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Each to Its Own Disease

Everyone tries to declare how special they are. While various groups debate their differences, define their histories and otherwise demonstrate their significance on what is becoming a very small planet, there is one undeniable fact that lingers in the back of our brain. We are all going to die from something. We may die quickly and violently, or we may linger and suffer before we pass on. But the stark fact is sooner or later we are checking out of here.

It is almost funny that this is perhaps the one remaining single fact where there is little or no debate. We argue about everything else. We argue about the big stuff, and we argue about the little stuff. We argue about global warming. We debate the merits and deficiencies of race, gender, and sexual preferences. We argue about gravity and the age of the Earth. We can spend hours debating the morality of everything from where to buy the best pair of jeans to driving an SUV. We argue whether we Darwin evolved or were a product of a divine plan explained to us ever so precisely through umpteen religions and secular theories. We argue whether cow farts and bottled water will hurtle out planet to its impending doom.

We argue incessantly. Taking sides and shouting each other down has become a major industry. You can’t market complexity and nuance, because thoughts that are complex and nuanced are disturbing and prey on our insecurities. We are more secure with crackpot theories than we are with uncertainty. So we argue in absolutes, and even then we prefer to keep our absolutes simple. If they are not simple, you can’t buy the books, go to the lectures and otherwise listen to the pundits and politicians who cater to our particular set of beliefs. Simply put, if you can’t put your thoughts on a tee shirt, they probably ain’t worth remembering.

But then every once in awhile some actual facts escape from spin cycle and we are confronted with their statistical reality. These are not the speculative statistics or manipulated statistics, positioned just to validate our point of view. No. Instead these are the types of fact that are actually hard to argue with. The ugly truth as it is sometimes known. These are the simple numbers that lay reality at your feet like an abandoned child that nobody wants to nurture. These are facts that remain consistent regardless of the cause , blame or subjectivity. These are the facts that leave little wiggle room, that are distinctive in their certainty so that debating them appears more like futile buffoonery than rational argument.

Such facts? Not only are we going to die, but we are actually killing ourselves. Maybe it’s the lemming concept or the human version of the long march to the elephant graveyard. Maybe its gross denial mixed with complex mixtures of stupidity and ignorance. Maybe deep down we just don’t care. Maybe our compulsion toward self-indulgence is so great that nothing, especially common sense, will get in the way of our collective suicide.

I am not talking here about the macro levels, the easy stuff, nuclear war, global warning, and the death of the planet. I am not even speculating on the probability of the sun eventually burning to the cinder or a meteor clipping us when we least expect it. Even global starvation and massive pandemics are not on the table here. Being invaded and eaten, as Stephen Hawking recently predicted, by aliens from another planet; we can forget about that, too. I am talking about how through our lack of responsibility we are in fact taking responsibility for doing ourselves in.

You should know what you are on line levitra taking aforementioned drugs. That component along with an additional hormone manufactured in actual body cGMP cast any offering part in order to destroy the actual existence on the devastating enzymes PDE5 manufactured in the actual blood stream. cheap super viagra The condition throws them to the time super generic cialis when they can’t reachthe orgasm yet. Cures male impotence generic cialis for sale and erectile dysfunction. New studies report that nearly half the adult population in America has high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes. One in eight is playing the quinella, where they have at least two out of three of these diseases. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, 15% of us are walking around unaware we are afflicted with at least one of the three diseases. Which means to me, folks can pontificate authoritatively about everything from the rash on our ass to the Rapture and the End of Days, and yet still walk around having no idea they are seriously ill. We talk about lofty things like taking care of the planet and taking care of the poor, but yet we can’t seem to take care of ourselves.

What is even more interesting that certain diseases plague certain ethnic groups more than others. In America, African-Americans are prone to high blood pressure. Those of European descent find high cholesterol gets in their way, while Latinos suffer more from diabetes. Surely, there is some extension of these disease from one ethnic group to another, hands across the water so to speak. Also, there are other serious diseases that afflict different groups. I realize their are environmental concerns and individual or familial congenital defects. And then, in terms of health and fortune, it sometimes boils down to nothing more than the luck of the draw. But for our purposes we can stick with the article and just these three diseases.

