Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Friday, August 05, 2005
My new career as an acrobat (part two)
The decision to get politically active entails a certain amount of dishing it out—especially to public figures. You can’t let the unjust slide. There is no real check on their power other than people’s awareness of their crimes. If you can temper it with mercy, you’re a better moral being than they are.
As far as the Western medical approach goes, I am mostly—judging from your writing, about 70% —in agreement. Where I part ways, it’s from a vulgar empiricism based on what has worked for me and mine. There are circumstances where I’d consider chemo for myself, and I think people do reach a point where that’s really all there is.
I think your idea of approaching the topic of health with as much empathy as you can muster is a very good thing. I’m not sure if that will make what you have to say more persuasive, but it does have less potential to wound.
Posted by Harry on from 08/05 at 07:07 AM2 points to that mickey. i don’t know so much about ‘alternative’ medicine as it seems you do. i know of one person who got the big ‘C’ and says he cured himself by changing his diet to more or less nothing but steamed vegetables and never adding salt. there is a danger in this type to talk though. i know quite a few doctors and they are not convinced (thats putting it mildly) by some of the alternative treatments. in short, there are a lot of charlatans out there preying on people while they are weak. i know a few people who tried every alternative therapy going rather than have an op and nothing worked.
as for ‘standard’ or ‘normal’ (i just wouldn’t ever think of cutting someone up and putting them back together again as ‘normal’ - anyway..) treatments they obviously can have an effect. i lost my mother to cancer when i was only 4 years old and i am informed that what with the treatments and screening and so forth they have now thereis every chance she would have made it.
my friends who are docs do not go against other treatments as such. their attitude is more like ‘if it works use it’
where i think the danger lies is in regarding either hospital treatment or alternative therapies as the cure. i think both should be employed. the troubel with alternative therapies is that not many practitioners are willing to submit their methods for clinical trials.
as for the point about clinton and ashcroft i think that at a fundamental level you realise eventually that there is no ‘them’ out there. just an awful lot of ‘us’.
the human race,like orwell said,
(he said england specifically)is like a famliy with the wrong members in charge.Posted by michael on from scotland 08/05 at 07:08 AMThanks, Harry and Michael. Your comments highlight the difficulties in navigating such issues. I appreciate the feedback. Harry, no problem if you are, but are you saying I engage in “vulgar empiricism based on what has worked for me and mine”? If so, can you elaborate?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/05 at 09:58 AMBy email, yes.
Posted by Harry on from 08/05 at 11:28 AMIt really is a fine line to walk, I guess. You don’t want to sugarcoat anything and I think it’s great the way you tell it like is about the SAD and corporate health system, etc., but yeah, for instance with that piece about Clinton you wrote last year, I never did mention it, but I always felt that if Chelsea were reading that, she’d get as pissed off as I would in her position no matter how right you were about it all. Or maybe she wouldn’t, I don’t know for sure, just that I could picture her, or anyone close to someone an article like that was about, not taking your writing well at that time.
Posted by James on from NYC 08/05 at 01:59 PMI hope you’ll tell me right away next time, James. I appreciate the feedback and it’s inevitable that I’ll write something that pisses you off.
It is a fine line, as you say. Some might feel that offending Chelsea (or even you) is a small price to pay in order to challenge the horrors of SAD, factory farming, etc. Others could present a compelling argument along the lines of: two wrongs don’t make a right.
By definition, the subject matter I tackle guarantees someone will be offended...but there’s a difference between challenging one’s sensibilities and being flippant.
Then again, I’ve thought about going the Bill Hicks route, e.g. put together a one-man show (stand-up tragedy?) and lambast everyone in a comedic context...in the name of saying what I feel needs to be said and trying to wake some people up.
