'Tis The Season For Persecutory Delusions

I have been away for some time, namely studying for a little test called the MCAT. But now that the exam is in my past (and hopefully medical school in my future), I have some opinions I need to expunge from my frontal lobes…

Considering Black Friday is exactly one week away, I‘d like to reiterate something I wrote a long time ago. I may or may not be watching A Muppet Christmas Carol as I type this.

 

Anyway…I’d just like to remind everyone as you start the shopping season that there is not, in fact, a holy war in process aimed at eliminating Christianity and that a cashier who wishes you a “Happy Holiday” is not committing religious persecution. They make eight bucks an hour to sell you crap made in China. Do you really think they’re part of a clandestine effort to extinguish Christmas from all public life? If you do, you watch too much Fox News. So when you respond back with an overly-emphatic “MERRY CHRISTMAS,” you only make yourself look like an ass and your persecutory delusions are not becoming.  It’s akin to screaming “UNDER GOD” when reciting the pledge of allegiance. Okay, we get it. You’re a card-carrying member of the J.C. fan club. Believe it or not, nobody really cares about your religious affiliation as long as you’re not imposing it on them.

Here is a useful list of things to remember if you’re shopping for Christmas and start to get that burning feeling that Barack Obama is hiding around the corner waiting to impose his Muslim religion on America…

1.       Happy Holidays is not religious persecution

2.       The mere mention of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Pancha Ganapati, or Festivus for the rest of us, is not an implicit attack on Christmas

3.       Retail workers are just trying to do their job and are not part of any underground war against you

4.       Cultural diversity and inclusivity are positives for an advancing society

If those don’t talk you down from the proverbial ledge, remind yourself of this…

The War on Christmas wasn’t just an idea concocted in Bill O’Reilly’s mind to boost his ratings. It originated with the likes of Henry Ford and his anti-Semitic publications. If you’re going to use anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to advance your agenda, just remember that Jesus was a Jew.

 

THINGS ONLY HEARD IN A LAB

As you all may or may not know, I work in a clinical laboratory.

 

 

Some things happen within the confines of the lab that are normal for us, but may be foreign to those who don’t know better. And many things are said that make perfect sense to us, but might elicit some double takes and eye popping from a layman. I thought I might share some things that you will only hear in a laboratory.

In no particular order...

1.      I’ll take care of those butt swabs.

2.      Who wants to look at my trichomonas?

3.      I just broke Wind (specific to Nordx Bramhall Clinical Lab)

4.      I am the Diff princess…not the C. Diff princess.

5.      Who’s the fucking Cyclops? (when sitting down at a microscope)

6.      That poop needs to be liquid to run.

7.      I’ve been drowning in piss all night!

8.      Is that smell the hematology waste or is it you?

9.      You could bake bread with this urine…(ew!)

10.  Dude, this guy’s name is Richard (insert anything that has even a remote semblance to something sexual)

 

And to leave you with a few jokes:

 

What do you say to a lab tech who just got promoted?

 

                                    COAGULATIONS!!

 

Helium walks into a bar and the bartender says, “We don’t serve noble gases in here.”

Helium doesn’t react.

 

Sorry, all the good chemistry jokes Argon…

THE FORGOTTEN WAR

I was watching the news this morning and was struck by an extremely important segment on Morning Joe. I was struck by it because the topic has become unfortunately scarce in the discussions of Americans. I read and watch stories about the election, the economy, abortion and rape, global warming, Syria, and whatnot. All of these are important issues, but how many in this country realize we’re still at war? Not just that, but we’re still in the midst of the longest war in this country’s history. Is everybody still aware that people are fighting and dying in Afghanistan?

I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college in the middle of an organic chemistry class on September 11, 2001 when the attacks happened. There are people fighting this war now who were seven years old and starting 2^nd grade, just learning how to add and subtract three digit numbers on September 11^th. They were too young, probably, to truly even understand the magnitude of what was happening in real time, too young for it to have been a JFK moment for them.

I’m not writing about this subject in the usual bleeding-heart, support the troops sort of way. This may be hard for some people to read, but today, going into the military is still a choice in America. It’s an honorable choice, but a choice all the same. Soldiers go to war, it’s what they do.  As the saying goes, there’s a time for war and a time for peace, but I don’t believe in hero worship. It’s duty that sends soldiers to war. It’s hero worship that perpetuates war and keeps them there.

