking about Santa here, he's talking about Christmas being Jesus' birthday. I assure him I've never told my children that Christmas is Jesus' birthday, but that doesn't take me off the pagan list he's preparing.

The conversation between him and me is over, I think. I E-mailed him a note in response to the silly nonsense he sent me, and while I was respectful and polite (you believe me, don't you?), I did wish him a very Merry Christmas. I'm going to hell, no doubt.

Happy Holidays, JP

A Circular Firing Squad

I have been predicting that the endless GOP Primary would end badly. It appears
that Mitt Romney and Rick Perry hate one other far, far worse than they hate
Obama, and they may want to destroy or dominate the other much more than they
want to be President. Oh, game on, Dudes!

Their behavior during the next FIFTEEN debates should tell the tale. Can
they handle conflict and interact in an effective manner with those who have
annoying personalities? or are they prone to losing it in public? I think they
are both second-raters and that neither will have the wits and character to
figure out a way to work through these personality clashes and just focus on the
task of getting elected. If I am right, this is an election that academics will
be discussing for years to come, as a "how not to" example. I just hope the
moderators keep putting them next to one another so they can reach out and
touch, and if we are lucky, pat, punch, push and shove.

You may say, wait, weren't there only thirteen more GOP Primary
debates? Yes, you are right, until Fox News added two more! God bless Fox
News! The more we see of these Republicrat candidates, the less they inspire.
I read a long article about Michelle Bachmann's long fake acrylic fingernails,
cut in the square-tipped "French" style. Ooooo boy, snarky, snarky, snarky.
The article said that journalists have been biting their tongues, not wanting
to talk about how creepy they look, along with her long artificial lashes and…
so on.

Arthur

Elizabeth Warren

This is the one candidate I feel not the slightest qualms about sending a bit of money to in this election cycle. Her opponent Scott Brown is a moron who needs to be run out the Senate on a rail. Elizabeth Warren fought long and hard to set up a Consumer Protection Agency, to fight deceptive business practices, often hidden in three to seven page small-type pages of wheres and whyfors that no normal human being could be expected to actually read.

Many years ago REI, otherwise a decent enough company, sent an order to my brother for mountain climbing gear. On the back it said in pale red print that acceptance of this purchase order, to sell goods to REI, meant that in the event of any legal claim for the use of such goods, that the seller (my brother) would assume all legal responsibility and that REI was exempted. My brother talked to an attorney who laughed and wrote him a receipt form that read "payment for these goods is accepted only on the basis that the purchaser understands that the seller lacks the legal skill to review the disclaimers on their purchase order, so he cannot be held liable for them". And REI went ahead with the purchase, since they apparently don't read that crap either.

But Elizabeth Warren, one very smart cookie indeed, asks why the Heck people should have to wade through bullshit like that? The agency that she fostered will be taxed with calling spades a spade and stopping abuse of consumers. The far-right in the Senate hated the idea of her heading that agency, so someone else was given the job. But to have Elizabeth Warren's voice in the Senate would be a game changer.

Oh, and her ass-wipe opponent? The Wall Street Journal called him "Wall Street's Favorite Senator".

To me that seems like a fairly stark choice, between the living and the Living Dead. Even $20 can make you feel like you have paid your dues and you have a voice that should be listened to. $100? The effect is even greater.

Arthur

Weekend Update - Beware "The Cloud" Edition

(So we finally had to take the old number 2 cat, Alex, to the vet the other day. He'd been losing weight and throwing up a lot, and was drinking a hell of a lot of water. But he's 15 years old, and I was thinking the inevitable was about to happen, and the wife began her depressed mope. They ran a bunch of expensive tests and it turns out he's become diabetic. Just like me, how sweet. Now every morning and evening someone in the household, me, has to give the old boy a shot of insulin, and he's on a very special expensive diet. Did I say this all is expensive? Now mind you I'm not what you would call a "cat person." But for some reason we have amassed a herd of two old cats, and an emergency back-up young one. Some people think cats are really smart, but I know for a fact that most of them are dumb as posts. And I also know that there is no such thing as a free one. But I digress ...)

• So you struggled with learning how to operate a computer, finally got it and could send E-mails. Hooray. Then came Google and all the weird stuff you could find on the Internet. Cool. Then we suffered through TVs with 3-D and Internet ready toasters, and toilets that monitored our "output." And now, dear friends, there's something called "The Cloud." It's frightening, and upsetting to older people like myself, and it may keep me from using any electronic device in the future. Mark Morford tells us all about it. Be afraid, be very afraid.


• Rick Perry, from the West Texas town of Paint Creek, is no John Wayne, even though he has a ton of executions notched on his belt. But he wears a pair of cowboy boots with the legend “Liberty” stitched on one. (As in freedom, not Valance.) He plays up the effete-versus-mesquite stereotypes in his second-grade textbook of a manifesto, “Fed Up!” One of our favorites, Maureen Dowd comments on politics from the right. Recommended reading.


• The anniversary of September 11, 2001 passed by recently with big fanfare, since it was the tenth year since it happened. I sat dreary-eyed at the TV watching the rehashing of all the drama, and actually still shed a tear or two about it all. Pretty much like all Americans, I suppose. But it occured to me that after ten years have passed we still don't know much more than we did a couple months after it happened. Oh there's all that conspiracy stuff, and you gotta give it some weight, like do we really know who killed JFK for sure? No, not really. But it kinda grates on some of us. Did BushCo and Darth Cheney really ignore all the warnings for a reason? Should we just let this go and get back to see no hear no speak no? Well it just keeps going.


• I've said it once, and I'll continue saying it: Rick Perry is full of crap. Rick Perry is dangerously full of crap. It worries me that 99% of the American people don't realize this fact already. Here's just a sample.


• When one thinks about a corrupt Supreme Court Justice, one always thinks of Clarence Thomas first, doesn't one? I'm not saying he is, gawd knows I wouldn't want the feds coming down on Bad Hat for evilspeak, but gimmee a break on this pompous pubic-hair-in-the-coke-can pervert. And now there's this: If Clarence Thomas was hoping that liberals might just forget about his cozy ties to a Dallas real estate developer, or his failure for a decade to disclose the hundreds of thousands of dollars his wife earned from a conservative think tank, well, he would be wrong. Can you say, "Impeach?"
  
  

What's One Pair of Shorts Worth?

Recently British Prime Minister David Cameron has been bloviating at length about the evil young who sent on a destructive rampage after a police killing of the father of four who worked as a taxi driver in a rough part of town. The family of the deceased came to the local Police station asking for answers as to why he was killed, no answers were given. A special anti-firearms unit had been involved in the attempted arrest and one of its members seems to have been the shooter. Supporters of the family became restive and when there was no response after four hours some began to break windows. From that point events escalated, in roughly the same way that events spiraled out of control in the Rodney King beating aftermath.

In response English Courts are working overtime to ram through the convictions of all that were swept up by the Police in the unrest. Some sentences have been oddly small, others, including four months in jail for a mother who was given a pair of shorts from a stack of garments looted from a shop, seem draconian (whatever that means). But there's more! Now Cameron and his Conservative government are pressing to evict the families of any young people who got caught in the Police dragnet from their public housing or subsidized housing. If mothers and fathers can't control their children, then they must suffer the consequences!

But while we are talking about "consequences", this is the same Prime Minister who hired a fired News of the World Editor who had been tarred by his connection to a phone hacking scandal. The Prime Minister spoke of believing that everyone deserved a "second chance". Except the poor who live in public housing, it would appear. They don't deserve shit. They apparently have no civil rights and should be considered unpersons.