While each ethnic group seems more in peril from a particular affliction, the causes for each of the diseases are pretty much the same. Mainly the causes revolve around smoking, a junk diet, obesity, and physical inactivity, better known as the sedentary lifestyle that makes the purchase of one of those fat mover electric scooters almost irresistible to some of the late night cable crowd. I would think no irony should be lost on the fact that our true common ground is our self-indulgence and bad health.

I have often found it just a tad specious that just about every ethnic group likes to brag about its past. Each ethnic group and nationality can go on for days about its glorious heritage and its contributions to civilization. There is no end to their performances and days of glory. Then. It is not that a disbelieve their claims. But often find myself searching for their particular relevance in the modern world. I wonder if all the casting back to the past serves as a distraction from the vagaries of our present times. I realize others will view a world through a different prism, but I tend toward the pragmatic and prefer to see how those past achievements can best be put to use in the modern day. How do we put them to use, and where does it leave us now?

From the looks of things, it leaves us obese with hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. All represented in one form or another in the same collective rut. So in existential terms, regardless of specific achievements attributable to one group or another, we are all sitting here, living in denial and dying sooner than we should. If there is any consolation; it’s all pretty democratic. No matter what our ancestry, half of us are taking the decided inaction to let the quality of life slip out of our reach. We talk grandiose about saving the planet, but according to the recent study, we are having a tough time saving ourselves.

We talk about being sensitive to our surrounding, aware of the environment, our fellow creatures, and the challenges we are faced with. But yet in terms of our own well being, fifty percent of us can’t get out of our own way. We can’t hurdle our indulgences or come to terms with the realities of our own health concerns. Yeah, sure, we like to talk about it. We talk about the junk food, our carnivorous habits, and the polluted air we breathe. We even see the doctor. Yet here we are.

So I guess at the end of all this I am forced to wonder how are we doing to do all this planet saving when we can barely hurdle our personal afflictions? Is there any real logic to fending off hunger, water shortages, and global warming, while we continually ignore the factors causing our own demise? Here was are, ethnically speaking, all stuck with some kind of health burden and the best we can do is to skew the statistics to our own disadvantage. Maybe in the face of loftier ideals, the notion of the best example is the way we take care of ourselves.

The Life and Death of the Working Class

Whatever happened to the working class? From appearances they are all around us, working in everything from the dozen manufacturing plants still remaining in the United States to the auto and truck mechanic bays and doughnut shops across this fair land of ours. There are carpenters, plumbers, electricians, truck drivers, butchers, bakers, cab drivers, bartenders, waiters, sewer workers, construction crews, landscapers, and even farmers and cowboys. But, amazingly, no one is working class, anymore.

At least no one ever cops to being working class. Not in this day and age. When was the last time you heard a politician discuss the plight of the working class? Television news pundits never refer as working class to the blue collar worker losing his job to some eight year old kid in China. Or to a robot, also from China. Even the working class doesn’t describe itself as working class. Today the working class regards itself as middle class. The Tea Baggers, many of whom are working class, hold up signs and make speeches about the potential demise of the middle class. The guy that delivers your paper every morning will lament how massive media consolidation has all but destroyed his position as a middle class earner. Despite the dirt and grime of their professions, the hard physical work and all the dangers involved, the coal miners and oil drillers consider themselves members of the middle class. The blue collar philosopher, Eric Hoffer, would today be described in the back of his books as the notable middle class longshoreman. Even the crack whore working in the grimmest parts of town will tell you now she isn’t working class, but middle class, and that her livelihood is threatened by urban renewal ramped up by the monied elite.

Blue collar workers describing themselves as middle class, to some extent, is nothing new. In Europe the working class considered themselves to be working class, and they wore that distinction with pride, no matter how dubious a category it may appear to a lot of us. Even here in the early and mid-century United States, the working class was comfortable calling itself the working class. Hell, labor unions were first formed around that very notion. The workers. The working class. They recognized they were plumbers or trades people and as such they were people who worked with their hands. They cut meat and splattered blood on their aprons, made bread and were covered with flour. They laid bricks and dug tunnels, worked in steel mills and manufactured tools and garments. They got dirty and were physically tired at the end of the day from doing all that physical work. They had their dreams and visions, but suffered few delusions as to where they stood in the face of the overall strata. Simply put, they were working class.