The troops deserve everything promised to them and it’s saddens me that our country often fails the people who risk their lives for us. Politicians sicken me when they offer speeches that preach “support our heroes” and then turn around and vote to cut VA benefits. It’s all empty rhetoric and the people who sacrifice the most for this country are the ones most hurt by it.

This country deserves to know why we’re still at war after almost 11 years. Our troops deserve to know why they’re fighting a war that our citizenry has all but forgotten. Almost 11 years of war in Afghanistan, over 2000 soldiers dead, and billions of dollars spent. Why are we still there? We deserve to know why we continue to spend billions of dollars and sacrifice lives in a war in which, according to Barack Obama, we have largely achieved our goals.

We deserve to know why, but instead the American people are satisfied with ignorance.

It’s hero worship that has allowed perpetual war. It’s hero worship that has created a society that won’t question unfettered military spending, while at the same time allowing cuts to veterans benefits. War isn’t something that we should glorify. It’s something that should be accepted as an unfortunate and rare necessity. But the glorification of war has created a society of people willing to avert their eyes when we continue to fight long after the war has become unnecessary. And this allows politicians to send other peoples’ children off to war without question.

We’ve fallen prey to the very thing General Eisenhower warned us against, except he had it right in the primary draft of his speech: the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex. We go to war, contracts go to private companies, and congress people bring home the bacon to their states. There’s too much money to be made on war. For every soldier on the field there are hundreds out there in support positions within these private companies that profit from war.

The end result of hero worship plus greed is a country far too willing to fight. War should be seen as a last resort, not an opportunity to turn a profit. Couple private financial interest with American apathy and ignorance and this is what we get—the longest war in American history that has since become an afterthought in our minds.

TODD AKIN: THE POSTER BOY FOR GOVERNMENT IQ TESTING

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about the asinine comments made by Representative Todd Akin on the Jaco Report last Sunday  about how women have defense mechanisms to prevent pregnancy in the event of a “legitimate rape”. Hmm…maybe he’s talking about every man’s worst nightmare—VAGINA DENTATA.

 

If you know anything about politics, you can easily deduce that this does not bode well for Mitt Romney, considering his VP choice, Paul Ryan, cosponsored legislation that tried to redefine rape with this moron from Missouri and a personhood bill that tried to give a fertilized egg the same rights as a human being (thereby outlawing many forms of birth control, blah, blah, blah…read this if you want to know more). 

 

On a side note, I would love to hear Paul Ryan explain to a room full of women the difference between "rape" and "forcible rape".



But politically speaking, the only traditionally Democratic voting bloc Romney had a shot at winning to the Republican side was middle aged to older women. WAS being the operative word. The more the conversation is about women's rights (and men trying to take them away), the faster women run away from the GOP. So as you can see, this is not a good situation for a party that already has quite a significant "woman problem".

I am so over the politics of this, though. I don't care how Todd Akin's stupidity affects Romney's chances of winning the presidency. This ridiculous assertion about "legitimate rape" goes way beyond the abortion debate. This is fucking with women…and when you fuck with women, you've fucked with me.

As my sister so eloquently put it, it’s pure idiocy to believe that a woman's body can effectively discriminate between "wanted sperm and rape sperm". So for all of the ideologues out there lost in the pages of their Bible, when Mr. Sperm works his way inside of Ms. Egg, the result is a baby (they don’t even have to be married). 

The doctor pushing this whack-a-doodle theory should lose his license and never be allowed to practice again. Dr. John Willke, you are the very picture of quackery. And the Senate candidate who brought this crackpot bullshit to the public eye should be laughed right out of the spotlight. Todd Akin, you’re profoundly ignorant and you're a moron. I seriously question your IQ.

Don't be fooled here. This may superficially be about abortion, but that isn't the real issue at hand. This is about exerting control over women. It's the same reason women are put on a stand and asked how many drinks they had or what they were wearing the night they were raped (because if a woman is wearing anything less than a burqa, men automatically lose control over where they stick their penis). This is beyond offensive. It's beyond disgusting. They're telling women that if you had a few drinks, then you must have wanted it. If you were wearing something revealing, then you must have wanted it. Now it's if you got pregnant, then you must have wanted it, bitch.

There are a lot of people out there who believe this sort of half-assed, half-baked theory. This wasn’t some political faux pas or some accidental misstatement. Todd Akin’s words represent the worldview of a lot of people. They won't be satisfied until they have complete control over women's vaginas and uteruses and they’ll continue to lie about biological processes they know nothing about in order to get there.

