Blast from the Past Movie Review: The Nutty Professor (1996)

Once upon a time I saw the film The Nutty Professor at a friend's house and got into trouble, since I wasn't allowed to see it in theaters when it came out. I would've probably been in early middle school at the time. Not that long afterward I was on a trip to Disney World with my little brother and Myopia podcast host Nic, whose little brother was on the same traveling baseball team, and this movie was the bus ride entertainment. This would've probably been in the 1997-98 range. I haven't seen the film since, but Myopia being what it is, the time soon came to see if the film held up.

So did it? Here's the podcast. And now for the review...

The Plot

Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy) is a good-natured but clumsy and morbidly obese genetics professor working under Dean Richmond (Larry Miller), who for some reason blames him for the college losing funding. Just after the film begins, graduate student Carla Purdy (Jada Pinkett-Smith) comes to teach at the school and Klump is infatuated. Shrugging off his enabling family (for the most part also played by Eddie Murphy), he begins trying to lose weight to impress Purdy, but it's not progressing fast enough. He decides to experiment on himself with a fat-reducing formula, spawning a lecherous and (literally) testosterone-addled alter ego Buddy Love (also played by Eddie Murphy) who proceeds to wreak havoc.

The Good

*At the time I remember Eddie Murphy got a lot of attention for playing multiple characters at once, most of which involved extensive makeup and/or fat suits. He does a good job playing all the different characters and differentiating them--there's the No Filter sex-crazed grandmother, the healthier and more fitness-focused brother who encourages Sherman to exercise, and Sherman's squabbling parents. There's Sherman himself, who's jovial and clumsy but has a melancholic streak we see in his conversation with Jason (John Ales), his lab assistant. Murphy's also clearly having a lot of fun playing the loud and charismatic Buddy Love. I found the "ALL SPANDEX" scene hilarious back then and it's still funny now.

*Although I remember family members criticizing the film for mocking overweight African-Americans, the film's treatment of obesity is surprisingly balanced. Klump has an extraordinarily poor diet and doesn't exercise, but at the same time he and his family do seem to have stockier body types (this is specifically mentioned) and Klump himself seems to be an emotional eater using food to essentially medicate depression and low self-esteem. His poor eating habits seem to stem from his upbringing--as depicted in two dinner sequences with his family--and based on some of the dialogue, the way Sherman's father dresses and habitually carries a knife, and what they eat, it seems that the Klump family originally came from the country. There such a diet would be fine if you're burning 6,000 calories a day working on the farm but not if you have a more sedentary lifestyle. Look at the obesity rates in the South and Midwest, for example. And Sherman's father Cletus echoes the most dangerous parts of the so-called "fat acceptance movement" by claiming nothing is really wrong with them and they just happen to look different/have different body types rather than their atrocious diets, too much TV (after dinner Cletus sits down to watch Roseanne rather than go for walk), etc. Sherman's brother, although still heavier, is nowhere near as fat as the rest of them and he is specifically described as exercising.

*Furthermore, although exercising does improve Sherman's stamina and agility fairly quickly, he doesn't immediately slim down. This kind of thing takes a lot more work, as well as diet changes Sherman doesn't immediately make. And the film makes it clear that shortcuts can be dangerous. Although spawning a destructive split personality clearly isn't going to happen, a former member of my writing group who's a nurse said she would never work in a weight loss clinic because (according to her) they basically give people legal speed to get rid of the pounds rapidly but don't teach them how to deal with the other issues that caused them to become fat in the first place--poor diet, low self-esteem, depression, etc. We see this with Buddy Love continuing Sherman's poor dietary habits, which would probably give him heart disease and other issues even if he didn't pack on the pounds.

*The film also deconstructs the "nice guy" archetype a bit. Although Sherman is a legitimately good-natured and nice person, years of mistreatment over his appearance and his own shyness and clumsiness have spawned a resentful streak that, combined with overdoses of testosterone, literally creates a monster. It doesn't take long at all for Buddy Love to become a completely different person than "Sherman Klump who's 300 pounds lighter." Although Buddy and Sherman seem to be split personalities, the film does make it clear there's overlap. And Sherman does show some minor signs of Buddy Love-ism himself, like showing up at Carla's home uninvited to ask her out and perhaps pursuing a relationship a bit too aggressively, especially since she's a junior colleague.

(Carla isn't one of Klump's students like the love interest in the original film, nor is she a direct subordinate, but just because it's not explicit sexual harassment doesn't mean it isn't something that could spawn all sorts of problems if not handled carefully.)

*Jada Pinkett-Smith does a good job playing Carla. She's intelligent and compassionate and recognizes the goodness in the unattractive Sherman, but at the same time she can be wowed by the charismatic and handsome Buddy Love even though he's really over-dramatic and obnoxious. And she won't put up with nonsense.