But come the sixties and when America was in transition, it was increasingly uncomfortable to wear the label working class. Being working class meant that you maybe were less than your potential and couldn’t buy all the stuff that was being offered to consumers in the post-war era of guns and butter. If you were working class, you might have doubts as to whether you were entitled to the finer things in life. Perhaps you weren’t meant for that wall-to-wall nylon carpeting, the station wagon, and the Amana over-and-under frostless freezer that was touted as the prize on every game show.

Owning a television was a whole different story. You knew, even if you were working class, that you could at least have a television, because that kept you distracted and brain dead, which nullified the chance of self-improvement and further dissension. You also needed that TV for the commercials, so you knew how much all new and improved lemon scented crap was out on the market, and which brand of crap you should buy.

I came from a neighborhood in transition. It was the rare time in American history where doctors and lawyers lived next door to plumbers, carpenters, construction workers, and the guy who owned a store. It was the era when ethnic groups emerged from the ghettoized neighborhoods at the urban core to the city fringes and city suburbs where developing neighborhood offered affordable housing and access to the business centers. For some, they moved into these neighborhoods with the intention of remaining there. For a good many others, it was a whistle stop, the starter house between the old world neighborhoods of the inner city and the new. This is where you firmed up your professional practice or got your business together, before moving into the suburbs where the single family ranch-style house, two car garage and shopping mall waited to greet you new found success.

But no matter, whether you were the steel work, plumber, or the fledgling young lawyer, the general perception was you were middle class. Forget about the junker car, the clothing bought from off-brand stores, the cheap food, and cramped living quarters. Forget the fact that many of the parents were only high school graduates if that, and a portion of their kids what never put their foot inside a college door. Forget all the parochialism, and rigid stricture of the immigrant and post-immigrant class. The perception was you were doing better then both the poor bastards who had been stuck in the old world, or the ones fortunate enough to make it here. They didn’t eat what they wanted, and they were lucky if they had a pair of shoes. You had two pairs of shows, your work shoes and dress shoes. You didn’t go hungry, and you had a car to drive and a place to drive it to. You weren’t among the poor wretches working in some cotton field or some old world factory, scuffling out a a buck. So you had to be middle class.

That’s what America was all about, wasn’t it? Being middle class. If you declared yourself middle class, you demonstrated you had arrived at least in some fashion. You were doing better than your ancestors. They, those poor working stiffs, would have envied you. And while you shunned some of the constraints of old world morality and bias, you embraced enough of the Calvinist sensibility of hard work and a lot of denial to register as one with the middle class. You wanted things, and in many practical cases you could actual buy them. Who among your ancestors in the Irish Famine or the dregs of Lower Slobovia, had ever heard of frozen produce or TV dinners? And here you were loaded with those wonderful Birds Eye boxes of frozen Green Giant deliciousness stored inside your all new Amana Freezer.

So now that no one was working class anymore, you had a nation of the middle class. That is with the exception of the rich or wealthy. And the poor. but the poor had nothing and weren’t going anywhere, so there was no real need to pay much attention to them, other than to cluck cluck about how pitiful it all is and call them poor no longer. Instead they are the underclass. Sounds better, anymore than middle class sounds better to blue collar workers than working class. Except the poor don’t really give a damn that they are now the underclass and not poor, as no word phrase shape shift half-assed magic is going to make them anything but poor. No dilemmas here.

An ultrasound should viagra from india online be the first step. As should be obvious, its all exceptionally straightforward and its difficult to happen here. generic levitra http://www.tonysplate.com/review_eatsmart_digital_nutrition_scale.php Many of you cheap viagra order tonysplate.com out there who are still unaware with this medicine. As an Affiliate Marketer, you effectively become cialis online from canada tonysplate.com the ‘middle man’, you help people online, to find products that they are looking for, so here’s a description on many of the forms of modeling. But enough of the poor. Nobody likes to talk about the poor, except Mother Theresa and the patrons of a charity dinner where a couple hundred cronies looking for a tax write off to appear noble honor a rich guy for his selflessness and generosity. And since Mother Theresa is dead, you won’t hear her going on and taking your time about the plight of the downtrodden and helpless.

