Baked Bean Swastikas

While the baked bean has been traditionally held as a symbol of colonic unrest, it has now expanded into the realm of social unrest as well. I do think that having to provide your identifikation at will for the immigration gestapo is a bit over-reaching. Interestingly, it was baked beans, fermented into a noxious cloud in my, my brother's, and my father's gut, which turned our Apache A-frame family tent into a horrendous gas-chamber at a campsite in the southern reaches of Appalachia. I believe that was the same weekend a redneck kid rolled up grass (as in turf) into a joint and had us smoke it with him. It was wierd.

Black Pudding

I love rathergood, and have been totally obsessed with this/them:

Rant!

Its rant time.

On February 25th, the night before yet another exam (seems like every night is a night before an exam), after studying many hours that fateful thursday, I readied for bed. There were some dishes in the sink, Nehama, who already tucked herself in, told me not to worry about them, that she'll do them in the morning, and that I should just come to bed. The clock strikes 11:32 PM. Being the im/compulsive ADD child that I am, those dishes gnawed at me. So I decided I'll quickly wash them then go to sleep. After all, 11:30 isn't that late, and I wanted that coffee cup clean for my morning brew. So I am there washing the cheap ass ceramic mugs that Fayga left upon her departure from the apartment (a tale for another time), with my mind drifting through the vagaries of Pulmonology. I was scrubbing the inside of the cup, when it quickly broke into several pieces, giving me a nice slice through my right pinky (anteromedial aspect of the DIP of the 5th finger, to be precise and nerdy). Upon the sight of the gushing blood, and the numbness I felt on the pad, I began to feel concerned. I washed it out as best I could, viewing the supple tissue under the wound, and decided that, being a righty, this could make the test that I prepared so hard for, difficult. But, I resolved to not postpone the test, no matter what, because I value free weekends. So I went upstairs, woke Nehama telling her that I injured myself, and needed to go get stitched at the ER, and that she shouldn't worry. But she did worry, being the pleasant wife that she is, and she got out of bed. She said that I could just let it heal, but I told her that I wanted it stitched because it'll take forever to heal by secondary intention, and on top of that the lack of sensation is vexing. I told her that I didn't want to bleed all over my scantron in the morning, and on top of that we had white sheets on the bed. So she wrapped my finger up, and joined me in the car, though insisted that I drive, claiming that she has poor night vision. Amazing. So we go the hospital, they triage me, I sit there for 20 minutes watching Seinfeld reruns, and then they call me back, stitch me up, send me on my merry way.

Here is the annoying part. My insurance, which is through Nehama's work, provides for a $75 copay for ER visits, plus 20% of the ER physican costs. So let's break that down: $75 to walk in the door. then 20% of whatever the physician costs. Why you have to pay $75 copay is so F-ing beyond me. Ok, so then I get a bill from the ER physicians' practice...for $641.68. Ok, let's break down the costs, using costs attained from google searches of the materials used:

1 pack of 3-0 nylon sutures: $7.99
1% Lidocaine HCl: $1.41,
1 5 mL syringe: $21. (Note, this is the cost for 100 syringes, but I'll round up to prove a point)
1 25 gauge needle: $0.20
2 betadine swabs: $13.07 (Note, this is for 100 swabs. they only used 2 on me)
1 sterile field: $0.50.
1 roll of gauze: $4.70
1 piece of tape: $0.50 (rounded way up)
1 Suture kit: $23.24 (their's was likely way cheaper)
Total so far: $72.61.
This is a VERY liberal estimate of the costs, which I obtained through picking the first item I found online. I know that hospitals, which buy in bulk from medical suppliers, probably pay less than half this price. But, leaving that aside, that leaves  $569.07 in other costs. So what else am I paying for? The lights and power of the building. supplies to run it. Considering I entered the hospital at 12 AM, and left around 2 AM, nearly all of which was spent waiting in a non-monitored state with no supervision by personnel whatsoever, that puts me at $4.74/minute spent in the ER. That's amazing. However, if you consider that I was only in contact with the physician for around 30 minutes, that puts the total costs per minute with the ER physician at approximately $18.69/minute. That's good money right there. I know you're thinking, hey ben, what about the 3 minutes that the nurse spent wrapping your finger at the end. So I know I am being unfair to them, but this is just to prove a point.
The medical system is completely fucked. As a medical student, I know how much it costs to get our education, and I think I am developing an understanding of how much operating costs are at an institution. I do not think that the true cost of running 4 sutures, which took no time at all, is reflected in the $640 bill I received. These costs are frighteningly inflated. The reason being that insurance companies are such shitty reimbursers, yet they literally manage their clients' care. So they decide what gets paid for (meaning what procedures/visits get done) and what doesn't. In reimbursing less and less, and in people sacrificing their involvement in their own care, costs for all procedures have been driven way too high. there is no reason that this hsould cost this much. I got a bill from the insurance company for $367. They applied my deductible to the ER visit. This was a mistake. However, had I not called and demanded that they read me, word for word, my plan details, they never would have accepted that. They have "resubmitted" the claim. THe fact is, the republican plan of arguing over costs with health providers is dumb. When my finger was bleeding, I wasn't about to storm out of the ER, demanding a cheaper rate.  I would have fucking accepted whatever was offered. On the other hand, having no connection with the costs is also silly. Luckily, I'm a cheap ass jew and demand an explanation for every single cost applied to me, so I was able to get this corrected. Now I only have to pay 20% of this ridiculously inflated cost. I cannot wait until the government expands control of healthcare even more, so that these insurance companies will be put out of business. Imagine if I was actually unhealthy. I, all people in the US in fact, are literally 1 serious health problem away from bankruptcy. This is the second time that I have been billed incorrectly by the insurance company SINCE JANUARY! Both times the mistakes would have resulted in me paying more, and them paying less. "Mistakes." These are the biggest shiesters on earth, and they've got their hands around the balls of our healthcare. DOWN WITH HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES!

Trail People

So earlier I promised you, dear reader, some stories from my 30 day hiking trip/adventure out west. Last night I was thinking about all the weird people I met on the trail, lots of unique characters. Because, for the majority of our trip, we were walking and hitch hiking everywhere we went, and we oscillated from relative solitude in the mountains to some highway thoroughfare that stood between us and our next destination, we ended up speaking to nearly every person we saw. A lot of people have a misconception that hiking is very lonely, it is not. Don't get me wrong, you do get lots and lots of alone time, but I probably met more people there than I meet in a typical year. Many of them were oddballs, people hiking the PCT, strange hippies, lost souls, some "regular" ol tourists. Here is a list of the characters we met, and some facts about them. Most of the time, we never learned anyone's name, or they were using a trail name, a false moniker to represent their trail-self. It's like an avatar, only (slightly) less lame. I had a trial name. Ha. I will start chronologically from the beginning of the trip, and work towards the end, and I'll intersperse some pictures I took of the areas where we met these people.

News News

One day I will write a long rant about cable news, and news in general, being a total pathos-defining farce. one day....

How To Report The News - Watch more Funny Videos

Blast From the Past Wednesday!

Here's a blast from the past, Dshinghis Khan. My fellow member's of the tribe out there may recognize the tune of this first clip. Predating MBD by many years, it calls into question his musical prowess and respect for other artists' material. Busted, Mordy, totally busted. Oh, and by the way, Tani can do this entire dance.



This second clip is a Dshinghis Khan classic. These moves can neither be replicated nor beaten. "Oh Ha Hah Hah Hah"

The Bagger-288...

The bagger 288 is a gigantic mining machine. It is actually the largest machine on earth, bigger than NASA's wimpy crawler-transporter, which possesses neither an artificial mind filled with hate, nor the ability to de-meat. Here is a video about the bagger 288 that is simultaneously good and awesome [via rathergood (go here now!)]

Why I Love Augusta....

Found this gem on the bumpersticker of a pickup in the student parking lot today. Now I recognize that healthcare and medicine have little practical overlap with theoretical physics and cosmology, but we are all reasonably intelligent people here at MCG, and this seems a little, well, silly. Now this car could have belonged to a nursing student, a PhD candidate, a medical student, whoever it was at the school. But regardless of what program they are in, he/she spends a number of hours daily in a science book, and you would think that that would help you develop a little more sophistication in your understanding of our origins than, "Bang, it happened." I love Augusta, and the South in general, for this reason: it is a complicated place, with a complicated people. There are so many social dichotomies and paradoxes here. The kindest people saying the most racist things (on both sides, by the way), the smartest people  clinging to entirely unintelligent beliefs. But it's home...