And who is it that is suggesting this? Well sir, it turns out this is the entitled son of a wealthy family who in college was a member of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University. Who were they exactly? They turn out to be a lively group of well-heeled ne'er do wells who enjoyed going out to dinner and then trashing the restaurant or pub at the end of the evening, laughing and throwing money over their shoulders as they staggered out into the street, presumably to scream obscenities at passing women. It was so jolly to do that! Where have these lively lads gone? One is the Mayor of London. One is the Prime Minister. One is Chancellor of the Exchequer (kind of like the Secretary of Money). All of them are articulate, well-connected, upper-class douchebags.

Oh, and that Secretary of Money? Here are his brilliant ideas for the future. Unions? Pfaagh! Planning Codes? An impediment to business! Higher taxes? Pish, who thinks that would be a good idea? How would the wealthy be able to afford to send their children to Oxford so they can trash restaurants and buy their way out of vandalism charges? I mean, surely it makes sense to send a single mother to jail for accepting a stolen pair of shorts, right? But it cannot, simply cannot be okay to jail a horde of well-dressed hooligans who trash restaurants, because they know they can do so with impunity. If they were poor, no, that would be wrong, but if you are wealthy and have good attorneys? It's all A-OK. And on one level or another, we have seen this in this country as well. How many went to prison for fraud in the mortgage (and economy) melt-down? Not so many? Umm, none? Wow. While I was living in Portland I read about a woman (probably BLACK for God's sake!) who was sent to jail for four years for stealing a carton of cigarettes. This was back when a carton of cigs cost about $2.00. It puts a low cost on human life, doesn't it? But interestingly I later heard that the same judge was well-known as the go-to guy if one needed to buy their way out of a pesky manslaughter case, or something silly like that. Twenty Grand would do it, if the case was a messy one. All the defendant had to do was ask for trial by Judge. Injustice will always be with us, but when will someone start to do something about it.?

Maybe we could start by voting such people out of office? Which people? oh, like this idiot.

Arthur

London Is Burning

(Arthur phoned this one in several days ago, and it got misplaced 'till now. Damned messy office, don't cha know? sorry Arthur.)

To those who have not been following the news, London and other parts of England have had outbreaks of looting, rioting and arson that have been unexpected and inconvenient for the new conservative government, who have been busy working to cut social services, rent support, police department budgets and other key parts of the British social safety net. I personally think that Prime Minister David Cameron is a colossal dickwad, while others think he is too eloquent to ever be tossed out of office. Sort of a young Reagan it would seem. I still think Cameron is very likely to lose his post over the Murdock/News of the World scandal, but we'll have to wait and see. Oh, and David Cameron used to belong to a college club that regularly trashed restaurants, thinking it was wonderful fun to do so, since they could sort of pay for it and not get prosecuted. Critics are starting to remind the public of these "inconvenient facts". It might have seemed funny two weeks ago, it is not sounding that way now.

And here, in the middle of this mess, appears an article by of all people Russell Brand, an actor whose public persona is that of a deranged twit. The one word in the article you might not recognize is "trainers", a British term for running shoes. I didn't know Brand could write, I didn't know he could think, I didn't know he had strong opinions. I was wrong. Brand's essay is far, far more intelligent than other pundits' comments on the situation, one of whom wrote a piece titled "The whites have become black". Amazingly, that is what has passed for intelligent commentary during the last week.

Arthur

Weekend Update - Happy Birthday Edition

(So we're watching M.A.S.H. the other night, the boy and me, and there's this episode where Radar is in the bar and he's apparently getting tipsy on Grape Nehi, and the boy turns to me and says "Dad, did you ever drink Grape Nehi?"  And my thoughts instantly ran to hot summer afternoons on my bike in the old neighborhood, the old little store on 20th street, being thirstier than the Mill Tails of Hell, and the first big gulp of an incredibly cold bottle of Grape Nehi.  You could feel the carbonation and the slam of intense grape flavoring all the way to your toes.  It was, at the time, better than sex.  Of course I was only 12 at the time, but still.  So instead of trying to explain it all to him - well okay I tried, but half way into it I got teary eyed about my bike and lost him - and realizing you can't just go out and buy the original Grape Nehi anymore, I suggested we look it up on the old Internet.  And guess what?  We found a place that still has the Nectar of the Preteen Gods available.  It turns out that for a mere $1.99 a bottle, Old 52 General Store will send directly from their warehouse in Sabin, Minnesota, just a stone's throw from Fargo, North Dakota,  the original formula Grape Nehi to your home in Eugene, Oregon.  Ah, the wonders of modern convenience.  But of course at $1.99 a bottle, and with shipping and handling, a six-pack of this stuff will run your credit card about 30 bucks, and that's $5.00 a bottle when all is said and done.  So we're sitting out on the deck drinking this $5 a bottle Grape Nehi and the boy says "can I have another one?" and I says I don't think so, at these prices.  We'll save them, and only drink them one a day, or when we're watching M.A.S.H. or or or or.  There's 2 of them left.  We follow each other out to the kitchen to make sure the other one doesn't snitch one.  I know he's waiting for me to go asleep.  I must stay awake.  But I digress ...

• Fidel Castro turned 85 today.  Merely one of the oldest living douche bags in the Western Hemisphere. Salsa and cigars, baby.  That's what it's all about.
• So in the Republican race to see who looks the silliest in the 2012 elections, Michelle "Batshit" Bachmann has apparently bested the Field of Dreams games, nationally known as the Iowa Straw Poll, where rich contenders pay plenty to win a contest no one pays any attention to, because it doesn't matter anyway.  We here at Bad Hat offer our sincere congratulations to whomever was responsible.  By the way, if you're interested, some guy named Paul finished second.  All the other have seemed to come to their senses and gone home.
• Team Jesus head cheerleader Rick Perry is just seconds away from shooting his wad into the next presidential election, and most of us are wishing he'd just get on with it.  What, he did it?  Ohgawd, I feel so much better. This guy flat out frightens me.  The sheer scope of his insincerity is jaw-dropping.  I never thought we could witness anyone more full of crap than Mitt Romney, but Eureka! we have found him.  I forced myself to listen to him talk the other day, and I think I'd have had more respect for this Bozo if he'd just whipped out his burrito and pissed on my shoes.  If Hunter S. Thompson was alive he'd put a contract of somesort out on this idiot, or do it himself.  God rest his soul.
• At the Fox News Christmas party the year the network overtook arch-rival CNN in the cable ratings, tipsy employees were herded down to the basement of a midtown bar in New York. As they gathered around a television mounted high on the wall, an image flashed to life, glowing bright in the darkened tavern: the MSNBC logo. A chorus of boos erupted among the Fox faithful. The CNN logo followed, and the catcalls multiplied. Then a third slide appeared, with a telling twist. In place of the logo for Fox News was a beneficent visage: the face of the network's founder. The man known to his fiercest loyalists simply as "the Chairman" – Roger Ailes. "It was as though we were looking at Mao," recalls Charlie Reina, a former Fox News producer.  Forget Rupurt Murdock, here's a chilling report concerning the real man behind the evil, Roger Ailes.
• And speaking of Mitt, (for a real kick on a hot afternoon just start walking around your house saying mitt mitt mitt mitt over and over. Say it fast or slow, whatever irritates people more.  See how long it takes before people tell you to go outside.) he experienced a bit of embarrassment when he hypothetically asked his audience to ponder what to do about the deficit.  "Tax the corporations!" came the answer.  Whoops.  You could actually see Mitt's cheeks tighten, and I'm not speaking of the ones on his handsomely weathered face.  "Corporations are people too, my friend," he says, thrusting his size 12 foot directly into his pretty lips.  The fallout from that remark is only the beginning of Mitt's (mitt mitt mitt mitt) problems.  Gosh this is going to be fun.  Hand me that Grape Nehi dammit ... 