So it’s the rich. Once upon a time the wealthy patrician class in this country, the people who ran things, didn’t call themselves the rich. In fact, in a vain effort to remain discreet, they didn’t call themselves anything at all. But then they didn’t have to. For one thing it was considered gauche and unacceptable. Crude. Everybody knew, anyway. Besides, if you start calling your self the wealthy class then some of the working class might want some of your money.

But then, as the emerging wealthy class, as opposed to the established, patrician wealthy class, the Kennedy’s and the Rockefeller’s and the like, began to make more money decorum went south for the season, and the neo-rich couldn’t resist flaunting their toys for all the world to see. The very concept of gauche and good taste put on its designer goodies and fled the MacMansion on a Gulfstream. Gross consumption was the word of the day, and those who had come by recent wealth were heralded in the cross media platforms as was heroes of the modern world. They were to be admired, envied…and copied.

So this meant that the real middle class and of course the upper middle class– as there had to be at least an attempted distinction between the middle-middle and the upper middle–went chasing after the formerly middle but emerging wealthy class. This meant the middle class wanted what the rich wanted, and the rich in this case were the oil barons, the bankers, real estate mavens, stock brokers, models, sports stars, and the twelve-year-old start up guys with a new kind of digital company. Of course, this group, traditionally, were not at the pinnacle of great taste and culture. But they had what they had, cretins or not, and the middle class wanted it, too. And since some of the middle class was also the working class, calling themselves the middle class, you had an unprecedented demand for what in marketing parlance is termed luxury items.

There is an inherent problem with luxury items. It is not always easy to determine what is truly a luxury item and what is not. Other than the price. Once upon a time the more discerning, the connoisseurs could discern the difference in quality from everything from food to furniture. They were educated in the nuance and distinction. They knew woods, fabric, drape, and workmanship. The ability to distinguish the good stuff from the mediocre was either self-learned or was part of the patrician package deal. Or, at the very least, there was some cultural flunky in access who could fill them in. How else were you going to be the ruling class and, no matter how discreetly, lord it over the masses if you didn’t know the difference between fine bone china and paper plates?

But that was a different world. In today’s world who has time to learn all this stuff? And even if you did, chances are in a cookie cutter world of mass consumption much of the luxury brands you are buying at premium prices are being knocked out by the same slave in the same factory in a village that ten years ago finally got running water.. So along comes branding. You don’t actually need to know what makes something worth more, what gives it special quality and craft, form and function. All you have to do is look at the label. If it costs a lot, then it’s quality. That’s it. As with romance, politics, human behavior, or the history of the Earth, let’s not meddle in complexities. Let’s instead carve it down to a few simple concepts that even the idiots in the cheap seats can understand.

So in the middle of all this, where in the hell is the working class? And, more so, in this world of only one constant, that of eternal confusion, how do you make the distinction between the working class and the middle class, even the upper middle class. The wealthy elite; that’s easy. Just look for the Gulfstream parked in he driveway. But it it is only an RV taking up space in the breezeway and clogging all the neighbor’s view is the family who owns it working class and prepped for the big weekends out at Lake Somewhere, or are they middle class with a penchant for the great theme park?

Tough call. What does make the difference between the working class and the middle class? Is it education? Breeding? Income? Is it where you buy your stuff? But then the same designer sweat socks you paid a fortune for on Monday are selling Friday in a big box store. So no go there. If we break it down to occupation, it is still pretty confusing. Typically, a plumber or landscaper is working class. But if he owns a company and has a fleet of fourteen trucks, and he raked it in big time in the housing boom, then maybe he is worth more than his station would indicate. Maybe he is a wealthy guy, not wealthy class wealthy but upper middle class. While, say the account executive or sales manager who should be middle or upper middle class has fallen on tough times in the economic downturn in an industry that is facing obsolescence is making the same salary as the manager of a Piggly Wiggly. If you go by salary, then maybe the troubled account executive is working class, or out of work entirely and desperately in search of a job. But I digress.

And what about the manager in the Piggly Wiggly? Is he working class or middle class? If he has his name labeled on his shirt, does it make a difference as to which class he is part of. We have to contemplate the station of the IT guy, the techno geek, wearing the torn Mickey Mouse Tee-Shirt he bought at someone’s yard sale in order to forget he is very much under the thumb of a multi-corporate structure, is he working class or middle class? As for the hooker, mentioned paragraphs ago. Where is she in the class structure? I guess as with any other commodity, it is a matter or pricing and volume.