*Dave Chappelle, who plays the odious comedian Reggie, also does a good job. He's pretty funny, but at the same time his humor has a cruel streak and he's most definitely set up for a fall.

*There are some good visual gags, including the film opening with a campus gerbil apocalypse and various pratfalls involving Klump's clumsiness and weight. Klump's "fat nightmares" are also pretty funny. Some of the humor also serves the greater story--Buddy Love's behavior grows obnoxious even before the exact "scientific" reasoning behind it is revealed.

The Bad

*Dean Richmond claims Sherman has alienated all the donors, but how exactly did he do this? Sherman is clumsy both physically and socially, but he's too good-natured to get into political controversies, harass colleagues and students, etc. Does everybody just hate him because he's fat? That would make sense story-wise, but I'm having a hard time believing all of the college's donors would be assholes like that. Or have incidents like "the campus gerbil apocalypse" happened before? It's my understanding that in the original film Jerry Lewis's character has a history of causing explosive lab accidents, but we don't see anything even implying Klump has caused mishaps before.

*How does Buddy know how to drive so well? Sherman might be relatively well-paid for an academic if he's been there awhile or if he's made a lot of scientific discoveries, but I doubt he'd have access to the type of car he'd need to practice the mad driving skills he demonstrates in one scene.

*There's a bit of inconsistency with Carla's character--she hated Reggie for how he acted toward Sherman, yet she's enjoying fat jokes? Yes, people are often contradictory, but it kind of grated a bit.

The Verdict

A surprisingly deep, funny film. 8.5 out of 10.

Blast from the Past Movie Review: Donnie Darko (2001)

Back when I was in high school I rented a movie called Donnie Darko from Hollywood Video in East Cobb back when there was such a thing. I can't remember why, but one of my Quiz Bowl friends was really into indie films and perhaps he recommended it. I remembered actually liking it, or not disliking it, but I haven't seen it since.

Well, then Myopia: Defend Your Childhood booted up the "Cool in College" month in which we watched movies that we (or our peers) thought were so profound back in college to see if they were still thus. I rented Donnie Darko from Videodrome, the last video store I'm aware of in Atlanta, and off we went. Here's the podcast. And now for the review...

The Plot

In 1988, troubled teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) begins hallucinating a humanoid rabbit creature named Frank. This leads into a convoluted tale of time travel, young love, and mental illness.

The Good

*The performances are generally good. I particularly liked how they cast real-life siblings Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal as brother and sister. That makes how they relate to each other more authentic. Jake as Donnie conveys both mental illness (I think the film establishes that he's a paranoid schizophrenic) and a sweet side that his sickness obscures. And although the character Kitty Farmer is utterly obnoxious, Beth Grant does a good job with her intensity and moralistic fixation. Per her Wikipedia article she gets cast as religious nuts and rule-sticklers a lot, so that makes sense.

*The opening scenes of the film show rather than tell the Darko family's troubles. Mr. and Mrs. Darko have problems managing their mentally ill and possibly dangerous son, while their older daughter Elizabeth (Maggie Gyllenhaal) rebels against their traditionalism by voting Democratic.

*The film takes place in 1988, which I didn't remember from when I watched it. I liked how they got a lot of the details right--the TVs are square and wood-paneled and the gas can that a character uses to commit arson is the exact same color and pattern of the gas can I remember my dad filling up the lawnmower with back in the day.

*The ending is legitimately sad. That's one reason I didn't like the movie--it actually made me somewhat depressive for a bit--but it shows skill on the filmmakers' part. In particular there's a conversation or speech Donnie is involved in/makes that reminded me of the iconic quote from A Tale of Two Cities:

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

*Two of Donnie's friends wish they had a "Smurfette" as part of their group. Although their main focus is sex--there are a lot of people who need to get their minds out of the gutter on the issue of there being one female Smurf and a bunch of male Smurfs--ironically that comes true at the end when Gretchen (Jena Malone), a new girl in school who becomes Donnie's girlfriend, accompanies Donnie and his crew on an adventure.

*Per the above, there's some good examples of foreshadowing here and there.

*There's some stuff that's legitimately funny.

The Bad

*The film is incredibly, incredibly BORING. Seriously, it was a chore to stay focused on the movie for large stretches of it, even though I needed to do in order to discuss the movie for the podcast. There's apparently a director's cut that's twenty minutes longer! Hopefully it's dramatically re-edited so it's not so boring and makes more sense.

(Based on what Lauren said on the podcast it sounds like that was the case. In that case, here it is.)

*I don't remember not understanding the plot when I saw it in high school, but I definitely had problems understanding it now. Maybe it was hard to pay attention enough to "get it" because it was so boring or maybe there's some other reason, but I didn't understand it and that's a problem. I'm not against movies that require me to think, but there's that and there's this confusing morass.

