I’m Not a Doctor, but Take My Advice

So, I was in Magical Journey picking up supplies for the trip on Saturday (though I ended up having much better luck at Wild Oats, as usual) and I was looking at the incense and listening to a conversation.

A woman asks, “Do you know anything about herbs?”

The girl behind the counter says, “Not really.”

The woman says, “Well, I’m trying to decide what I should take for my lupus.”

And the girl wisely says, “Well, what kind of medication does your doctor have you on?”

And the woman says, “Oh, I hate taking medicine.  I’m not taking any.  I’d much rather take herbs.  What do you think I should take?”

The girl behind the counter, “I don’t know.  But you should be careful.”

Now, America, it’s your body; do what you want.  But listen to the girl behind the counter!  Don’t ask a stranger untrained in medicine or herbal remedies for that matter her advice on what you should take to subdue your lupus.  She doesn’t know better than your doctor.

And “natural” herbs can be just as dangerous or more so than medicine.

Good-ness, people.

It’d be like if I wandered up to someone and said, “I see you work at a Dairy Queen.  Will sticking bleu cheese up my nose harm me?”

Okay, maybe not quite just like that.  But you get what I’m saying.

Important Announcement

While I love chocolate shakes, I realize I don’t like chocolate ice cream.  I should stop buying chocolate ice cream thinking I will eat it.

I Did Not Know That

I had no idea that Aspen Groves could look like a forest but actually be all one big organism.  How cool is that?

I would dig being a clonal colony.

Hey, B., what if you go in to work today and I’ll sit on the couch and eat ice cream?

Sure, B., and can you, B., take the dog to the park?

Of course.  Shall I take all 107 acres of Mrs. Wigglebottoms to the park or just the ones that look like they could use a good romp?

How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?

Today Terry Frank is encouraging us all to suck in the good advice of the Wall Street Journal.

This year’s fad “investments” — teachers pay raises, expanded Medicaid, free health care for children, all-day kindergarten, more generous aid to the universities — are fiscal grenades likely to detonate in the next recession, leaving a mountain of debt that will have to be paid off by taxpayers and future governors down the road.

This made me laugh so hard I about choked.  Oh, yes, heaven forfend we spend money on keeping our own citizens healthy and educated.  No!  Not that!  What a terrible investment in the future of our state to invest in the health and education of the future of our state!

Listen, conservatives, I love you.  You know I do.  And I do take to heart your admonishments that not every problem can be fixed by throwing money at it.

But some of you seem fixated on this notion that it is unfair that you or your children should have to learn things that challenge your cherished beliefs.  And this group of you seems to think that it’s best that everyone in the state just wallow in ignorance rather than risk anyone being exposed to ideas that might be “dangerous” in some way.

From the outside, it seems as if this group believes that growing up should be the process of having the ideas and beliefs of your parents reinforced repeatedly as the right way.

I have to admit, as a person who loves learning, I find this baffling.  An education–either formal or self-induced–is the key to the whole world.  And a teacher who can help instill in you a love of learning?  A curiosity about the world?  How is that not invaluable?

I’ll cop right now to the fact that liberals can be insufferable elitists.  Good god, if ever there were a bunch of folks strolling about the universe going on about how, if only you had our wisdom, knowledge, and insight, you couldn’t help but see how right we are, it’s us.

And it is annoying, but, in our defense, at least it is–hypothetically–possible for anyone to join the liberal elite.  Just read up a bunch and become a smartypants and expound the right political views and get you some money and voila! you are an insufferable liberal, too!

Conservatives also have a strong elitist bent.  It’s just not as obvious.  And the way to be among the elite is protected not by a vast amount of wisdom one must appear to have a command of, but by the folksy rhetoric that masks it.

I mean, please, look here.  A dude who writes for the Wall Street Journal is talking about investing in education as if it’s a fad.

Do you think that Mr.  Stephen Moore actually believes that education is not important?  Of course not.  You don’t get to write for the Wall Street Journal if you went to a series of shitty schools who couldn’t provide you with basic reading and writing skills (conservative think-tank the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research reported that our graduation rate in 2002 was 57%; over half of us are basically illiterate; etc.).  You have to know how to use language.  You have to be able to move gracefully in the kinds of circles that WSJ folks find themselves in.

And if conservatives like Frank are willing to buy this bullshit that investing in education is a “fad”?  All the better for Moore.  It insures him job security.

Wisdom is one of my favorite folks in the Bible.  She runs around yelling

	How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
	Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
	Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;
	but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:
	I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
	when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
	Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
	for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
	they would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
	Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
	For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

Shoot.  I have a crush on that woman, too.  I guess it’s girl crush day here at Tiny Cat Pants.  Anyway, take heed of what Wisdom says, folks.

Take heed!

Tee hee.  I should have been an Old Testament prophet.  I would have kicked so much ass.

My Huge Crush

Today I have a huge crush on Karri Cormican and Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley, who I learned about from over at Planned Obsolescence.  These two observed a man trying to drug his date and saved her!  And helped put him in jail!  There ought to be some kind of cheer we can do for them…

Two! Four! Six! Eight!

You saved a chick from date rape!

Three! Five! Seven! Nine!

Now the jerk is doing time!

You kick ass!

Ha, I’m kind of digging the feminist cheers.  I don’t guess you could get together a bunch of feminists to be cheerleaders though.  Maybe if we called it a supportive demonstration…