So it would appear in the great socio-economic milieu that the working class is gone and forgotten. It is an archaic term, I suppose, in some ways. Everyone works, after all.

The Life and Times of the Counterfeit Erection

The head of the Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau for the Hong Kong Customs Office, recently reported that eighty percent of the counterfeit drugs seized are used to treat impotence. This means that despite all the diseases out there that require treatment, from heart disease to restless leg syndrome, the main concern is penis performance. The heart arteries could be blocked, and the diabetes count could be four hundred and change; lungs could be like toasted marshmallows from years of cigarette smoke, and the brain riddled with mad cow disease, but if the penis works, then all is well with the world.

Stiffening the penis is big money wherever you look. Between the lap dances and the porn sites, the sex junkets to Thailand, even the somewhat tame Victoria’s Secret Catalog, much of the international marketing thrust is designed for Chubby. There are colognes promising sex attraction through Pheromones and monkey sweat. There are any number of herbs and foods considered to be aphrodisiacs. Where the penis is concerned, the world is its oyster. We are not talking a few bucks here We are talking mega-billions.

In fact the manufacture and sale of imitation Viagra and other such drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction generates more profits than any other drug sold in China. Much of it is also exported. But there is for the world wide boner effort, plenty of pills to go around. Viagra and Cialis are the two most pervasive counterfeit drugs confiscated by customs officials. Needless to say, these drugs are not regulated, so they either consist of harmful adulterants that can give the user damaging side effects, or they are merely placebos that have little affect whatsoever. In all, it is a gamble that most customers are willing to take. The hope of a hard on is more promising than the fear of, say, a liver disease.

I find this remarkable on at least one level. The fact that consumers will take health risks for elusive or ephemeral benefits is really unremarkable. In fact, it is commonplace. People will use Botox in spite of some of the possible nerve damage it can cause. They will smoke, drink, take drugs to excess. They will have themselves peeled and snipped and will disregard any possible dangers. Hell, they will overlook all the warning signs of transmittable disease and come closing time go home with a disaster just waiting to happen. So, I suppose, why not at least have a pharmacological erection to accommodate that ill fated night you may long remember?

No, nothing remarkable about this. What is remarkable is the fact that after hundreds and even thousands of years of the Chinese pursuit of the heavenly hard on, they are resorting to Western medicine to achieve their desired erections. All those centuries of eating everything from deer antler, tiger penis, bear bladder, and even gall stones has not compared to the majestic little blue pill. Or the yellow one. So has all the years of imbibing Shark’s Fin Soup, Bull Dick and Testicle Soup, Ginseng, Rhino’s Horn, Sea Cucumber and Bird’s Nest Soup not produced the results that we were led to believe? One has to wonder if the desire for Western treatment for erectile dysfunction is because all that other crap doesn’t work, or it is largely the notion that downing Tiger Penis is a much tougher project than swallowing one small pill. Even with hot sauce, it is hard to imagine what culinary delights the Tiger Penis has to offer. Common sense would dictate it’s a lot easier to take the Viagra or Cialis and leave room in your stomach for some veggie fried rice or a nice, juicy steak. But then the exotic lure of Tiger Penis is something that has escaped me, to date, so maybe there is in the end an acquired taste.

Chinese medicine has been venerated for a fair number of years. Skeptics of Western medical practices, and there should be, believe me, have often extolled the virtue of Chinese Medicine. We are not just talking acupuncture here, but the herbs and foods that offer curative power. Chinese medicine is regarded highly in holistic circles as both reputable and in certain ways advanced in its understanding of the human body and the way certain diseases should be treated. I have used Chinese Medicine. So why, when there are nine million herbs, body parts, food sources and whatever that are over the centuries devoted to raising a woody, have the Chinese decided to eschew all that and switch over to the pill?

Perhaps it is the nifty commercials where a boomer band sits around singing “Viva Viagra,” at the top of its bar band lungs as if a group grope at closing time is their collective reward for playing bad cover songs. Or the kinder and gentler Cialis commercials where “when the moment is right for you.” Yeah, like painting a room might suddenly inspire the two of you to put down the rollers and climb down off of that ladder. I have wondered if the suggestion behind double bathtub commercial is that once the Cialis takes hold of Johnny Wonder it will drill through one tub into the other. Better than Popeye’s spinach.

