"Too much and too long we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product now is over $800 billion dollars a year. But that gross national product, if we judge the United States of America by that, that gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and it counts nuclear warheads, and armored cars for police to fight riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Specks knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are American."

On Drudge I found an article about the new caffinated drink called Cocaine. This is initially goofy because the drink is apparently 350% stronger than Red Bull and I am perturbed that we live in a society that a (a) needs such a product and/or (b) thinks it's a good idea.

It is secondarily goofy because apparently there is a big uproar from anti-drug crusaders that the title of this soft drink (juice? I wasn't paying that much attention) will cause teenagers to do drugs (never mind that we have for how long now had a fairly popular product on the market called "Coke" that actually used to be MADE of cocaine -- I do realize you can differentiate here but anyone who's stupid enough to be influenced by this drink will probably do cocaine anyway at some point in their lives).

Finally:

"David Raynes, of the UK National Drug Prevention Alliance, said: "It is people exploiting drugs. It is a pretty cynical tactic exploiting illegal drugs for their own benefit." "

I'm sorry, but I missed the section of law school which articulated the civil rights of Schedule I narcotics. I suppose the point was that it was abusing the hold that drugs have over our society. But it reads more like we're hurting cocaine's feelings. Skippy.

Also in the news today: a review of the movie about children who pray to a cardboard cutout of George Bush. That's a cheerful premise if I've ever heard one.

This Essay Will Help Your Kid Get Ahead

Promise none of you will ever become the parents mocked in this article.

In other news, I finally have health insurance of my very own! Don't get to excited -- I'm paying an arm and a leg, but at least now I can get hit by a bus if I want. It's good to have options.

It's tuesday, and to the New York Times that means Health and Fitness section day, which is a day I pay particular attention to. Of note this week:

Choosing a ‘God Squad,’ When the Mind Has Faded. Cliff Notes Version: Issue is who decides who gets dialysis. It is now not uncommon to place people with irreversible brain damage, in persistent vegetative states, etc. on dialysis more or less automatically as soon as their kidneys fail. Dialysis used to be very rare because equipment was scarce. Groups of doctors, lawyers and ethicists decided who got treatment by committee (the "god squad"). Now dialysis is given out willy nilly. No longer considered an extraordinary measure, it has become the default treatment, despite its extremity and cost. First question is: is this the right thing to do? How far do we go to keep patients alive? Should doctors be able to override a family's decision when it is considered medically inappropriate? Second question is: how is it paid for? Kidney dialysis is the only treatment covered by Medicare for patients of all ages. Thus all of this dialysis is being paid for by tax dollars.

Saving Lives with Tailor-Made Medication. Cliff Notes Version: Issue is pharmacogenetics, or the tailoring of medication to a patient based on that patient's genetic makeup. The promise of this kind of treatment is extraordinary (as is the danger, but that's another blog). The problem is this: as medications become more specified, the incentive to invest in them diminishes. Drug companies only want to make drugs that will sell at high quantities. This is why rare diseases are often called "orphan" diseases -- no research is done because there is little money to be made (the pharmacist in the article related the example of childhood cancers, which get very little attention from the drug companies for this reason). Once the science of genetics creates further subcategories among treatments of various pathologies, the incentive to research and produce these drugs drops. Quandry.

Finally, Medical Errors? Patients May Be the Last to Know. Cliff Notes Version: Doctors don't always tell patients about mistakes that may not be obvious. Key points made are (a) the more doctors disclose to their patients, the less likely the patient is to sue (true in a way -- a patient's likeihood to sue is generally dependent on that patient's relationship with the doctor, regardless of the severity of the error); (b) patients often mistake unavoidable complications for error; and (c) “Doctors and patients need to get better at having these conversations.” Yes.

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don't mind sayin'
It's a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger

-- Natalie Maines, Dixie Chicks

So here I am, post-walk. Thanks to the generous support of some great friends, family and coworkers, I raised $890, which was very exciting. A big THANK YOU to all of you who helped. I cannot tell you how much it is appreciated.

It was mad fun. So many people, so inspiring, such a great cause. It was the kind of day I would have loved to have a digital camera for, so I could show you some of the cool scenes. In the absence of such documentation, I'm just gonna describe stuff that I would have taken pictures of.

So things of note:

Deborah Gibson sang in the opening ceremonies. It's taken 18 years but I've finally seen her live.

Drag queens dressed as ballerinas. Saw them at the beginning of the walk and again at the end, posing with fresh-faced students from the School of American Ballet doing arabesques. Cool.

The Target team, all in red with white bulls-eyes. Target shirts, Target do-rags, Target balloons and Target pinwheels. It was hard to miss the Target team. They were very Target-y.

Doggies. Lots and lots of very cute doggies.

Baby on his mothers shoulders, both with matching AIDS Walk t-shirts on. Synergy. (Except the baby didn't want to wear his hat and kept throwing it on the ground almost tripping his poor mom. It's a miracle they didn't fall on their faces.)

I'd forgotten (from my last walk 10 years ago) about the cheerleader volunteers -- people set up at various places along the route to clap and cheer and keep our spirits up. On the way back into the park at the end a few had put on bunny noses and tails, fashioned pompoms out of police tape and were doing a choreographed dance. It was hilarious. Further into the park were actual cheerleaders doing tricks and stuff. It was very Bring It On.

T-shirts with names and dates of dead friends and family members.


Ok. That's it.

Pow.

