Notes from the Cafe Fiasco

The Crawl

Sit down at a noodle joint for lunch after a long session with the dentist in the morning. As chance has it, my seat is positioned so that I can only see the bottom half of the television screen which has CNN on. So, there I am slurping my noodles and watching The Crawl of news headlines at the bottom of the screen – several people killed in Afganistan, Obama says that kids have to do better in math and science, and meditation: "Meditation relieves stress, instills compassion."

So maybe there are clandestine Buddhists in the CNN organization who have infiltrated The Crawl?

Progress

Looks like the climate change deny-ers are moving along to a new strategy. First, they said that climate change wasn't happening. Then they said that humans didn't cause it. Now, in the face of overwhelming evidence that bad things are happening, they're beginning to say that it doesn't matter if we try to do anything about it or not.

Besides the moral implications of not attempting to be responsible for cleaning up a mess that you created, you have to admire these people for being very creative. While looking like they are changing to accommodate to a new scientific reality, they manage to keep protecting the interests that got us into this pickle in the first place - the people with the money, predominantly the oil and gas industry. Very slick.

Change is not always progress, sometimes it's only adjustment to keep power relationships functioning the way that they are. (Are you listening Barak Obama?)

Stupid Alert

I just want to make a general anouncement to my friends and business associates that I am currently so overloaded with sensory input that it will be a lucky thing if I can remember my way home at the end of the day. Your particular issue or issues?  No way. Just going to be dumb for an unspecified period of time. My apologies before hand.

Odd Day

It isn't everyday that you get a compliment from the Director of the National Science Foundation on your work followed closely by a voice mail from your urologist saying that your cancer has spread and your probably going to need surgery or radiation. Odd day.

Bet ya

I bet Dennis Hopper never thought that he would become the poster boy for Prostate Cancer:  Today's Daily Mail

Marketing II

Got more hits on the blog this week than in any time in recent history (about 140 so far) including visitors from Belftast, Antwerp, Hanoi and Hyde Park.  But no comments. I wonder if it has anything to do with my piece about Susan G. Kommen and the NFL (see below)? I guess you can always pack them in with football.

Marketing

So, I stumble downstairs last night at half-time of the usual American excuse for sport in the fall (large men running into one another) and turn on the TV to get the score. As it turns out, it's half-time and what appears on the screen are many blonde cheerleader-like smiling women shaking pompoms and wearing some sort of costume that includes a particularly gaudy shade of pink. This all makes more sense as the camera pulls back to reveal a replica of a giant pink ribbon being held up by many people on the field and I suddenly knew.

Cancer had finally made it to the American main stream.

First I heard of it in the 60's, cancer was a death sentence. Then it was a tragedy. Then it was the object of a war and then something to be overcome with heroic effort. Now it seems it now has evolved into a marketing opportunity. Congratulations cancer, you've made it to the center of the mercantile American culture.

Now you too can emote along with the women who suffer – for a price. You can buy the pink towel that Tom Brady wore during the game or perhaps a pink chin strap that your favorite Miami player wore as a part of his helmut. For a price. And you will get to feel get that you contributed to wiping out something that you were "made aware of" compliments of the NFL. Or maybe having your awareness raised is enough - but I doubt that this is what the organizers of half-time had in mind. They were after money and awareness is only the royal road to the dollars. Of course, the dollars will bring good things - they always do, but I didn't notice anyone talking about longitudinal studies during half time. This was not about education. It was about bucks.

I guess that those of us with unpopular cancers will just have to hope that some day our cancer becomes popular so that we can have our night on Monday Night football too. Maybe we'll get the commentators to tell their stories of urinary incontinence and how Viagra has worked wonders since the operation. Maybe, but I doubt it. Anyone want to buy a blue jockstrap from the prostate cancer survivor?