You would think with all the Viagra buying, the Chinese would have a lot of sex on their minds. The idea of buying counterfeit Viagra, or Cialis, or Levitra, for that matter, I would think is to keep the cost down. If you are messing around just here and there, what’s few bucks more for the real thing. Okay, one reason for buying counterfeit may be the confidentiality. In China, where losing face, or whatever, is a big issue, the Chinese man may want to keep it on the low down that his thingie ain’t working. It’s not like here where we are not only singing about it, but bragging to our friends.
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Perhaps it is a quantitative thing and Chinese men have become a bunch of horny souls who thanks to the national surge in their economy are looking for love in all the wrong places. It could be they went from the bitterness of short money and a lot of starvation to feeling flush everywhere but down below. Deer Antler letting you down? Try Cialis. So there in the need for quantity comes forth the need for economy. Viagra and such is expensive. Counterfeit pills have to be a lot cheaper. But then it is more than a tad ironic that a nation trying to retain population control is defying the odds of pregnancy that is strongly propagated by an insistent erection.

But the Chinese have for at least the modern age been largely a prudish nation. Movies are often censored. National policy forbids pornography. Yet when it comes to illegal brothels the government looks the other way. Usually, the illegal brothels are fronted by a hair salon. What a rude awakening for the unsuspecting soul ventures there for a cut and perm. And since the “hair salons” proliferate Chinese cities, perhaps a pocketful of Viagra is necessary to just to work your way down the block.

In fairness, every nation has had its aphrodisiacs. There are oysters, chili, dog meat, yes, dog meat, more oysters,ginkgo, turtle eggs, and the skink. After awhile, it seems just about everything but liquor and ice cream will help men get it up. Of course, Western culture being what it is, nothing makes more sense than a single pill you pop an hour before your are ready to roll of the sofa and turn off the TV. Can’t argue with that.

Although there are certain Westerners who are taking issue with the Viagra culture. As the Daily Beast has dubbed them The Viagra Brigade, here are the women who at a certain age have had their sex drives diminished to levels of a more sedentary convenience. Now here they are, content to pursue other interests, coping with a horny husband. Some of these men make increased demands on these women, depending on the size of the prescription. And some go astray, complicating long term relationships by jumping the reservation and heading for the younger women world for that one last time around.

Geezers with an attitude. And then there are the younger women who married the wealthier older man for security, companionship, and a lot of nice things his money could buy her. Sex wasn’t really part of the package. but now she suddenly has to perform. Talk about an inconvenient truth.

Maybe had a way of telling us to slow down. Maybe, in the original master plan, with aging we were not about to reproduce so there was not much need for erections. Maybe, after a certain point, the penis may be working with a little help from its friends, but the rest of us is not quite up to snuff. There are aches and pains. The aging body hurts just when you get up in the morning, yet alone when you are having sex. So maybe we are in defiance of nature and the master plan.

But then again, maybe not. Maybe the crap we put into our systems that we call food creates diabetes and assorted ailments that are well known to cause erectile dysfunction. It’s possible being obese or a least a couple dozen pounds overweight may have something to do with the way the blood travels through the body. Maybe the sedentary life and our self-absorptions, preoccupations and worries, real and imagined, impair the sexual reflect. One could justify that screwing in the face of age and adversity is a grand act of defiance and of telling impending mortality to kiss our collective ass. Maybe after the BMW and the decorator everything sex and its resultant pleasure is one of the only things that really matters. After all, we have how many sexual thoughts per hour? I have long lost track.

So for the horny Chinese and the horny rest of us around the world, if you can’t take the heat, stay in the kitchen. Viva Viagra. If nothing else, it is one of the few things in this world that actually works.

The Enduring Easter Bunny Fetish

I was going to write something more serious when my eye caught a photo on the Sunday Los Angeles Times where two security guards were trying to wrest a large plastic trash bag from the hands of one of the prodigious street vendors working the downtown area. The large plastic trash bag was filled with rabbits. Easter rabbits.