The Love

(We're back, sorry it's been a while. The following is a report concerning the death of my beloved Sister last week. I wrote it several days ago and have been debating with myself whether or not to publish it, not only worried it would upset members of my family, but also whether you guys would want to read something a bit depressing this weekend. Well, I checked with some of the family and they all seemed okay with it. So I've decided to go ahead and post it for you. What I want you to get from this is not depression, however. I want you to feel and understand the love that I had the privilege of witnessing. And two more things before we begin. First, I could rewrite this a hundred more times and never think I've done this whole event justice. And finally, I'm aware this has happened to most all of you as well, and please forgive me if I don't phrase it just right. Love to you all, JP)

Our dear sweet Nancy passed away in Lowell early Tuesday morning, her husband George and son Reid at her side. This "dying of cancer" thing takes too goddamned long, if you want my opinion. When people die of this particular disease their family members invariably say something like "he/she fought bravely to the end." To say Nancy fought bravely to the end in this case is an understatement. A huge understatement.

It's one thing to have to lose someone you love to a tragic accident, like a car wreck, or a skydiving mishap - it's over in a matter of seconds or at most hours. I don't mean to diminish the emotions involved in those cases, I'm just saying it's something else entirely to watch someone you love slowly die over a period of six months or more. I'm going to say something completely stupid: It's more agonizing to those of us who are watching it happen than to the one it's actually happening to. That, of course, is nonsense, but if you've ever experienced it, you know what I mean.

Extreme life and death situations makes heroes out of some of us, whether we start out to be one or not. In my learned yet humble opinion Nancy's husband George is a Hero, capital "H". Well, to be honest, George isn't legally her husband, they've been "living together" for over 25 years. But to say George isn't really Nancy's husband is like saying I'm not really her brother. I'm linked by blood to the Winslow family, and was adopted into the Perry family immediately after I was born. I am her brother. George is her husband. And throughout this entire agonizing ordeal her husband George never left her side. Devotion and dedication like that are the things that make up a true Hero.

My mother Louise gave birth to Nancy some eight years before I came into the picture, on October 14th, 1937. Pictures of her show a beautiful blond-haired baby with near perfect features. She was healthy and fit, and the pride of my parents. Bearing her and taking her to term did not fair well on my mother, however, as Louise later found out that health complications would never allow her to have another child naturally. The young Perry family lived on a small family farm near Eugene, Oregon, and Nancy helped with the daily chores that all farms have, and indeed became quite the little farm girl. Her first pets were two small pigs, Flopsy, and of course, Mopsy.

I had just gotten home from from work one day a few months ago when she called with the bad news. She had had this cancer thing for a year off and on, going through the routine of treatments, radiation, chemo, making the 30 minute daily drive into Eugene for standard rounds of humiliating and often painful bouts of testings and proddings. All things one must endure to get your hopes up, and keep you going a little longer. Throughout the years Nancy and I have always kept closely in touch, calling regularly, if sometimes infrequently, and just chatting about anything and everything in our lives. She and I had begun talking more often since it all began, almost daily, and her mood was always upbeat, always cheerful, and never centered on her or the ordeal she was going through. She always was one tough-yet-gentle cookie, so I wasn't a bit surprised at her tone when she called. She asked me how I was doing, then waited while I babbled on for a bit with my usual patter, then she reminded me that she had seen the doctor. "And?" I asked, suddenly sober. "You won't like it," she said gently, as though she was worried about how all this would effect me, for heaven's sake. I realized for some reason I wasn't ready for this. "Six months." She said it matter-of-factly, like she was telling me how long it takes to grow cabbage. I didn't say anything for several long seconds, flipping through my mental Rolodex looking for something intelligent to respond with. Finding nothing, I simply said "Now what?"

My mother was one of the most emotional people in the world. Perhaps it was because of that she was so good at hiding it. She was sensitive and kind, smart and stubborn, clever and secretive, and made us understand that the outpouring of emotion seen in other people on occasion was not a desirable trait for the Perry family. Emotion, particularly weeping sadness, was not something to be displayed to other people. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't a cold woman. Quite the opposite actually. It's just that to her "stoic" was not just a word, it was a lifestyle. In the early 1970's, on the night our mother died, Nancy and I weren't with her. We were at my little apartment on Harlow Road sitting stoically waiting for the phone to ring, for the Uncle to call, with the news. Mom had been in a coma for several months, in a "rest home," and we knew (we reasoned) Mom wouldn't have wanted us there anyway. It would have been too upsetting. For us. The phone rang, I answered, my Uncle Gordon said "your Mom died a few moments ago, I'm sorry." I hung up, turned to Nancy and quietly said, "It's over." We both got up, and leaving the rest of the people there in the room, walked out to the parking lot in silence, holding hands. It was weird. I could actually feel it coming. We stopped, turned and faced each other and just started bawling. We hugged each other as tight as we could, and Nancy said "You're the only one who understands." Those were the only words spoken. After a bit, we wiped our faces, straightened up, and walked back to our Mother's death with never another tear. To this day, I'm not sure what she meant by that.

It was getting down to weeks and because I was still working regularly (am I ever going to retire?) I could only get out to Lowell to see Nancy on the weekends. She had begun to lose weight, slowly at first, then shockingly rapidly as the time grew nearer. The doctors were still working on her, a couple chemoes here, radiations there, but everyone knew it was hopeless, though you never want to talk that way at the time. You see, the Stoic Handbook says There's Always Hope No Matter What, but most intelligent people know that's a lie. There is not a "bad word" in the English language that's bad enough to use in describing the monster, cancer. The way it kills is to slowly destroy the host, a biologically insane thing to do, similar to burning your own house down to keep warm. And it doesn't care, it doesn't quit, it never gives you a break. It will take over half your body mass and reduce it by half. It will leave you on your last day with nothing but skin, bones, and memories. And your beating heart. Nancy's big strong beating heart took every last nano-second that this life had to offer, fighting, refusing to surrender to the monster.

George never left her side, or at least he made sure someone else was holding her hand before he would go use the bathroom, or step outside. George has always been a bit of a comedian, always been in mid performance when visitors were over, always entertaining and keeping the mood lighter than it would be normally, not allowing anyone to become morbid or depressing around Nancy. His whole world became Nancy. It was obvious. He'd be talking to other people in the room, but his eyes never left hers. He was like a one-armed man because one hand was always holding Nancy's, like he was afraid if he accidentally let go she'd float away from his grasp, and he wasn't about to let that happen. If he slept, it was only when she slept, and it was while laying next to her on the big bed. Each day there was less of her. Near the end she could hardly speak, so George did all the talking. He never quit talking to her. He talked about anything, everything, the weather today, the yard, the dog, memories, plans. Friends would come by, stay for a bit, George would talk to them, including Nancy in the conversation like it was just any normal rainy afternoon. And he never let go of her hand. And his eyes never left hers.

