Paul's blog

Archive for the ‘Emotions’ Category

I received a death threat today.

Not a simple ‘drop dead!’ one, but a seriously meant one, complete with details as to how I should be put to death (in a non-pleasant fashion, I can assure you).

I’m scared. VERY scared.

More on it later, because for now … I’m leaving for a few days.

Packed my bags and I’m outa here. To a far away place in a desert.

Where I will ponder ‘freedom’.

And maybe take care of a few other things, but whatever THAT is … it stays there.

To be continued (if I survive this) …

Our cats Bonnie and Clyde were due for a visit to the vet.

This is something that my wife usually takes care of, but last time I received reports about extremely bad behavior by Clyde, involving biting the vet and a note in his file that said ‘patient declined procedure’.

So, I wasn’t totally surprised when it was announced the other day that it was MY turn to take the kids to the vet. Which I did. This morning.

Of course, the calm, relaxed and protecting father figure I am, I was sure they would completely trust me and we’d be home before they’d notice we’d left.

There was only one minor issue that I’d overlooked:

Clyde does NOT like having his temperature taken with a rectal thermometer and is NOT shy about making this clear.

To make a long story short .. as early as next week, they start redecorating, if not completely rebuilding, the Minton Animal Hospital.

(It’s now 3 hours later, Clyde is in the closet and hasn’t spoken to me yet .. all I get are dirty looks: I think next year we should try to trick daughter Laurilee in taking them – IF the vet still ‘invites’ them, which is by no means certain -)

Last Monday morning, around 2am.

“You KNOW God is with you right now, right?” .. whispered she from behind me.

In other circumstances I gladly would have engaged in the discussion by informing her that I, in fact, did not know that, and more specifically, that I was pretty sure he wasn’t, and that if he WAS, he wasn’t doing his job.
But this was neither the place nor the time, so I kinda nodded. After all, she was a very nice girl and meant well.

Just before entering a room she stopped and walked up next to me, turned around, grabbed my hand, gazed me in the eyes and said: “Do you want me to pray with you?”
This is always a bit of an embarassing question to a devout atheist like myself, but in this instance even more unsettling, since a) I found myself in a situation where the LAST thing you want to hear is people praying for you, as it usually means there’s nothing else they can do anymore, and b) I just had several people ‘work’ on me, from hooking me up to an EKG, to taking chest X-rays and stabilizing my blood pressure, heart rate and pain (administering nitroglycerine, lopressor and (yummie!) morphine), and now I was ‘supposed’ to be rushed to have a CT scan to look for blood clots, so I found it a bit disturbing that this, undoubtly well meaning, nurse delayed this process by trying to take out some time for praying to God.

I’m fairly sure (not really, since I don’t believe in God) that if God didn’t want me to have this heart attack, I wouldn’t have been here in the first place.
So I responded with something like “Mwnaah”, with that friendly “Maybe not today” look one uses when someone tries to sell you something for a good cause at your door when you’re watching a Spurs playoff game (Go Spurs!).
“Well”, she smiled at me, “be sure that I certainly WILL pray for you!”. Again, friendly as it may have been meant, I didn’t find it very encouraging for my situation.

Then, when she prepared me for the CT scan she happily informed me that I was going to experience the closest thing to female menopause (something about a warm feeling like I had been peeing all over my self  (apparently induced by the injected dye liquid) .. ? .. Uhm… okay).

The whole procedure made me think of going through a whirring rotating mini-Stargate.
But that was all.

When she enthousiastically enquired about ‘that’ feeling, I had to tell her that I, truthfully, hadn’t experienced anything of the kind.
She was visibly disappointed by this. She didn’t speak a word while she pushed me back to the ER.

No feeling of peeing all over myself, and no prayer sessions, it must have been a disappointing night for her.

Mine wasn’t too great either: Around 4am I was admitted.

Amy Sorrell, a 30 year old High School teacher (English and Journalism), was placed on paid leave, will be transferred to another school and is still facing being fired.

Her ‘crime’?

Failing to report to the principal a controversial article in the students’ own newspaper for which Mrs. Sorrell served as an adviser.

What was so ‘controversial’?

Student Megan Chase wrote an editorial calling for tolerance of gays.

Yes, you read that right: not only did Woodlan High School censor the students’ own newspaper, it also deemed a plee for tolerance ‘controversial’!

Such an outrageous display of homophobia by an institution that we entrust our children to for education is as maddening as it is scary.

“The school administration has said in no uncertain terms that she’s not going to be given a journalism position”

Ah, right, yes, God forbid that she teaches the kids at the other school such dangerous notions as freedom of speech and press!