Caramel Chocolate Cake with Fleur de Sel Praline

So for my friend's birthday, Jon and I made Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel and Fleur de Sel Praline. It was significantly less complicated than Nehama's birthday cake (which I will post about soon), it only took a 2-3 hours total, but was fun because it was my first time (successfully) making pralines or ganoche . I need a camera, since I lost mine somehow when we moved, and have been taking pictures using my phone's cam.

Haman's Ears!

The PurimFest has come and gone. I made some delissio hamentashen, recipe courtesy of Intrepid Reader Julz [aside: the delissio commercial is a canadian ripoff of the digiorno commercial. that's why they are watching hockey, and are so damn polite]. Hamentashen are an interesting bunch. The meaning of the yiddish word was fodder for much speculation over Purim 2010, and based on my research, it either means "poppy bag," or "Hamen's Ears." My mother is inclined to say poppy bag, but in Israel, they are referred to as Oznei Haman, literally Hamen's Ears, and since the word Haman is in the name Hamentachen, I will assume the tachen means ears. As kids, we were taught it was his hat: 3 cornered, like the pilgrims!

Shmuel Spidermin

Shmuel Spidermin at the Kotel

Fish Child

Why is it that these sort of things seem to happen so much in the Orient: children turning into fish, into trees, into Ghidora!

Intrepid reader Justin, Esq., clued me in to this condition, and because its medical, and strange, it is blogworthy, or rather blogkoveworthy. So the disease is Lamellar Icthyosis. I was led to believe from the article and from my extensive training in rare genetic diseases that this would be a central disorder, effecting the hypothalamus and the body's thermostat. Oh, but how the weak have fallen! It is actually a problem with what appears to be keratin synthesis, the layer of proteinaceous tissue that covers your outer layer of skin, rendering you for the most part water and foreign-body impermeant. In Lamellar icythosis, it appears as if a defect in the keratinocyte transglutaminase is causing the malformed keratin layer. The boy's associated overheating is somewhat paradoxical, as the chief concern early on in the child's life is actually hypothermia, as they cannot retain heat with their crappy epidermis. Unfortunately, there is no cure or treatment, and the child is relegated to a tough, and unfortunately, probably shortened, life.

Interestingly, the rate of this RARE disease is 1:600,000. I nor any of my cohorts have heard of this before. Yet everyone makes a big freaking stink about Guillan-Barre and the flu vaccine, which has an incidence of 1:1,000,000. Yet, the mortality of influenza is roughly 1:10,000. Lord Help Us All.

Targeted Therapy: Woe Unto Thee!

After a brief haitus dedicated to continued success in medical school, the blogkove is back. With a vengeance.

Intrepid reader Henry sent me this article (continued here) about the tribulations of a B-Raf inhibitor trial. My executive summary of the situation is as follows: the good Dr. Flaherty took part in a trial of a new inhibitor that halts growth in melanoma in a promising way, both theoratically and practically. However, the melanoma, ever the wily contender, switches its signalling pathway to avoid utilizing the now-inhibited B-Raf, and thus is able to complete its evil mission of "grow ad infinitum." The oncologists and patients, needless to say, were shocked at how after 6 months or a year of successful treatment, the melanoma suddenly turned deadly again, laughing in the face of the targeted drug therapy.

Update on Sourdough

The sourdough bread culture: Doing great! After watching Dr. Strangeloaf episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats, I realized that by following Mark Bittman's recipe, I had in fact violated the cardinal principle of sourdough; my sin being the innocent innoculation of my starter culture with active dry yeast, rather than allowing the local yeast-lactobacilli flora and fauna to take hold, thereby providing that particular East Georgia Flare of which we are so well known. Irregardless, I will press on with the current culture. It is bubbling nicely, being stirred each day, and is gradually, gradually developing the pleasant/unpleasant odor of sourdough bread. Here is the full-episode of Dr. Strangeloaf. I recommend watching this show often, and this particular episode immediately.

Sourdough, The Legend Begins

Upon a reflection of my recent posting, which have been myriad and varied, I noticed one might get the impression that my sole interests are 1) bitching about my religion, 2) watching weird youtube videos. While those two things do take up a good deal of my intellectual time, I would say that it does not reflect my time best spent, and most enjoyably spent. So in order to give a more complete picture of the kove behind the blog, as well as to "blog about the things you (I) love," I want to expand this blog to my other interests as well.

