Herpes Makes You Strong

Venereal disease will never be the same after this.

Chlamydia helps young men feel more ‘manly’: Swedish study

Young men who contract sexually transmitted diseases often view their afflictions as an affirmation of their manhood, a new Swedish study shows.

Upon learning they’ve been infected with a sexually transmitted disease, some young people simply see themselves as unlucky, while others undergo a maturation process which leads them to be more careful in their sexual habits, according to midwife and University of Skövde researcher Kina Hammarlund.

But members of a third group – consisting entirely of young men – succeed in transforming their diseases into a sign of their manhood.

With other male friends slapping on the shoulders and offering encouraging comments about “success with the ladies”, young men who contract diseases such as chlamydia or genital warts can come to view their infection as a badge of honour, rather than a serious health problem.

Genital warts as the new universal symbol of masculinity? Why not? I think it was Joseph Heller who pointed out what a weak symbol of virility the penis is: it’s limp most of the time and it’s primary function is urination.

Brothers Under The Skin?

I spent some time in Russia back in college, and whenever I came back to the US I was always asked one of the following two questions: “Is it true the women there don’t shave their legs?” And, “You must be more appreciative of America now, huh?”

The answer to both questions was an emphatic “No!”

Contrary to then popular American perceptions, Russian women weren’t a bunch of scowling babushkas with ankles the size of bowling pins. Just the opposite. St. Petersburg was brimming with gorgeous, intelligent women. I dated a Russian girl with the equivalent of a high school education who’d read everything by Shakespeare and most of Mark Twain in translation (whereas I’ve met scores of American college graduates who barely know who Mark Twain was. Is he that dude that, like, wrote that one book, what’s it called?).

As for the second question, I wasn’t exactly sure what I supposed to be so damned appreciative about. I’d concluded that the only difference between a Russian and an American standard of living was a Visa card. It looks to me that our current malaise is proving me right. Americans are waking up to the fact that our inflated standards of living weren’t the result of divine favor or an organic consequence of ‘freedom,’ but simply an artificial credit scam that’s been buoyed along by a series of equally artificial bubbles. Now that the last one has burst, our leaders lecture us about the importance of saving and responsible borrowing (hardy har), and financial ‘reporters’ on CNN in two-thousand dollar suits (yes, Ali Velshi, I’m talking about you) give us helpful hints about how to tighten our belts in rough economic times, etcetera. Here’s an example of their sage advice. A while back I heard one of them say, “You should actually look into using those coupons you get in the mail.” Gee, thanks.

They also encourage us with heartwarming, lets-look-at-the-bright-side human interest stories plagiarized from Little House on the Prairie scripts about how the recession is making Americans re-discover what’s truly important in life (hint: it’s not money!). There used to be a series of commercials based on this theme. One of them showed an aging couple gamboling on a yard of lush green grass. He was wearing a propeller cap and playing the banjo, and she was doing a happy little jig and playing the kazoo, or something equally bizarre. The caption next to them said, There’s more to life than money.

The commercial was for CitiBank.

How not be more appreciative of living in a country where bankers can sermonize about how there’s more to life than money and then go squealing to Congress that they can’t possibly manage without their six-figure bonuses, and to suggest otherwise is a sacrilege against all that is good, decent, and American?

At least the crooks who rule Russia don’t sugar-coat their behavior with syrupy homilies and patronizing television commercials. Their manners are simpler: “We’ve got the money, the power, and fuck you.”

Now that the bottom has dropped out of the so-called American Dream (which was an historical aberration brought about by World War II), the similarities between the two countries are becoming even more apparent. Both countries ultimately bankrupted themselves by developing wasteful, gargantuan military machines while their people slid into poverty. We started out with more money so it’s taken us a bit longer, but we’re getting there. And both countries are ruled by ruthlessly acquisitive oligarchies who lack the barest shreds of public spirit and possess no positive or creative vision at all. The only difference is one of style. The Russians are tactless and brutal, while our our bosses are mild-mannered and polite; the Russians beat you over the head with a club, our masters speak in soft euphemisms while their accomplices pick your pocket.

There is one more important difference, too. On the rare occasions when one of our elites get caught in a crime, he can always go on Saturday Night Live or Dancing With The Stars and receive a complete makeover, and the American public, like battered wives, always takes him back.

American Political Tradition

Here’s a brief civics lesson from Lincoln’s Secretary of State William H. Seward that I found in Richard Hofstadter’s American Political Tradition. He said that a political party is “in one sense a joint stock company in which those who contribute the most, direct the action and management of the concern.”

