"Doc, Can I Use It 'Til I Need Glasses?"

In today's news:

From Reuters:

U.S. health regulators on Friday said they have received more than 40 reports of a type of blindness in men taking impotence drugs, mostly involving Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has received about 38 reports of the rare condition among users of Viagra, four reports of blindness among users of Eli Lilly and Co.'s Cialis and one report of the condition in men talking Levitra, made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc.
Pfizer said outside of clinical trials, Viagra has been used by more than 23 million men worldwide over the past seven years. It said reports are extremely rare of visual loss due to the condition known as non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION).

"FDA is aware of these reports but has not determined there is a cause and effect due to use of Viagra ... We're working with the company to make sure this information is available to doctors and patients," FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan told Reuters.

New York-based Pfizer acknowledged the rare cases of blindness and is weighing a label change. But it emphasized no proof exists that the blindness is linked to the drug, which was introduced in 1998 and had $1.68 billion in sales in 2004.

"We are in discussions with the FDA to update our language to reflect these rare ocular events that have occurred," Pfizer spokesman Daniel Watts said.

More Perspective

Unknown said...
Bearing in mind that we are dealing in the realm of Myth... Your take on the Fall is tantalizingly close to Terry Gilliam's "Time Bandits". (You should get that for the kid, if you have not already.) I see the Fall somewhat differently...probably due to my residual Calvinism. I see the Fall as tantamount to diving into a 900 foot deep lake, having willingly donned a cement overcoat. This in spite of a large flashing neon sign that states: "Do Not Dive into Lake whilst wearing Cement!"

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I remember "Time Bandits" a little bit, but not enough that I wouldn't enjoy seeing it again. I just returned the '50s classic Earth vs. the Flying Saucers to Netflix, and have The Angry Red Planet due to hit after "Spanglish." Leroy likes stuff like this, which proves yet again his sound judgment and good character, and being a solid chip off the old man's block.

"Earth vs. ..." was good fun. For one, it set up a lot of what we now consider standard sci-fi fare, like the bad guys knocking over national monuments for dramatic effect, and their space ships designed to having a grim and deadly personality of their own. The DVD's best surprise was a long retrospective on special effects guru Ray Harryhausen, who it turns out was a close friend of Ray Bradbury. But I digress.

Your Calvinist take on the Fall reminds me of my days working as a private security guard during college. It was guaranteed work for a 6,'2" presentable young African American male, at good hours and with no intellectual challenges to tire my busy mind before or after class. I'd stand there on duty right next to a big red "X" on the ground with a big sign right next to it screaming, 'FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T STAND ON THIS "X" OR YOUR HEAD WILL EXPLODE!!" With the sign, it makes you wonder why they needed a guard, eh?

I was constantly amazed at how many people would walk up, look at me in my little toy cop outfit, read the sign, look at the big "X" ... then try to stand on it. Or ask me, "you mean I can't stand here?" and look for my permission, just to see what would happen.

Which just reaffirms my belief that the whole "don't eat that fruit" thing was a scam, as set up. Not as good as the set up which caught D.C. mayor Marion Berry, but close. The critical difference is that Eve's set up was liberating, Marion's ... wasn't. (And Marion apparently is still trying to see the difference between right and wrong.)

Teevee in the 'Hood - update

dhgulley said...
Having never watched such shows as "Seinfeld," "Friends," or any of the other so-called "Blockbuster" sitcoms m'self, I always question why I'm not in the majority who enjoy this type of show. So I asked m'self....M'self said, "I'm not learning anything new."So I guess I'm going to have to admit to being one of those odd people who enjoy watching something such as "Nova" and coming away knowing something I didn't know before. Weird, huh?

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Then people look at you with wide-eyed wonder and ask, "Well, what do you -do- then? Like they can't possibly imagine doing anything else with their free time. Even on the tube, when people ask me what I do watch and I tell them the History or Science or National Geographic channels, which tell me something I didn't know before, it's like saying you asked the teacher for more homework. Oh well.

Here in Sacramento the NBA basketball Kings are gods. I'm not that that big of a pro basketball fan, which also elicits wide-eyed wonder from folks who can't imagine such a thing from a 6'2" black guy. My problem is to really follow pro basketball you have to see it visually to really get into the game. It just doesn't work over the radio. "He drives to the basket and scores!" just doesn't do it. You have to see exactly how he did it to appreciate it.

Baseball, however, works great over the radio. The relaxed pace lends itself to good descriptive narrative. One of my favorite Giants announcers once said he preferred doing radio over teevee "because the pictures are better". I don't have to come home and park myself in front of the tube for three hours to follow the Giants, like my Kings fans friends do.

As a matter of fact, the multimedia approach works great. On a typical evening I can "watch" the first part of a game via Internet updates on Yahoo! Sports, listen to the middle on my car radio and watch the last few innings on cable teevee. I'm not tied down for the late afternoon or evening.