Best of: Infomericals, Part II

There is a strain of infomercial I like to call the fauxlanthromercial (a conglomeration of faux, philanthropic, and -mercial), which usually follows the formula of fake interview/newscast, where the interviewee hocks his wares: debt cures, weight loss cures, cancer cures, you name it. So let's first discuss a few issues here.

Leg Holster!

I went ahead and ripped a Leg Holster for you from Enter the Dragon. There are better scenes than this, but I have work to do, so I'll leave that compilation for another day. You're welcome.

Kung-POW!

Yesterday at the gym, while moving in an elliptical fashion, I watched Enter the Dragon. That is an awesome movie, but that goes without saying. I love kung-fu sounds, and people getting their melons kicked off their shoulders, and Kareem Abdul Jabar. But my most favorite part is when Bruce Lee holds his leg out at you, aims it, panning, ready to fire off a head-busting Kee-YAH!, and then slowly holsters it, with a look that says, "Watch your nuts, cause they're about to get smashed into oblivion."
I searched for a youtube video that has the leg-reload in it, but alas, I could not find it. If any of my faithful readers can locate said scene, you will be thoroughly rewarded. In the meantime, feast your eyes on this tasty lick of 10 awesome moments from Enter the Dragon.

Best Of: Informercials, Part I

I would like to start a new (first) series on this blog, called Best Informercials. The reason for this is single fold: I LOVE informercials. I don't know what it is about them, either its the cheesy hucksters, the glorification of crap you don't need (and perhaps that's more like it, because for that same reason I also will read the skymall cover-to-cover given the opportunity). One of my most memorable past times is watching and mocking informercials with BenPoodi. So here are two of my favorites, one old, one newly discovered.

Other Great Nature Clips

I so much enjoyed looking through Planet Earth videos for yesterday's Cordyceps Fungus post, that I am now posting my two favorite clips from Planet Earth here.
If you haven't watched this entire documentire documentary seriesentary series, stop what you are doing now, and commence viewing.

I like the first one because of how it speaks of the human condition. In the end, we expend so much of our energies in trying to impress a mate: be it a woman, a family member, a boss, even our own egos.





This second video is perhaps my most favorite in the whole series. I like it because it is brutal, and scary, and real.





I changed the aspect ratio for this last video, but if you click on it you can watch it on youtube in it's true widescreen format.

Molestation of Power

So I just heard/read about a new skandal. Apparently Rav Motti Elon, a venerated and respected Da'ati-Leumi (religious-nationalist) Israeli Rabbi has been accused by a rabbinical oversight board of "inappropriate sexual conduct" with his students. So what the shit is going on in the Orthodox Community in specific, and the Jewish Community as a whole?

And the Fungi Shall Inherit the Earth...

Fungi are the scariest best living things on earth. They are everywhere. In fact, the largest single organism on Earth is a fungus, whose mycelium spans several miles of a forest floor in Oregon. In the future, it will not be the meek, but the fungi, that inherit the Earth. I wrote a previous post a while back about mycelia as a basis for cellular intelligence, using a slime mold as a paradigm for a primitive neural network. This could help tie up some loose ends in our current understanding of evolution. My good friend Justin Michael FlimFlam sent me this article today about how sick ants will abandon the nest to die, thereby preventing infection of the entire colony. I was reminded of a, for lack of a better term, fucking awesome Planet Earth scene, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, who I want to narrate my entire life. The quote I find most interesting is:

"The parasites do play a role in preventing any one species from gaining an upperhand. The more numerous a species becomes, the more likely it is to be attacked by a Cordyceps Fungus." 

Now humans number in the billions, but that pales in comparison to the numerousness of the arthropods. But perhaps it is only a matter of time until we become susceptible to the great equalizer cordyceps fungus. You are probably saying, "Nah dawg, we got fluconazole for that shizz." And I answer, in the words of Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park: "Nature, uh, finds a way [also don't forget this]." Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of a great equalizer in the growing MRSA, resistant TB, resistant-whatever-you-want strains that have jumped from mere nosocomial infection to community acquired deadliness. And the fungi shall inherit the earth...

Behold, the might of the Cordyceps Fungus!

Ben Ferencz is Awesome

Ben Ferencz was the chief prosecutor for the US at the Nuremberg Trials. I remember seeing his speech to the American Bar Association a while ago (I logged alot of daytime CSPAN-time when I had a job "working from home" before medical school. And by working from home, I mean fishing and playing

You's a HHO! Alternative Fuel and You!