Not to be too simplistic about it, but honestly, do you really need to know much more than that in order to understand why Obama’s America is, in substance, eerily similar to George W. Bush’s? The largest contributors are managing the concern, and the largest contributors ain’t us. They are the same constellation of banks, corporations, armaments manufacturers and insurance companies that had the whip hand under Bush (and Clinton, and G.H.W. Bush, and Reagan …). They simply hired a nicer looking, more articulate spokesmen. Like all of his predecessors, he’s doing what he’s told.

Revisionist History, Texas Style

The Texas State Board of Education seems to be worried that children aren’t bored enough by history, so they’ve decided to make it even more tedious. According to a proposed new set of guidelines for history textbooks, “Texas high school students would learn about such significant individuals and milestones of conservative politics as Newt Gingrich and the rise of the Moral Majority — but nothing about liberals.”

The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected “to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.”

Phyllis Schlafly? Good God. What have the children of Texas done to deserve this kind of torture? Isn’t the Texas State Board of Education familiar with the clause in the Constitution forbidding cruel and unusual punishment?

This kind of thing has become so blandly typical of today’s conservatives it hardly merits any comment at all (and, according to the article in the Houston Chronicle, the guidelines probably won’t even pass). It’s just another example of how the far right is running scared and has to resort to force in order to keep their ideas in circulation, whether by showing up to town hall meetings packing heat or coercing children to memorize the names of their ten-cent heroes. It’s the desperate, sputtering gasp of a dying movement.

The fact that conservatives want Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly in history books is a tacit admission that they are, in fact, history baby! Engraving them in high school textbooks is the shortest and surest way to ensure that they’ll be forgotten and ignored by an entire generation of young Americans. Once the school system turns them into plastic icons like the Founding Fathers, the very mention of their names will induce fidgeting and/or drowsiness. With any luck, it might even foster a bit of rebellion. This thought comforts me.

Everything New Is Old

Let’s take a break from brooding about healthcare, wars, rumors of wars, depressions, recessions, Blackwater’s Christian Death Squads, and all of the other gaseous effusions that signal America’s impending collapse and have a little lightearted fun instead.

I move that the following words be re-introduced to the English language. They’re in a glossary of obsolete seventeenth century terms listed at the end of Robert Graves’ Wife To Mr. Milton. Modern discourse surely has a place for some of these gems (it might be helpful to think about the mainstream media when reading through them):

Daggy: bedraggled like a sheep that has lain in muck.

To Droil: to labor.

Fliperous: flippant or frivolous.

Hinnies: mules dammed by an ass and sired by a horse (think Glenn Beck).

Lick-Dish: a servile person (Larry King, perhaps?)

Vapouring: talking nonsense.

Gricomed meant syphilitic. But there’s more. A “noblemen or knight was said to be gricomed, whereas a citizen suffered from the Neapolitan scab and a serving man suffered from the plain pox.”

A syphilitic hierarchy? The rich got gricomed and the poor got ‘plain’pox? Sigh. The poor just can’t get a break, not even when it comes to catching the clap. Nothing has changed, I tell you, nothing …

Now, in order to demonstrate the usefulness of these words in modern speech, I’ll use them in a sentence: The vapouring hinnies were gricomed and daggy after attending The White House Correspondents Association’s Third Annual Lick-Dish Convention; or, Glenn Beck was forced to take a week off from Fox News because he’s been droiling with a nasty case of the Neopolitan scab.

Which brings us back to health care …

Poll Watching

I knew from the start that the war in Afghanistan would fail because our commanding general was named Tommy Franks. How in the hell do you win a war with a commander called Tommy? We’ve had George Washington, Winfield Scott, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Dwight David Eisenhower and … General Tommy?

What the F&%!???

Well, I have new, equally unscientific way of predicting the direction of American policies: Just look at what majorities of Americans want, and you can be sure we’ll get the exact opposite. It works every time:

A majority of Americans want single-payer health insurance. Result? It’s not even on the table, and now it appears that we won’t be getting a public option of any kind.

A majority of Americans are opposed to subsidizing bank bailouts and paying exorbitant bonuses for wealthy CEO’s. Result? Every banker on Wall Street gets a fat pay raise and tees-off the following week with a brand new set of Ben Hogan’s, courtesy of you and me.

So it’s with a great deal of trepidation that I report the following ‘good’ news: A majority of Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan. It seems 51 percent of the people say the war is “not worth fighting,” and that can only mean one thing: more fighting.

How does my predictive model hold up?