It would make sense that come the Easter Holiday, rabbits would be a featured attraction in the hustling market area known as Santee Alley. Santee Alley is roughly ten square blocks and is centered by the alley itself where clustered stalls offer the shopper everything from cheap toys and electronics, to knock off designer jeans and counterfeit designer wallets and handbags, and the ubiquitous bootleg DVD’s. And animals. On any given day iguanas and large, green turtles are offered for sale, with the occasional chicken or rooster.

The vendors are a polyglot of ethnic diversity, a regular lower shelf market bazaar where unclaimed shipments from China and irregular offloads compete with the counterfeit accessories to attract the passersby. To be kind, Santee Alley is not typically filled with high earners, unless they are slumming or looking for the odd bargain on counterfeit purses they don’t mind carrying to buffer the bad economy while still impressing their friends. It is more the working class shopping mecca, mothers in toy with their multiple children, the in-laws and grandparents tootling on behind.

On weekends, the Santee Alley area is seriously crowded and to enter the Alley itself one does the slow shopping shuffle. Some vendors will proffer their wares, and others may whisper that lurking inside the canvas duffel bags or plastic garbage bags in the back of the stall some fine counterfeit handbags, wallets, jeans, DVD’s and whatever are waiting for your perusal. Some will claim they come from the same manufacturer as the original authentic designer version. Some are too bored to bother with any conceivable ruse.

But it is Easter time and there are rabbits. People often ask how rabbits came into the Easter story, but I have no definitive idea. Something about fertility, as with the eggs, those painted eggs, signifying fertility and renewal. If rabbits laid eggs it would be an easier legend to comprehend. But they don’t. So suffice it to say the fertility aspect of Easter is left to both mammals and fowl, humans notwithstanding. Humans having sex and multiplying, despite all Biblical notions, is something to be kept on the quiet. Even if the concept of human sex oddly is an obscure notion given the large families in Santee Alley.

But to the rabbits. So here are the rabbits in little cages, being offered for sale at the going rate of $20 apiece. That seems expensive, but then I am hardly the rabbit farmer of legend. In fact in my youth and relative innocence I had one bunny that I kept over Easter and then gave back to the pet store, once I discovered all rabbits really do is wiggle their noses and crap round turds just about everywhere they travel. But my brief rabbit ownership came a long time ago when the information network was confined to pretty much what your parents told you and what Cold War events were delivered on only three television stations. In one’s ignorance about esoteric things about rabbits and such, one just went with the flow until self-discovery changed the course of direction.

Of course these were the times when pet shops and farmers markets sold painted turtles and spray painted chickens, all done up in Easter colors of pink and yellow. For the most part, the whole Easter chicken and rabbit business was a genocide program. The dyes in the spray paint would usually kill the baby chicks soon after sale. Although I did have one friend who actually raised the chicken to maturity. It was so odd seeing a grown chicken living in a console television box in the basement of a row house. It was if nothing else a marked testament to survival.
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The turtles were year round and survived longer, despite the garish colored images that were spray painted on their shells. Longer here is a relative issue, as was survival. Everyone I knew had a story about the dog or cat eating the baby chicks and rabbits, or giving the rabbits to the neighbors where it was eaten for dinner the following night. The turtles would escape from their plastic bowls and either be eaten by the cats or lost to the crevices in the house or found a week later a victim of the rinse cycle on the washing machine.

But that was long ago. For the most part I thought the whole Easter Bunny fetish was long gone, along with the painted baby chicks, as the society has advanced and had access to information regarding the health and well being of these long eared creatures. I guess not. According to the Times article, the Bunny trade is booming. These are young rabbits that are not weaned and suffering from malnutrition. In all, buying one of these rabbits and taking it home gives a whole new meaning to dead on arrival.

But, either way, once purchased for the Big Easter pageant, the Easter Bunny is in for a real rough time. He is either DOA, perhaps a mercy killing given the choices. Or the rabbit who lives through the rigors of the holiday season may ultimately face extermination when he wears out his welcome. Perhaps as the main course for a Saturday dinner, if he miraculously manages to grow plump and mature.

The Los Angeles Security Guards and law enforcement authorities try their best to rein in the illegal Easter Bunny Business. They rescue these poor creatures and place them in a shelter where they at least have a chance to survive. The rabbits are fed kitten formula and colostrum pills. The ubiquitous lettuce the condemned rabbits are seen nibbling on ever so cutely will destroy the system of young rabbits.

