pandemerica

... or how i stopped worrying and learned to love the virus.

"i make deals. it's what i do."

meet the cure

when the truth has a liberal bias, who you gonna call?

so long, jack

the original tv fitness guru, jack lalanne, dead at 96:

would you get your dog up every day, give him a cup of coffee, a doughnut and a cigarette? hell, no — you'd kill the damn dog!

alkies awake!

burning up the interwebs this week have been some very encouraging reports for incorrigible alkies everywhere:

... a new paper in the journal alcoholism: clinical and experimental research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one's risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. the most shocking part? abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

i'm sorry, but announcements of this sort always remind me of the longstanding faddish nature of nutrition lore, which took a bit of a ribbing in woody allen's 1973 comedy "sleeper", wherein health food store proprietor miles munroe wakes up from an unplanned cryogenic nap 200 years into the future:

dr. melik:	well, he's fully recovered ... except for a few minor kinks.
dr. tryon:	has he asked for anything special?
dr. melik:	yes, this morning for breakfast: uh, he requested something called wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk ... ?
dr. tryon:	[chuckling] oh yes, those are the charmed substances that some years ago were felt to contain life-preserving properties.
dr. melik:	you mean there was no deep fat, no steak or cream pies or hot fudge?
dr. tryon:	those were thought to be unhealthy. precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
dr. melik:	incredible ...

miles:	and, and ... where am i anyhow? i mean, what, what happened to everybody? where are all my friends?
dr. aragon:	you must understand that everyone you knew in the past has been dead nearly two hundred years.
miles:	but they all ate organic rice!

dr. aragon:	[to dr. melik] he's ranting ... we'd better tranquilize him.
miles:	i knew it was too good to be true — i parked right near the hospital!
dr. aragon:	now here, you smoke this. and be sure you get the smoke deep down into your lungs.
miles:	i don't smoke.
dr. aragon:	it's tobacco! it's one of the healthiest things for your body! now go ahead — you need all the strength you can get.

(don't dawdle, folks! catch the movie in its entirety while it lasts ...)

love doesn't last forever

i've been feeling under the weather of late, so of course i'm reminded of this playful 1986 knockoff by soon-to-be comics-to-film crossover heavyweight alan moore and underground artist rick veitch (who was recently featured in my post "bp 2050"), which was originally printed in the farewell issue of marvel comics' first color magazine, the short-lived epic illustrated.

how veitch finagled auteur of the outré john waters into an uncredited feature role and tall thin duke david bowie for the musical arrangements, we can only guess ...

(story by alan moore and art by rick veitch)

quote of the day

researcher joseph strayhorn of drexel university college of medicine and university of pittsburgh, on the high teen birth rate of religious conservatives:

we conjecture that religious communities in the u.s. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself.

(hat tip to p.z. myers @ pharyngula)

na ga ha pen

for those of you going all a-twitter (or for others, going all a-slaver) at the prospect of the stillborn loss of next year's democratic senate majority:

take a deep breath.

it ain't that easy, according to jonathan singer @ mydd:

little to no precedent for forcibly unseating incapacitated senators: the only way the senate can remove a member is by a vote to expel, and there has never been any desire to do that for a health-related cause. sen. karl mundt (r-s.d.) suffered a debilitating stroke in 1969 but refused to resign and stayed in office until his term expired in january 1973 — although he never showed up for work following his infirmity. republicans pressured mundt to step down shortly before the 1970 elections, when it appeared the gop was going to lose the governorship, and with it their ability to appoint a senate successor. there was never talk of a motion to expel, though the republican conference eventually did strip him of his committee assignments. in november of that year, a democrat was elected governor, so the republicans who were urging mundt's resignation turned to hoping he would serve until his term expired. there were other, similar situations. rep. john grotberg (r-ill.) lapsed into a coma in january 1986 after participation in an experimental program for his colon cancer caused him to have a heart seizure. his family and staff refused to consider resignation, and the house took no action. he even won re-nomination to the house in the march gop primary that year, but his family finally relented and announced he would not run again. he remained a member of the house until his death in november 1986. in the spring of 1964, sen. clair engle (d-calif.) was dying of brain cancer, but refused democratic entreaties to resign. in june, when the senate voted to break the filibuster that had stymied the civil rights bill, the dying engle was wheeled onto the senate floor to vote for cloture by motioning with his hand. he died a month later. in the spring of 1943, sen. carter glass (d-va.) was 85 years old, in poor health and simply stopped coming to work. he died in may of 1946, still a senator but no longer a visitor to capitol hill. and according to sen. robert byrd's (d-w.va.) invaluable book of senate historical statistics, sen. james grimes (r-iowa) suffered a stroke in 1869 and remained in office as an invalid until his death in february of 1872. but there was no move in the senate to declare any of the aforementioned seats vacant. the only instance i can think of where lawmakers took action involved gladys spellman of maryland. the democratic house member suffered a massive heart attack in october of 1980 while campaigning that left her in a semi-conscious, coma-like state from which she never emerged. she won re-election with ease, but once it was determined that there was no prospect for recovery, the house voted to declare the seat vacant in february 1981.

still, what this inquiring mind wants to know is: if johnson should fall into a "persistent vegetative state" (though, according to his most recent diagnoses, johnson is thankfully "recovering without complications", making this outcome increasingly unlikely), like the now-famous terry schiavo, for whom the republicans brought congress to a standstill, should we expect the republicans to agree to allow him to take his seat?