Get that vaccination!

Vaccination Is Worth It!
By Joseph Walther


Successive word of mouth transmissions of “facts” rarely yield the facts. Most of the time, what we finally hear are the “facts” as interpreted by the many human filters through which the original facts traveled. Sometimes honest misinterpretation causes distortions. Many times, however, if the facts might lead to “wrong” conclusions, people feel compelled to state the “true facts.”

Several of my readers sent me emails referencing a News Journal article. Click here to read it. The sub-head, “Panel may recommend anti-STD shot for girls” was what caught so many people’s attention. “Parents divided over newly approved vaccine” appeared directly beneath the bolded sub-head, only in a smaller, less obvious font. It had all of the ingredients of C-O-N-T-R-O-V-E-R-S-Y, which the publishing world well knows, is the primary ingredient in selling articles.

From reading the article and additional research about the vaccine, it seems that the majority of those aware of it approve of its use. I have spoken with a few locals who are avid proponents of moral and religious conservatism. Not even one of them objected to this vaccine. Although, a couple of them did advocate a desire for parents to have the final say in the decision to vaccinate.

The usual chorus of abstinence proponents have chimed in with their usual “this sends a conflicting message to pre-teens about engaging in sex before marriage.” However, in terms of the usual sheer numbers, the opponents seem to be fewer and much farther between this time.

I most certainly am not suggesting that the vaccine is unsafe. However, I have yet to find a single opponent of the vaccine who has questioned its use from the standpoint of long-term physical effects. The main oppositional argument seems to revolve around the potential for “sending the wrong message about engaging in sex” to pre-teenaged girls.

I think that this argument is pure crap. We read a lot about pre-teens engaging in sexual intercourse. It seems as though it’s become a rampant activity. It only seems that way. When we look at the overall picture, a headline that reads, “0.8 percent of 9-to 12-year-old girls admit to being sexually active” sells a lot more newspapers than “99.2 percent of 9-to 12-year-old girls are not sexually active” does.

The idea that, in the overall national picture, 93 percent of high school students are not doing drugs is not news. Claiming that 7 percent do, however, gets all of us hot and bothered. In a state of over 800,000 citizens, reporting that 80 of them were murdered makes the front-page headlines. The fact 799,920 of those people were not murdered would not.

We have become a society obsessed with the safety of our children. Concern for our children’s safety is fine. Obsession is dangerous and stupid. Over the past twenty years or so, physicians have administered antibiotics for everything. It’s created more harm than good. In some cases, childhood immune systems have become so weakened that viruses thrive on the antibiotics. “Fantastic! Here comes the good stuff,” all self-respecting viruses say.

It’s not just the health issues either. There are parents who will not allow their children out of their sight. There are children who are terrified that they’re going to be kidnapped and murdered by some pervert. As soon as this happens to a single child, it’s all we’re going to read about and hear about on television for months on end.

When I was a kid, I would get so dirty from playing outside that entire species of microscopic bugs set up entire neighborhoods of offspring on me and that was just under my fingernails. My parents had to go over my entire body, several times, during the course of a bath to make sure they removed everything. The next day, I’d come into the house with entirely new colonies of bugs and the process started all over again.

I don’t know how much dirt and grime I actually ate during my childhood. I bet it had to be a couple of pounds a year, though. If I was outside the sight of my parents, there was no such thing as the 5-second rule. That only applied inside my house and only if they were watching me.

Yes, I ate a lot of dirt as a kid. I also did some of the dumbest things humans can do. I also developed an immune system that viruses and bacteria with common sense opted to avoid at all costs. As for the dumb stuff I did, it has shown me that luck is in integral part of staying alive, no matter what your parents do.

Both my parents and I had to worry about such diseases as polio, scarlet fever, mumps, whooping cough, measles, and chicken pox. Polio and scarlet fever had nasty reputations for killing children. The others could do likewise. Vaccines eliminated those fears for me in raising my own children.

We now have a vaccine that will prevent infection by the most common strains of the human papillomavirus that result in the occurrence of genital warts and cervical cancer. Well done, Medical Science.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

Fathers

I Love You, Dad!
By Joseph Walther

The date was Monday, April 30, 1956. I was hurtling out of control towards a highly anticipated rendezvous with my 15th birthday on June 18th. Like most pimple faced, skinny, self-professed worldly experts of my era, birthdays were important. The fifteenth birthday was significant because it put me ever closer to the ultimate symbol of social independence: a driver’s license.