Here's an interesting clip via Ben Poody:

So according to wikipedia, my definitive source on everything, what's happening here is water is being

Obama Lil Mama

Bald Eagles!

It's movie night here at The Blogkove, it seems, with post after post of youtube clips, ad infinitum. ad nausem. ad hitlerum.

Bald Eagles are the shiz.biz. Below is a sweet HD video of them on the Hudson River, NY, just a brief

Blast from the Past: Uncut!

I had an unhealthy relationship with this video for 6-8 months. From my understanding, it is Ducktales in

Avarice Fulfilled

I would like to publicly thank my father, the good Dr. Lefkove, for buying me the Cardio III and the Welch-Allyn Diagnostic Set, 2 out 4 of the avarice-items, but definately the most important and useful of the lot.  THANK YOU DAD!

Mercurial Vaccine Beliefs

A few weeks ago, I had a large debate with a fellow classmate about vaccines vis-a-vis their dangerous properties or lack thereof. He posited that the current vaccine scheduling in general, and the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine in specific, are plausible causes of the increasing rate of Autism

Yellow Line to Awesomeness

I live for this shit.

Apparently, some Asian-American relations group in Atlanta is PO-ed that the new MARTA line running into Chambodia (an amalgamation of Chamblee and foreign-odia that I appropriated from Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full. That's right, I'm smug, and I just made a literary reference). Obviously, its ridiculous. Yellow is just a color, and the line happens to run through asian-town, ATL. However, there's tons of mexicans and Yeshiva Atlanta there also. So let it go. MARTA is not calling Asians yellers.

This reminds me of the old Po Folks Scandal, of which I cannot find a reliable article (In short, Po' Folks had to change its name to Folks because folks didn't like the "Po'" part).

And in summary, here is a tribute to MARTA, that I try to mention wherever possible:

Retraction

Ok, I will publicly retract some statements from the post about Israeli Healthcare. It is wrong to make a blanket assumption about Israeli doctors, clearly it stems form some xenophobia. However, still, to my understanding, and my comfort level, there is a lack over there. So I want to apologize to Israel, for speaking Loshon Hara about it.

Stay Tuned as the blogkove takes on vaccination-autism myths!

3rd World Healthcare

Ok, enough fluffy-nice stuff, back to vitriol.

Here is a story about a boy from Atlanta, from my very own high school and community, albeit a good deal younger. He got Hodgkin's Lymphoma while studying in Yeshiva in Israel. So he goes to the highly paternalistic Israeli doctors, here is an excerpt:

“By the l6th blood test on the fifth day, they said, ‘We see something in your blood,’” Khandadash said. “Now to give you a behind the scenes view, the doctors there would not tell you anything. It’s not like in America where you have a right to know everything. They literally would not tell you anything. I was like, ‘Maybe they think I’m a kid?’” 

Two things:
1) 5 days to get to a HL diagnosis?! Earlier reading of the article puts HL up on the list: age, persistent respiratory illness, fevers, night sweats. A positive CXR! I did relatively average on the heme/onc test, and I can tell you this kid has B-symptoms written all over him. What a bunch of quacks!
2) I know that I've been force fed like a veal-to-be the line about patient and family centered care, which is a buzzword, but it's also real. Patients aren't a piece of meat, nor are they simply patrons who come to the grand wizard for his almighty opinion. Clearly they mismanaged his case, and he might have been more forgiving had they not been royal D-Bags about the whole thing. If I've learned one thing in medical school, it's that as much as we do know, we really don't know, and modesty is good as gold in this profession.

So moving along, he realizes that the gig is up, and he purchases for himself private insurance. And the insurance co. immediately drops him once they find out it's HL. Now I feel awful that this young man got sick, but this is total pre-existing condition, and he bought insurance only after realizing, "oh wait, this isn't good." It's irresponsible not to have some sort of coverage. Insurance is not for if you get sick, it's for when you get sick. Now, the greater issue is insurance companies doing this at all, and this illustrates the serious flaws of 3rd party payer managed care. Of course, Israel has a socialized system which still has the downfalls of point 1, but he didn't have access to the social system regardless.

So he goes to his American doctor at Scottish Rite. A good hospital:

Khandadash then thought to himself what the Israeli doctors told him, that his lungs looked fine on the x-ray he saw overseas. He informed his doctor what he was previously told.