The idea that women get abortions with the same whimsical attitude that they would get a venti caramel macchiato is an absolute abomination to any person's intellect and equating women who use abortion as birth control with the majority of women who get abortions is the equivalent of calling people like Scott Roeder and other Christian terrorists a good representation of Christianity.

From Bob McDonnell's forced vaginal probes  to Todd Akin's idea of "legitimate rape," there are people in high places who are fighting to make sure women cannot make their own medical decisions. For the bazillionth time…no matter how much scripture you throw my way, my uterus and what I choose to do with it is between me and my doctor. It's getting rather boring to have to continually say this.

I yearn for the day when these ignorant people no longer have any kind of platform to spread their disdain for women and I yearn for the day when Republican voters stop supporting these backward ideologues. Their values are not conservatism. Their values are the worst form of government intrusion…directly into the bodies of women.

 

SAVE HOPE FOR WOMEN'S SPORTS...BY DUMPING HOPE!

I discovered in the 1990's that I really love watching soccer…played at an elite level, that is. I hated playing it. The game is a snooze fest. Get the ball, boot it away, get the ball, boot it away, lather, rinse, repeat. So after eighth grade I made a rule that I would no longer play any sport in which you can't use your hands.  

But things like this, notwithstanding:

It's a totally different sport when it's played right by players who have serious skill. Abby Wambach connecting with an absolutely perfect cross from Megan Rapinoe to head in the tying goal in the 122^nd minute in the 2011 World Cup quarter final against Brazil to send the game to PKs was one of the most exciting moments in sports history. I literally jumped up and ran through my apartment, screaming like an idiot.

I love the USWNT!

Now, my point…

I hate professional sports. I don't watch them and I couldn't care less about them. And let me tell you, living in a place where people eat, drink, and breathe Celtics, Bruins, Patriots, and Red Sox, it's no small task to avoid them.

In my opinion, pro sport is a bunch of self-aggrandizing, overpaid prima donnas. It is a sad commentary on our society when we value a person who can throw a ball more than someone who is teaching our future generations...or someone who runs their lab work------------------------>.

And there is nothing more pathetic to me than a professional athlete who scores a touchdown and starts dancing around and acting like he's never crossed the goal line in his life (full disclosure, this is one thing I hate about soccer, as well). Act like you’ve been there before for Christ’s sake.

Pro leagues have become about being a spectacle and not about love of competition. Just look at the steroid scandal in baseball. In my opinion, Barry Bonds was far more impressive as a 30-30 man then as a 70 homerun hitter…but the beer guzzling wannabe pays $300 dollars for a ticket to see him dump a few hits into the San Francisco Bay, not to see him steal second base. I tell you, this is the shit that has ruined professional leagues.

And now I’m starting to see the same bullshit in my one remaining refuge: women’s sports—namely in the form of Hope Solo.  She is destroying everything I love about watching the USWNT. I can't stand her. She needs to go away. Her supercilious and self-glorifying behavior is completely demeaning the accomplishments of her team. There’s no question that she’s the best keeper in the game, but maybe she needs to be reminded that she’s also on a team who has possession of the ball way more than their fair share of the game. Easy to be great when no one’s shooting at you.

I love women’s sports because it’s about love of competition and promotion of the team, not love of money and promotion of self. It was disappointing enough when the USWNT immediately festooned themselves in t-shirts claiming “Greatness Has Been Found” after their Olympic victory (maybe they should have learned a lesson in winning graciously from the same Japanese team who had beaten them a year before). But Hope Solo’s comments about Brandi Chastain, throwing a public tantrum about being benched in a game, being drunk on the Today Show, just the fact that she even went on Dancing With the Stars, and writing a book that accuses two men of hitting her all make me want to vomit and subsequently flick the TV back over to CSPAN.

Brandi Chastain sucks as a commentator and she’s famous not because of soccer, but because she ripped her shirt off. Guess what, Hope? You’re famous because dudes think you’re hot. If you were ugly, no one would give two shits about how good of a keeper you are. And you were right. Greg Ryan’s decision to bench you in the ’07 World Cup was one of the most asinine decisions in sports history. But you made the puerile decision to publicly demean your own teammate. And DWTS…Where are we going to see you next, Celebrity Boxing? Your narcissism knows no bounds.  

