Balls and Walnuts
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Friedman’s Op-Ed: Leading by (Bad) Example
Good government and good parenting are not too dissimilar.
Thanks to my dose of the Duggars last night, I’m thinking about child-rearing techniques. Seems to me the most effective technique is to set a proper example for your children*. What are the Duggars teaching their children? The “goodness” of conformity. Yeeech.
Thomas Friedman has written a fine op-ed piece on the Bush Administration’s “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy vis a vis Iraq. You can read the full text here, at fbihop. Bottom line: how do we expect to lead the world when the example we set at home is so atrocious?
Okay, folks, I have patients to see. More Duggar goodness later. (Big hair! Ruby lips! Slapstick editing techniques! And more!!!)
D.
*One of the main reasons I’m disappointed that Louisiana or FEMA never tapped me as a volunteer: it would have set a vivid example for my almost-ten-year-old son. I know my willingness to volunteer made some impression on him, but I think the lesson would have been much more memorable if I’d actually done the deed.
What kind of Muffin are you?
You are a Cartoon Muffin! You have a great sense
of humour and a quirky way of looking at
things. We always think you are joking, but
we’re never quite sure.
What kind of muffin are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Be forewarned: if you read all possible responses to the questions, I can’t vouch for the safety of your keyboard. Vomit, you know. Bad for delicate electronics.
One of these days when I have nothing but oodles of time on my hands, I’m going to author my own Quizilla quiz. The possibilities are endless. What kind of heathen are you? Or: What deadly sin are you? Or, my favorite: What kind of sexually transmitted disease are you? What do you think?
In preparation for Discovery Health Channel’s airing of that H.P. Lovecraft classic, The Duggar Horror — ah, excuse me, I mean 14 Children and Pregnant Again, I have put up a link to my Muffin Saga under This Week’s Favorites. We’re watching it Right The Fuck Now. And oh. My. God. Is it ever cutesy-pie.
***
I learned something fascinating from our town’s Red Cross director (at least, I think he’s our director; we weren’t introduced). He was deployed to Louisiana for the Katrina disaster. He told us lots of fun stories (like the one about the sheriff who hijacked a Red Cross food shipment at gunpoint, only to be arrested for theft hours later), but here’s the interesting bit:
Louisiana didn’t give out any temporary licensures to out-of-state volunteer physicans, nor did FEMA. WTF??? Over thirty thousand docs signed up to volunteer. Did the State or Federal governments make use of any of these volunteers?
I asked him if there were enough local physicians to cover the need. His response: “What local physicians?”
Go figure.
We need national licensure for physicians. If that’s too radical, we need some way to cut the bullshit red tape that keeps volunteers from volunteering. This is ridiculous.
D.
The Good Bad Sex Challenge: Voting Rules
1. Please note that two entries, I and O, are above the word limit. Sorry, folks, but rules is rules.
2. Please also note that we received another entry (P) just under the wire.
3. After reading the entries, please send me your vote. Clearly indicate your first place, second place, and third place pick. A simple “X, Y, Z” will tell me you want X in first place, Y in second, Z in third.
4. Only contestants may vote. The rest of you can make comments in response to this thread, if you like.
5. You may not vote for yourself.
6. E-mail me your vote at:
azureus
at
harborside
dot
com
7. If you’re one of the anonymous contestants, clearly indicate in your vote which entry belongs to you (that way, I’ll know you’re not voting for yourself).
My thanks go out to all entrants, even the guy with the happy knife. Great bad sex, folks!
D.
The Good Bad Sex Contest: All Entries
As of this writing, not all entries are eligible for the vote. See my last post (below).
I’ll post a voting thread tomorrow.
Click here to read all entries.
I’ve given up on trying to get Blogger’s Expandable Post feature to work — hence the link out :o(
D.
This is important!
Two contestants are over the word limit: LingualX (205) and d. (291). If you want to be eligible for the vote, please respond to this post with the edited version of your entry.
For the contest, I want to use Blogger’s “Read More!” feature (expandable post). I’ve followed the instructions, but it’s putting the “Read More!” blurb on all my posts. THIS IS NOT DESIRABLE. The FAQ makes it look like I can decide which posts have the “Read More!” What am I doing wrong?
For now, I’m going to change my “Read More!” to “Don’t click here.”
Out here, the Discovery Health Channel will be playing “Fourteen Children and Pregnant Again” tomorrow night. Karen and I will get to see the Duggar swarm for ourselves. Needless to say, if I see anything bloggable, you’ll be the first to know.
Think I’ve already milked the Duggar cow dry? (I love that image.) Think again. Look at what Rodney Dangerfield did with respect.
D.
Contest Reminder
Today is the last day for the Good Bad Sex Challenge. Caress the steamy pink lips on the right sidebar to review the rules, read the entries, or post your own hot item. Go on. You know you want it.
Tonight, I’ll copy stuff over to my word processing program to check word counts. The limit is 200 words. I’ll post a separate top o’ the blog thread with all the entries (listed anonymously), and you can vote in response to that thread. Remember: you have to play to vote.
D.
Say hello to my little friend
So Candy has a thing for Harry and the Danglers, eh? Candy, I dedicate this one to you.
For the first year or two after we got married, Karen and I lived on campus. I focused on my preclinical course work while Karen built lasers and TA’d undergrad chemistry.
One night, I noticed something new about my nuts.
“Karen. Look at this.”
“What?”
“It’s never done this before.”
“Oh, Christ, Doug. You could have warned me.”
“Now, come on. Look at it. Does this look familiar?”
Teeth clenched, lips not moving: “I don’t know.”
“You’ve looked at it. Doesn’t this look weird? . . . I mean, you have looked at it before, right?”