Oh well…rabbits and lettuce…another myth all shot to hell. So this is pretty serious, after all. Happy Easter.

Puppetry of the Pearly Penile Papules

For many years now, the running commentary is that a man’s penis has a mind of its own. Or we have heard it said that the little head is in command of the big head. Maybe so. Maybe not.

But here is a case where a man’s penis should have maybe done the thinking for him. Apparently the big head was cajoled and pressured into thrusting the little head into public scrutiny, where both person and penis were met with derisive comments and otherwise embarrassing results.

According to an article the Courthouse News Service, a man has filed a complaint against CBS Television Network. The man alleges the producers of the reality show, “The Doctors” tricked him into discussing his laser surgery before a live studio audience. The laser surgery was intended to remove “pearly penile papules.” Pearly penile papules are seemingly harmless skin colored bumps or pimples that I’m sure do little to enhance one’s sex appeal.

The man contends that he contacted the doctor at the surgery center, in La Jolla, California, for an appointment to consult about this $4,500 surgery. A couple of days later, the would-be patient received a call from “The Doctors” requesting he appear on the show. The offended party contends that he was unduly pressured into appearing on the show. He wasn’t told about the live studio audience. The show was broadcast, he alleges, without his consent.

The man now claims he has suffered “relentless embarrassment and harassment.” He claims he receives less than complimentary phone calls and emails from friends and acquaintances who have commented on his television debut. We can only imagine the content of the voice mails and emails, but there is little doubt they can prove unnerving.

Honestly, I feel bad for the guy. He may have a case.; he may not. He may have been tricked or he may have imagined himself aglow in the light of celebrity. I don’t know. Television producers in need of willing and gullible subjects can be very persuasive. They can work their charms and hammer you in every way until your relinquish yourself to their programming needs.

In the mood of the times, it is flattering at first that you Joe Blow from wherever are suddenly a point of focus. It can bring some distraction to your everyday life. People will notice you. In a bad economy with jobs outsourced and not all that many prospects out there, you could make yourself famous. It’s like marathon dancing during the Great Depression. A long shot. And often painful.

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So when life is drab and your money is short, when Hollywood calls you may want to consider the possibilities. This is the age, after all, were privacy woefully lacks the currency it once had. In a bad economy, especially, you can’t make yourself rich and famous by secreting your most intimate biases, dreams, and sexual proclivities. Just walk down the street or stand on any elevator where someone is yammering away about their love life and not-so-secret desires. Do they care that you are standing around wondering what kind of imbecile makes all this known to the public? Not in the least. Either they don’t care or they want you to look at them, take notice, think of them as someone engaged in a life more exotic than its somber reality.

Integrity and decorum have long fallen by the wayside as the multitudes seek to gain the advantage over their peers by exhibiting themselves in some absurd fashion, by having more babies, uttering believed to be metaphysical by some and nonsense to the dwindling quantity of discerning minds. Couple this was the fact that most people are in fact functionally illiterate, so signing away their life on documents they are unable to read is more commonplace than ever before. They buy houses, cars, and get involved in get rich quick schemes by passing over the fine print. They claim in the aftermath that they were victimized by virtue that they were either incapable or too lazy to read the documents with which they were presented.

The quest for fame is even greater than the quest for sex. Both may be ephemeral and ultimately unsatisfying, but the quest for celebrity in this day and age is the strongest urge. The quest for celebrity emanates from conditions of alienation and anonymity. More often than not the feeling of one’s loneliness and insignificance can only be sated when not one but thousand or millions of eyes turn their eyes away from their iPhones and cast them onto you.

For that brief recognition people will subject themselves to damn near anything. They will have sex with animals or talk about their worst moments to their twenty million best friends. They will humiliate themselves at every level and willingly swap their dignity for celebrity with only the slightest bit of prompting. Where there once was a time where you had to pry out someone’s innermost secrets, in quest of celebrity you can’t shut them up.

What is remarkable is that someone who finds the cure for AIDS will have the same amount of celebrity as, say, the Octomom. There is no discrimination. Famous is famous. We may claim otherwise, but it’s not the truth. They are here and they are gone. Unless they manage in some way through some gift of accomplishment or media savvy to sustain our fickle attentions. Otherwise, they are off the show and back on their cell phones, pumping up their inflated sense of accomplishment.