I yet live

Colonoscopy done. All is normal. Feeling woozy from the propofol, may just take a nap.

Except there is one emergent side effect. The nurse warned me afterwards that there’d been one small hiccup: I stopped breathing.I guess that happens with propofol, and that’s one reason there’s an anesthesiologist present at all times. He got my breathing restarted, but had to clear my airways, and that involved grabbing my lower jaw firmly at the base and strongly pulling upwards. I was in no real danger, but the nurse cautioned me that I might be feeling some aches.

Boy, was she right. My jaw and upper back are just wrecked right now, and I’m ruined for even the easy work of sitting at the computer for a while. I think I’m going to have to lie down for a while.

But thanks, Anesthesiologist Jacob, I think I’d prefer some temporary joint aches over not breathing for an hour.

T. Ryan Gregory predicts the future!

This is my prediction, too. I have no confidence that we’ll make it through the semester without some radical revision in our plans.

I’ll testify to the burnout problem personally — the stress and uncertainty take their toll. Also, the declining confidence in university administrations is real.

Gregory, by the way, has announced that he’s on the market for a new position already, so if you’re at a university that isn’t saddled with an out-of-touch, blithering administration (are there such things) you might be able to snap him up.

Also, Terry Pratchett wasn’t a bigot

I was going to post this video, but Charly beat me to it. The YouTuber Shaun posted an excellent discussion of the recent gender critical freakout: they tried to claim that Terry Pratchett would have favored their intolerant anti-trans bullshit. Neil Gaiman, Pratchett’s coauthor, responded; Pratchett’s own daughter, Rhianna, was horrified that anyone would abuse his memory in that way. I agree. How anyone could read Pratchett’s work and think he wasn’t completely accepting of trans folk is a mystery, unless it’s just that they never read his books at all.

Shaun (and Charly) recommend his book Monstrous Regiment as far more illustrative of his views — it’s about a regiment of diverse women who all enlisted in the military by pretending to be men. You can’t find a clearer example of a refutation of a phony authorial interpretation. To be honest, I found it to be one of the weaker Discworld books…but it’s often because it gets rather heavy-handed in its dismissal of forced gender roles. It is not at all subtle, which makes it even more ridiculous that GC/TERFs would think Pratchett would take their side.

Colonoscopy prep day!

Good morning, everybody! It’s colonoscopy prep day, and I am so excited!

For you young’uns out there, this is a rite of passage you get to enjoy once you turn 50, or maybe earlier if you have risk factors. This is a process where a doctor invasively scrutinizes every inch of your colon to screen for cancer, and you get to do it every 5 years (or in my case, every 3 years because last time they found a few harmless polyps). So today is the day I get ready for an outpatient trip to the local hospital.

Everyone will tell you the prep is worse than the procedure, and it is. You have to completely empty your bowels so the doctor’s view isn’t impeded by, umm, shall we call them Deplorables? Today I’m purging the Deplorables.

First thing, I’m fasting. No solid foods at all today. I made some pineapple jello yesterday, and I get to have clear broth, but otherwise, it’s all drinking down fluids and nothing else. I do get to drink all the coffee I want, so I will.

I have to take 4 Dulcolax pills this morning, a stool softener.

At 3pm this afternoon, I get to fill up this jug with four liters of water, and start drinking it. I’m supposed to finish all four liters by 6pm. Chug, chug, chug!

It says “lemon flavor”. This is only sort of true, if your lemonade tastes more like watery mucus. I will cope. This is really the worst part of the worst day. Well, maybe the worst part — I do get to spend the rest of the evening expelling Deplorables.

Then, as of midnight, I go dry. No water, nothing, shall pass these lips, and prep day will have passed.

