The Couth Hillbilly » nicaragua

And The Loser Is

Crawford — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:50:56 +0000

My days of playing football began 60 years ago. No. We did have helmets.

Back then, we played both offense and defense. Not just because I was the 2nd smallest guy on the team, I was terrible at both.

I don’t think I could have gotten better by using steroids. They may not even have existed back then. At least we had never heard of them.

But in football, as in other areas, there are and were other ways one could cheat. A receiver traps the ball. He’ll never win an Oscar™ for that performance. He knows it wasn’t a catch but he wants credit for it. Why?

Games should be played for the fun of it. That idea died even before leather helmets. Okay. We should play to see which team is the best. Remember? It’s supposed to be a team sport.

It isn’t about fun. It isn’t about who’s best. It’s about me winning. It’s about me.

Who’s faster? Who’s stronger? Who’s bigger? Who’s got the best steroids? Who cares?

A few years back I read an article based on a study that showed over half of college students admitted cheating on tests. Getting a good grade, or just a passing one, is more important than bothering to learn the subject matter. That could explain a lot of the blunders we read or hear about on a daily basis.

I know it sounds unAmerican but our esteemed leaders don’t care what the public wants, as long as they get what they want. A president was elected. The people said they wanted him and his policies. But that’s not what some politicians wanted. They did everything they could to thwart the wishes of the electorate. They lied. They obstructed.

While claiming that jobs and the economy topped their list of priorities, they have yet to offer a single bill that would create jobs. Additionally, they have pursued the repeal of health care reform. That would add $400 billion to the deficit. They have offered $32 billion in budget cuts while spending most of the House’s time on what they laughingly call family values issues.

Did the people really demand a redefinition of forceable rape that claimed it wasn’t necessarily rape if it was forceable? Is abortion the number one item on the national agenda that is, according to Mr. Orange, topped by jobs and the economy? And repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell trumps jobs?

Where are the polls that show those issues at the top? Where are the polls that show that the people even want those changes?

Health care reform has again managed to attract a greater number of supporters than opponents. When asked about specific components of that reform, the majorities run as high as 78%. Does the leadership of the house care what the people want? Really?

So, why would they swim upstream on so many issues? Because they think their strategy will continue the stagnation through the next election and benefit them then.

Why do they refuse to abide by their promises to create jobs and improve the economy? Well, it’s a dirty little secret. They don’t have any plans. Why? Because everything in their economic arsenal, tax cuts, have proven to have the opposite effects.

Where are the $500 billion budget cuts? Their political prospects would be worse than Hosni Mubarak’s if they tried to cut Medicare or Social Security. The same would be true if they cut too deeply into the welfare their friends in the military-industrial complex have enjoyed for low, these many years. Well, at least they found $32 billion in cuts and no one gets hurt, except poor women and children and our education system and . .

It isn’t just professional athletes. It includes more than even college athletes. Remember, it’s students at every level cheating on their tests. The list isn’t complete even after we have added in politicians of every stripe. Regardless of the outcome of the various games they play, cheaters are, in reality, losers.

Why do so many of us have such a desperate need to win, regardless of whether we are better or faster or stronger or smarter? Parents, grandparents, other relatives and teachers are some of the culprits. We tell kids they are the future, as though we creating the present have little value. We tell the kids they are important. Potentially, they are, but only potentially.

It is impossible to go to the mall without seeing kids reveling is disrespect, for their elders, their peers; in reality a disrespect for themselves. It’s a rare outing when I am not in danger of sprawling on the floor or caning someone for putting me in harm’s way. It isn’t limited to the young. Need I even mention the terror of rush hour traffic?

There is another major causative factor. Manifest destiny. Despite centuries of killing the natives and enslaving Africans, we’re the good guys. Despite developing and propping up generals, shahs, other tyrants in Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, China, the Congo and many places, far-flung and in our good neighborhood, we are the champions of democracy and self-determination.

We are the richest; well, not any more. We are the most generous; not by a long shot. We are the most productive; not in a long time. We are the smartest; of course our kids lag on every educational measurement. Well, anyway, we deserve our position because, somehow, we are the best. God says so. Therefore, we deserve to win. Don’t look behind the curtain at Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, et al.