Mrs. Sorrell said that she is proud of the student who wrote the article, but that she has no money to fight the decision.

Sounds like a perfect case for the ACLU: not only are certain elements of the school’s administration clearly overstepping the boundaries of their power to promote and push their own narrow-minded views, they are also brutally abusing the rights to free expression of both the students and Mrs. Sorrell.

They should be stopped! This is outrageous.

(Even so outrageous that one has to wonder if there’s not more behind the story than meets the eye)

Link to article: link

(and yes, I know, that picture is sickening too. Comes from that deranged lunatic Fred Phelps, America’s Ueber-homophobe!)

I just watched this:

A kid announces his atheism. Dad seems to grab a beer and sits down at the dinner table to discuss this clearly unexpected revelation.
But mom explodes and starts the typical threatening, cursing (f-word!) and yelling (way to go mom!!).
(Dad wisely stays out of it from now on).
Curiously, mom appears to think that Christmas is all about getting presents.
But what really got me (laughing) is the way how, probably, a sister or brother, sneakily video-taped the outburst and sneaks away when things get TOO hot…

Still .. a very sad display of bad parenting…

Link to video

This post is related to my two previous posts.
Recently I was listening to some details about a certain type of ‘minimally invasive’ surgery, when at some point the risks were brought up.
It was explained that this procedure was relatively safe, as it had a risk, expressed in mortality rate, comparable to that of a colonoscopy.
That sounded very reassuring, since a colonoscopy doesn’t involve incisions and messing with vital organs.
Then I saw the actual numbers and sure enough, they were fairly close.

But I was shocked nevertheless.

In 2004 I had a colonoscopy, based on my primary care physician’s recommendation to ANYONE who turns 50, to have one. Just as a precaution.
Since they did remove some polyps, it was recommened to have another one in 2006. I’m overdue for that one, and I really should get one scheduled.

Or SHOULD I?

I’m still shocked by the mortality rate of a colonoscopy. It was given as around 1 in 2000.
It is recommended that by the time you turn 50, you should get a colonoscopy, and then one every 5 years after that (or more often when they find something).
There are about 50 million people over the age of 50 in the US. If they would all follow the recommendation, each year 10 million people will have a colonoscopy! With the above mentioned mortality rate, 5,000 people WILL die each year by simply having a colonoscopy.
This scares me a lot.
I had no idea that such a procedure would kill one out of every 2000 patients.

The past few days I have been thinking a lot about this number.
And now I do of course realize that there’s another side of this coin. Something that poker players may recognize as a pot odds calculation: what is the cost of NOT having one. What are the odds that I DO develop undetected colon cancer.
When I wrote my ‘Odds’ post, I was still heavily leaning towards not going in for my second one.

But now, considering that this is widely recommended (so you think that someone has done the proper statistical analysis of the odds involved^1.) PLUS the fact that I am more at risk due to the removed polyps .. maybe I SHOULD get another one.

I’m not asking my readers to make this decision for me, but I would appreciate their thoughts on this mortality rate^2..

^1.Here I appear to follow one of my commenter’s remarks, basically saying “If the authorities say it’s safe, I don’t care too much about the numbers”. But there is a difference I think.
^2.I restricted myself to mortality, there are also various other, rather nasty, risks (like colon perforation) that require immediate and complicated surgery)

I just came across an old post from my previous blog at Live Journal (link). For some reason I felt like re-posting it here:

Today, November 30th, 2004, I have been abducted by aliens.
I can’t give a full, detailed, account, since I’m only faintly aware of the actual abduction.
No, I didn’t dream it. It really happened. I remember laying on a gurney in a dimly lit chamber.
Soft strange music playing in the background. I also recall laying on my side, staring at an unfamiliar and complicated looking aparatus which was connected to a long black shiny rubbery hose.
I instinctively knew that that would have to be the infamous anal probe, and I’m frightened by the size and length of it: they are going to stick that thing WHERE?
So, all those alien abduction/anal probe stories are real after all?
One of the less conscious memories is that of beings coming into the room, beings in long loose robes. Green ones I believe.
From then on I am aware only of some faint experiences of uncomfortable pressure in my abdominal area and some soft strange whirring sounds.
The next thing I remember is waking up, feeling VERY dizzy and disoriented, still laying on a gurney, next to strange machinery that’s making soft puffing and bleeping noises.
And I realize that it’s all over. That I’m still alive. And will live. And that the experience, although by no means pleasant, wasn’t even painful!
Actually, the only rather painful part of the procedure was the $250 co-payment for this colonoscopy.