Doctor: “Are you serious?”
Khandadash: “Yeah, this is what I saw in Israel.”
Doctor: “They didn’t catch anything in Israel?”
Khandadash: “No.”
Doctor: “Well, you see this?” The doctor points to outlines of two objects.
Khandadash: “Yeah, my lungs.”
Doctor: “You see these two big things over here and over here? Those aren’t supposed to be there.”

 Like I said before, a bunch of quacks over there. his doctors were displaying some quackery, it seems. (Disclaimer: Not all Israeli doctors are quacks, but his seemed to be, based on this article. Maybe BennyPoo can calm down now).

Thankfully, HL generally has a good prognosis. Imagine this kid walked in with something more serious that they completely overlooked in Israel. He could be way worse off at this point. I've heard lots of people, particularly family members, defend Israeli Healthcare to the hilt (possibly due to their religious-zionist bias swinging them away from objectivity [but aren't we all swung that way?]), as if its this perfect system. But I know, based on my experience there as well as the anecdotes of others, that its all-around better over here. Not to say that you don't deal with loads of bullcrap from doctors over here. Trust me, I know the people in my class, the future dotors of America. But still, we can, and will, and do, do it better.

Avarice

You, dear reader, are probably wondering: Ben! you've got a test on cardiology tomorrow, why, at 2:27 pm, the day before your test, are you at home, blogging, avoiding learning about diuretics?
Well, I'm glad you asked. I am procrastinating.
Regardless, I want now to post some material items I desire:

1. Welch-Allyn Diagnostic Kit. 

I know that switching from my current dinky travel-set, borrowed from Zach Lane, will confirm my manliness to all alpha males on the wards. Nothing says Big Package like a thick lithium battery stick on your panopticon opthlamascope

2. Asus UL30A-X5.      

My "friend" from school just bought one. I covet my neighbor's laptop, commandment be damned. It has facial recognition for login, a separate linux OS for rapid booting into a web browser, and good guts all around. And not too expensive either...
Not that my current Dell Vostro 1000, given to me for the price of...on the house...by EK, is not a good workhorse. It is. But that's what silly materialism is, wanting something you don't need. 


3. The Littman Cardio III.

Smooth Elegance. Refined Beauty. Double Barrel. I know that this is not only required for me to be a successful doctor, but that without it, 500 children will immediately die. I will auscultate the shit out of someone with this thing. Currently, I am using Nehama's (inferior) Littman boring-edition. Some nights I wake up in a cold sweat, thinking I hear the Cardio III calling out to me...



4. The Complete Works of John Steinbeck.

Not only will this provide me with ample reading of my most favorite author, but I also want a leather-bound book. And an office that smells of rich mahogany wood. Perhaps a pipe as well, a free-standing globe, friends, henchmen, political savvy, status, status updates on facebook, and a deep voice.


That's all for now. The wild world of cardiology beckons. As loyal readers, please see to it that all of these items appear at my house in the near-term.

Baboon-a-rific!

I love baboons. and chimps. and great apes. I've read 2 Jane Goodall books. I like chimps because they are our nearest ancestor, sharing 98% of our genome. Their behaviors and lives are very similar to ours, yet also very different. So its a good comparison, chimp to human, to see maybe where the roots of some of our motives lay. Maybe its the humanzee in me. More on this later.

Here's an awesome video featuring a baboon, sent to me by TaniP

Hamas TV Funhouse

Two best lines:
"Old Man Hitler!"
and
"We had to cancel it after the guy who played sheigele went back to dental school."

Oh, anti-semitic cartoons, when will you fall out of favor....

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Story Hole - Children's Cartoons From Hamas
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Fame, Finally

I am pleased to announce that The Blogkove (formerly benbeel.blogspot.com) has ascended to google greatness, and has fulfilled point 5 of its 14 point plan...
Thank you, Mark Wahlberg

behold, #2!!!!

Forgive me Father, for I have 'Zinn'ed

This is a response to this article, sent to me by my dear ol' dad.

I took an American History class at GSU one summer, and the textbook for the class was Zinn's "Peoples' HIstory..." I was taken aback, to say the least. I had two history teachers in high school.. One was Dr. Coolick, a purple-heart winning Vietnam vet, who spent 15-20 years in the CIA, with a PhD in Western Military History, and a fierce patriotic love. He described the French, in class, as "Cheese-Eating surrender monkeys." He was intelligent, a seasoned patriot in every sense of the world. My best class in High School, possibly ever, was the constitutional law class, where he went through 15 monumental supreme court cases that shaped american law. All of his teaching ended in, "America is progressing to a better place (in contrast with the shitty negativity you get from the media nowadays)."