Day after day and night after night it continued. One morning she woke up and said to George "am I still here?" Then she smiled. She hadn't eaten for almost two weeks, the end was coming. Hospice had, of course been there by then, but after making sure she was comfortable there wasn't much anyone could do. George administered the morphine as he was directed to, watching for signs of intense pain, but Nancy actually was doing relatively well, and like the Stoic she was, didn't wish to be "knocked out" with pain meds, so he monitored it very closely. And her big strong heart refused to quit. There was nothing left of Nancy except skin, and bones. That night, as she slept, George and Reid watched a spot on the side of her neck that pulsed with each beat. Each beat became an act of defiance. One more second. One more. One more. Each time she awoke she would gaze at George, her eyes never leaving him.

In the middle of the night something happened to her. One half of her body tensed violently, then contorted, then finally drooped as though she had lost all control and nerves on that side of her frail body. George thought perhaps it was a stroke of some kind. It began to effect her face, something unseen pulling horribly at her mouth, wrenching one side into a terrible contorted look of what? pain? Her eye on that side clenched shut tightly but the other one looked intently right at George with what? fear? Her back began to arch and something was dragging her head over to her shoulder. George thought ohmygod she's in pain. She's in trouble. She needs me to help her. My girl needs me What what what do I do? He grabbed the liquid morphine and with Reid's help they both got the proper dose measured out and he put the drops into her mouth on the side that was drooping. It seemed to make what was happening to her even worse. Her skin, on her face and shoulders, suddenly turned hard and non pliant. He couldn't even leave an indentation on her cheek when he gently pushed on it. George was in absolute anguish. He lept up and began pacing, sobbing and pounding the air. He was afraid he'd done something wrong, put his Nancy in worse jeopardy than she was before. He frantically grabbed the phone and called the Hospice nurse, but it was in the middle of the night, and what could they do, anyway.

He went back to her and knelt down on the floor next to her and started praying. Praying loudly. Praying for God to take her, to ease her pain. To stop this madness. And then her body relaxed. Her skin softened. Her breathing calmed. George looked at her face. Nancy had both eyes open and she looked directly into his. And smiled. A warm and beautiful smile that said "George, don't worry, it's going to be okay." George said later that at that moment he felt a warm calmness wash over him, like something wonderful had just touched him. He looked down and she was holding his hand.

For the next hour George and Reid talked to her, to each other, to themselves, not looking at her, just being quiet and relaxed. During that conversation one of them looked down and noticed the spot on her neck was no longer pulsing. Later, George washed her body and dressed it in her favorite yellow nightgown. He said she looked beautiful.

But of course, she always was.

High Drama

The grilling of Rupert and James Murdock elicited a well-polished response from Murdock father and son. They were shocked, shocked, that such sleaze had been done by one of their very teeny, tiny companies, by dastardly staff members who did it without letting poor Murdock know what crimes they were committing. Shocking! Sooo disappointing. But he, Rupert the Clueless, would now get to the bottom of this, he could promise us that!

....except, late yesterday the British Parliament issued a report stating that in 2005-2006 News Corps had engaged in a year-long campaign to block investigation of the crimes now being discussed. There is little to no chance that efforts to block investigation and prosecution could have been carried on for a year without the head of that criminal enterprise knowing about it, unless he was in a coma all year.

And just for fun, the Guardian published some cartoons: CLICK HERE

The comments below the cartoon make interesting reading.

The best source for this story continues to be the Guardian Newspaper, a fearless and outspoken left-of-center newspaper. They have been chewing away at this story for several years, in the face of threats, bluster and serial evasions on the part of News Corp.

One might ask, okay, so why should an American care about all this stuff in London or wherever? The best reason is because there are fairly good odds that similar "business practices" were employed in the US as well. What practices might those have been?

1. Tapping into cell phones, landline phones and voicemail

2. Paying large cash bribes to police officials in return for access to confidential police files

3. Paying private investigators to follow, investigate and harass public and political figures and business adversaries

4. Hacking into competitors' and political figures' computers

5. Using news media to discredit those it does not like and build up those it supports

6. Using book advances to buy favor with political figures (Newt Gingrich got four million)

The current British Prime Minister, a Murdock ally, spoke of having his garbage routinely gone through, even though he employed a former News Corp editor. No one was safe from having their privacy invaded and the details of their personal lives used for leverage or blackmail.

Think it can't happen here, such massive corrupt corporate sleaze? Think again. News Corp admits to paying out a five-hundred million dollars(!) to settle the computer hacking of a competitor in the newspaper-insert business. It would appear that (a) there's a lot of money in that garbage, and (b) News Corps was able to use its access to a competitor's data to gain a competitive advantage. And they got caught. Here, in the United States, not someplace else.

Phone tapping? There is said to be a massive secured room in the basement of the News Corp headquarters in New York City called the "Brain Room" used for "investigations". What kind of investigation could that be? Phone and communications tapping maybe? Who runs it? Roger Ailes, former Nixon hatchet-man. The Justice Department has just opened several investigations of News Corp to pursue leads generated by the uproar in England.

How big is the "uproar" in the UK? There are calls for Prime Minister David Cameron to resign. In a short period of time in office Cameron has made himself highly unpopular by huge cuts in public services. His philosophy would appear to mesh with the extreme right in the US. Tear down the government and find out what happens. Since Parliament is about to go into a two-month recess it is doubtful that anything will happen soon, but when Parliament returns we could easily see a change in leadership. If that happens it will send a powerful message to certain politicians in this country to reconsider their allegiance to Rupert Murdock. The Republicans are in an uncomfortable "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position. The odds of this scandal going global are high. If equivalent (or worse) crimes have been committed in this country, as seems likely, any political figure who has ties to News Corps and Fox News will be in trouble.

Arthur

"Fox News is too important to the Republican Party"

Too important for what? The author of this piece in the Telegraph, a London competitor to the recently defunct News of the World tabloid, thinks that Fox News is too central to the Republican Party for it to turn against it, apparently no matter what it has done.

What if News Corporation, the parent company, has committed Treason, either in the UK or the United States? Would that be enough to convince Republican Presidential hopefuls not to have programs on Fox? How about conspiring with "corrupt foreign agents" as has been mentioned in the British press? Would that be enough? Or how about tapping the phones of 9/11 victims and their families in an attempt to gather juicy news items? Would that be okay? I mean, sure, sure, it's sort of a crime, but...

And News Corps has another problem. Elliot Spitzer. Elliot Spitzer is the heir to a large New York City real estate fortune. He went on to Princeton and Harvard Law School and spent time in prestigious law firms and in smiting Corporate evil-doers. Then he became Governor of New York, but before he could enjoy himself very much a huge scandal over his patronage of prostitutes so captured the news in New York that he was forced to resign. Recently he had an opinion show on CNN, but that got cancelled a week ago. Spitzer thinks Murdock has probably broken a lot of laws. He doesn't think those laws were minor or unimportant. He also (if one can read between the lines) seems to think that Fox and their New York Post daily paper helped run him out of office. He does not seem to have forgotten, or forgiven, that insult. Now that he has some free time, and is a free agent, he seems to want to return the favor. Spitzer is powerful, wealthy and a bulldog prosecutor. This is a very bad enemy for Rupert Murdock to have made.

But all is not lost in New York State. Former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani thinks we should give Rupert Murdock the benefit of the doubt, apparently since he has been so nice to Rudi.

Giuliani is such a has-been that he is polling in the 1% range of possible Republican candidates for President. It may have something to do with him trying to move his mistress (now wife) into the Mayoral Mansion in New York City. It may have something to do with his support of his former chauffeur, Bernie Kerik, to be head of Homeland Security, before it was discovered that Kerik was on the take and went to prison... for being on the take. No one cares what Giuliani thinks. No one.