(you can click on the picture)

In preparing for an upcoming post, I’d like to ask my readers something. Do a little poll.

Suppose you have never flown before, you don’t know anything about it.

But now you are about to take a commercial flight in the US: you want to go to Vegas for a poker tournament or your company sends you on a mission to put out a fire somewhere or you’re going to attend a highschool reunion .. whatever.

Since you have never flown before, you do some research. Now SUPPOSE that you find these statistics (they are not realisitic, but, for this exercise, pretend you don’t know anything about flying and ASSUME that these numbers are correct):

The odds of a commercial flight (within the US) crashing and killing all its passengers is 1 in 3000.

The number of commercial flights on any given day is 30,000 (this is fairly accurate).

This means, that when you board your plane, THAT DAY, 10 commercial flights WILL crash in the US.

ASSUMING that these numbers are correct, will you make different travel arrangements (not involving planes)?

Or would you think, oh well, a 0.03% chance of crashing is negligible, let’s go …

I took this picture (above) today in Titusville on the last day of the three day ‘Tico Warbird Airshow’. It’s by no means a good picture (especially because I had to compress it this much), but it’s a picture of a special event.

What you see here is a snap shot of what is called a Missing-man formation. This is a formation flown to give a last salute to a fallen crew member, usually performed at a funeral or memorial event.

It’s not unusual (but not common either) to see a demonstration of this special formation during an airshow.

But this was no demonstration.

This was a real salute.

It was the salute to Eilon Krugman-Kadi, 58, a Gainesville attorney who, on the first day of this airshow, performed a loop in a Russian L-39 training jet, but did not have enough room to complete the maneuver.

During the flyby, solemn bagpipe music was played, everybody rose, men took off their hats and touched their hearts.

It was a very touching and moving moment.

Apparently, last weekend Congressman Pete Stark (D-California), has come out as someone who does not believe in a supreme being. This makes him the first congressperson ever to admit such a thing.
He made this statement:

When the Secular Coalition asked me to complete a survey on my religious beliefs, I indicated I am a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being

To be perfectly clear:

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.

That’s all. Nothing more. He didn’t confess that on ‘the floor’, he didn’t request special treatment and he certainly didn’t bash other people’s beliefs. He was just being honest (while he was the first one to ADMIT this, I’m sure there are more people in congress who share his disbelief).

And LOOK at the reactions!

For a long time I have believed that a very important basic ingredient for people’s tendency to be religious is fear. (To be a God-fearing person is considered a positive Christian trait, and you’d better fear hell too!).

I have seen the fear component manifest itself often and at various levels of consciousness, but seldom have I seen it so clearly as in this outburst from The Christian Seniors Association (CSA). See link.

Allow me a few quotes from that article and my comment on it:

… they want to establish a right for liberals to bash Christians and berate God around the clock …

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.

It is time for religious members of Congress to push back.  A simple declaration of a belief in God by members of Congress on the House floor will be greatly informative for the American people…

To “push back”? Note: Pete Stark did NOT announce his disbelief on the House floor.

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.

We have long recognized that all of this hot air about ‘separation of church and state’ has been a veiled effort to intimidate and silence religious voices in public policy matters …

Isn’t it a bit ‘un-American’ to call your own country’s Bill Of Rights ‘hot air‘? And no, it was not to intimidate, and no it was most certainly not veiled. It is a very CLEAR meassure to, indeed, keep ‘religious voices out of public policy matters’. That’s why it’s called ‘separation of church and state’. But in any case, it’s not something that Mr. Stark even so much as mentioned.

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.

If the liberal House leadership refuses to recognize lawmakers who want to affirm their belief in God …

Wait a minute now, NOBODY was refusing anyone anything …

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.

But based on some of these remarks, I think it IS valid to state that it is the CSA who ‘refuses to recognize lawmakers who want to affirm their disbelief in a god‘.

Congressman Stark’s statement [ … ] could be the moment which defines the decline of our country …

You’ve GOT to be kidding me! This would define the decline of our country?

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.

… the day that religious Americans stood-up to the liberal bullies who are so determined to use the power of government to silence prayer and every other religious expression of free speech.

Okay, NOW someone is REALLY going overboard here. NOBODY wants to deny religious people their right to pray and believe whatever they want. All that the non-religious people ask is to not have those beliefs FORCED upon them and that their tax money isn’t spent on some specific religions.

However, congressman Stark didn’t even mention that request.

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.

While I agree there is some rather nasty bullying going on here, it is NOT Pete Stark who is the bully!

This is a fight which is destined to be fought in America and we think it should begin today.

This is a FIGHT?

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.