[LINK] Most off-topic link post ever

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Bernard writes,

> Americans as a people have a great desire not to be told what to 
> do.  Many actively dislike any form of government ... The trouble
> with so much Freedom To Do is that Americans are free to do stupid
> things. And they do and they die.


Yes, agreed, thanks Bernard .. freedom to do, and so obesity's endemic,
and in world terms, much newly released carbon/methane etc is American.

The US is crazy-cousin paradoxical; idiocy juxtapositioned with genius.


"Hypochondria: An Inside Look"
By WOODY ALLEN www.nytimes.com
Published on January 12th 2013 

WHEN The New York Times called, inquiring if I might pen a few 
words “from the horse’s mouth” about hypochondria, I confess I was taken 
aback. What light could I possibly shed on this type of crackpot behavior 
since, contrary to popular belief, I am not a hypochondriac but a totally 
different genus of crackpot? 

What I am is an alarmist, which is in the same ballpark as the 
hypochondriac or, should I say, the same emergency room. Still there is a 
fundamental difference. I don’t experience imaginary maladies — my 
maladies are real. 

What distinguishes my hysteria is that at the appearance of the mildest 
symptom, let’s say chapped lips, I instantly leap to the conclusion that 
the chapped lips indicate a brain tumor. Or maybe lung cancer. In one 
instance I thought it was Mad Cow. 

The point is, I am always certain I’ve come down with something life 
threatening. It matters little that few people are ever found dead of 
chapped lips. Every minor ache or pain sends me to a doctor’s office in 
need of reassurance that my latest allergy will not require a heart 
transplant, or that I have misdiagnosed my hives and it’s not possible 
for a human being to contract elm blight. 

Unfortunately, my wife bears the brunt of these pathological dramas. Like 
the time I awoke at 3 a.m. with a spot on my neck that to me clearly had 
the earmarks of a melanoma. That it turned out to be a hickey was 
confirmed only later at the hospital after much wailing and gnashing of 
teeth. Sitting at an ungodly hour in the emergency room where my wife 
tried to talk me down, I was making my way through the five stages of 
grief and was up to either “denial” or “bargaining” when a young resident 
fixed me with a rather supercilious eye and said sarcastically, “Your 
hickey is benign.” 

But why should I live in such constant terror? I take great care of 
myself. I have a personal trainer who has me up to 50 push-ups a month, 
and combined with my knee bends and situps, I can now press the 100-pound 
barbell over my head with only minimal tearing of my stomach wall. I 
never smoke and I watch what I eat, carefully avoiding any foods that 
give pleasure. (Basically, I adhere to the Mediterranean diet of olive 
oil, nuts, figs and goat cheese, and except for the occasional impulse to 
become a rug salesman, it works.) In addition to yearly physicals I get 
all available vaccines and inoculations, making me immune to everything 
from Whipple’s disease to the Andromeda strain. 

As far as vitamins go, if I take a few with each meal, over time I can 
usually get in quite a lot before the latest study confirms they’re 
worthless. Regarding medications, I’m flexible but prudent because while 
it’s true antibiotics kill bad bacteria, I’m always afraid they’ll kill 
my good bacteria, not to mention my pheromones, and then I won’t give off 
any sexual vibes in a crowded elevator. 

It’s also true that when I leave the house to go for a stroll in Central 
Park or to Starbucks for a latte I might just pick up a quick cardiogram 
or CT scan prophylactically. My wife calls this nonsense and says that in 
the end it’s all genetic. My parents both lived to ripe old ages but 
absolutely refused to pass their genes to me as they believed an 
inheritance often spoils the child. 

Even when the results of my yearly checkup show perfect health, how can I 
relax knowing that the minute I leave the doctor’s office something may 
start growing in me and, by the time a full year rolls around, my chest X-
ray will look like a Jackson Pollock? Incidentally, this relentless 
preoccupation with health has made me quite the amateur medical expert. 
Not that I don’t make an occasional mistake — but what doctor doesn’t? 
For example, I once convinced a woman who experienced a mild ringing in 
her ears that she had the flesh-eating bacteria, and another time I 
pronounced a man dead who had simply dozed off in a chair. 

But what’s this obsession with personal vulnerability? When I panic over 
symptoms that require no more than an aspirin or a little calamine 
lotion, what is it I’m really frightened of? My best guess is dying. I 
have always had an animal fear of death, a fate I rank second only to 
having to sit through a rock concert. My wife tries to be consoling about 
mortality and assures me that death is a natural part of life, and that 
we all die sooner or later. Oddly this news, whispered into my ear at 3 
a.m., causes me to leap screaming from the bed, snap on every light in 
the house and play my recording of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” at top 
volume till the sun comes up. 

I sometimes imagine that death might be more tolerable if I passed away 
in my sleep, although the reality is, no form of dying is acceptable to 
me with the possible exception of being kicked to death by a pair of 
scantily clad cocktail waitresses. 

Perhaps if I were a religious person, which I am not, although I 
sometimes do have the intimation that we all may be part of something 
larger — like a Ponzi scheme. A great Spanish philosopher wrote that all 
humans long for “the eternal persistence of consciousness.” Not an easy 
state to maintain, especially when you’re dining with people who keep 
talking about their children. 

And yet, there are worse things than death. Many of them playing at a 
theater near you. For instance, I would not like to survive a stroke and 
for the rest of my life talk out of the side of my mouth like a racetrack 
tout. I would also not like to go into a coma, to lie in a hospital bed 
where I’m not dead but can’t even blink my eyes and signal the nurse to 
switch the channel from Fox News. And incidentally, who’s to say the 
nurse isn’t one of those angel of death crazies who hates to see people 
suffer and fills my intravenous glucose bag with Exxon regular. 

Worse than death, too, is to be on life support listening to my loved 
ones in a heated debate over whether to terminate me and hear my wife 
say, “I think we can pull the plug, it’s been 15 minutes and we’ll be 
late for our dinner reservation.” 

What worries me most is winding up a vegetable — any vegetable, and that 
includes corn, which under happier circumstances I rather like. And yet 
is it really so great to live forever? Sometimes in the news I see 
features about certain tall people who reside in snow-capped regions 
where a whole village population lives to 140 or so. Of course all they 
ever eat is yogurt, and when they finally do die they are not embalmed 
but pasteurized. And don’t forget these healthy people walk everyplace 
because try getting a cab in the Himalayas. I mean do I really want to 
pass my days in some remote place where the main entertainment is seeing 
which guy in town can lift the ox highest with his bare hands? 

Summing up, there are two distinct groups, hypochondriacs and alarmists. 
Both suffer in their own ways, and traits of one group may overlap the 
other, but whether you’re a hypochondriac or an alarmist, at this point 
in time, either is probably better than being a Republican. 

Woody Allen is a filmmaker, actor and writer.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/hypochondria-an-inside-
look.html>
--

Cheers,
Stephen