My other teacher was Mr. McKay, a much-less-seasoned veteran of the US' operations in Panama, with some Airborne Unit. He talked a huge game, and ate a huge game (he easily tipped the scales at 300+ lbs). His history was much less tempered and "intelligent-ey" than Coolicks: We knew it, he knew it. He was 100% sure (this was spring 2001) that the US would return to armed conflict with Korea, boots on the ground, within 3 years. I guess he, along with the US intelligence community, did not "see it coming." He encouraged us to all enlist, so as the be able to choose our unit as opposed to getting shoved in a crappy unit when we are (inevitably) drafted; me personally, he felt the US Army Rangers would particularly suit my energy level. I was a rowdy kid in highschool, and he more than once had me doing pushups before the class. McKay had a particular fetish with the Civil War, wrote some books on the matter, and presented what could be called, "The Rebel's History of the Civil War." Our military history class with him consisted mostly of field-trips to little pidgen hill, chickaumauga, and kennesaw mountain, where we saw first-hand the ploys of Northern Aggression, as well as his attraction to Wes' mom. Oh, our joy at seeing the jovial, obese man, sweat dripping from his pits, haul his fat ass up mountains that once ran red with union blood, now running white with tears of laughter. McKay is a good man, who, like alot of high school teachers, got a lot of undeserved flack from his students.

My knowledge of history, particularly of civil war history, I felt, was strong, stronger than most of my peers', at least. What I read in Zinn's book was really new to me, shocking. Columbus was a hero, dammit! Lincoln, well McKay would say he's a fucker, Coolick would say he led us to a better and more complete union. But Zinn basically rejected all of our hagiography. Thankfully, my fellow students at GSU were so uninterested and under-educated, that Zinn's message was fired way over their heads. But I never felt the same after. I felt like either Zinn was a liar, but I couldn't reject his thick bibliography. On the other hand, perhaps our leaders weren't as golden then as they are now. I recalled the words of my first class at YU, with Moshe Bernstein, the mousy, bitchy biblical scholar, when referencing Judaism's current view of the sadducees and karaites  (who told me, "Ben, there is no way you will pass this class with your current reading abilities." I took a W, bastard!): "The Winners write the history books." Could Rabbinic Orthodox Judaism, that shrine I [once] held so sacred, be subject to the same human fallicies of corruption, coercion, censorship, and not be handed down directly "Mi Pi El"?! Ah, the downfall and corruption begins...
But in that vane, perhaps America's manifest destiny was, additionally, not handed down from Gods lips, but only on the backs on all the people who stood in her way to the top. Perhaps then, the net good outweighs all the evil that undubitably follows it?

These are the questions, largely unanswered and unanswerable. But despite Zinn's uber-negativity and pessimism, which I reject, he filled an important seat: self-reflection. While he took the tack of never acknowledging all the good of the country--including the right to write such mean things about the very people who guaranteed him the very right to write such very mean things--exposing young minds to "the other side," is helpful.

I'll conclude with a story from Ben Poodiack, told to me not hours ago. In one of his classes at GSU (what's the deal with that place?), they were having a discussion about separation of church and state, vis-a-vis prayer in school. The punch-line of the story was a young lass proclaiming, "like, um, I don't get what the problem is. If I were jewish, and I wanted to take off for ramadan, I could just talk to my boss and he would let me." [sound of hand slapping forehead]. But what shocked poody about this whole class, was how the Average Joe American Protestant Christian consistently seemed unable to put themselves in the perspective of "them other people." Jews. Hindus. Muslims. It baffles them why a morning classroom prayer to Jesus would feel awkward to a Jew, yet how very strange would they feel bowing on a prayer rug in the mornings, or lighting some incense to Ganesh (that was a made-up ritual by me, but you get the point). So Zinn's view, "the other side," is important, even if rejected, hopefully, by those who know better.

Chee-Chicken

Excellent video. Featuring daffy duck choking on a kazoo! [gizmodo]

You Decide

Dumpling...or Bicuspid Aortic Valve???? You decide!