*Donnie befriends Gretchen by helping her get away from a couple slimy guys and walking her home, but along the way he acts really weird and creepy (recounting burning down an abandoned house, for example) and ends with basically asking her to be his girlfriend. And somehow it works. Given Gretchen's history of familial abuse, I had trouble believing this wouldn't immediately trigger her danger alarm. Donnie is sweet in many ways but he's also mentally ill and unstable. This is not going to end well. Many young people have poor romantic taste and Gretchen perhaps saw the good in him and thought perhaps she could fix him. Again, this is not going to end well.

*Drew Barrymore plays the school's English teacher and she didn't impress. She wasn't bad per se, but she wasn't really that good either.

The Verdict

A dull depressing mess. 3.0 out of 10. Don't bother.

Reducing Gun Crime...Without Gun Control

Ever since the Colorado shooting happened, my alternate-history forum has been blowing up with arguments about gun control.  As you all may well know, I am a strong supporter of gun rights and I have a sneaking suspicion for many gun-control supporters it's more of a culture war issue than a public policy issue.

However, even though mass shootings like Colorado, Virginia Tech, and Columbine are massive statistical outliers and violent crime has actually been going down, tragedies like this are often preventable.  So here're some proposals to reduce gun crime in general (some of which would also address mass shootings as well) that do not involve infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

*Drastically increase the penalties for the use of a firearm in a crime.  Efforts like this bill in New York, for example.  It's true that criminals who actually go through with a crime don't expect to be caught, but this might provide additional deterrence that would dissuade the weaker and less-confident ones from using guns in whatever evil deed they set out to do.

*Drastically increase the penalties for "straw purchases," the buying of guns on behalf of those who cannot buy them legally.  The Columbine shooters got their weapons from older friends, who received little if any punishment for their complicity, while this article states the punishments for straw purchases are rarely severe.  In addition to stealing, this is how many criminals acquire guns.  Gun ownership is an inalienable right, but with rights come responsibilities.

*Increase funding and/or tweak the laws for the "keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill" mechanisms that should have stopped the Virginia Tech shooting, since Cho should not have been able to buy a gun in the first place.

*Legalize marijuana.  Selling drugs is a massive money-maker for criminal gangs who wage gun battles with one another, and marijuana is the most abused drug in the United States.  Furthermore, marijuana is a "gateway drug" because the same people selling weed are also selling other types of drugs.  If people who want to smoke weed can buy it at the Wal Mart along with cigarettes and beer, they're not going to meeting dealers in back alleys who might also offer them cocaine, LSD, etc. or cut the weed with other drugs in an attempt to get their customers hooked on something else.  This would reduce the drug-using population further.

(Other drugs could be legalized as well, but it would be best to start with marijuana first because it's less harmful than the others and its banning was for especially idiotic reasons.)

*Increase funding for mental-health treatment.  Historically private citizens had much greater access to firepower than they do today--one example being cannon on privately-owned ships, for defense against pirates and the like--but I've never read about someone going on a bender and shelling Boston Harbor.  What changed?  Probably how mental illness was dealt with.  I'm not suggesting bringing back scary-abusive insane asylums, people getting committed by family trying to steal their money or by those annoyed by their political views, etc., but the current regime needs work.  The Tuscon and Virginia Tech shooters were mentally ill, for example, while the Colorado shooter appears to be as well.

A Former Soviet Solution To Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem throughout the world.  Overuse of antibiotics, especially pre-emptively soaking animals in them or people badgering doctors into prescribing them antibiotics for viral infections (which cannot be treated by antibiotics) or other issues, has led to many diseases becoming resistant to more and more antibiotics.  People taking them until they feel better and then stopping is also a major problem.

Here're some links showing just how dire the situation is.

Drug-resistant "white plague" lurks among the rich and poor

Health chief warns age of safe medicine is ending

In our globalized world, foolish antibiotic policies in India have led to antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis strains in Britain. An antibiotic-resistant bacteria that gets on an airplane could well trigger another pandemic.  Tuberculosis was the 19th Century's version of AIDS--compare the musical Rent and the opera La Boheme.  I remember reading about immigrant screening at Ellis Island and how people who had tuberculosis were turned away.  Thanks to human foolishness, an older killer has undergone a not-so-glorious resurrection.

A member of my alternate-history forum whose name is Jello Biafra said in the former Soviet bloc, bacteriophages were used for decades as an alternative to antibiotics.  Basically a bacteriophage is a virus that kills bacteria.

Here's an article about how there's research into bacteriophages capable of killing MRSA, which is a very dangerous disease.

British biotech boasts antibiotic breakthrough

The article on phage therapy describes many hurdles to use of bacteriophages.  The most aggravating of these, and the one most easily dealt with, is regulatory.  The FDA is apparently very reluctant to approve such things, and given how individualized the treatment is, it might be necessary under current law for the FDA to approve each and every individual treatment.  That would be bloody absurd.