Back then, my world was not much more than a circle. Its radius was about eight miles. And like all circles, it revolved perpetually around its center, which I vividly remember as ME. Birthdays, spending money, beach trips, carnivals, friends with their own cars, smoking, presents, and that rare but ever-critical free slow dance grope of Lu Lu Lovely were all GOOD.

Life however, was not ALL fun. I had to bear many crosses in those days. My parents were the most unreasonable people on earth. They would not even consider allowing me to go out, on a school night. In fact, my social life did not even register on their concern meter. My dad put it quite eloquently when he explained, “You’re just a young snot going to school.” Talk about your unreasonable brutes!

They checked my homework. Every night! If I didn’t have any homework, they provided me with some. And it was always a lot more, and much more difficult than what the teachers assigned. If I had a test coming up at school, they’d always give me their own test first. I thought this particularly unreasonable because the “real” test was always much easier than theirs. Geez, what hopeless dweebs.

Throughout the course of his life, my dad never earned more than $6,000 a year, and that included overtime. Even though I was embarrassed to tears over the clothes they bought me, they were quality and clean. My mother didn’t believe in handing me a menu at suppertime, either. I ate what she fixed. If I didn’t like it, I was the one with the problem, not her. Can you believe this kind of crap?

They would regularly remind me that money did not grow on trees. I remember in vivid detail, that bread was $0.18 a loaf; milk was $0.97 a gallon; eggs were $0.81 a dozen; gas was $0.30 a gallon; and that the minimum wage was $1.00 an hour. I remember how loudly my mother complained when first class postage stamps went up to $0.03. I also recall my dad’s beaming smile when he told my mother that the house that HE paid $4,600 for in 1948 was worth $17,800 in 1955.

Well, I knew that money didn’t grow on trees. I knew, factually, that it appeared magically inside of my father’s wallet. Even though I was never sure how it actually happened, I was pretty confident that there was a link between him leaving the house early each morning and coming back late at night six days out of every seven.

I could never have actually hated my parents; but they were, after all, parents. In my 15-year old mind they were socially obsolete, chronologically almost dead, and intellectually devoid of anything near a real brain. Even though I knew in my heart of hearts that they worked hard, were proud of me beyond verbal description, and loved me more than themselves, I took it all for granted. I was much too busy trying to “educate” them in the world’s “modern” ways. Fifteen year olds do this better than anyone else. It has always been and always will be, par for the course.

On April 30, 1956 at 2:15 PM, a runner took me from the classroom to Father Dukhart’s office. He was the rector of the school I was attending at the time. I sat on a small sofa to side of his desk. He came around, sat next to me, and told me that he had some awful news. “Your daddy was in an automobile accident. He was killed.” He then wrapped his arms around me and told me that it was ok to cry. But I couldn’t. Men just didn’t do that.

I would never be the same, but it didn’t take long for me to realize how much I loved my father. His sudden death taught me that life, no matter how carefree, happy, beautiful, hopeful, and forever fulfilling it could be, in less than a few seconds, it could turn into a steaming pile of crap.

Today is Fathers’ Day. It is also my birthday. I have come a long way from that 15 year-old skinny, self-absorbed kid. Not a single day, since that awful April event back in 1956, has passed that I have not thought about him at least once. Every Fathers’ Day since his death, I still feel his essence and see his image in my mind’s eye and I wish him a happy Father’s Day. I miss him more than I can describe. Oh, yes, real men are not ashamed to cry, either.

Have a great week. I’ll be baaaaak!

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

We're all in deep doo doo!

Oh God! We’re Gonna Die
By Joseph Walther

Oozing with sarcasm and staring lethal daggers in my direction, she said, “You don’t believe anyone or anything.” Yes, that’s what she told me. My own Daughter! Me, the personification of patience and understanding. Me, the guy whom our Holy Father, the Pope himself, emailed, “When the time comes make sure that your family CCs me on your obituary announcement. We don’t want any unnecessary delays in the canonization process.”

Shocked and wounded to the very depths of my bone marrow, all I could do was shout back, “Oh yeah, you just hang in there. Someday you won’t have your old dad to criticize OR worry over anymore.” Then, I stomped out of the room. I know what you’re all thinking. “Not a bad come back for someone who isn’t even a Jewish mother.”

In case you’re wondering which one of us started this squabble, SHE did! As usual, I was calmly minding my own business when, out of the clear blue, she began talking about an information session that she had attended at work that day. She works for Superior Court and one of the judges had briefed the staff on the ramifications of the “coming” bird flu pandemic.