And the news from England is not getting any better. It turns out that Scotland Yard has so far only notified 176 of the 4,000 victims of phone tapping that their privacy was invaded. By my count that means there are 3,824 individuals who will be getting an extremely unwelcome message from the Police. As someone in News Corps said in the UK, "There is worse news yet to come out... ". Some have suggested that the true number of those whose phones were hacked is probably closer to 10,000. That is fairly large scale criminal behavior, to say the least. As the story festers, like gangrene, at some point it may come to be seen as infectious for anyone who speaks up in support of Fox, the News of the World and News Corps. At that point News Corps, under the weight of its own actions, may simply collapse. At that point it may seem quite "important" for Republicans to switch sides and distance themselves from Fox News. What an irony, after Fox has courted, coddled, touted and supported Republicans. Rather like rats leaving a sinking ship, one might say...

Arthur

A Very Moving Experience

I've stopped sobbing uncontrollably. And for the most part, the constant pain in my lower spine and muscles in the back of my legs has eased enough as to allow me to think through a complete thought. I've resigned myself to the realization that I have too many broken electric gizmos that I'll never fix "one day when I get around to it," too many clothes that I'll never again wear even if they do still fit, which they don't, and too many unidentifiable things that have been gathering alien-looking dust balls in the garage.

I was going to do this move scientifically, you see. I was going to throw all the old junk away. I wasn't going to pack it up with the stuff I just absolutely HAD to save, even though I had forgotten about it 10 years ago. We'd lived in this old house ever since my Dad died over 20 years ago, and he lived in it for over 20 years before that. There was a LOT of stuff. The "scientific approach to moving" went out the window on the third full day of packing. The rule suddenly was PACK IT ALL PACK EVERYTHING JUST GET IT IN A BOX ON THE TRUCK.

At any rate, it's practically done. We've some assorted stuff still left to move, but the big stuff is finally in the new place. And of course we don't know where anything is. The standard answer to any question beginning "Do you know where the ..." is "It's in a box somewhere, I know I saw it just a few minutes ago ..."

By the way, moving over the Fourth of July weekend is really not a good idea. All your friends are "camping" all of a sudden. Even those who have never camped in their lives. But we do still have a few die-hard good friends and we'd like to thank good friend Don H. who saved us a lot of work with his truck and huge trailer. He even refused to accept gas money, and instead said "that's what friends are for."

And he's absolutely right.

It's Over

(As we get started again, or "restart," if you prefer, I find that Arthur has been sending regular dispatches from Marin County as though I was still alive, and the following is one of those dispatches. My apologies to Arthur for the delay on my part, and thanks. JP.)

Rupert Murdock owned 40% of the news media and television in the UK and was on the cusp of gathering in total control of a broadcasting company that he only owned 39% of. Then some very bad things happened and more things happened and people who knew a lot of secrets started talking publicly for the first time, shaking off the fear of what would happen to them if they spoke up.

Among those who were deeply afraid were the most powerful political figures, of all the political parties. To a great extent the power of the Murdock press monopoly had begun to decide elections and decide policy. That is a more extreme version of the impact Fox News and the News Corporation have had on the United States. Their cute trick of hiring conservative political figures to give them exposure and face-recognition among the electorate (Gingrich, Palin, Huckabee... ) and to buy their loyalty is a twist on what has been done in the UK.

But while these articles on a scandal in England may seem distant from our political world, they are not. This may be the end, or at least the gelding, of the Murdock machine. It can be seen in England to have acted very like mobsters, trading influence and protection for the right to get their way in regard to expanding their media empire, the better to monopolize, control the public debate and reap financial rewards. It looks to the British public rather as though they ran a decades-long criminal enterprise, while wearing nice suits. What remains to be seen is whether any members of the Murdock family will be jailed in the UK, or as it turns out in the United States through a quirk in the law on bribing foreign officials. Which it is clear that News Corp has done. Several million e-mails appear to have been "lost on their way to Mumbai", as has been quaintly suggested. What, they had one too many drinks and fell over the side of the ship? But data has a nasty habit of staying around a great deal longer than people would like it to. And when the company in question has tarnished its reputation by (a) tapping the phones of kidnapped and killed teenage girls (b) tapped the phones of public officials, movie stars and anyone else they thought to be newsworthy (c) and tapped the phones of the bereaved families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan (perhaps to see if they had any newsworthy dirt in their closets?) and (d) ladled out large cash bribes to members of London's Metropolitan Police Force, apparently in return for tip-offs and access to dirt on public figures... when all of that is exposed and when evidence seems to have been destroyed or attempts were clearly made to destroy it, then the public has turned on News Corporation with a fury I can not recall seeing before. The report that in the lead-up to the Iraq War Tony Blair was calling Rupert Murdock several times a day? That is the sort of story that does not do a political figure's legacy any favors.

And the good news is that things in this country had not gone as far down the tubes as all of that. We think. The other good news is that when a career criminal gets arrested in the commission of one crime, they often are quickly identified as the perpetrator of an entire string of other crimes. And that often is the effective end of their useful criminal career, that up until then seemed to be going so well.

I take no pleasure in the fall of others, but it would seem that they made their own beds, not once, but again and again over many decades, and had come to view themselves as untouchable. Too powerful to fail, one might say. And since they interested themselves in politics, apparently for personal gain and no other reason, it is hard to feel too sorry for them. We can be sorry they got greedy, we can be sorry they appear to have been people of not much character, we can be sorry they do not seem to have cared for anything other than their own self-gain. But some people's children just seem to grow up that way.

Arthur

Weekend Update - Sitcom Campaign Edition

(Know what I find amazing about the newspaper that magically appears on my doorstep every morning before dawn? well I'm going to tell you. All the news that happens every day just happens to fit neatly right into that paper. Yep. No more, no less. It's amazing. And the stories. Oh the stories. Like today for instance. In just a quick scan of a few minutes this morning we read of a bar in Paris that the owner has turned into some kind of shrine to Jim Morrison and The Doors, and who is now being sued by a Beverly Hills attorney who warns in a letter that "The Doors do not want to be seen as having approved of your establishment and also the consumption of alcohol." We all know Morrison didn't approve of the consumtion of alcohol, don't we? I also learned that drug lords in Mexico have taken to wearing Polo shirts, and now all the street venders are selling them like hot tacos to everyone. We all want to look like a Mexican drug lord, don't we? And I also read that Tony Packo's, the corner bar in Toledo, Ohio that Max Klinger on M.A.S.H. said was the best place in the world to go for a Hungarian hot dog, might close down over some family financial dispute. I hope it doesn't. Where then would we go to find the best hot dog in the world? Feel free to E-mail me with your suggestions. But I digress ... )

• I suppose we're required by the First Law of Tabloid to start out with at least one more reference to poor Anthony Weiner, who allow me to point out, has hurt no one with his shenanigans, with this article. It shows the silly so-called shocking picture of Weiner's weiner and then goes on to show 10 more pictures much more shocking than Weiners. Please take a deep breath and check out this article, it puts things back into perspective, and please note that I've said the word "weiner" five times in one paragraph. And isn't it supposed to be spelled "wiener?" Enough of this.
• What happens when a politician's entire staff fires him? It occurs to us lately that we liberals don't really need Sarah Palin for comic relief this political season, there's plenty more to laugh at, for example dear pudgy, square-headed Newt Gingrich. This delightful little fellow has gone to new depths just to please his adoring fans, and his entire staff decided to just up and quit on him. But Newt promises to keep going, and I for one am resoundingly pleased with that decision. Thanks, Newt!
• He's been elected Governor of Texas three times, mainstream Conservatives AND tea baggers both love him, and Glenn Beck even said one time he'd like to "french kiss" him. Yes, it's Rick "Big Hair" Perry, and he's thinking of running for President. Gawd I wish Molly Ivins was still with us. Here's ten reasons we should keep a wary eye on this bozo.
• This just in: Rick "Please Don't Google Me" Santorum announced Monday he's running for President in 2012. People, I am not making this stuff up. This is not the script for a new sitcom on Comedy Central. This is reality TV Baby, and if you can't handle it, then just go to bed and pull the covers over your head. Insert big smiley face here.
• Now if this WAS a script for a new fall sitcom, one about clueless, rich, idiots running hopeless campaigns for President of the United States, it wouldn't be complete without someone like Michelle Bachmann. Hey, how about Michelle Bachmann herself?