She made a careful study of my scrotum. Next to my right nad, I had a balloon-like swelling. It didn’t hurt, but it certainly didn’t belong there.
“I think there’s something called a hydrocele,” I said. “Or maybe a spermatocele. Or maybe it’s a hernia. Or a tumor.”
“You’re the medical student. Why are you asking me?”
“I was hoping maybe it had always been there, and I just hadn’t noticed.”
“Doug, your hands are down there a hell of a lot more often than mine are. If anyone would know, you would.”
Good point.
I decided to go to the student health center on campus. There had to be a night nurse there, right? Maybe even a more advanced medical student, someone who had seen a few testes. Maybe even a doctor.
By the time I got there, I was anxious as a tom cat in heat. I charged in, found the nurse, pulled her aside into the hallway. We were all alone, she and I, but I didn’t exactly want to do this in the waiting room.
“Look at this, would you? This just isn’t right.”
I dropped my pants and framed it with my hands, just like this:
Only instead of a smiley hacky sack, I had my hairy nut sack well in hand.
“I was getting ready for bed when I noticed it,” I said. I moved it this way and that, gave it a good going over like I already had a dozen times that night. “It’s never been like this before, I’m sure of it. My wife doesn’t even recognize it. I was getting ready for bed, and, like, I don’t know, maybe I was scratching myself, I mean it’s not like I’m scratching myself all the time, but this time when I did I felt this big swollen thing that had no business being there. I mean, look at it. I’m a medical student, but I don’t know what this is. I dunno, maybe a hydrocele, or a spermatocele, or a hernia, or, oh God, please don’t tell me you think it’s a tumor. You don’t, do you?”
I looked away from my right nut and looked her in the eye for the first time. She kinda looked like this.
“I — I — I’ll get the nurse.”
She was an undergrad, eighteen years old tops. Probably a volunteer.
“Um, sorry,” I said as I stuffed my goods back in my pants. “Busy clinic like this, I’ll bet you see that all the time.”
She backed away, stricken. I never saw her again. She didn’t call, didn’t write. As for me, my little visitor disappeared by the next morning. He never showed up again, either.
***
This is my entry for Demented Michelle‘s Halloween Trick or Treat Prank Contest. It’s not much of a prank, but it’s all I got. And, gee whiz — if I’d been putting her on, it would have been one hell of a trick, eh?
D.
A lack of perspective
While Jake and I waited in the restaurant foyer for the tow truck to arrive, a young woman bitched to the hostess about the lack of a fire.
“We came all this way for the fireplace. A nice fire on a Saturday night, that’s why we’re here. And you’re telling me you can’t light a match?”
The hostess smiled at her like she was six — an accurate assessment. “Like I told you, Ma’am, there’s a problem. The restaurant fills up with smoke. I can’t help you.”
“But that’s the only reason we came here. This is our special evening, we have all our friends together, and we want a fire.”
Our hostess shrugged and smiled, which seemed to tweak the young woman even more.
“You could call the owners. They could give you permission. Why can’t you call the owners?”
I don’t know how many times the hostess had gone over this, but it was obvious she’d decided not to waste any more breath on this nitwit. No matter how many times this woman rearranged “owner,” “special evening,” and “just a match,” all she got for her troubles was a smiling, head-shaking hostess. Finally, she stalked off in a huff.
“That woman lacks perspective,” I told the hostess.
Maybe I found this especially silly because Mother Nature had nearly smeared me and my son a half an hour earlier. Or, perhaps it’s because I’m a doctor and it takes more than a faulty fireplace to upset me.
I’ve been known to tell my patients, “Yes, it’s cancer, but it’s a good cancer. I was afraid of much worse.” And I often tell them, “It’s my job to worry about the really horrible things so you don’t have to.” It only occurs to me now that some folks might go home and worry, “What the HELL is he worrying about? Now I’m really worried.”
Sitting there listening to that dingbat whining about the lack of a fire, I found myself wishing for superpowers. Remember the end of The Crow, when Eric Draven inflicts all of his dead wife’s suffering on the bad guy, compressing weeks of horror into a few excruciating seconds? Yeah, something like that. I wanted to give that woman a brief taste of horror.
Nothing damaging, mind you, just eye-opening. As in: Look, you. This is what’s really important.
Right now, I don’t have bupkes for Beth’s Smart Bitches Day or Michelle’s Trick or Treat Halloween Contest. My muse is holding out on me, the wench. What do you want? Tell me. Tell me!
By the way, I really really want to spend some serious kitchen time with Beth. Tonight, she’s making pie crust. Check it out. I suspect she’s filling that crust with something, but you never do know with Beth.
On a more positive note, I made a sizable dent into my next Tangent assignment, Issue #7 of City Slab. Delighted to report that the lead story, David Niall Wilson’s “The Milk of Paradise”, is a hit. Editor Dave Lindschmidt sets up some pretty darned high expectations in his opening comments, but Wilson’s story delivers.
Just a teaser: the story is based on Coleridge’s poem, Kubla Khan. Yee-haw, what a tale.
D.
It’s Bush-Cheney, Not Rove-Libby
You’ll find the full text for Rich’s op-ed piece “It’s Bush-Cheney, Not Rove-Libby” at Grass Roots News and Truthout. No commentary yet (as of this writing) from Daily Kos or Huffington Post. Arianna has a good deal of commentary about Judith Miller‘s mea no culpa, and you can read that here.
Oh, my droogs, the pot’s about to boil over. I can feel it in my Berkeley liberal bones.
This should surprise no one.
My Drag Queen Name is Monica Chan.
Take The Drag Queen Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey‘s Name Generator Generator.
If you’re really cool about it, and if you get me drunk first, I’ll even show you the pictures.
D.