The FDA should lower the regulatory barriers to bacteriophage research.  In fact, given the lack of interest in the private sector in researching bacteriophages for various reasons, it might be prudent for the FDA to fund the research.   I generally favor small-government solutions to problems, but if there's market failure going on and the stakes are this high, it's time to be pragmatic.  An antibiotic-resistant pandemic could kill tens of millions, while fear of such could throw a wrench into the globalized economy that has helped contribute to a generally-peaceful world.

(Per my comment about Ellis Island, imagine if it became necessary to screen travelers from India for super-tuberculosis.  Heck, imagine if it became neccesary to quarantine India entirely.  That would be a very bad situation.)

Creepy Japanese Toilet Could Save Your Life

Found this on Facebook the other day courtesy of my friend Charlie.

Japanese Toilet Analyzes Your Stool

He didn't think highly of it, saying it was creepy.  Especially the part where you can set up a feed from a particular toilet.

However, I think there are some legitimate uses here.  The Japanese government thinks likewise, considering it's associated with Bowel Health Week.

One of the things the toilet will scan users' waste for is blood.  Blood in the stool, especially if it's on the inside and not on the surface (where it could have likely come from hemmoroids or anal fissures), is a major sign of colon cancer.  Doctors recommend a fecal occult blood test after age 50 that's fairly icky--one has to take samples from one's own feces and mail it to a lab or conduct the test at home.  This kind of technology could eliminate that entirely.

The device will also scan for fat in stool, which is also a sign of various diseases (or simply eating indigestable fats, which is obviously less of a concern).

Someone with a family history of colon cancer who can afford this kind of thing might do well to buy it.  Yes, getting bowel reports on your phone is a bit peculiar, but if fecal occult blood tests are expensive, this might pay for itself, plus it's a lot more convenient.

Also, one can have all the data for a particular toilet sent to one's phone.  If someone wants to do a study about bowel conditions or undiagnosed diseases in a particular part of the country, this tool might actually come in handy.  I'm sure the feeds from hundreds of such toilets could provide a wealth of information about a particular area's bowel health.

Another News Article Round-Up

It's been a long time since I've posted some news articles with commentary, so here goes....

http://www.mdjonline.com/view/full_story/11004674/article-Church--family--rally-for-mother-with-brain-injury?instance=home_news_special_coverage

Those of you who are interested in helping someone out, here's an opportunity to do so. 

The above link is old and apparently things are going better.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/victoriamoon/journal
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/cobb-mother-hurt-in-fall-recovering-021111

However, with these kinds of things, recovery takes a long time and they're not out of the woods yet.

And fie on the insurance company for not doing what the family was paying them for.  The purpose of insurance is to pay into the system so that, in the event of trouble, the system can help you.  By not helping at all, the company showed its value--or lack thereof.

A pity the company isn't named in the story so I can exhort people to get coverage from someone else.

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/mourners-salute-beloved-hmong-827589.html

This smells.  Why did the military panel unanimously decide to deny Pao an Arlington burial?   He was part of a CIA force, not the army of a sovereign state.  And given how the Laotian Communists are still in power, it's not like they'd give him an honorable burial over there.

Good for the two California Democrats for pushing for him to get an Arlington burial though.

More Tuscon Shooting Aftershocks...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/peter-king-strict-gun-control_n_807323.html

Now this is interesting.  U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) would like to introduce a bill that would forbid bringing a gun within 1,000 feet of a government official.  He's a Republican, which makes him somewhat different from most gun-control supporters.  I don't know enough about him to make a judgment call on what sort of Republican he is, so I'll restrict my commentary to the proposed bill.

I assume since the article refers to "carrying" a gun, this wouldn't mean those who keep guns at home wouldn't need to remove them if a politician came to their neighborhood.

However, this law wouldn't have stopped Loughner from perpetrating his rampage.  He was already intending to commit murder, which is already illegal.  It would only deter law-abiding citizens from bringing their guns within 1,000 feet of certain officials, which would mean the only one at a future assassination attempt who is armed is the criminal.

(Now, you could say this would avoid the police accidentally shooting an armed citizen trying to stop the would-be assassin, and I will concede that.  However, there have been incidents, like the Pearl High School shooting in Mississippi in 1997, in which armed bystanders have subdued attackers before they can do more damage, so this solution too has its problems.)

Also, is it reasonable to expect those who openly carry guns or have concealed-carry permits to call ahead everywhere they go, lest a politician be there?  That strikes me as an unreasonable infringement on the rights of those who carry guns.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2041448,00.html

I dislike the title, since not all mentally-ill people are potential mass-murderers and therefore shouldn't be denied their right to bear arms, but the article made a really good point.