And, what had I done to deserve the wrath of Kahn? NOTHING, that’s what! Unless, of course, you consider asking a pertinent question, for the purpose of clarification, a major crime. I simply asked, in my usual nonjudgmental, unbiased, and calm demeanor, “Where the hell did this crap come from?” The next thing I hear is, “YOU DON’T BELIEVE ANYONE OR ANYTHING!”

I simply must remember to send Her Honor a thank you note for bringing all of this to my daughter’s attention. Perhaps, if she has any pre-teenage children, I could send them a set of drums.

Look, I love my daughter. I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s an intelligent, attractive, and perceptive twenty-seven year old. She has worked very hard for everything that she has accomplished. She’s understanding, people-oriented, popular, loves every animal on the face of the earth, loves life to the fullest, reliable and, sometimes to a fault, trustful of others.

Oh, and I’d be remiss if I failed to mention that she has become one of the world’s leading hypochondriacs. People from all over the world call her for consults. I don’t say this out of condemnation, either. When I was a kid back in Catholic Elementary School, I had all of the earmarks of a budding, potentially successful hypochondriac, too.

I distinctly remember Sister Helena, my fourth grade teacher, telling us how Jesus walked among and healed the lepers. One of the other kids asked, “What’s a leper, Sister?” She then explained a disease called leprosy and its symptoms. She explained how one leper, in particular, discovered his leprosy by accidentally spilling scalding water on his foot and not being able to feel it.

Nice going, Sister! I spent the next 15-years of my life pouring hot water on my feet to make sure I still had feeling in them. Another symptom that she casually mentioned was the formation of small pimple-like bumps on the ear lobes. I’ve tugged on my ear lobes so much over the years that it’s a miracle I don’t trip over them.

I was born in 1942. It was no picnic, either. I distinctly remember Dr. Skura, who delivered me, holding me upside down by my ankles. “Holy crap”, I thought, “start breathing!” I knew I could do it on my own. Just as I was about to take that first breath, WHACK! He smacked me really hard right across my butt.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the circumcision. They didn’t use a small scalpel. It was a machete and, I swear, it had a 5-foot long blade. Yes, I remember all of it and I’ve never forgotten any of it. I’ve been cranky as hell ever since. The smell of antiseptic still makes me paranoid as all get out.

My generation, as have all previous generations, was bombarded with all sorts of doom and gloom predictions. They scared the daylights out of many gullible believers, me included. In retrospect, however, most of them failed to materialize. While the numbers were legion, let me just outline a few of them here.

At the advent of insecticides, some serious scientists predicted that oceanic life forms would perish if we permitted their use. Granted, we’ve overused insecticides big time. The last time I checked, however, no ocean life forms had perished from the face of earth as the result of their use. Oops!

In 1968, a renowned entomologist by the name of Paul R. Ehrlich, Ph.D, burst onto our television screens via the Johnny Carson Show. Dr. Ehrlich’s specialty was actually Lepidoptera (butterflies), but he was also a reputable researcher on human overpopulation. His book, The Population Bomb, predicted worldwide food shortages and wholesale starvation. Many members of the scientific intelligentsia agreed with his predictions. Oops, it never occurred.

Several years later, some of those same scientists predicted with absolute certainty that famine would over take the world in the decade of the ‘80s. Again, oops. With the exceptions of Ethiopia and Sahel, it didn’t happen.

In 1991 after Iraq invaded the oil fields of Kuwait and set them on fire, people predicted, again with absolute certainty, that food production in South Asia would cease to exist. Oops, it didn’t happen.

With the development of supersonic transports came the predictions that their use would destroy the ozone layer. Oops, it didn’t happen. Oh, we’re destroying the ozone layer, but supersonic transports have nothing to do with it. Since that time, we’ve found much more efficient ways for accomplishing the ozone layer destruction.

Again, beginning in the early ‘80s and going through the mid-‘90s, respected scientists predicted the exponential growth in the number of AIDS cases. In the beginning, the doubling time for new AIDS cases was one year. In other words, each year the number of cases would be double the year before that. Unchecked, in a ten-year period we’d have a thousand times more AIDS cases. In 20-years, we’d have a million times more cases to deal with.

The predictions made no sense to anyone with a 3-digit IQ. Exponential growth, such as that described by some of the “experts” of that era would have wiped out our species in short order. Natural obstacles have a way of leveling off this kind of exponential growth. Admittedly, AIDS is not a trivial matter. But, as in the other cases of predicted doom, it didn’t happen. Our species is still here. So is AIDS, but its exponential growth pattern has ceased.