The Curious Story of Anthony's Weiner

Anyone who has been sober and half-awake during the last week has undoubtedly heard that Representative Anthony Weiner stands accused of sending (tweeting?) an image of a man's (purportedly his own) grey underwear with either (a) a surprisingly hefty male member (b) a quite large salami, or (c) some sort of cylindrical object that might or might not be circumcised.

Television pundits of both the right, center and left had a field day joking endlessly about "Weinergate", "The Weiner Problem", Weiner's Pickle" and an apparently unending string of weiner/penis/underwear jokes, puns and double-entendres. Representative Weiner has given the story legs by refusing to state categorically that it is not a picture of his man-pants and their hefty-boy contents. To the contrary, he expressed "embarrassment" when his college-era (and current) friend Jon Stewart raved for five minutes about how the Anthony Weiner HE knew after college and used to swim naked in the Atlantic Ocean with certainly never had a weiner that magnificent. To the contrary, particularly in cold water it was just tiny! No WAY that was a photo of Anthony Weiner's weiner!
The pundits gassed on at great length about how clueless Weiner was for claiming that the photo was tweeted by a hacker, but that he could not state conclusively that it was not a photo taken from his computer or phone and perhaps digitally altered. He appeared to leave open the possibility that it was NOT altered and that he really is swinging that big a stick. Fox News is apoplectic. They are furious because he does not appear contrite, he is not making a big deal out of it and calling the FBI, instead (as said on Fox News Saturday morning) he actually seems to be enjoying all the attention! That rat! How dare he enjoy being the center of attention, with pundits falling all over themselves trying to figure out whether such a skinny Jewish kid could really have... well, you know. In a week that was supposed to be all about Mitt Romney announcing his run for President and the Republicans working to shove their tax cutting/program-gutting agenda down President Obama's throat... no one cared. The hottest news was whether a firebrand leftwing New York Congressman really is that hung. Or not. Discuss endlessly. And worse, that instead of crying like a baby, he seemed to be enjoying it! He even had the nerve to tell Representative Paul Ryan in the middle of the entire uproar that he had lots more Twitter Followers than Ryan and he expected his numbers to grow.
It has often been said that there is no such thing as good publicity or bad publicity, there is only publicity. In world where being really manly (the Republican Party) the idea that a skinny leftwing firebrand like Anthony Weiner might actually be carrying more weight than say... John Boehner, who tends to cry a lot in public and appears far less masculine than his wife... has got to be the Republicans' worst nightmare. How can they fight back? How can they regain their dominance in the pointless"mine is bigger than yours" battle that weak minds like theirs cling to? Post revealing photos on their campaign websites? That just doesn't sound like a good idea. How did this mess go so terribly wrong?
It turns out that some computer enthusiasts linked to the infamous wingnut Andew Breitbart have been shadowing Representative Weiner's tweets for months, consumed with hatred over his political views, his fiery speeches about Republican proposals and actions, and I suspect, because they see him as "other". He is not black, but he is something even creepier to your average wingnut. He is a Jewi who recently married Hillary Clinton's longtime personal aide Huma Abedin, who is Indian & Pakistani in background, and Muslim. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!! Un-American! During the 2008 campaign Abedin was the focus of Republican efforts to smear Hillary Clinton as a closet Lesbian, claiming she was having an affair with Abedin.
The Republicans, specifically their hit-man Andrew Breitbart, appear desperate to smear anyone and everyone who is to the left of their political positions. Weiner has become a particularly large target because he is unashamedly progressive and scathingly and articulately critical of the current Republican agenda. He runs pretty hot, but he is a very bright cookie. Still glowing from their successes in crippling "ACORN" and Planned Parenthood, the Breitbart cabal and its various camp followers apparently hoped they could score a knockout blow by posting an "underwear photo", along with the claim that Weiner had tweeted it to an underage woman. But the purported recipient says that she is 21 and never got it and she's not sure what the fuss is about. Ooops. And now the individual who seems to have set up the smear has suddenly realized he is far more vulnerable than he remembered he was. Given his description of his personal circumstances and problems, memory would appear to be not his strong point. He says he is very, very afraid because he has picked a fight with a man who married Hillary Clinton's closest aide, whose marriage to Representative Weiner was officiated by Bill Clinton. Say what you will about Bill and Hillary Clinton, they have some very powerful friends. And long memories. I think they will not be very amused at these shenanigans. It may remind them all too painfully of the slurs and lies they were subjected to during their political careers.
Breitbart, the leader of this pack of smear-merchants, has another problem. Shirley Sherrod has sued him for defamation of character and is asking for damages and punitive damages. A court has taken the case and things do not look good for Breitbart, who appears to consider himself to be on a sacred mission from God (or Ronald Reagan?) that absolves him of all responsibility for his actions. The court is not likely to agree. If I am any judge of body language and voice stress, Breitbart is not holding up very well. Whether he is using some type of stimulants or drinking heavily I could not say, not being an expert in melt-downs, but (a) he doesn't look good (b) he seems close to cracking up, and (c) he is blaming all his problems on... you gotta love this... Glenn Beck. Those involved in smear tactics would appear to be turning on one another. This could get juicy. I would LOVE to see Glenn Beck be cross-examined.
Here is five minutes of self-serving nonsense that gives a sense of how Breitbart is or is not doing. I would vote for "not"; CLICK HERE.
And while that is going on, here is a remarkable "interview" of the likely "perp" in the Anthony Weiner smear, who seems responsible for posting the picture in question. It is almost impossible to read, since it is about ten or twelve pages long and goes in circles a lot. It is not the words of a happy individual. It sounds like someone who is very worried that he is about to hear a knock on his door from someone carrying a badge, something he fears will destroy his fragile lifestyle. I wish no one ill, but this looks to be a case of someone shooting themselves in the foot and then complaining that someone forced them to buy a gun because he hated them so much. It is not a great defense. This entire adventure may end up putting a crimp in the amateur GOP partisan smear machine. Getting arrested usually takes the fun out of any given activity. And while the jokes and puns were flying like confetti, no one noticed Mitt Romney. All they cared about was Weiner's (apparently) substantial weiner. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Arthur

Wednesday Update - Rapture Edition

They some Mexican teenager is screwing up the weather, they say, and I for one am a bit irritated at that. How dare she? The call her El Nina, and unlike her brother El Nino, she makes Spring wet, gray, and cold. Oh I know I shouldn't complain about the weather in our beloved Northwest (as people never fail to remind me whenever I do), but as a budding curmudgeon I feel I have a duty to uphold. Which brings me to one more little pet peeve of mine. Could someone please explain to me why people, perfect strangers mind you, feel compelled to "bless you" every freaking time you sneeze? Seems to me the only people authorized to do that are Catholic priests. And you well know how I feel about Catholic priests. So you, you pervert, and you know who you are, stop blessing me every time my allergies act up, or your liable to be present at the time of my final nervous breakdown. And it won't be a pretty sight. But I digress ...