However, the article does have a solution to the problem that isn't knee-jerk idiocy like the measures proposed in the last blog entry I wrote or the non-solution I mentioned earlier in this one.  Pushing the states to make sure that people who, due to dangerous mental illness (not PTSD or Asperger's Syndrome, but something like Loughner's or the Virginia Tech shooter's) are on the lists of people who cannot legally buy guns and that these lists can be checked by gun salesmen is an actual solution to the problem.

That is the sort of reform that should be implemented, not banning everybody from purchasing high-capacity magazines, using crosshairs in political imagery, or carrying guns within a fifth of a mile (roughly) of a politician.

Political Hay-Making Attempts from the Tucson Shooting Have Begun

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47338.html

The attempts to exploit the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for political ends has already begun.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), who first ran for political office after the death of her husband and injury of her son during a shooting, announced she will introduce legislation intended to target high-capacity magazines.

In support of this measure, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) said the following, according to Politico:

"'The ability to buy a weapon that fires hundreds of bullets in less than a minute,'” said Quigley. "'He had an additional magazine capability. That’s not what a hunter needs. That’s not what someone needs to defend their home. That’s what you use to hunt people.'"

How knowledgeable is Rep. Quigley about what sort of guns people "need"?

For the record, high-capacity magazines probably aren't necessary for run-of-the-mill burglars, muggers, home invaders, would-be rapists, violent crazed exes, etc.  However, I remember an account of a Korean-owned small business during the 1991 Los Angeles riots that was besieged by a large number of rioters.  The proprietors attempted to defend their business with their personal arms but found themselves outgunned and were forced to flee.

(I saw a CNN special about the riots long ago and I think it was a jewelry store--I remember seeing an older Korean lady later berating passers-by about their lack of human dignity from the ruins of the shop afterward.)

Higher-capacity rapid-fire guns would have been useful about then, since the proprietors were dealing with a much larger number of opponents who also had at least one superior weapon.  Situations like that don't happen very often, but in at least one case, such a weapon would have been helpful in defense of one's business if not one's home.

If any gun-control measures should be implemented as a result of this incident, it should be a tightening-up of the existing laws preventing those with certain degrees of mental illness from getting guns.  And "mental illness" should be defined very tightly, lest some Iraq or Afghan vet with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder be banned from owning a gun.

On a more sinister note, Politico reports Philadelphia Democrat U.S. Rep. Robert Brady said he intends to introduce a bill criminalizing the use of threatening language or symbols directed toward federal officials or members of Congress.

On my alternate-history forum, someone posted the image of a map Sarah Palin created depicting crosshairs on states whose representatives voted for Obama's health-care reform package.  I heard the map was taken down from Palin's web-site, but it can be found here:

http://www.wisepolitics.com/sarah-palin-crosshairs-map-target-list-2989.html

However, the map does not call for any kind of violence--I think the red markers are for representatives who lost elections, not their lives or personal health.

Furthermore, although certain parties (some members of my message-board, for starters) tried to pin the shooting on the Tea Party, right-wing extremists, etc., it's not just them who use allegedly-threatening imagery.

DailyKos also used gun-related imagery re: Giffords.  Scroll down to post #65 to see it:

http://boards.bengals.com/showthread.php?t=76933&page=3

Given how the shooter Jared Lee Loughner is a 9/11 Truther (among other conspiracy theories), using the same standards the loopy-lefties (not all lefties, just the loopy ones) used to blame Palin and the Tea Party for the shooting in Tucson, one could blame DailyKos and the "netroots" in general for the shooting.

However, according to the more recent events, the shooter had a personal grudge against Giffords because she didn't answer some nonsensical question about how the government is controlling people through grammar a few years ago.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_gunman_11

I don't see how it's really fair to blame any political faction, be it the Tea Party or the netroots, for this episode, and it's NOT cool to start infringing on people's freedom of speech as a result.  I don't claim to be a mind reader, but I'll bet Brady had Palin's "crosshairs" imagery in mind when he proposed this bill.

There are already laws against actually threatening politicians and crosshairs imagery in the context Palin's group and DailyKos used it is NOT a "true threat."

The Proper Way to Deal With Invasive Lionfish: Eat Them!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101230/od_nm/us_usa_florida_lionfish

I went SCUBA diving with my dad in Key Largo in the summer of 2009 and I remember taking a boat tour of the mangrove islands offshore one morning.  The guide made references to lionfish-hunts intended to obliterate the fish entirely, since they had no natural predators and were destroying the local ecology.

One of the best ways to get something done is to provide a profit motive for it, so I have high hopes for this effort.  I wonder if one could transform it into a full-blown industry, although that would provide incentive to keep a few lionfish around rather than exterminate them.  That's what the goal of this whole project should be--eradicate an invasive species before it does too much damage.

Good luck, good hunting, and good eating.  For those of you who are interested, here's The Lionfish Cookbook for you to purchase.

