And while I'm stuck in pissy beyotch mode (see previous post), I just thought I'd share with you Everything I've Learned About Cancer, Thanks to Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow:
1. If cancer afflicts someone you don't agree with politically, it's because their evil WrongThink has eaten their guts out; if it afflicts someone you do agree with politically, it's probably still the fault of the Evil Other Side, because they use pesticides on 3rd world countries and don't recycle, damn them and their cancerous guts to hell!
2. If people on your side of the political spectrum demonstrate empathy for the Evil Cancer-Afflicted WrongThinker on the other side, they're either a) lying, or b) pretending to be empathetic so that they can congratulate themselves on how fabulous they are. Either way, they should probably be Purged For the Good of the Party.
3. Cancer is a metaphor! For how rotten our evil rotten country is! Or how evil the Other Guys are! I know! That's like, so totally deep and stuff!
4. Confessing that one secretly wishes cancer upon your political opponents is a cathartic experience, and one should be congratulated for one's bravery at making such a bold admission! Bravo, you fearlessly self-aware and self-actualized person, you!
5. Katie Couric picked the wrong subject with which to try and prove that she was a hard-hitting journalist, and not in any way a shameless ratings whore.
6. Ultimately, all cancer everywhere in the world is probably George Bush's fault. I mean, duh!
7. On any message board or blog discussing these people and their illnesses, eventually some ironically distanced, intellectually nuanced ding-dong will show up and make a pronouncement to the effect that we're all just globs of animated protoplasm and slaves to the mindless need to exist. And that also, there's no God, so will everyone please stop cluttering up the place with those irritating "prayers?"
8. The above person will probably, ironically, get cancer and religion in roughly that order. But just so you're reassured, their faith will be of the ironically distanced variety.
9. DON'T YOU KNOW THAT PEOPLE WE'VE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF ARE DYING AND IT'S AMERICA'S FAULT SO WHY THE HELL ARE WE WASTING OUR TIME TALIKIN ABOUT THESE STUPID SICK RICH WHITE PEOPLE WHO CAN TOTALLY AFFORD HEALTH CARE OMGWTFBBQ!?!?!?!?!?
10. Cancer sucks. That one doesn't have a punchline.
Posted by Big Arm Woman at March 27, 2007 09:07 PMBrilliant post.
Posted by: Emily at March 28, 2007 09:26 AMCan you tell I'm a bit frustrated with my fellow beings?
Posted by: BAW at March 28, 2007 10:12 AMDefinitely. Me too. I'm beginning to wonder if aliens aren't deliberately breeding a certain brand of personality that isn't allowed to confront any single gawddamm subject on Earth without reducing it to cheap, hyper-wing (insert "right" or "left" where necessary) politics to punish the rest of us because one of our satellites knocked out their cable reception or something.
Posted by: Emily at March 28, 2007 11:37 AMI just wonder how people that rage-filled manage to make it through a day without stroking out. Or having an aneurysm.
And don't get me started on people who think that pooping spittle-flecked enraged pixels all over a comments section somehow equals moral rectitude.
Like I'm going to read their crap and think:
Oh, you're angry? Well, it must be because you have so much morality in your moral indignation! Therefore, you win!
Oh, you're angry? Well, it must be because you have so much morality in your moral indignation! Therefore, you win!
Did you see this?
Today, however, proclaimed anger -- the more vituperative the better -- is regarded as a sign of good character and emotional vitality.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at March 29, 2007 12:47 AMAngie -
End of days. I'd say that the self-absorbed self-righteousness inherent in the belief that anger makes you right or vindicates your existence pisses me off (hello, Irony!), but really it just makes me kind of tired.
I wonder if everyone driving around with those "if you aren't angry you aren't paying attention" bumper stickers will simply one day drop dead, all of their vitality expended on rage.
Irony would have a good laugh.
Posted by: BAW at March 29, 2007 08:12 AM"Irony would have a good laugh."
So would Darwin's ghost. Although I'd hazard a guess that the rage-filled hyper political ones reproduce less often that the centrists and right-of-centrists (on average), so maybe Darwin's ghost will have hte last laugh after all.
Posted by: John at April 2, 2007 12:50 PMI think we should have some kind of corollary to Godwin's Law that makes it conversationally illegal to politicize cancer.
I mean, it sucks. I've seen far, far too many people I care about afflicted with (some killed by) cancer.
I do not posess enough energy in my soul on the best of days to be able to transform the anger and frustration I feel when yet another person I care about has been diagnosed with cancer into some kind of political diatribe.
I'm not even sure how one goes about it.
And frankly, politcal diatribes seem kind of self-serving in this case.
My response to hearing someone has cancer:
1. Oh, no!
2. Damn, that sucks.
3. (depending on the person's religion or lack thereof): I'll pray for you/send energy your way/be thinking about you.
4. Is there anything I can do to make this easier? Like go to the grocery store for them? (I find the grocery store utterly draining in a HEALTHY state; I can't imagine trying to negotiate it after chemo or radiation).