Yet another reason why baseball is the world's best sports pastime.

The Golden Years - update

dhgulley said...
Hey! How about Roger Rocket?

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Same rule applies. If he just didn't want to pitch for the Bankees, he shoulda just said so. Under my law, uttering the word "retire" or anything associated with it automatically drops you outta the market.

I mean, we need order here. This running in and out has got to stop.

At least Jerry is honest about wanting to leave the profession feet first, I'll give him that.

Killing Monsters

My friends and I played cops and robbers when we were kids, and cowboys and Indians, and commanded regiments of little green soldiers and read comic books where eighteen of the twenty pages were hero and villain beating the crap out of each other. So far, most of us have lived relatively normal lives. It seems to me that if a kid brings a high powered rifle to school and blows away students, teachers and himself, there's a lot more going on there than one too many video games.

I happy to report that I'm supported in my intuition here by the book Killing Monsters, a review of the real need kids have for violent play and super heroes and all that. Turns out that, as common sense would tell us, we really have nothing to fear.

I can hold my head up now when fretful parents roll their eyes at me letting my six year old Leroy watch all that cartoon violence which is supposed to fold, spindle and mutilate his soul. I mean, if the Teen Titans can beat the bad guy into next week, won't Leroy want to do the same thing too?

"Killing Monsters" says that kids do understand the difference between fantasy and reality. I think it's right.

Leroy loves the big Star Wars media blitz. He loves the lightsabers and the action and says he wants to see the movie. He's interested in who's the Good Guy and who's the Bad Guy. This is important to him. He knows that there's difference between protecting someone and hurting someone, that there are Heroes and Villains. This is what fantasy is all about, even the fighting part. Kids want to be Heroes, and as small, powerless people, they intuitively understand how Villains can work. So they naturally want to imitate and emulate Heroes, larger-than-life characters able to chase the bad things away. Which children understand that they really can't do.

Leroy also likes living things. He loves animals, nature and the outdoors. He's fascinated by how plants and animals work, how they live and how they make more of themselves. This morning he and I came across a snail which was making its way along the sidewalk near school. It was crawling about six inches off the walk.

This worried Leroy. "We have to get him out of the street or a car will hit him," he said. I agreed. Leroy gently picked up the snail, and we found him a nice grassy place to drop him where he'd be safe and moist. A day later, we came across a worm wriggling on a hot sidewalk near another patch of grass by the school. This too demanded immediate response. Leroy worked for a long minute to catch the maniacally tossing slimy thing. Once he did, he dropped him into the grass and watched as the worm eased down into the green and dirt.

"He's back in his house now," Leroy stated quite matter-of-factly before going on into class.

I feel good. Even better, I feel safe. Leroy seems to understand that being bigger than the snail and the worm means that you have a responsibility to protect them when you can, not hurt them. Best of all, he feels good doing it. So tonight, we're curling up in front of several episodes of Cartoon Network's "Clone Wars" series. Leroy and I will both be rooting for the Heroes to win.

The Golden Years

"Jerry Rice talks about playing in Denver."

Rice, probably the best wide receiver ever to play the game, could have gone out as 'Niner several years ago, to screaming fans and the memories of being a part of one of the most exciting and successful scoring machine in all sports. It would have been great. He would have been remembered as great.

Now, he looks more like an over-the-hill boxer fighting palookas for meal money because he can't do anything else.

It's not like he needs the money. He could certainly never get out of bed for the rest of his life and lay well on satin sheets. It's the ego. As a number of athletes have said, it's hard to walk away from the screaming stadium, the huge stage that is pro sports, esp. pro football, where each game is special event.

But we don't need this. We don't need pitiful ego-addicted men trolling the byways for years past their time. We need a law.

With Congress up in arms over steroids, because the war in Iraq, Social Security and the federal deficit will surely take care of themselves, it's time for them to take action.

Federal law should provide for mandatory retirement for any pro football player over the age of 36. Exceptions will be allowed only for those who have passed a skills test where they will be required to perform at at least 80 percent of their level at age 30. Those who pass can only be given one year contracts, and only for the league minimum. Athletes over 40 will be required to pack it in if a confidential poll of players and season ticket holders, who are forced to watch Rice's travesty up close and personal, finds that a majority of those polled disagree. We'll call it the "Jerry Rice Law" and chalk it up to his legacy that we agreed that he'd be the last to have us watch such foolishness.

But let's not stop there.

Additional federal law will ban players and coaches who retire from unretiring. I mean, a guy gives the tear jerker farewell and heads off to presumably a pleasant second life of mindless sports commentary, only to jump back in a few years later. This has to end.