Hope Solo thinks she is advancing women’s sports by exposing the double standard that exists between men and women in terms of what’s acceptable behavior. I say bringing women’s sports down to that level and creating a circus will destroy it just like it has men’s pro leagues. I love sports and it saddens me that I no longer get any enjoyment out of watching a Red Sox/Yankees game. Please don’t sell out women athletes by elevating spectacle over sport. Please don’t allow this self-serving, childish woman to ruin the women’s game.

SUCCESS WITH HONOR: A COMMENTARY ON COLLEGE SPORTS

I’m a former college athlete. In fact, athletics paid for a large portion of my education and for that, I am forever grateful. I loved playing and to get an education in exchange for playing the game I loved at a high level hardly seemed an even trade. Don’t get me wrong, it was extremely difficult at times—going to lift at about the same time other students were just getting back to the dorms after a night out, classes all day followed by practice followed by a three hour chemistry lab, starting the day at 6AM and not ending until 10:30PM three nights a week for four years, missing classes for road games, taking a Virology final on which my graduation hinged in a hotel room at Hofstra during the conference tournament (thank you for passing me, Dr. Simmons!). But in the end, I definitely got the better end of the deal. Non-athletes who blindly assert that athletes have it easy know nothing about the commitment it takes to be a college athlete and I put no credence into their uninformed claims. It may be true in some cases, but the vast majority of student athletes don’t play for big time FBS schools or in big time basketball programs. The vast majority of athletes are just doing what they love and if they’re very lucky, they get an education paid for in exchange for their talent. Athletics holds a unique value to a person's education and life that you can't get from anything else.  

With this primer, my criticisms on college sports pertain to the overinflated programs that exist solely as farm programs for the NFL or NBA, the schools whose very identification and existence depend on its football program—the schools where the institution of athletics has become more important than ethics and basic human decency. Penn State has of late become the poster child for protecting the institution at all costs. The school is the definition of institutional hegemony gone berserk.

The NCAA isn’t exactly a clean organization, itself. The organization is all about making money and not about the student athlete as it likes to advertise. But the corruption of the NCAA isn’t the point here. In the case of Penn State, the NCAA got this one right and for that, they should be recognized. You can’t say with a straight face that the NCAA can come down on institutions for giving free cars, houses, texting, etcetera, and not come down on an institution that harbored a child rapist.  

The worst criminal in this whole melodrama is the child rapist, Jerry Sandusky. The Penn State punishment isn’t about him. He’s been convicted and will serve his time (hopefully to be given the same respect by his fellow convicts that he gave his child victims). But the leadership at Penn State was essentially complicit in the cover up of his disgusting crimes, according to the Freeh report (and to those Nittany Lion faithful who are absurdly claiming that Joe Paterno was just a football coach—get real and stop lying. You know better).

Why the cover up? To avoid bad publicity. Well ain’t karma a bitch?

To see students in tears over NCAA sanctions, to hear an alumni compare the punishment to 9/11, to hear other coaches defending Joe Paterno not only shows just how deep the institutional mentality runs, but it’s insulting to human decency and it’s especially insulting to Jerry Sandusky’s child victims. That there are those in Happy Valley who are more concerned with the reputation of Penn State and Joe Paterno and his wins record is simply offensive. 

No matter how much good you may have done in your life, covering up the rape of children and allowing it to continue, allowing a child rapist access to a venue to commit their crime for more than a decade wipes out all of that good. That’s the trump card. Protecting a pedophile in order to save face and safeguard an institution will always outweigh any good you’ve done in life.

So to those who say that it’s unfair that an innocent community and innocent students are being punished—that is the result when the walls finally come crashing down on the institution that's become too big to fail…collateral damage. But your blame is misplaced. Instead of blaming those who handed out the punishment, blame those who created this culture at Penn State where covering up child rape was deemed necessary to protect the institution. Instead of blind allegiance, spit out the Kool-Aid and try honest discrimination. Who is really at fault here? Is it the NCAA or the over-empowered, arrogant, and hypocritical leaders at Penn State who the put bottom line ahead of the safety of children?

The situation at Penn State University will forever serve as the greatest example of what can go wrong when sports becomes too big. Joe Paterno was a God in Happy Valley and, mind bogglingly enough, he always will be to those who drank the Kool Aid. Had Paterno (et al) lived up to his own standard of “success with honor” and turned in Sandusky when he learned of what was going on then he might have earned his status. Instead, his lack of action showed how small of a man he really was. And this is the problem with the American culture of hero worship.

