Peace of mind is a valuable(some would say priceless commodity). As a nurse(male), I've always been proactive about monitoring my health status. That includes testing that might be distasteful or uncomfortable. My own personal experience with colonoscopy was unpleasant, but worth it. You will always regret an action deferred for fear of what you might find out. Knowledge is power. Aphorisms aside, when you choose to be ignorant, you cede control to others. It's just bad personal policy.

Ankh

Q

Why isn't the ACLU filing class action lawsuits in all 50 states on behalf of the disenfranchised? This is a concept that is embedded with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Moreover, why isn't the Democratic party taking some action against Republicans who freely admit that these laws favor them politically? Indeed, the Democrats are disenfranchised also.

Ankh

"The first was a sidis inversis, all the organs reversed left to right, a one-in-a-million mutation."

If memory serves, I believe it's "situs inversus". Also known as dextrocardia(actually a hallmark of situs inversus) or immotile cilia syndrome(50% of people with immotile cilia syndrome have situs inversus), it occurs in the womb when we're not much more than a clump of cells. Cilia, the tiny little, constantly waving hairs that clear stuff from our lungs, are responsible for moving our forming organs to their proper places and orientations within our bodies.

Internal organs in the chest and abdomen are reversed from their normal orientations.

Ankh

In this crazy, mixed up world, it MATTERS when you do something wrong. But it's WHAT matters that's wrong. Dubya has done all manner of things wrong, but his transgressions tend to be material rather than moral. And that's where the critical difference lies. We are conditioned to feel that material transgressions are hopelessly inevitable. We have no control. We're powerless.

In moral matters though, the barometer of our cultural psyche seems permanently pegged in the Puritan range. We howl in inchoate rage. Want to paint scarlet letters. Hurl stones. Rationality fails.

Garrison Keillor opines hopefully that in 20 years, none of this will matter. People will not be judged by their proclivities. I am more pessimistic. We deserve our fate.

A frightening thought indeed. But far more likely that there are direct pathways between the auditory centers and the target centers that have nothing to do with consciousness. Who can say what the quality of the demonstrated activity is, other than that it is virtually indistinguishable from that demonstrated in a normally functioning brain? As mentioned, no particular area of the brain is responsible for consciousness. If I step on the gas pedal of my car, the action of the throttle mechanism looks the same whether the car is running or not. But if the car's not running, I'm not going anywhere.

Until Bristol Palin is stoned to death by the rest of her family, I think it's rather hyperbolic to compare Sarah Palin to a fundamentalist Muslim cleric. Alaska is certainly more a bastion of free thinkers and independent souls than sheepish fundamentalists. I don't know that Palin's record as governor reflects the most egregious excesses illustrated in this piece. While I think that Palin is certainly a poor, albeit obviously manipulative and canny choice for McCain's VP, it doesn't help the Democratic cause to paint her with the same florid brush that Republicans are using on Obama.

I just can't believe Obama's campaign machine hasn't seized on the obvious line of attack, to wit:

Pics of McCain in his best maverick pose, morphing "Maverick" into "Loose Cannon" dovetailing into McCain's famous rendition of "Bomb-bomb-bomb....bomb-bomb-Iran".

I would gladly donate the rights to this bit of screenwriting to Obama's camp. Why don't the Dems strap on a pair and "pol" up?

One frustrated democrat.

I work on the supply end of the chain. I have been a critical care nurse for 25 years, salvaging transplantable organs from lifeless bodies. While I am not conventionally spiritual, I consider it sacred work and to the extent that I am able, do all I can to support donor initiatives.

That said, while I believe everyone should at least volunteer to be an organ donor after death, I don't believe anyone on the recipient end necessarily has a "right" to an organ transplant.

Just as the current system is unfair to the poor and minorities, a system which promised a quid pro quo to living donors in the form of insurance, etc. would unfairly motivate those same populations to consider living donation. And the very basis of that motivation would be wrong. A quick check of organ selling in third world countries bears this out.

How ethically comfortable would the author be if all her offers of donation came from people motivated by the need for health insurance instead of basic altruism?

I wish her a kidney, but I can't guarantee her one.

At the risk of being branded as naive or obtuse, I would posit that President Obama recognizes, as did Gerald Ford, that the country has more important things to do than get preoccupied with punishing past transgressions. Not that these things aren't worthy of examination, but Obama has bigger fish to fry, as did Ford and though it may cost him dearly in political capital, he can see the bigger picture and is willing to forego the short term pleasure of political bloodsport and pursue the far more elusive goal of substantive change in social policy.

Ankh

The former VP is now a private citizen. He retains his First Amemdment rights. That he chooses to assert them in an attempt to assassinate the current president's character and damage his policy initiatives is regretable, albeit defensible. He is a small, bitter and meanspirited man, too limited in vision to have held the office his puppet bestowed on him. But his tenure is over now. Let him continue to flog his hackneyed rant as we ignore him and move on. His bitterness will one day extinguish his wounded heart.

Ankh