Our three decades of support for Mubarak, against the best interest of Egyptians, may bite us where the sun don’t shine. Beyond that, it could lead to destabilizing several other regimes in the area.

Recent events, economic and otherwise, have sharpened our need to reassure ourselves that we still are special. The need to see ourselves as winners is the more acute. The cheating, the winning regardless, these things are not the cause, just the most obvious manifestations of the primal forces that control us. Altogether, they make us all losers.

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A Drunken Party

Crawford — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:55:30 +0000

Who do you trust? John Belushi got it right. Most academics get it wrong.

Everyone in academia knows just what a symposium is. At least they think they know. Have you read Plato’s Dialogues? One was named Symposium. Yes, the Greeks had a word for it: a drunken party. I could have heard much more intelligent talk at an Animal House toga party than I heard at a medical symposium held at Vanderbilt University.

Back in early 2007, I think it was, I attended an all-day symposium at Vandy on genetics and psychiatry. Thankfully, I could only stay for the morning sessions. A physician from UCLA was scheduled to speak first, so that he could catch a flight back to Los Angeles. (He caused me to be embarrassed to admit that UCLA is one of my many alma maters.)

If the speaker had realized how ridiculous his presentation was, he might have left for the airport without bothering to wait for his introduction. I shouldn’t have given you any warning. I should have just related the story and let your jaw involuntarily drop.

He began with the required posture of humility. He stated that the subject of genetics in psychiatry, or vice versa, lacked credibility. He then proceeded to provide proof, however unintentionally, that the lack of credibility was merited.

The speaker was telling us about the research he and his compatriots had been carrying on in a remote valley in Nicaragua. This area was selected because it was assumed that the genetic pool would be stable, without the intrusion of genes from outside sources. That seemed a fair assumption and useful element of the proposed study.

He droned on. The slides of pictures and graphs were insufficiently exciting to overcome the developing sugar lows from the breakfast pastries. The images were barely adequate in size for the back row. My Baptist upbringing seems to continue to dominate my seating preferences.

The graphs related to his research of the incidence of schizophrenia in family histories. All of a sudden one particular graph struck me as odd. I almost laughed out loud. Why was everyone not filled with mirth? There was absolutely no reaction from the audience, other than my stifled laughter.

I turned to the young lady, a medical student, seated next to me. Whispering, I asked her if she noticed anything odd about the graph on the screen. She didn’t. I asked her to count the number of generations represented. She counted. Her answer exactly matched my count.

Seven. There were seven generations supposedly represented on that slide. Seven?

This valley was chosen for its remoteness. How many doctors had visited this valley six or seven generations back? How many psychiatrists? How many generations of DNA samples had been taken?

Most estimates of the frequency of schizophrenia range from one to one and one-half percent of the population. I did not think to make a count of those designated as being with or without a diagnosis of schizophrenia quickly enough. My guesstimate at the time was that it was close to 20 percent. I have never heard of such a concentration from any other source. Depression, I might be willing to accept such a frequency. Schizophrenia, no way.

If I, in my semi-somnolent state, could so quickly catch this absurdity, was no one else in the room awake? Had the speaker and his colleagues had insufficient months to catch this little problem?

This is what passes for scholarly research in the scientific backwaters of UCLA and Vanderbilt. Actually, after reading more medical studies than is healthy over the past 18 years, I can vouch for the fact that 2-3 percent at most can qualify as scholarly, scientific or research. Harvard or Podunk, it makes no difference.

These “researchers” are commonly MDs, rather than having been trained in research. They arrogate to themselves such appellations. They flatter themselves that they are doing science. Beyond those conceits, most are merely hired lackeys of the drug lords.

What I have just related is not some rare anomaly. It is far more representative than we would prefer to think. Whatever the letters following their names, whatever the presumed prestige of the institutions with which they are affiliated, most are incompetent wannabes.

Just remember, these are the people into whose hands you put your health, well-being and life. Take no aspirin and call me in the morning.

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