The question remains if the NCAA’s Penn State decision will serve to redefine the culture of college sports. Institutions should always hold education in higher regard than its athletics programs. Unfortunately athletic programs have become too big to fail at the institutions where the university has become synonymous with its football program. And now the price has been revealed—an institution willing to cover up child rape to protect its bottom line. It’s a money-driven culture and now colleges are going to need to ask themselves if they’re willing to take a little off their bottom lines. And we, the American public, are going to need to ask ourselves what we're willing to accept from our beloved teams in the name of winning.

   

THE DAY SLEEPER DOZEN

I'm a night worker. You will never understand night shifts unless you’ve worked them. Sorry, just ain’t happenin’. You may get close if you’ve ever lived with a night shifter. But unless you’ve done them yourself, you just don’t get it. So, that being said, I’ve decided to put together a compilation of suggestions and ideas to help you try and understand the lifestyle and help stop you from saying something that could get you maimed or killed when you encounter the freaks that only come out at night.

1.  First, I’m not kidding about the freaks come out at night comment. We are weird people. Seriously, we should be studied and featured in a National Geographic special. Sometimes it seems as though our shift’s primary language is barnyard animal. You have to be a little loopy if you choose to make your living working in the wee hours of the night when the vast majority of nature is fast asleep. So if you encounter a night worker and they seem just a bit off, give ‘em a break. The real question is, do nights make you crazy or do you have to be crazy to work nights?

2. Don’t ask a night shifter what they do all day. What do you think we do all day? What are you doing at 2 o’clock in the morning when you have to go to work at 8? Of course if you do ask this question, we’ll probably try to be cordial in our answer. But in our heads we’ll be thinking that you’re an idiot. In the same regard, DO NOT boast that it must be nice to have the days free to do whatever you want. Yeah, and it must be nice for you to have free time between the hours of 10PM and 6AM.

3. Life revolves around sleep. It’s the absolute most important thing to a night shifter. You can rest assured that almost every shift will start with, “I go X hours of sleep last night.” Given the choice between sleep and almost anything else, sleep wins—EVERY TIME.

Along the same lines…

Worst inventions ever: lawnmowers, cars, telephones, ice cream trucks, happy children playing, sunlight.

Best inventions ever: blackout blinds, sleep masks, ear plugs, rainy days. 

4. Breakfast is more a frame of mind rather than a time of day. Don’t freak out when a night worker is eating chips, pizza, candy bars, etcetera at eight in the morning. It’s the end of our day. And having a beer in the morning doesn’t necessarily mean someone is a raging alcoholic. They could have just put in a full night’s work. We like to wind down after a long shift just like you.

5. If you know someone works nights, DO NOT CALL THEM DURING THE DAY UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO (and if you think you have to, think about it a little longer just to be sure). Unless someone is dead, dying, or we’ve overslept for work, drop the phone and back away. If you do make the mistake of calling during the day with no good reason, be prepared for retaliation in the form of a 3AM phone call. Oh, yeah—if you do call, DO NOT make the mistake of starting the conversation with, “I’m sorry, were you sleeping?”

6. This is a personal experience of mine: If you are roommates with a night shifter, do not tell them that you’ll give them between the hours of X and Y to sleep, but after that we’re going to be as loud as we want (unless you want to lose a friend and the financier of 1/3 of the rent).

7. “Good morning” and “Good night” are meaningless and only make for confusion. If we tell you goodnight at 0700, get over it. It may be good morning for you, but its goodnight for us. And we’re never truly certain of what day it is, so just don’t ask.

8. Hot coffee, cold coffee, it really doesn’t matter unless it lacks caffeine. It’s not a matter of preference, it’s a matter of survival. Caffeine, chocolate, energy drinks. Staples of the night shift diet. The quickest way to my heart is through a case of Rock Star or Amp (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

9. Friendly neighbors and Jehovah Witnesses, alike—DO NOT KNOCK ON A NIGHT WORKER’S DOOR DURING THE DAY. Unless the building is burning down, leave me alone. Don’t mess with my sleep.That goes for you too, FedEx.

10. Today is tomorrow and tomorrow is tonight. Don’t try to figure it out. 

11. We make more money. Get over it. The differential is not about the workload, it’s about the 10 years off the end of our lives because we’ve spent our careers dealing with shift work sleep disorder. You want the diff, do the hours.

12.  If you see this sign on a night worker’s door:

Don’t test us, it’s not a joke.