Son of a gun, look at this! The Washington Post says, “Analysts Expect Long-Term, Costly U.S. Campaign in Afghanistan.” Screw the wishes of the American people, this is gonna be a long, hard slog:

Later this month, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is expected to present his analysis of the situation in the country. The analysis could prompt an increase in U.S. troop levels to help implement President Obama’s new strategy.

Military experts insist that the additional resources are necessary. But many, including some advising McChrystal, say they fear the public has not been made aware of the significant commitments that come with Washington’s new policies.

“We will need a large combat presence for many years to come, and we will probably need a large financial commitment longer than that,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the “strategic assessment” team advising McChrystal. The expansion of the Afghan security force that the general will recommend to secure the country “will inevitably cost much more than any imaginable Afghan government is going to be able to afford on its own,” Biddle added.

One might add that it will cost more than any imaginable American government can afford as well, but I suppose a ‘senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations’ is too busy kissing the asses of the high and mighty to notice prosaic details like that.

I’d like to offer this post as snarky hyperbole, but it’s not. Every day brings more evidence of the conflicting interests between this country’s elites and everyone else; and every day brings more evidence showing whose interests prevail. Not some time. Not most of the time. All of the time.

Just look at the polls.

An Unconscionable Affront To The American People

Here’s Obama speaking out against wasteful military spending to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix today:

You know the story. The indefensible no-bid contracts that cost taxpayers billions and make contractors rich. The special interests and their exotic projects that are years behind schedule and billions over budget. The entrenched lobbyists pushing weapons that even our military says it doesn’t want. The impulse in Washington to protect jobs back home building things we don’t need at a cost we can’t afford.

This waste would be unacceptable at any time. But at a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, it’s inexcusable. It’s unconscionable. It’s an affront to the American people and to our troops. And it’s time for it to stop.

I guess this doesn’t count as an ‘indefensible’ or ‘exotic’ project:

Some American troops will soon find themselves stationed at military bases scattered across the South American nation of Colombia with a mission to use advanced Predator drone technology to aid in fighting the drug trade and to combat terrorism, according to published reports Saturday.

Or this:

Israel Develops Military Robot Snake

Israeli defense researchers are working on a robot snake that can sneak through cracks and into buildings to send back sound and video of enemy movements — or even plant explosives.

So the latter snippet is from Israel, but we know where they get the money to fund their exotic projects.

Apparently, there is wasteful military spending and “wasteful military spending,” and good, sensible Americans know the difference.

Funny, when it comes to military technology the sky is the limit and science fiction is always becoming a reality, by golly; but mention single-payer health care in the United States and you may as well be suggesting we invest in time travel. Can’t happen. Impossible. Unrealistic.

I find this an unconscionable affront to the American people.

A Cure For Swine Flu?

The solutions to some of life’s most vexing problems are usually right in front of our faces. Take this recommendation for coping with swine flu, made by our friends in Russia:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian soccer fans have been told to drink whisky on their trip to Wales for next month’s World Cup qualifier to ward off the H1N1 swine flu virus, the head of the country’s supporter association (VOB) said Monday.

“We urge our fans to drink a lot of Welsh whisky as a form of disinfection,” VOB head Alexander Shprygin told Reuters.

“That should cure all symptoms of the disease.”

My kind of people, the Russians.

I was lucky enough to spend some time in St. Petersburg in my twenties, and a Russian friend of mine, noticing I was feeling a bit ill, told me I should drink vodka. “My friend’s a doctor,” he said, “And he told me that if you’re coming down with a cold, a little vodka is good for you.”

I explained that I wasn’t coming down with a cold, but had a stomach ache instead.

“Oh,” he said, “a little vodka is good for a stomach ache, too.”

I replied that my stomach ache was from vodka, lots of it, consumed the night before.

Guess what he said?

“Vodka is the very best cure for a hangover.”

Dear Speaker Pelosi …

… I take back some of the mean things I’ve said about you in the past. Why? Because of this:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday ramped up her criticism of insurance companies, accusing them of unethical behavior and working to kill a plan to create a new government-run health plan.

“It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure,” she said, adding, “They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening.”

This is probably empty grandstanding for the sake of public consumption. It wouldn’t surprise me if an insurance company exec wrote those remarks for her, such is my cynicism and distrust for all things Congress. (I’d call it a whorehouse, but whores provide a service for your money). But as the late, great Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his preface to Mother Night, we are, ultimately, what we pretend to be. So if Nancy Pelosi acts like a populist firebrand and stands up to the insurance companies, it still may have a positive effect, regardless of her motives.