Tomorrow I go into the hospital at 8:15. I get to strip naked and put on one of those chic hospital gowns that opens at the back, and the nurse will stick a needle in my arm, and Dr Sam will walk in and tell me to lie on my side and bring my knees up to my chest, and then deliver the magic drugs and a veil of darkness will fall over the unspeakable events that ensue. He’s going to stick a tube up my butt with a small flashlight and a camera at the end, and also little snippy scissors so he can chop out anything he wants to take a closer look at.

By 10am I’ll be groggily putting my clothes back on and my wife will drive me home, where I’m told I’m supposed to be lazy all day. I can do that! I might also be hungry.

Why am I doing all this? Consider the payoff matrix. It’s the only rational thing to do.

I get a colonoscopy I don’t get a colonoscopy
I have cancer I catch it early! I have to get cancer treatments, but I have a better chance of not dying, and the treatments won’t be as debilitating as if I let the cancer grow. I have cancer, but I don’t know it. It grows until the unpleasant symptoms become noticeable and require more serious intervention. Or I die.
I don’t have cancer Yay! And I know it! Relax, resume my decadent lifestyle until the next colonoscopy. I’m OK! But do I know for sure? I do not. I might have to hold some reservations, rather than plunging into my life of careless hedonism.

As you can easily see, all the possible outcomes from the decision to get a colonoscopy are positive, while all the outcomes from shirking my responsibilities range from negligible concerns to dire, horrible consequences.

We even have graphic examples right here on Freethoughtblogs!

Caine’s Journey.

The Fight, ©Caine, all right reserved

Caine died of this terrible disease in 2018, after a long struggle.

Iris discovers a serious problem.

Fortunately, Iris is surviving, but read her account of her travails: no one wants to go through that. I don’t want to experience that.

So, yeah, get your butt checked regularly. It inconveniently wrecks a day, but that’s better than wrecking your life.

Ken Ham adds another flag

Answers in Genesis is fond of a peculiar metaphor: portraying secularism and Christianity as two castles in a bitter war. You can find lots of cartoons at their site illustrating this binary worldview, but the latest adds a new flag to the array of banners flying from “secularism”.

Yep, “Pedophilia” is new. These guys think that if you’re not Christian, you’re a pedophile…conveniently ignoring all the Christian preachers who’ve been exposed as sexual abusers. As summarized by William Trollinger:

One other thing about Ham’s fortress image. In Righting America at the Creation Museum Susan Trollinger and I argue that Ham and AiG and the Christian Right hold to a radical binary. In this binary the world is divided into two groups, Christian and Secular. Each group is identified with a set of linked terms that necessarily are the opposite of the other group’s set of linked terms.

So, according to this image, to be secular is to be a racist pedophile who supports the killing of babies and the disabled, and who suffers from gender confusion. To be Christian is to be “color-blind,” anti-pedophiliac, life-affirming, and very clear on the gender binary and one’s place within it.

What’s going on here? Do secularists have a reputation for raping babies or being racist? No, this is just propaganda. If you’re wondering where it came from, the answer is obvious.

Referring to the image displayed here, which Ken Ham has circulated via Twitter and Facebook, a friend asked if, by adding the “pedophilia” flag to the “secular worldview” fortress, Ham “is trying to appeal to QAnon” devotees?

It seems obvious that the answer is yes.

That site then links to an insane video filmed at Ken Ham’s Ark Park by a rambling QAnon devotee — it’s a maddening mess by a guy wandering around ranting at a camera, with the permission of AiG, blithering on about God wanting Trump to have two terms, etc. AiG has been suspiciously quiet about it all, not publicly speaking out for or against QAnon, while it’s clear where their sympathies and pocketbooks lie. It’s Q that has been demonizing Democrats, liberals, and anyone sane by accusing them of being pedophiles who drink the blood of children, and now AiG pops up and libels secular folk as pedophiles? It’s not hard to see who they’re catering to.

Remember now

June 2003:

August 2021:

Never forget: George W. Bush is a stinking piece of shit. Please remember this next time the news networks decide to show him harmlessly puttering about with his bad paintings.