News Article Round-Up, Including a Possible Ban on Bake Sales

I had some links I wanted to blog on individually, but I was busy with my book and other tasks and they started piling up.  I'll just do them all at once...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40497637/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

Seriously, Mrs. Obama?  Banning (or at least highly regulating) bake sales?

I can understand your concerns about the health of children and the awful overweight/obesity statistics in the United States.

However, this is a bad idea for several reasons.  For starters, unless you make following these rules a condition of receiving federal money, imposing them on state and local schools is unconstitutional.  Education is a state and local prerogative, not a federal one.  Even if it is a good idea, it is being done in the completely wrong manner.

Furthermore, this could do serious harm to organizations like bands, academic teams, etc. that depend on raising money from the local public to supplement funds from the school, if indeed they get any.  I was a member of my high school's Academic Bowl team and I remember we sold Chick-fil-A chicken biscuits to raise money to go on trips.  I'm pretty sure those didn't meet standards about portion size or what have you.

My life would be a lot poorer if I hadn't been able to go to the tournaments in Chicago, St. Louis, Myrtle Beach, etc.  Those were fun and highly educational.

I hope if Obama signs the measure, someone challenges the constitutionality of it in the Supreme Court.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45687.html

Joe Scarborough warns the Republican Party about how Sarah Palin would not be good for them.

I share his concerns.  Something I'm afraid of is that Sarah Palin wins the primaries due to her strength in the Republican Party base and then is destroyed in 2012 by Barack Obama.  I can imagine her winning the South and Midwest, but if Republicans win only that, they lose the election.  See 2008, for starters, along with Clinton's electoral wins in the 1990s.

And that assumes the South and Midwest vote for her because she's a Republican.  If something like the Katie Couric interview happens and less-"hard core" Republicans decide Obama is the lesser evil, it could be even worse.  It'd be 1964 all over again.

And I'm saying this as someone who will defend Palin against some of her detractors, like Andrew Sullivan's baby conspiracy theories or the people on DemocraticUnderground who call her a quitter, even though she resigned as governor because her enemies kept filing lawsuits against her that had to be fought with taxpayer money.

(She fell on her sword to protect the state budget.  The lefties are condemning her for her response to something THEY did.)

Note I did say some of her detractors.  She attacked Ronald Reagan (or at least came off as doing so--I haven't seen the context of her remarks), and that's just not cool.  Given the esteem Reagan is held in the Republican Party, this might be enough to ruin her chances of getting the nomination.

Let's hope Palin's reality-TV show is tremendously successful and it keeps her and hers busy for a long time to come.  :)

A Brief Retraction Re: My Birth-Control Article

I posted the NYT link and the link to my blog in the Chat forum of my alternate-history site, in order to drum up discussion and hits for the blog.

The user whose handle is Blairwitch749 works in the health-care industry--and has gotten in some mighty battles with the pro-national health care contigent, which is mostly European--and he didn't think making hormonal birth control over-the-counter was such a good idea.

He went into a great deal of detail about how doctors do extensive blood-testing, calibration for the recipient's weight, etc. to ensure they've got it right when they prescribe hormonal birth control.  If a doctor's involvement is required to that degree, keeping it a prescription drug might be prudent, or at least the matter should be discussed more thoroughly first.

Due to the fact I am not 100% sure BW is correct on the matter (I have not independently verified the process) and the fact that a large thrust of my earlier comments were a defense of secularism in government from a Christian perspective, I will leave the older article up.

Food and Drug Administration Being Stupid

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/8-year-old-burn-558429.html

The FDA has refused to allow a boy who was recently very badly burned to undergo a procedure in which his own skin cells are cultured and transplanted.  Instead, they will try to fix his burns with skin from his scalp and scrotum.

(Speaking as a male, the latter part doesn't sound healthy.)

I cannot think of any legitimate reason for the FDA to refuse to allow the boy to undergo this experimental treatment, especially since the family wants it.  If they're concerned about the boy's well-being, they can always make the family sign a waiver.

This is so aggravating I rejoined http://www.congress.org/, which enables one to write one's state and federal representatives with just one click, in order to write Obama, both Senators, and my U.S. Representative (Lynn Westmoreland) asking them to put pressure on the FDA to reverse their decision.

If the rest of you can do that as well, we might see the idiocy logjam being broken.  It strikes me as a case of bureaucracy, so sufficient public outrage should be enough to force them to change their minds.

The Case for Making Birth Control Pills Over-the-Counter

I was reading the New York Times today and I came across the following opinion column:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/opinion/22blanchard.html

I think it's time for my regularly-scheduled controversial opinion, so here goes...

I think it would be a good idea to make birth-control pills over-the-counter instead of requiring a doctor's prescription. 

