A Cancer

It really is cancer.  The metaphor is accurate.  Malignancy may start in a myriad of locations and a myriad of ways.  But, the progression towards death follows a narrowing path as rapidly multiplying tumor cells mutate and mutate, ever progressing towards the worst case, deadliest genetic changes.  Victims are bystanders at a light-speed craps table.  Cancer rolls the dice again and again, always faster, until, inevitably, snake eyes.

Violent, murderous anti-Semitism was a certain destination for right wing America's modern trajectory.  Only the starting points and initial steps were unpredictable.  The disease simmered, boiled, went cold, and popped.  Some anti-Semites were shamed into quiet by the Holocaust and they, instead, focused on racism.  Communist witch hunts including the Rosenbergs' executions were cover for low level anti-Semitism.

The 2008 crash marked the transition from Stage II to Stage III.  The cancer spread from initiation to nearby tissue.  The old tropes emerged.  Cabals of Jewish bankers.  Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Rothschilds.  Goldman, Sachs, Rubin and Blankfein. 

Now, stage IV.  Nazis in Charleston chanting, "Jews will not replace us."  A Senator from Iowa allowing George Soros possible involvement behind women protesting Brett Kavanaugh, "It fits in his attack mode and how he uses his billions and billions of resources." A US Senator born in 1933.  High school students in Wisconsin giving the Hitler salute in their class photo.  Swastikas and vandalism at synagogues and Jewish cemeteries. 

Mass murder in Pittsburgh.

Blame the Victim: Cancer Edition

H disclosed to my wife that he is committing slow suicide – or not – by treating his prostate cancer with diet.  A naturopathic fraud cured H's wife of some long term ailment.  Obviously, the naturopath is the best choice for treating the prostate cancer that H may or may not be there.  H is certain of the diagnosis and certain that the diet is beneficial.  I am the skeptic.  Diagnosis and follow-up were based entirely on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood tests and measurements of "liver function."  

PSA tests don't work. It was a good idea that failed. High rates of false positives and false negatives. The K-Y jellied gloved hand digital exam is the most reliable screening test available.

My wife asked H about the naturopath's success rate with prostate cancer.  Oh to be a shameless fraud! Diet-based cancer cures are just like abstinence-only contraception. H explained that the method succeeds for people who are 100% faithful to the regimen. The treatment can't fail the patient; but the patient can fail the treatment. (I need to translate that into Latin.) Blame the victim.  We learned all about that scam when another friend died after treating his prostate cancer with tanker loads of carrot juice plus cabbage juice chasers.  After the cancer killed him, his wife found a hidden Spam stash.  Aha! She just knew he had been cheating on his diet.  And, there was the evidence.  I wonder if his death certificate reads "cancer" or "Spam."

H's wife elaborated on the healthy diet theory to my wife.  The naturopath believes that good food crucial to good health.  But, don't cancer cells benefit just as much -- if not more -- from nutrition?  What is the saying, "Feed a cold and starve a fever" or vice versa or "Feed a cold and starve a cancer."

The Best and The Worst

Early in my first year of college, the chemistry faculty described their research in a series of short talks to the potential chem majors. I best remember Prof. JS. He fit the stereotype: dumpy, balding, thick glasses, and a short sleeve white polyester shirt half in and half out of his trousers. JS talked about his work on alveolar surfactants; the proteins that coat the tiny air sacs in our lungs and reduce the effort required to draw each breath. All of us, in 1971, remembered well Patrick Bouvier Kennedy's short life. He was born premature in the summer of 1963 to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. The baby lived only three days. Preemies are born before those air sac proteins develop. The babies struggle for each breath. In 1963, many, including Patrick Kennedy, died. And, there was JS, rumpled and completely uncool, telling us about his work to save those babies. The professor was a hero. Of all the descriptors, it was the most appropriate adjective. The one to endure.

I thought again of that day in 1971 when reading the latest New Yorker. An article by Jerome Groopman  covers oncology researchers who are trying with some success to drive cancer into remission by activating our human immune systems. A few pages further back Jill Lepore reports on America's gun fetishism. The two articles contrast the best and worst of humanity.

The cancer researchers are now making progress with methods once abandoned as ineffective. Cancer grows and spreads because mutant cells are too much like their healthy progenitors to trigger immune response. The new therapies super-charge patients' T-cells to induce that extra bit of activity that allows the T-cells to target cancer cells. The approach is not perfect. Supercharged T-cells, like more conventional chemotherapy, may also destroy healthy tissue. But, the research as explained seems like true progress. And the researchers? We don't get much insight about their psyches other than overriding perseverance. These men and women work hard. Are they motivated by ego? Probably. Do they view their research as a competition with other scientists? Certainly. Does it matter? No. Successful research will save many lives. It is hard, slow, grinding, frustrating work toward a heroic cause. The best side of humanity

Jill Lepore's gunnies, in constrast, are immature, diminished people. Their stories are all about emotional (and intellectual) defects without redemption. Gun fetishists use the 2^nd amendment as post-hoc justification for preset conclusion. The Bill of Rights is a cloth remnant. One-half of one tenth was carefully cut out and sewn by the NRA into a drum major's tunic. The rest was tossed on the ground; ignored, forgotten, unseen. Think of mafiosi pleading the 5^th, then cheering themselves as constitutional stalwarts and noble souls motivated exclusively by their love of the Bill of Rights and the Nation.  

Lepore interviews David Keene, the NRA's new president, whose son is doing time for shooting at a driver during a road rage incident. 

He was sentenced to ten years in prison for “using, brandishing, and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence.” I asked Keene if this private tragedy had left him uncertain about what the N.R.A. had wrought. He said no: “You break the law, you pay the price.” 

I asked Keene if any public atrocity had given him pause. He explained that it is the N.R.A.’s policy never to comment on a shooting. 

I asked him how he would answer critics who charge that no single organization has done more to weaken Americans’ faith in government, or in one another, than the N.R.A. 

“We live in a society now that’s Balkanized,” Keene said. “But that has nothing to do with guns.”

Gunnies exist in tiny rooms without mirrors or doors.  No chance for self-reflection or path forward.  They are the unwanted opposites of Groopman's scientists.