• And of course you've heard that the world is ending this Saturday. Oh stop whining, we've had our fun, and now it's time to pay up. By the way, when the rapture comes, can I have your car? Mark Morford, again.


• Rick (I Dare You to Google Me) Santorum actually spoke words out of his mouth the other day that resembled "John McCain doesn't understand how torture works." Holy Moly, this guy may very well be the stupidest politician in the world. Well, okay, at least he's in the top ten. Really high on the top ten list. Really high. Check it out.


• Okay, since the suposed rapture is coming this Saturday, I think it's really necessary that those of us who plan on being here Sunday have a plan. And guess what, I found one.


• And you know, when you really think about it, maybe this SHOULD be the end of all this. For example: The president and CEO of a Salinas, Calif.-area public hospital district will receive nearly $4 million in retirement pay on top of his $150,000 annual pension. and that's just obscene. So I say, bring it on!


• See you Sunday ...
  

The Audacity of Hope

I'm not really sure how I feel about the killing of Osama bin Laden last week. Probably a better comment about it all would have the phrase "mixed emotions" in it somewhere. Personally deep down I'm pleased the crazy bastard is dead, of course. Even liberal commies like myself are pleased with that fact, I'm sure. As a matter of fact I hope in the few moments before life passed out of his body he experienced several frightening visions. I hope, as he heard his killers coming up the stairs he felt a cold desperate fear of losing control of his destiny, like being captive on a low-flying airliner, headed toward downtown New York city. I hope, as his killers burst into his room and aimed the barrel of a gun at him, he saw the last few seconds of life he had, like the woman who was recorded saying "oh my God" seconds before that plane slammed into the first tower of the WTC. I hope, as the first bullet ripped through his chest and the gun barrel slowly rose and aimed at his right eye, bin Laden experienced the helpless dread of someone resigned to jump out a 90th floor window to escape the raging inferno behind him. I hope, as this bastard's final thought, as the last bullet began blasting out a portion of his skull and brain, that he realized the total despair and waste and loss and the humanity and insanity of the religious bullshit that makes mankind hate each other in the name of their own personal god, amen.

And I hope that killing this bastard is going to make a difference in this world. I hope it's going to make things better. I hope the killing will stop now. I hope we can bring all our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. And I hope that now we can get on an airplane and go visit relatives across the country without having to take the baby's shoes off at the airport, and have our bodies searched and probed and violated just to ride on one of those cursed missiles, and we can stop kissing the tarmac when we land.

I hope the fear can go away now.

Because if it doesn't, I hope we can somehow justify what we have done. How many innocent dead in Iraq? How many innocent dead in Afghanistan? How many American fathers mothers brothers sisters blown up shot blown away homes destroyed limbs mangled blinded disfigured killed killed killed ...

I have a terribly hard time believing in God. But if there is such a thing, if he really really exists somewhere up there in the cosmos, I seriously doubt he wants us killing each other in his name, for any reason. But what do I know?

Osama bin Laden is dead. Whoopee.

Our Friends In the Pharmaceutical Industry ...

This article confirms my suspicions about Big Pharma, suspicions that have been growing steadily over the last several decades.

It may be worth considering who the players are when thinking about the remarkably negative reaction to the CCSVI theory from parts of the medical fraternity. To many people (myself included) there appeared to be a widespread and coordinated effort to marginalize and discredit the idea that there could be any alternative to "take your MS drugs and don't ask questions" pattern of MS care in this country. During the discussion about universal healthcare in the United States last year there was much made about the statistic that healthcare in the US represented one-sixth of our current economy, twice that of medical costs in any other nation. The implication seemed to be that the industry, as it was currently operating, was "too big to fail" and too central to our economy to risk meddling with.

If you read this story carefully, this is a description of a predatory industry, willing to use scientific fraud and strong-arm tactics to seize and hold market share, regardless of the possible defects in the products being marketed. I have never heard of the idea of creating non-existent medical journals. That truly shows the genius of American ingenuity, doesn't it? Assuming that President Obama gets reelected he could do worse than take on the "medical-industrial complex" and work to reign in its worst excesses.

It is enough to give a fellow a negative bias against drugs.

For my generation there is a certain irony to that...


Arthur

Big Pharma has developed new forms of 'research' to serve its own interests.

The medical research world has been concerned about the problem of ghost writing for more than a decade. Over the past few years, the issue has been repeatedly raised in the mainstream media. Most of the commentary has focused on the ethics of academics signing their name on papers they did not write and on some of the most egregious actions by pharmaceutical companies.

But these efforts miss the ways in which Big Pharma has developed new forms of medical research to serve its own interests.

How Ghost Writing Feeds Big Pharma Profits

According to a study by Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin in PLoS Medicine, Big Pharma firms spend twice as much on promotion as on research and development. But it is worse than that: More and more medical R&D is organized as promotional campaigns to make physicians aware of products. The bulk of the industry’s external funding for research now goes to contract with research organizations to produce studies that feed large numbers of articles to medical journals.

Internal documents from Pfizer, made public in litigation, showed that 85 scientific articles on its antidepressant Zoloft were produced and co-ordinated by a public relations company. Pfizer itself thus produced a critical mass of the favourable articles placed among the 211 scientific papers on Zoloft in the same period. Internal documents tell similar stories for Merck’s Vioxx, GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil, Astra-Zeneca’s Seroquel, and Wyeth’s hormone-replacement drugs.

To promote the now-notorious Vioxx, Merck organized a ghost-writing campaign that involved 96 scientific articles. Key ones did not mention the death of some patients during clinical trials. Through a class-action lawsuit against Vioxx in Australia, it was discovered that Elsevier had created a fake medical journal for Merck – the Australasian Journal of Joint and Bone Medicine – and perhaps 10 other fake journals for Merck and other Big Pharma companies.

In another example, GlaxoSmithKline organized a ghost-writing program to promote its antidepressant Paxil. According to internal documents made public in 2009, the program was called “Case Study Publication for Peer-Review,” or CASPPER, a playful reference to the “friendly ghost.” Such strategies are not exceptions; they are now the norm in the industry.

Most new drugs with blockbuster potential are introduced accompanied by 50, 60, or even 100 medical journal articles. Any firm that refused to play this game in the name of ethics would likely lose market share. Profits in the pharmaceutical industry depend on companies’ capacity to influence medical knowledge, and create market share and market niches for their products.

A Call for Evidence-Based Medicine

In 2008, research showed that pharmaceutical companies systematically failed to publish negative studies on their SSRIs – formally called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the Prozac generation of antidepressants. Of 74 clinical trials, 38 produced positive results and 36 did not; 94 per cent of the positive studies were published, compared to only 23 per cent of those that were negative, and two-thirds of those were spun to make them look more positive.

Physicians reading the scientific literature got a biased view of the benefits of SSRIs. This helps to explain the huge number of antidepressant prescriptions, in spite of the fact that, according to a meta-analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January 2010, the drugs did not bring more benefits than a placebo for 70 per cent of people taking SSRIs. Compared to a placebo, however, SSRI antidepressants can result in serious adverse drug reactions.

