During his presidency, Ronald Reagan had two notable bouts with cancer. In 1985, surgeons detached a tumor from the lining of his bowels. Two years later, they removed a basal cell carcinoma from the tip of his nose. Although they carefully avoided drawing any correlation, it's clear a case could've been made that the malignancies were transferred by direct physical proximity. In other words, we had not only his behavior to go on, but legitimate medical reasons for suspecting that the president had his head up his butt. This condition, technically known as rectal-cranial inversion, would have explained everything from his countless misspoken statements to his excessive so-called napping, not to mention solve the mystery of how his hair always stayed so black. If such a speculation had been made during his stay in office, maybe it might've made some difference. Instead, in 1995, Reagan had another carcinoma removed, this time from his neck. Sadly, the problem had deepened. We always talk about how much we loved him, yet we all sat back and watched as the once-Great Communicator crawled up his own ass and died like the rancid old fart he'd become. But did we learn? No, then we did Clinton.MP3: Impeach the President by the Honey Drippers.
In 1997, the magazine Scientific American reported on the medical maneuver known as Valsalva and what can happen when this simple technique is performed without knowledge or care. For instance, after inflating over 20 balloons in an hour before a party, a 24 year-old man in Wales ballooned himself up. Wrote the article's author Steven Mirsky: "His examination turned up pockets of air trapped under the skin on the man's shoulders, chest, neck, abdomen, back, arms, legs, and, providing a built-in whoopie cushion effect, derriere." To perform Valsalva, a subject deeply inhales then tries to forcefully exhale without first opening up the glottis. Balloon blowing is in fact one of the best examples of how to do this. But the lung's alveoli -- the tiny air sacs where gas exchange usually occurs -- can be burst if it isn't done right, and then large volumes of air can be pushed into and under the skin. According to the article's quoted physician Stuart Elborn, this happens most frequently to saxophone players, due to the harsh wind intake which accompanies their often aggressive breathing style, and marijuana smokers, who will unwittingly perform the Valsalva while trying to hold in the fumes. Contrary to his defense of certain allegations, I believe we were well aware that Bill Clinton likely belonged to both groups. He was thus doubly susceptible to accidental self-inflation. His very apparent bloating while in office was repeatedly noted as were the sexual scandals that dogged him throughout his career, but no one stopped to consider the possibility that he had a legitimate swelling disorder. Once again we saw the symptoms but didn't make the diagnosis, namely that Slick Willy was just full of hot air. This would have explained everything, from his near compulsive need to let off steam through (aptly named) blow jobs to his V.P.'s intense sensitivity to global warming. It seems so obvious once you see it, but we're not even looking anymore.
MP3: Funky President by James Brown.
We've let our presidents down. We're supposed to watch them and we haven't been. At least, not closely enough. We certainly haven't spotted each man's damage like we should. Instead, we let them fall apart, even knowing that we fall apart with them. Some-thing as simple as a pair of tongs could've saved Reagan, and perhaps a small pressure guage was all it would've taken to keep Clinton from ruin. They were treatable. So what did we do? Elect someone who isn't.
MP3: Christ for President by Billy Bragg & Wilco.
According to "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind," a 1976 study by Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes, the left half of the brain is where speech functions reside, as well as our reasoning and logic. The right half is instead connected with recognition of shapes and patterns. An artist with left brain damage becomes inarticulate but can still draw, whereas an artist with right brain damage remains eloquent but can't draw a lick. (This is reversed for left-handed people.) The left brain is where we generally dwell, our sense of "I," the half that copes with life. When Mozart claimed that melodies walked into his head fully formed and all he had to do was write them down, he was describing the experience of informa-tion traveling from the right side of his brain to the left. Akin to this, Jaynes noticed that in most ancient literature -- the Bible, "The Iliad," etc. -- the heroes are always "hearing voices" and are also lacking what we'd call an inner self. Jaynes eventually surmised that human subjectivity didn't exist before 1250 B.C. Instead of having the ability to look inside themselves and ask "What do I think about this?*", ancient generations experienced their own mind as something alien and mistook messages received from the right brain as the voices of gods. This is why George W. hears Jesus. He has a 3,000 year old brain. It's no wonder he doesn't believe in evolution. Our error has been believing he's stupid. What he lacks isn't smarts so much as self-reflection -- which may be just as dangerous as idiocy but markedly different. He has ideas; he's just incapable of understanding that not every idea he has is heaven sent. To the degree that he is an idiot and thus has fewer ideas than most people is actually in our favor.
Of course, it's this very habit of relying on ignorance to save us from unawareness that keeps us from saving our presidents, from deflating them when they need to be and pulling their heads out of their asses. Do what Dubya can't do: think about it. Now look at our new batch of candidates and ask yourself: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? And please, keep your answers scientific. •
MP3: When Did I Stop Wanting to be President by William Burroughs.
Bureaucrat with head up butt line drawing copyright John Pritchett for Consumer Education Foundation, found at pritchettcartoons.com.
Homer Simpson's X-Ray appeared on China's official Xinhua News Agency's English website China View in July of 2007 as an accompanying "file photo" to a Health section article, Two New Genes Found for Multiple Sclerosis. According to Computerworld, the Chinese media has fallen prey to American satire before, including in 2002 when the Beijing Evening News ran an article from The Onion about the U.S. Congress threatening to move out of the capitol building unless it were upgraded with a retractable dome.
* An example of where one could use a quomma.
0 comments:
Post a Comment