This law will cross all sports. No MJ hopping in and out and making a Jerry Rice-like fool of him-self. No Ryne Sandberg coming back to waste our time trying to reach balls he could have fielded blindfolded two years before he left. No Joe Gibbs deciding that watching 350 lb. men hit each other repeatedly was more engrossing than staring at cars going 'round and 'round and 'round in circles. I call it "One Strike, You're Out." If you're packing it in, pack it in, for God's sake. Don't force us to watch the sad consequences of your inability to find a hobby.

That's it for tonight. I'm off to have my bran muffin. I get cranky when I'm not "regular" you know.

Teevee in the 'Hood

A recent line of Boondocks comic lampooned the ridiculous way African Americans are shown on teevee. It was funny, but not news. Teevee, being what it is, shows most identifiable groups in a stupid way. It's a stupid medium, so it has no choice. But Boondocks had it wrong. The news isn't how African Americans are shown on teevee, it's how many African American are watching this and the other swill which makes up most of popular television.

Black folks watch more teevee per eyeball than any other American group, as reported by the good people at Nielsen who track this stuff. This drives Jesse Jackson nuts. Turn off the teevee and do homework with your kids, he says.

I admit, I've got issues with how much teevee people watch. It's been a hurdle all my life. This is why the Boondocks piece struck a nerve.

I once had a girlfriend whose crew just had to watch 'Laverne and Shirley' after work every day. When I left the room to do something else, or opened up a book, one of the crew snorted, "I hope we're not -boring- you!!" No, you're not, I said. The teevee show is. I'm stilled stunned by how many black parents give their kids full cable access, then complain about how their little tykes want to buy everything they see advertised and can't manage to finish their homework or get to bed on time. Duh. Ask them why they don't vote and "I ain't got the time", followed by an excited monologue on who's pissed at who on World Wrestling. Right.

A big piece of what I hate is the weird shared cultural experience teevee creates that I miss out on. At the office lunch the conversation inevitably moves to the latest episode of 'Lost', 'American Idol' or 'Desperate Housewives', which leaves me to do nothing but gnaw on my chips 'til the meal's over. My co-workers get itchy and start insisting that I'd really like the show(s) if I took the time to watch them over the next few weeks. Reminds me of my former girlfriend's pal years ago. They see the fact that I'm not watching the same crap they're watching as some kind of judgment I'm making on them. Well, it is. Having never watched a full episode of 'Seinfeld' (the stories about nothing are just that, about nothing) does make me a better person.

I don't hate teevee completely. I've got my shows. Heck, I pay Comcast Cable $57 shekels a month to get what I do watch, ESPN Classic, the History channels, my wife's home shows and all the great cartoons Leroy likes and we often watch together. My favorite show was the recently cancelled Star Trek entry Enterprise, (sob!) I just don't want it to run my life or my family's. When it gets to where my nights are completely shaped by what the sellers of my eyeballs to commercial vendors do, it's time to head for the hills.

As for now, it's off to ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" to check on today's action. I mean, no point in being unreasonable about all this.

A Matter of Perspective (Update)

DHGulley said...

Watch it Preston, you're starting to sound a bit religious. Maybe old age is setting in?

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My momma did her best to make me a good Baptist. The problem was, I like asking questions. And Baptists ain't too fond of that.

The story of The Fall made no sense to me, as I told my Sunday School teacher. So it was better to run around nekkid with no sense of morality? That' s what the fruit (not an apple) of the tree provided, the knowledge of good and evil. This is growth. It's what separates adults from toddlers and people from the critters of the field. My pet dog won't hop on the sofa when I'm gone if I've trained him not to, but not because it's "wrong" but because he wants to please the alpha human.

Also, without that knowledge then God as a moral force becomes unknowable. How can you choose between good and evil if you can't recognize it? Doesn't the Christian story of The Fall strongly imply that moral ignorance is paradise? Me, I find knowing good and evil a lotta fun. Why would I be better off without it? Wouldn't that make me little better than the dog I noted above? See, this is where this line of reasoning takes you.

As a parent, I've come to see The Fall in a whole different light. It's all about family. You raise the kids and make sure their needs are met without their worry. That's the Garden. But you know they're going to need to think for themselves once they get out into the great wide world. So you give them knowledge, insight and self-awareness. This is the eating of the fruit and the realization of nekkidness. (And how do you make sure your kids stick their mitts into the cookie jar? Tell them not to. Sound familiar?) The serpent is the instigator because serpents, which shed skin, are considered symbols of catalytic change across the world.

Then you boot 'em out where they fend for themselves. This is the Expulsion. This is Daddy saying, "Enough lying around and eating fruit. Get out there and work!"

The end result is a planet crawling with vibrant people full of all kinds of goodness, badness, weirdness and indifference. Grown-ups.

Now, the story is an analogy for that point where humans developed past hairy-knuckled furballs roaming the ancient plains to moral awareness. It tells the story, as all good cosmological tales do, in a way with synthesizes what happened in a compelling and understandable way.