With this we see one of the problems with the ghost management of medical research and its publication. Pharmaceutical companies want upbeat reports on their drugs. They design, write, and publish studies that are likely to show their drugs in a positive light – and there are myriad ways to do so. Ghosts sometimes bend the truth, and sometimes even commit fraud, with grave results.

Why do academics sign their name on scientific articles they did not write, using research they did not perform? Because they are rewarded, both by their universities and by their colleagues, for how much they publish and for the prominence of the publications. Pharmaceutical companies and their agents are very good at placing articles in prestigious journals, and they then make them even more prominent by having their armies of sales reps circulate them and talk them up.

Researchers who sign their name on studies and analyses (perhaps scientifically correct) that are favourable to the industry can expect to see these articles increase their prestige and influence, and possibly even funding.

What happens, however, when a researcher produces studies and analyses (also scientifically correct) showing that some products are dangerous or inefficient, as some did about Vioxx before the scandal broke? Reading Merck’s internal emails, revealed during the class-action lawsuit, it was exposed that the company drew up a hit list of “rogue” researchers who needed to be “discredited” or “neutralized” –“seek them out and destroy them where they live,” one email read. Eight Stanford University researchers say they received threats from Merck after publishing unfavourable results.

Corporate Science

In the ghost management of research and publication by drug companies, we have a new model of science. This is corporate science, done by many unseen workers, performed for marketing purposes and drawing its authority from traditional academic science. The high commercial stakes mean that all of the parties connected with this new corporate science can find reasons or be induced to participate, support, and steadily normalize it. It also biases the available science by pushing favourable results and downplaying negative ones – and sometimes through outright fraud.

As long as pharmaceutical companies hold the purse strings of medical research, medical knowledge will serve to market drugs, not to promote health. And as long as universities grovel for more partnerships with these companies, the door will remain wide open to proceed with the corruption of scientific research.

Source: THE MARK COPYRIGHT 2010 (12/05/11)

Weekend Update - Sunshine Edition

It's been a marvelous sunny day, even went out and exposed my aging body to the sun for about an hour. The boy, freshly turned 12 joined me. He's suddenly gotten into word puzzles, the kind you can buy at Bi-Mart with crosswords, sudoku, and word find. Jonathan is really good at the latter one, finding words. I know you're wondering where I'm going with this, but I'm not really going anywhere, it's just that my son is really cool, and the weather today was really fine. We saw a ring around the sun about two hours ago, and I announced "it's going to rain." Now it's all moving in, and yes, it's going to rain. They think I'm a god. and perhaps, I may be. I am four days away from my very first social security check. At this moment, all's right with the world. But I digress ...

• We're giving Terry Jones the Bad Hat Idiot of the Week Award because without people like him religion wouldn't look quite so stupid. Terry is, of course you remember, the pastor of some southern church who announced he was going to burn the Koran, in public, and didn't care what happened if he did it. He, and all those who may follow him, is a religious moron. This time, Terry just about shot himself in the foot. Literally. Gotta love it.


• I really enjoy Bill Maher. Bill Maher wants you to know that he's no flag-burner. "I love America!" he gushes, sitting down for a two-hour interview with Rolling Stone. "It gives me so much material." Check out the Rolling Stone interview HERE.


• Have you gotten the E-mail yet that screams "Facts About The De-industrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind?" A quick Google side trip revealed the message's origins: a frighteningly Christian lad named Michael Snyder, shameless slinger of endless "shocking" doomsday scenarios via a site called "The Economic Collapse Blog," packed like a Jesus-clad fallout bunker with screeching headlines like "20 signs a horrific global food crisis is coming," "65 ways everything you now own is systematically being taken away from you" and "Armageddon for homeowners." So, you know, fun times at Michael's house. Mark Morford helps us out.


• Is that you John Wayne? Is this me? William Rivers Pitt writes about the The Mad Genius of Donald Trump.


• Military bases R U.S. Or so it seems. After the invasion of 2003, the Pentagon promptly started constructing a series of monster bases in occupied Iraq, the size of small American towns and with most of the amenities of home. These were for a projected garrison of 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops that top officials of the Bush administration initially anticipated would be free to hang out in that country for an armed eternity. In the end, hundreds of bases were built. (And now, hundreds have been closed down or handed over to the Iraqis and in some cases looted). With present U.S. troop strength at about 47,000 (not counting mercenaries) and falling, American officials are now practically pleading with an Iraqi government moving ever closer to the Iranians to let some American forces remain at a few giant bases beyond the official end-of-2011 withdrawal date. Noam Chomsky reports.

Weekend Update - Big Fat Business Edition

Got a chance to go see comedian Lewis Black Thursday night at the Hult Center here in Eugene. This was thanks to good friends Annie and Jim who found themselves with an extra ticket, and redefined for me the term "good friends" by giving it to me. Thanks again, guys. Calling Lewis Black a comedian feels a little strange. Oh he is a comedian, but he's quite a bit more. For you not familiar with him, Lewis Black has been categorized as a "ranter," i.e. one who rants. He's been called one of the best stand-up comedians in the world and has been mentioned in the same breath with Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin. He directs his ranting anger not necessarily at any political party, but at stupidity. And his act consists not just of what he says, it's the way he says it. His best bits are ones like pointing out the stupidity of listing the nutritional contents on bottled water. Thursday night I watched as he suddenly paused, took off his glasses, slowly rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands, then rubbed his stretched out trembling fingers over his temples with the pained expression of someone experiencing the worst migraine of his life, then quietly he begins talking again, building his voice slowly, making his case, then suddenly pinching his 62-year-old face into raging anger screaming epithets into the mic, and incredibly saying things that you and I wish we could say everyday at one time or another. Lewis Black feels our pain. We feel better knowing that he understands us. We are healed. But we digress ...

• Hooray hooray, the United States government isn't going to shut down for lack of funds afterall. Goshalmighty I sure am glad. And what's even better, the Repubs and Democs worked together (sorta) to keep everything going. The Repubs agreed to not make a big stink over abortion (this is a budget item?) and the Demos agreed to stop making fun of John Boehner going through male menopause. We all couldn't be happier. Especially the REAL people who are running this country, the big corporate CEO's. In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years. Collectively, American corporations logged profits at an annual rate of $1.678 trillion. So far, this recovery has not trickled down. After two relatively lean years, C.E.O.’s in finance, technology, energy and beyond are pulling down multimillion-dollar paychecks. Bizzzzzzness as usual.


• "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism ... Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." The above is a quote from the most highly decorated Marine in American history, Uncle Bob's favorite Marine, Smedley Butler. Check out this timely and fascinating article by Kevin Zeese of Warisacrime.org, as he describes how war is so good for U.S. Big Business.


• Repubs are always going on recently about how their style of budget will help "the job creators" in our society. Who are these so-called "job creators?" Those really really really rich people who pay little or no taxes and never come down out the hills. So where are all those jobs these super rich people are supposed to be making? The Daily Kos says It's Time for Accountability for "Job Creators."


• Glenn Beck is packing up and moving on down the proverbial media road. Yes friends, we've won. Well, I say "we" metaphorically. Maybe it was just Mark Morford. After all Glenn and Mark apparently share something. To quote Mark: "I had no idea the renowned right-wing fudgeball was, like me, also a burgeoning neo-pagan tantrika with a mystical, metaorgasmic, well-caffeinated alchemist edge, studying and practicing and soaking in the universal Spanda, the eternal vibrational wisdom of the ancients."