Category: Healthcare
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What Polio Did To My Dad
Polio has returned to America. I agree with the Washington Post: that’s a tragedy. Anti-vax mania literally is going to begin killing people. In droves. Where polio’s concerned, the past is prolog. 70% of people will survive polio just fine; they’ll experience minor symptoms if anything. But, 30% of us won’t get off so lightly. […]
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Why Don’t More Men Get Themselves “Snipped”?
Full transparency (this is the part where I drop trow). I’m “snipped”. In 2002, a year after my daughter (child number two) was born, after a series of conversations with my wife, I agreed to undergo a vasectomy – as the principle form of birth control my wife and I would use going forwards. This […]
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Greetings From Sparky -The Dog That Chased The Car – And Caught It!
Hi there! Sparky’s the name (I’m sparked by my faith that feelings are always better than facts!) and I am the dog that just caught the car! Yessirree, I am the wind beneath the wings of fifty years of hope that cynically pivoted from fighting desegregation (when that fight failed) to caring ardently about “saving […]
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When You Consider How Many People Now Drive “Stoned” And How Many Accidents There AREN’T…
It’s not exactly shocking that exactly none of the big fears opponents of cannabis legalization predicted came true. The biggest: Western Civilization did not fall. Oh, Western Civ may yet go a-swirling down the plumbing of History, but, if and when we do, it won’t be cannabis that caused it. Greed maybe – and bucketloads […]
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When Gun Owners Call Themselves “Responsible” What They Mean Is “Lucky – So Far…”
Sorry, “responsible gun owners”, but you’re probably the worst possible judges of your “responsible-ness”. The proof? You call yourselves “responsible gun owners” like it was a magic protective shield against accidents or life’s unpredictability. You seem to honestly believe that you are truly “responsible” – the exception to the rule. Oy… every time a “responsible […]
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America Doesn’t Have A Health CARE System, It Has A Health INSURANCE System; It Ain’t The Same Thing!
Fact: when anyone walks in the door of America’s “health care system”, the first question we ask isn’t “How can we fix you?”, it’s “How’re you gonna pay for this?”. From the point of view of a for-profit health care system (an oxymoron’s oxymoron which we’ll get to shortly), that’s great. It’s the perfect question. […]
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Depression Is Like “Thought Cancer”
Slowly — too slowly — our culture is beginning to understand that depression isn’t just one person feeling blue because their life sucks. It’s a health issue with causes and effects that can be treated and ameliorated. The human brain is, by far, the most complex, complicated organ in our bodies. It’s also the organ […]
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“U” For “Unvaccinated” IS The New “Scarlet Letter”
In the month since I first published this post (then it was “Should Be The New Scarlet Letter” vs “IS”), the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant has become its own little pandemic here in America — among the belligerently unvaccinated. Remember Hester Prynne? In Nathanial Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”, Hester is forced by her intensely religious Puritan […]
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“U” For “Unvaccinated” Is About To Become The New “Scarlet Letter”
Remember Hester Prynne? In Nathanial Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”, Hester is forced by her intensely religious Puritan community to wear a scarlet letter “A” as punishment for having committed adultery. To the sin-hating Puritans, adultery wasn’t just deeply sinful , it was virtually unforgivable. Jump forward several hundred years to now. America has made peace […]