The year is 2006 and I have a friend who is still using toilet paper that he stored away as the result of the Y2K predictions of worldwide chaos. As I recall, not a single airplane fell from the sky when the calendar turned over to the year 2000. Not a single bank failed. In fact, the whole affair turned out to be a downer for the doom and gloomers. Save your pity, though, most of them made fortunes on their “How to survive Y2K” books.

Finally, bird flu is not a trivial matter, either. I don’t mean to imply that it is. Neither am I trying to brush my daughter off. It’s already a reality within the animal kingdom. Transmutation from animal to human is a possibility. Some claim that it has already happened. Perhaps it has. To my knowledge, however, no one has absolutely confirmed it. I also understand that book sales on the topic have doubled in the past 6-months. There’s that exponential growth again!

Caution and prevention are prudent moves. But, scaring the hell out of people does nothing but perpetuate the “chicken little” syndrome. Perhaps someone should explain to the Chinese government that it’s not a good idea to eat and sleep in the same room in which you slaughter your chickens, especially if they have bird flu.

My pragmatism remains intact. Back in Catholic school, Sister Helena also tried to convince us boys of a strong correlation between masturbation and going blind. I’m pretty sure that the Bishop put her up to it. She failed miserably. And, even though my glasses resemble the bottoms of Coke bottles, I still am not convinced.

One last thing. Dr. Ehrlich is still alive and serving as Bing Professor of Population Studies in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. Since he’s a renowned expert on butterflies, I emailed him for help in solving an ongoing argument I’ve had for years with a priest friend of mine. Do butterflies fart? If so, do those farts really smell like incense?

I’ve not received a reply. But, a guy with his ability is probably pretty busy.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.

Wow, are you ever sunburned!

Oh Gross!! What’s That On Your Skin?
By Joseph Walther

I overheard a very intense argument concerning our destruction of the ozone layer. Actually, the participants spoke of global warming, too. I got the impression that these verbal combatants considered both issues as one in the same. While they are somewhat related, they are separate issues relative to cause.

Even more striking to me was the fact that these people lined up along ideological lines, with one side blaming the other for the “mess”. The conservative side kept blaming the liberals for exaggerating everything out of proportion, while the liberal side relentlessly accused the conservatives for “not giving a damn” and “destroying our planet” in the interest of profits.

This is why we can’t get anything done relative to either of these issues. We use both of them as political attack mechanisms to defeat the “other” side. This is unproductive, stupid, and very dangerous. Here’s why.

We are hearing much more about these topics nowadays, and not just from the tree huggers, either. It’s no longer a debate as to occurrence, but rather as to whether it is part of a naturally occurring cycle and whether humans are contributing. I think it’s a combination of the two. Hear me out on this.

Oxygen is an atom symbolized by the big “O” and it amounts to about 20% of what we humans breathe. When two “O” atoms chemically combine, they turn into two molecules of “O2”. We need “O2” in order to remain among the living. There are no exceptions, not even Tom Cruise or Brooke Shields!

Oxygen atoms also combine, though much less frequently, into other molecules. When three oxygen atoms chemically combine, they turn into “O3”, which we know as ozone. Singular oxygen atoms are chemically reactive. They love to combine with whatever molecules happen to be nearby. All that’s required is a catalyst like molecular nitrogen.

So, when an “O” combines with an “O2,”along with a catalyst like molecular nitrogen, they turn into “O3,” only with an unwanted consequence: the catalyst does not disappear. It just keeps hanging around, available for many future combinations. In other words, we create ozone (O3) with plenty of molecular nitrogen still around to create a lot more of it.

This happens with automobile emissions. It occurs every time industrial blast furnaces spew waste into the surrounding air. It happens every time an electrical circuit begins to short out via sparks. It happens every time a fire burns. The ways in which we produce lots of ozone down here on earth are too numerous to mention. But, we do it. We may do it consciously or unconsciously. We may do it necessarily or unnecessarily. How and why are immaterial; we do it, and we’re doing it at an ever-increasing rate.

Too much ozone on Earth stinks. It’s bad for our lungs, along with a whole host of other health problems that it causes. As bad as it is, however, too much ozone on Earth’s surface does not pose anywhere near as serious a problem as too little ozone up there, about 15,000 miles above Earth.