The second disagreement I had with my Sunday School teacher comes right out of the first. Since we're all given moral choice, it makes no sense for a supernatural deity to constantly interfere in those choices. I don't think God personally intervenes in human affairs. Praying or meditating can connect one to the divine but it's not going to make that rash go away or save your son on patrol in Iraq.

Because we have to make choices, we have to free to live with the consequences of those choices. Otherwise the choice made becomes irrelevant. And if the divine intervenes one day and one place to save someone from their own or another's folly, then logic and fairness would require such intervention everywhere. Otherwise the divine is playing favorites for no apparent reason, and again, completely undermines the nature of a moral universe.

So this is why I've cast my lot with the Unitarians. In Baptist church my momma got mad at me for raising these questions. With UU'ers, it's more food for thought. I like to think and eat, so it suits me well.

Partisan Warfare

I love Bi-partisanship. Since my party holds the minority in the U.S. Senate, I'm all for a "bi-partisan" solution to the judicial filibuster mess. Because it's the best way to mitigate the damage. That's when "bi-partisanship" works best.

I want political leaders I support to do what I want. I want universal health care. I want strong U.S. support of a strong U.N. I want Social Security protected and preserved. That's my "partisan" position.

There's nothing wrong with being partisan. Democracy is premised on it. The point of the republican exercise is to organize like-minded people who share a collective vision and work through a peaceful process to put that vision into power.

I don't understand why being considered "bi-partisan" or "non-partisan" puts someone on a higher moral realm. Say that something's Non-Partisan or Bi-Partisan and it's placed on a higher realm of political morality. Non-Partisan is fine when it presents information or activity in a neutral manner. But there's nothing more moral about the Red Cross because it acts in a non-partisan. It's simply a logical application of its work.

Bi-partisan doesn't necessarily mean better or more virtuous either. No Child Left Behind (kaff!) is considered a Bi-partisan measure because liberal icon Ted Kennedy supported it. Whee! Liberal and conservative working hand in hand for our nation's kids! But it's a crappy piece of legislation designed to pump public money into private businesses' hands with no accountability and little result. Like much of the Bush domestic agenda, it's more corporate welfare. That's "Bi-partisanship" like I understand it. A Partisan initiative couched in supposed middlegrounding to make it sellable.

I don't fault Frist and DeLay and the other numbskulls for their partisan approach to political warfare. I admire them for it. I wish I could get as much gumption from the Democratic Party's poobahs. I figure that soon enough some GOP leaders will realize that they've reached too far and start calling for "Bi-partisanship". Which will be good. Because it gives my partisans a shot at slowing 'em down.

Holding Fire (the Social Security debate)

The Washington Post says that now that George has announced his latest how-to-kill Social Security plan, the Dems are challenged to come up with an alternative. No they aren't.

Now, the Post is a political newspaper and loves a good fight to keep the circulation up. I can respect that. But the Dems would be silly to fret about coming up with their own plan now.

The Social Security "crisis", of course, is of Bush's own making, for obvious political reasons. It's an attempt to shear off senior voters who are tempted to vote Dem as long as they feel they need the Dems to keep the public pension check coming. As the boomer generation ages, this could turn into a demographic landslide against the GOP. So I understand why George is proposing the silliness he's proposing.

The simple response to Social Security is relatively modest adjustments in payroll deductions and benefits to keep it in line. This can be done over time, phased as the years go by. You don't need all this "private/personal account" nonsense. People already have that through 401(k)'s and such. Social Security needs to be the rock-solid guaranteed benefit underpinning the necessary risk of our own private accounts. But if the Dems bring this up now, the GOP will howl "raising taxes!" and divert attention from their own foolhardiness.

So the Dems should lay low, and say nothing. Let Bush and company hang themselves before the mid-term elections. If pressed, enlarge the question and evade. Say, "we need to look at all of the issue in retirement, such as people retiring later because they're in better health, or working part-time instead of full retirement." Then offer to hold hearings or set up a commission. This way the Dems look visionary without having to craft an unnecessary and politically risky response to Bush's pointless proposal.

I like the Washington Post. But sometimes they do get it wrong.

Update:

Following is a link to a 7 page pdf which is the most intelligentpiece on Social Security I have read. The author is very qualified.

The second link is to a short biography on the author, Robert M.Ball. Mr. Ball began working for Social Security in 1939, by 1942 hewas the chief staff expert on expanding coverage, he then rose throughthe Social Security staff to be Commissioner of Social Security underPresidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. In 1981-1982 Ball was a memberof the Greenspan Commission, which resulted in the 1983 Amendments. Over the years he has written many articles and books.

Ball article on fixing Social Security

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/RetirementSecurity/ballplan.pdf

Mr. Ball's short biography from the Social Security oral history website

http://www.ssa.gov/history/orals/balloralhistory.html