Final Jeopardy

Dork-tasticness of the day:
Final Jeopardy Topic: Medicine
(To Whit, Nehama and I simultaneously, synchronously exclaimed, "YES!....Finally!" Ah, the benefits of a  hive-brain.)

final jeopardy question: this organism's gene are 2 parts pig, 1 part bird, and 1 part human.

answer: H1N1

H1N1 is a virus. Viruses are not alive, and are therefore not organisms. Suck it, Trebeck!

Organisms can loosely be described as, "Any living structure, such as a plant, animal, fungus or bacterium, capable of growth and reproduction." Source, Wikipedia.

The loosely-accepted 7 rules of life are:

1. Homeostasis 
2. Organization 
3. Metabolism
4. Growth
5. Adaptation
6. Response to stimuli
7. Reproduction

Viruses arguably satisfy several of these requirement, but certainly not all. For instance, their ability to reproduce is solely reliant on host machinery: truly a non-autonomous being. Secondly, they do not possess a true chemotactic response to stimuli: they will bind receptors, but that is all they will do. Viruses do not "move." they have no propellant ability. They do not grow, but rather are assembled from component parts within the host, and expelled full-formed, much like athena from the head of zeus. Only this athena causes AIDS.

That is a short take on it. Viruses are pseudo-life, perhaps even proto-life. They exist in a realm intertwined with living species, but not autonomous living entities. Like I've said before: suck it, Trebek.

Regardless, I will quote the following blog, from which I obtained this picture, with the help of my friend google.

"Alex Trebek is a game show host. He doesn’t know the answers to the questions he asks. Instead, he reads the knowledge off cards, cards handed to him by a sweating fat man in a small, small suit who gives him his lies in the darkness. Profane, undying darkness."

Technorati Tags: alex trebek, jeopardy, H1N1, lies, organisms

Phrase o' the day

Been learning about EKG interpretation all day. And one of the steps in interpreting an EKG is determining if the rhythm is sinus or ventricular. And all I hear, all day, is "Jah! Sinus Riddim!!!"

Here's a picture I made, of Dr. Jah-Stein, diagnosing "Sinus Riddim"



Technorati Tags: rastafari, sinus rhythm, riddim

Remember this?

95% of this blog's readership is composed of tani palefski. In so doing, I'd like to proclaim the following: Remember the humanzee?!

I do. I had an interest, nay a fetish, bordering on obsession, with the humanzee. It's the future of humanzity.

Anger!

I'm afraid this blog is becoming all about hating on orthodoxy. It's not. It's about venting. Lately, I feel like my beliefs are increasingly amorphous, oscillating from disbelief to frustration. I can't swallow the pill of faith, nor do I really want to. I just want to be happy. And religion has so much culture wrapped up in it, that it's hardly about the individual, and its so much about the society. E

And in that vain, here is another tasty lick from the interwebs: conversion sex scandal.

Orthoversion is so unregulated and non-standardized, that it was only a matter of time until a) men (and it's only men in charge, after all) took advantage of their powerful position to manipulate women, and b) it got publicized by our very-in-touch generation.

Of course, the chareidi response will be to deny it, and hide it. And everyone's hands are dirty. The M.O.'s did it with baruch lanner, and they at least claim to have an open society. Chareidim make no bones about being a closed society.

My friend wants his girlfriend to convert so he can marry her. his family are very traditional israelis. of course, he has to now:
1) live apart from his girlfriend indefinately
2) become involved in the community, with all the BS judgement and guilt-tripping that comes along with it
3) have her go from being completely non-observant to observing all the idiosyncracies of ortholife
4) still have her stigmatized by the community after all is said and done

Feh.

Pictures from The West

This summer my darling wife (DW, in the parlance of one of my favorite forums of all time, which is almost entirely dedicated the anonymous publicizing of frum sexual debacles and escapades. but I digress.) and I took a trip out west. We got some new gear, threw it in large backpacks, and set off to the John Muir Trail. Starts in Yosemite, ends at Mt. Whitney (tallest peak in the lower 48), and totally rocks the F out of everything. Here are some pics. If I didn't have to study about Infective Endocarditis, then I'd tell more stories. But perhaps when procrastination strikes, I will (or whill).

Wack-A-Doo

It is my solemn New-Years' Oath to devote more time to the blogkove, to get this thing back in action. In so doing, I want to incorporate more photos and media what-have-you to it. Soon to come: a dabble into politics (what would a good blog be without a political subtext), pictures from the John Muir Trail (henceforth JMT), as well as other junk that comes to mind.