I know I've been delinquent (in fairness, I have a couple of good excuses, as we all do), but in my fundraising mania I thought I'd make every effort possible to get donations for the AIDS Walk. I'm super-excited about the walk, having spent much of high school helping to organize past events and being particularly passionate about AIDS issues ever since. Anyway, I just almost hit my fundraising goal (which was conservative anyway) so I raised it! I'm trying to make as much as possible 'cause I'm just so happy to be back in NYC and able to participate in this event.

You all should have gotten emails about my AIDS Walk webpage, but if it went into the spam folder let me know -- I'm sending out reminders in a few days anyway, but if the first got lost the second might too. You can donate through my page with your credit card, which is super-easy (let me know and I'll send the link directly). Or if you'd prefer you can send me a check (payable to "AIDS Walk New York" or "AWNY"). The walk is May 21st, so by then would be great.



In other news, just went to my 10 year high school reunion. Surreal.

"On the downside, our lives here in America are now an open book. On the upside, Bush doesn't read books."


ps. I'm sure this has been apparent to, well, everyone in the western world, but the medals this year look suspiciously like compact discs tied to ribbon.

Here's my thing with Alito.

I hate his ideology. I hate what I know he's going to do from the bench. I look at his history and I am not a happy camper. However. It became very clear to me early in the hearings that he was going to be confirmed. He conducted himself with poise. He didn't say anything controversial. He presented himself as fair and open-minded. He ducked a lot of questions and I kept wanting to throw things at the tv, but without denouncing his past actions or decisions he acted devoted to justice, and couched all of his answers in reserved and contemplative interpretations of the law. Republicans both in Congress and across the country thought he did just great. And the Democrats simply do not have the strength to block someone so obviously qualified.

I have a coworker who was completely incredulous. He thought Alito was failing miserably. He failed to see how anyone could consider him qualified, or consider his performance a success. He sputtered when he talked to me: "but...but...but." He was indigant when he said "you mean if he doesn't lose his temper or say something awful -- that's our only criteria?" Another (liberal) coworker and I tried to explain that our compatriot was letting his ideology get the best of him -- he was frustrated with Alito because he didn't agree with his politics, but that that is not really supposed to be considered when evaluating a Supreme Court justice (even though everyone does it), and isn't sufficient criteria for a filibuster. He not only felt that Alito's personal views should be paramount, but he also demonstrated a complete failure to understand how Alito would be viewed by people who might not be so bleeding heart as we.

I've always prided myself on being open-minded and seeing both sides of an argument (whether or not it's actually true), even when I clearly fall on one side of the spectrum or another. I disagree with almost everything the Republicans do, but that doesn't mean I can't see why they do it, or doubt that in many instances their motives are noble, even when their methods are completely ass-backwards. And I have recently been fascinated (and, I think, fortunate) to learn even more about the other side. When I'm home alone sometimes I spend time meandering through various internet community webboards. It all started when I was on a San Antonio Spurs webboard -- a place dominated by Texans, many of them very conservative. Now for kicks I go on a George W. Bush webboard (populated as much by liberals as by conservatives) because when tv is in repeats it's fun to poke the fascists.* These boards are dominated by name-calling and other infantile, blindly aggressive defensive maneuvers. But their value, at least to me, is that I've been learning about an entirely different perspective. The group that adamently believes that O'Reilly won the Letterman debate, not the other way around. The group that sees affirmative action and welfare as a demeaning crutch that hurts more than it helps. The group that simply sees things the other way around. I don't pretend that I don't view things just as biased as they do. But it has clearly shown me that different people can listen to the exact same speech and hear entirely different things. They're not intentionally trying to be daft. They think we're being daft. It's like everyone is hearing Bush through an interpreter, and the Republican interpreter says different things than the Democratic interpreter. (Probably no one actually hears Bush straight. We're all too emotionally charged.)

So here's my point. My coworker, like many liberals and indeed many conservatives I have spoken with, simply cannot wrap his head around this concept. To him the idea that anyone could read information differently from how he is reading it is nothing but perplexing.

And my thinking is that this is one of the major failings of the Democratic party. As I said, the Republicans do it too, but they're in power now so they don't have a revolution to launch. We Dems just continually fail to get our point across, and I think it's because we can't understand why people don't just all agree with us.** We don't get why our message isn't getting through. I'm not at all advocating giving up ideological ground or softening our stance. I hate how our country has become so highly politically charged that, ironically, every Democratic politician is now a moderate (and they still hate us, so that tactic isn't working). We need to be strident about our beliefs and have confidence in our positions. But it's not about the strength of the attack -- it's about the direction. Yelling the same thing blindly over and over again hoping it sinks in will not work. Seeing Republicans not only as the enemy but as if they were one-dimensional as arch-villains gets us nowhere. The right in this country has very complex reasons for feeling as they do. I think Alito is a horrible court nominee, but it's pretty clear why the other side loves him, and it's not only for ideological reasons. Many of them do not simply like him because they hope he will overturn Roe. They like him because when he talks they hear something completely different than we hear -- an intelligent and fair-minded man who will strive to correctly interpret the law and promote justice.

If we can't understand how they think, we can't defeat them.

And that is my "I was out until 3am last night so this might not make sense" political rant. Peace.


*Yes, I am both defending the Republicans and calling them fascists.

** I myself will perhaps always have a part of me naive and idealistic enough to periodically ask why on earth we can't all just get along. I honestly still can't wrap my head around why people devote so much energy towards hating people who aren't hurting them and live thousands of miles away. I mean, isn't that exhausting? Don't we have better things to do?

(paraphrased)

"I'm not even going to discuss the Federalist Society because when I say the words 'Federalist Society' I go into a rage."

-- Sen. Durbin