Whaddya think?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/05 at 02:29 PMMickey, this is a wonderful post. What you’re doing is what all humans should do with some regularity: Question those most fundamental assumptions with which we orient ourselves from moment to moment. Let’s be honest: We’re born and raised and at some point we look around at a world which is a complete mystery. Why were we born and where did we come from? Well, no one knows. What happens after death? Death is that singular event which waits for every single life form. What happens? Where do “we” go? Well, no one knows. The universe seems infinite and unconcerned and we are tiny and vulnerable and confused. What are we supposed to do? Western culture says: Forget that bullshit. Get busy.
We, ourselves, are a great mystery. We long for a world of compassion while we dislike, even hate those who see the world differently. We seek a world of relative selflessness while seeking to dominate and overwhelm or - just be “the best,” at whatever it is we choose to undertake. We “do” and then “undo” every day. At one moment we’re very happy. The next moment finds us perplexed. The next finds us angry. The next, we’re calming down. The next, we’re determined. Then we’re certain. Then, we’re unsure. Then we’re frightened. Then we’re desperate. Then, we’re sunk into some “dark” mood. Someone smiles at us, or seems glad to see us and the mood begins to turn…
It is impossible to vigorously examine oneself without seeing these things but it is relatively rare to encounter folks who have done so. “We” are the only “tools” we always use, to do what needs to be done, yet most people are more familiar with HTML than they are with the workings of who and what they, themselves, are. As if “who and how” one is could somehow be subtracted from the equation of what we do…
Among people who may well have a sense of such things - certain Christian contemplatives, some Zen people, some Hindus and Advaitists, Walt Whitman is generally considered to be enlightened. While young, he was apparently quite the dandy, wandering around Manhattan looking good and being cool. He composed tired and insipid pieces for a newspaper. Then, he was not seen around for a while. Who knows where he went, or what he did. (Most of Jesus’ life is “missing,” too, and he surely didn’t wander up to Paris to work for a few years with some ancient “corporation”...)
When Whitman reappeared, he was Whitman! He wrote Leaves of Grass! He was, in my view, now the greatest of Americn poets. He dressed down, and wandered about among the workers and the poor and watched and wrote… Where once he’d been a dandy, he was now, in some respects - “everyone.”
And he wrote as if he was everyone. Everyone.
Can’t be much more democratic than that.Sorry, Mickey, your ponderings have spawned some ponderings of my own. Nothing, Nothing is so completely subversive as wonder. Nothing is such a danger to the State, as the simple questions that might occur to a man when life is very difficult. Nothing.
Thanks for having the balls to post what you’ve posted for the last few days, Mickey.Posted by joe on from Oregon 08/05 at 02:53 PMDon’t apologize, Joe...you’ve given everyone here plenty to ponder. I’m fortunate that you found this site and choose to return so often.
You really said it here: We long for a world of compassion while we dislike, even hate those who see the world differently.
Let’s all do The Whitman.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/05 at 04:13 PMOh, I wasn’t really offended by the Clinton piece, mostly because I knew you a little and where you were coming from, that you’re not an obnoxious sort and I agree with the larger issues mostly… and I think that Chelsea was okay, too. Well okay, just since she likely didn’t see it, but timing is a real issue. It was more that it didn’t seem like it would be so effective a tactic, though maybe… and then I’m just troubled by how much random stuff is involved with heart disease and cancer. I mean, my dad smoked and ate meat, but so do his brothers and sisters, and lots of other people who did more than he did and so, so often lots of this stuff feels like getting stuck by lightning as much as it does suffering the consequences of bad choices.
But yeah, it’s like you once said, russian roulette’s alwasy safer with less bullets in the chamber.
Posted by James on from NYC 08/05 at 05:01 PMMickey, this is one of the very few places on the web in which people come together & share ideas and perspectives, without resorting to “violent” ad hominem attacks. There’s an atmosphere of non-violence and real “pro-life.” It’s wonderfully subversive.
I used to spend as much time as possible in cafes. As was the owner, so was the cafe…
-joePosted by joe on from Oregon 08/05 at 07:31 PMMuch appreciated, Joe…
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/05 at 07:54 PM
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