Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Pain

I’m told there may be some discomfort tomorrow:

How much is known about pain in general? In medicine, obviously, it’s managed all the time, for surgical procedures and terminal illnesses and everything in between. But pain itself seems poorly understood. Why is one of the most common conditions also one of the most elusive?

I think that, in classic medical education, pain has either been overlooked or disliked. It’s the kind of situation that is often very frustrating to doctors. The therapies are not easy or pleasing. Until recently, it did not have its own specialty. In the past, physicians would just write a prescription for a narcotic and hope that the patient found enough relief not to come back and bother them. A lot of the patients in my article, the ones suffering from R.S.D., would have entered a medical purgatory, where they were largely shunned by the medical establishment. More recently, two things have happened. There’s been increased understanding of the biology of pain, and I talk about that in the article. Also, there are very committed physicians who believe that this is an important clinical issue, and they have begun to devote themselves to the care of these patients.

7 a.m. tomorrow

So my simple little hernia operation is at 7 a.m. tomorrow in Macon. Interesting that I got both too much and too little information - only yesterday did I find out that I’ll have to miss at least 2 weeks of work!

I honestly thought I’d go for coffee after and be back at work on Friday. Maybe Monday. Now I gather I won’t even be blogging for a day or so. Maybe more. But after that, with time on my hands, I should get caught up. Books and television and maybe even some video editing…

I’ll see you on the other side.

Mailbag

I really didn’t need this today; from my email:

I will tell you as I have told others.  The fact that you have to place your sexuality as a precursor to your title is exactly the problem we have in the world today.  Sexuality (whatever you choose) is for your bedroom and it’s door, and should remain there indefinetly.  I could care less what you or anyone else wants to do with your private time as I am positive you could care less about what I choose to do in my bedroom.  It is absolutely ridiculous that we even have to discuss this topic outside of our private lives. 

As for hate and violence, that should have grave consequences no matter what venue it falls in.  We do not have to support homosexuallity to be repulsed with bad behavior.  Everyone should be free to choose their lifestyle, but on the reverse, we should also be free of all the gory details.  It is time we put sexuallity back in the bedroom, and focus on treating people kindly, not titles.

As for your reference to homosexuals in the Bible, have you read the Bible?  Homosexuallity is a sin, end of story.  Hello! The entire population of Sodom and Gomorrah was anihilated because of homosexuallity.  People would like to soften the Bible as we have blurred almost every other truth through politically correctness, but here is an excerpt that might provide clarity.  When the adulterer was caught in the act and thrown at the feet of Jesus everyone waited to see Him destroy her.  Did He? No He did not, but He most certainly did not say, “Your an adulterer, I love you, go and do as you please.”

Contrarily, He bent down and drew in the sand, then standing He asked if there were any without sin.  He then invited the perfect people to cast the first stone.  When everyone left to correct their own wrongs He then placed His attention on the woman and explained that she was forgiven and should “go and sin no more.” No one wants to be called a sinner, but we all are.  Should we leave the repenting up to the sinner?  Absolutely.  That is between them and God.  Should we make the sin a political agenda?  Absolutely NOT!!!!!

The Gender Genie says the author’s a man. As best I can tell, it was sent in response to my Civil Rights post.

Oprah’s deluded

Richard Cohen:

Because she has led countless billions and billions of people to the promised land of books, because she preaches self-help and self-sufficiency and not least because she has shown that even a middle-aged person can keep weight off, I must tiptoe up to the amazing Oprah and merely whisper to her that in the case of James Frey, the liar whose memoir turns out to have a good deal of fiction alongside fact, she is not only wrong but deluded. [...]

“A Million Little Pieces” was Oprah’s selection for her book club, literally sending it off bookstore shelves and into the stratosphere: About 2 million sold after her endorsement. Recommending the book was one thing. No one expects Oprah to fact-check every book she urges her audience to read. Sticking by it is quite another matter. Even after the Smoking Gun smoked Frey, Oprah told Larry King that no matter what, the book still retained its “underlying message of redemption.” Instead of getting a magisterial rebuke, Frey had been pardoned.

Redemption my a@#! The Smoking Gun should turn its sites on Oprah.

Bigger bubble ahead

Wired interviews Harry S. Dent:

So here’s the good news: The next five years will bring us the biggest stock-market boom in history. The bad news? The party will end in late 2010, after which we’ll face the worst economic decline since the Great Depression.

Welcome to the world of Harry S. Dent, an economist and demographic researcher whose 1992 book, The Great Boom Ahead, called the stock-market bubble of the late ‘90s when few saw it coming. In his 2004 book, The Next Great Bubble Boom, Dent predicts an even bigger bubble forming over the next few years. That is, before everything crashes down around us.

Losing a legacy

Dr. King’s Legacy Is Being Lost:

The country lost Dr. King to an assassin’s bullet. But we will lose him a second time unless his heirs find a way to rejuvenate the listless and down-at-the-heels King Center in Atlanta, which was set up to commemorate Dr. King’s legacy while serving as a repository for his papers as well as for other crucial holdings related to civil rights.

Historians have been sounding the alarm for years about the deterioration of the papers, which are housed in a complex that lacks modern preservation services and requires far more upkeep than the King family has thus far been able to provide. The family, which is clearly unable to preserve the King papers for future generations, would do the country an enormous service by not selling them off to private collectors. Instead, the family should ramp up its conservation efforts in collaboration with the National Archives, the Library of Congress or one of the universities that have expressed interest.

Background here.