In my opinion, drugs should be prescription-only if they're dangerous enough to need a doctor's guidance in their uses or if misuse would cause large-scale problems--think all these diseases we've thought we'd conquered becoming antibiotic-resistant because people don't finish their antibiotic prescriptions or badger doctors into prescribing them unnecessarily.

According to the article, which was written by someone who knows what they're talking about, the first situation is not an issue.  I've googled progestin, the one the author believes should be made over-the-counter first, and I can't really find anything about dangers from it.

Since there aren't any negative effects to the wider society I can think of, I do not think whether or not one can buy birth control pills over-the-counter or not is really any of the government's business.

Now I'll discuss something that will inevitably come up if someone proposes this--religion and its associated morality.  I'll stick with Christianity, since it's my own religion and the most influential religion in the United States.

If birth control were more widely available and people knew how to use it, there would be fewer unplanned pregnancies and thus fewer abortions.  If abortion is morally equivalent to killing (aka unjustified in most circumstances), it is imperative that abortions be reduced.  This will help accomplish that.  Fewer unplanned pregnancies means a smaller burden on both public and private charitable assistance, making more resources available for people in that unfortunate situation.  This in turn will make abortion--something few women contemplate with relish, based on the reports I've heard about women coming out of these clinics crying--less attractive.

Now, onto sex.  It is true that Christianity teaches sex outside of marriage is immoral and it is true that, if oral contraceptives were more widely available, I would imagine more sex outside of marriage would occur, since it would reduce the danger of unplanned pregnancy.

That being said, I don't think the number of people deterred from having sex outside of marriage by merely having to get a prescription for birth control pills is all that large.  It strikes me as more probable that people simply take the risk, which circles back to my point about abortion.  Basically, they're for the most part going to sin anyway and cause more problems for both themselves and others without oral contraceptives than without.  It's a lesser-evil argument; although an individual may choose to reject both the lesser evil and the greater evil and bear the consequences, this is not practical for governance.

Furthermore, it's not just people having sex outside of marriage who use oral contraceptives, but also married people who, for various reasons, wish to delay having children.  The Bible condemns sex outside of marriage; beyond 1 Corinthians 7:5 (in which spouses are told not to deny one another sex, lest the other partner be tempted to commit adultery), I do not recall any New Testament commandments pertaining to sex within marriage.

(There is the Old Testament case of Onan, who "spilled his seed upon the ground" and got zapped from on high, but he didn't want to father children in his brother's name AT ALL, not just at a more convenient time.  Claiming that story is a commandment against all birth control is reading too much into it.)

On a wider note, it is imprudent to have the government serve as an enforcer for our particular theology or moral code.  After all, someday we might lose our cultural and political dominance (some of the long-term trends don't look good) and we don't want the precedent we set to be used against us. 

The Founding Fathers created a secular government for this reason; they saw the wars of religion in Europe and the mutual persecution depending on which sect was in power (England, in which the Catholic Henry VIII persecuted Protestants until he became one himself and then began persecuting Catholics, comes to mind).  Unless it is a public matter--and for the reasons I've outlined above, oral contraception is not--the law should not be involved.

Let us remember that the secularly-governed United States is the most religious developed country, while the European countries that had state churches of one flavor or another have become extremely secularized.  It was our ancestors' tendency to use government to enforce the predominance of their sect that contributed to the decline of Christianity in Europe--let us remember that Deism emerged in the aftermath of the religious wars.

Furthermore, nowhere does the New Testament suggest that Christians should seek to take control of the government and use it to serve "Christian" ends.  In fact, in 1 Timothy 2:2 in which Paul exhorts his associate Timothy to pray for "kings and all those in authority," it is not so that they may become Paul and Timothy's enforcers, but so that they might leave the early Christians alone.

Help Support Charitable Work in Rwanda

My friend from high school Meghan Goyer and a girl I don't know are doing relief work in Rwanda right now, with Meghan doing some research for her master's thesis as well.

They've raised some money already, enough to go on the trip, but they'll need additional funds as well.  They're been soliciting donations on their blog, which also describes what they're doing over there on a day-by-day basis.

Here's a link where you can donate via PayPal or find an address to write a check.

http://caroandmeginrwanda.blogspot.com/p/estimated-budget.html

Here's the main blog site:

http://caroandmeginrwanda.blogspot.com/

I think the blog itself will be interesting enough, considering all the cultural information I can copy down into my "Character Sketches" file.

In Support of Abortion Alternatives...

In the town of Milner near where I work, Rock Springs Church has established Melba's Manor, a home for unwed mothers.

http://www.melbasmanor.com/

My co-worker did the first story on Melba's Manor:

Rock Springs Church to open maternity home

However, I reported on when Mike Huckabee, one of the more successful 2008 Republican presidential candidates, came to speak at a fund-raiser for the manor:

Huckabee delivers pro-life message

In his speech, Huckabee revealed that Pastor Bennie Tate was the son of an unwed mother who chose not to abort him.  As Huckabee pointed out, it is one thing to oppose abortion but another thing to provide an alternative.  Most women who have abortions would rather not have had them and through Melba's Manor, Rock Springs Church has provided an alternative, at least for the few women it is able to serve with its current resources.