In the early 1900s, refrigerators became big players. Air conditioners followed. People, out of a learned fear of underarm sweat, invented antiperspirants, along with aerosol propellants to deliver them. These, along with countless other consumer products came into high demand, leading well-intentioned chemists around the world to invent a previously non-existent class of molecules called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). CFCs, unlike ozone-producing pollutants, don’t create ozone; they destroy it.

The chemistry involved is long, tedious, and boring. Concisely, however, it breaks down to a simple reality. Chemically, “2O3” turn into “3O2”. In simple English, this means that the chemical reaction destroys two ozone molecules and creates three oxygen molecules. Worse is the fact that the catalyst, chlorine atoms, stay around to perpetuate the chemical reaction, destroying more and more ozone.

Ozone, which is plentiful on Earth’s surface, remains alive, increasingly smelly, and ever more dangerous to our collective health. The microscopically thin ozone layer, about 15,000 miles above Earth’s surface, the one keeping out the ultraviolet rays from our Sun, continues to weaken and break up. We need to get a handle on the REAL extent of this as caused by humans.

I’m not playing a blame game here. Humans live in a macro world. Chemical reactions take place in a micro world, hidden from our eyes. This is mostly good. Can you imagine what life would be like if we could see billions of bacteria, not to mention millions of damned ugly viruses crawling all over our bodies and coming at us from every conceivable angle? There wouldn’t be much human sexual activity going on; I can tell you that.

Our macro world experiences are the result of micro-world interactions. As such, we have to accept or reject what scientists tell us. This is pretty tough to do, especially when one group of renown scientists tell us one thing and another group, just as renown, tell us the opposite. Precisely who is telling the truth? More importantly, what is the truth? Perhaps even more critical, can we recognize the truth when we hear it? Finally, do we even want to recognize the truth IF we hear it?

While I believe that global warming/cooling and ozone layer depletion/rejuvenation are part of a nature’s cyclical process, I also believe that modern humans are contributing to it and continue doing so at an increasing rate. I’m not talking about ancient humans, like the cave dwellers of old, and even people like Moses. I’m referring to modern humans like all of us. And even though he’s older than dirt, we must include the likes of Jack LaLanne, no matter how many fantastic juicers he’s invented or how much juice he has made and drunk during his ninety plus years of living!

Relatively speaking, the human species has been around a paltry million or so years. In relation to the age of our universe (some 14 billion years and our solar system, some 4.6 billion years), humans have been here the equivalent of a cosmic second. Us modern day troublemakers have been around even less time, perhaps about the time span of a cosmic microsecond!

No matter how we view it, we youngsters are larger contributors to this than our ancient brethren are. After all, serious human-made pollution from planet Earth didn’t begin in earnest until around the industrial revolution, along with a whole host of additional technological advances. Earth’s ozone depletion didn’t begin in earnest until our well-intentioned scientists invented those chlorofluorocarbons in response to our human demands, sometime during the 1930s.

We didn’t invent these things with the intentions of killing off our species. We wanted a better way, other than lugging ice all over the place, to keep our foods from poisoning us. We also wanted a way to control underarm sweating and body odor. Bathing with soap and water seemed so… well, slow. We wanted to end the horrible nightmare of high heat and humidity, especially in the office. So we ingeniously invented some stuff without considering the possibility of a few unintended consequences.

What’s done is done. We cannot, nor will we, stop technological advances aimed at making life better for all of us. However, we need to stop arguing about it and accusing everyone we disagree with of attempting to destroy the planet. We also need to hold our political leaders’ feet to the fire and stop letting them use these issues as justification for being morons at our expense.

Let’s begin to understand that humans want and need many things, some of which may be somewhat harmful to our natural environment. This is not going to stop. Humans, like it or not, are contributing on a larger scale than we’d like to admit. Get over it and let’s start looking for solutions before we destroy our species. We can’t send the space shuttle up to fix this one, folks.

Here’s the bottom line from the human perspective. There is an acceptable medium somewhere between being totally informed about all things and being blissfully ignorant of all things. The former is impossible and the latter will kill all of us. So, we need to find that medium and we need to find it soon. Oh, and our news network intrepid windbags, including those of FOX News, are useless regarding these issues.

Here’s the bottom line from a cost perspective. Expectation theory makes a great deal of sense if we examine it closely. Potential low probability occurrences with known catastrophic consequences need to be examined more closely than high probability occurrences with known low to modest catastrophic consequences.

With this in mind, we need to stop mentally masturbating about global warming and ozone depletion. Not only will it pay dividends in the long run, it may well provide us humans with a long run to worry about.

Have a great week. Tune in again next week. And turn that air conditioner up.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.