Oh, also: don’t forget that the 24 hour news networks exist to sell you gold, overpriced pharmaceuticals, buckets of freeze-dried survivalist food, and life insurance (you’ll need it), not information.

For me, it all brings back memories.

We never learn our lesson.

Here’s an interesting point from the Wall Street Journal:

You might wonder why we didn’t train the Afghan army appropriately, given their reputation as formidable fighters, and given that the less well-equipped, relatively primitive, but ultimately overwhelmingly victorious Taliban. That’s easy. This war was fought not for freedom, but to be a sink for the sale of extremely expensive gadgetry by defense contractors. Could we please remember that, too, next time the Republicans start rallying for invasions and assaults and bombing campaigns against civilians? Or when Democrats think they’re being clever by building sneaky little drones to murder people?

I can’t listen to these people anymore

It’s weaponized misinformation. Here’s a woman testifying before a school board about masking students in school. It’s painful to listen to, and so familiar and cliched.

Let’s take it apart.

I’m here for the children.

No, she’s not. This is the excused used by every puritanical defender of traditional customs ever.

There is zero evidence that COVID-19 exists in the world.

Except for all the detailed molecular analyses of the virus, the epidemiological studies, the crowded hospitals, and all the goddamned dead people.

This is a plandemic. Fake virus. Bioweapon jab.

Yes, she knows all the stupid buzzwords. For somebody who just declared their allegiance to the evidence, there’s a problematic deficiency in evidence-based reasoning here. Where did she get this nonsense?

Fake president.

Oh, she got it from Fox News, Donald Trump, and QAnon.

You will not experiment on my children. It’s always been about the children. We know you’re coming for the children.

The children again. No one wants to experiment on your brood, but lots of people want to ensure the health and safety of blameless children. Who is coming for your children? Name them, with evidence that they want your kids.

We will not comply. We only answer to god.

There is far more evidence for COVID-19 than for your god.

People are waking up. Nothing can stop what is coming.

What is coming? Be specific. I’m fairly sure there’s a number of antivax deaths coming.

You vote yes, you will all be tried for crimes against humanity.

Does this work both ways? If the school board adopts the idiotic policies demanded by Trump voters and Q fanatics, and children and educators die as a consequence, can we try this sad, deranged woman for crimes against humanity?

Children don’t disappear. 800,000 children in the United States disappear.

Uh, what? Do they disappear or don’t they?

This, at least, is a specific accusation with a number. We know where that number comes from: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The QAnoners have ripped it out of context.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States — that’s roughly 2,000 per day.

Of those, there are 115 child “stranger abduction” cases each year, which means the child was taken by an unknown person.

So the 800,000 number is just telling us how often parents called in reporting that they couldn’t find their kid, not the number of abductions. The actual number of abductions is 115, which is tragic and horrible and terrifying enough without amplifying it to an unbelievable 3/4 of a million children being stolen away to be ground up for adrenochrome…for which there is no evidence, by the way.

Where do they go? Human trafficking is the real pandemic.

It’s a serious problem. It is not of the same magnitude as the pandemic.

The mainstream media doesn’t cover it. There is no virus. The media is the virus.

Well, maybe the media you consume, lady. Get off the Q websites and Fox and OAN and Newsmax, you won’t find the coverage at all perfect, but it’s better than the sewage you willingly pump down your throat.

The politicians, Hollywood are all involved.

Which politicians? I’m pretty sure any list you provided would be heavily biased against Democrats, and the Hollywood people you hate are mostly Jewish.

Please, vote no today. I’m begging you. I want you to think real hard about these children.

If anyone things real hard about the welfare of children, they wouldn’t be telling them to mill around in a mass with no protection.

Trump won.

Of course. We really need to put Trump on trial for crimes against humanity — he has poisoned the body politic of the United States, possibly irreparably.

I have a relative who is almost this bad. There’s a reason I’ve refused your Facebook requests, Linda — you sound just like this dangerous kook.