I call on all of you my readers to support Melba's Manor or organizations like it.  This is something that both pro-life and pro-choice people can do. 

The pro-lifers should support it because abortion isn't going away anytime soon and providing options for unwed mothers is a good way to prevent it; the pro-choicers should support it because (I think) the majority of them don't like abortion even if they think outlawing it would be the greater evil.  Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said abortion should "safe, legal, and rare," after all.

Something Funny, Especially for My Female Readers

The following image got posted on my friend Katherine's Facebook wall.  I figure you all would get a laugh out of it, especially the readers who are female and read Cosmo-type magazines (or disdain them).

I posted this on my Internet forum and apparently it came from Cracked.  So that proper credit is given, here's the link:

http://www.cracked.com/funny-4420-advice-about-relationships/

New Diet Very Helpful to Autistic Fellow

My co-worker Thomas wrote this article about a young man with autism who, after going on a drastically altered diet, became essentially (no offense) "normal."  He made his diet the center of his Eagle Scout project.

http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/7298555/article-Diet-makes-a-world-of-difference-for-teen?instance=home_news_lead_story

I'm not going to claim to be an expert on autism, but given the drastic nature of the results, going on a similar diet (no gluten, casein, egg, and soy) might be very beneficial for those with the disorder.  I do not know if it would work in all cases, but it seems to have worked very well with Mr. Cannon.

My Thoughts on The Recent Health-Care Legislation

I have decided to throw my hat into the ring and blog about the recent health-care legislation.  Here goes...

Though this may seem rather heretical to my conservative kindred, the bill was not all bad.  I personally had no problem with the ban on insurance companies dropping longtime participants when they get sick, which goes against the entire purpose of insurance companies--you pay in, just in case, and when problems arise, they pay you.

This episode here is particularly skanky:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62G2DO20100317

That being said, now it's time for criticism:

I am very skeptical of the mandate to purchase individual health insurance, on constitutional grounds.  The 10th Amendment to the Constitution states that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government are assumed to belong to the states and people.  Forcing individuals to purchase health insurance--or anything else for that matter--is unconstitutional.

(I would imagine Romney's insurance mandate in Massachusetts isn't unconstitutional, since it's done at the state level.)

This is the reason why attorney generals from many states have joiend together in a lawsuit against the imposition of these mandates.

http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=269770

Also, I cannot find anything about increased reimbursements for Medicare or Medicaid patients, which is a major problem these days.  Many doctors will not see these patients because the reimbursement has not kept up with rising medical costs.

http://industry.bnet.com/healthcare/10001447/medicaid-expansion-may-fail-because-of-doctors-refusal-to-see-patients/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bnet%2Fhealthcare+%28BNET+Industries+-+Healthcare+Insights%29&tag=content;selector-perfector

Also, I believe the reforms include a mandate for businesses to supply health insurance for their employees.  Many small businesses will not be able to afford this.  I heard on the radio this morning (it was a morning talk show on 92.9 Dave FM I believe, not some political thing, to head off the obvious retort) a comment from a small business owner whose is afraid many companies will not be able to afford this and go out of business, something that will ultimately cost jobs.

Finally, I don't think a blanket ban on not insuring people with pre-existing conditions is such a great idea.  The reason insurance companies bar people with pre-existing conditions is that it drives up the cost of the total pool.  This means the insurance costs for everyone will go up.

It would have been better to subsidize the states' existing high-risk pools--Georgia has one, although it has not funded it--than to do that.  The same effect will be accomplished, without inconveniencing every health-insurance policy-holder.

If the individual insurance mandates are declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, there is a way to get uninsured people covered that will not involve amending the Constitution or similarly radical measures that I imagine some people will propose.

(After all, there are members of one of my Internet forums who want to abolish the Senate, largely due to the ability of the minority party to prevent things from getting done.  Funny, they never suggested that under Bush when the Democrats were in the minority.)

Simply expand Medicaid.  This is particularly doable if the statistics I have heard are correct and that the number of people who want health insurance but cannot get it, as opposed to those who could get it but don't, are not especially numerous--15 million of the total 47 million uninsured.

There.  Those are my comments.  Let the games begin.

Raising Money for Blood Cancer Research

A friend of mine from high school is raising money for research into blood cancers like leukemia.

Here's her fundraising page. I've already donated some money.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/lavatri10/kgriffiuik

Even if you don't know her (I would imagine most of my readership does not), this is an exceedingly worthy cause and I would encourage you to help out.