Posts Tagged → Drugs
High in the Sky
Couldn’t find the 2009 one …… apologies …..
No one can deny it, we all did it at some point, we all wanted to go visit aliens some where, or see what the moon was like or walk on saturns rings (which I later found out were actually just tiny meteorites circling the planet ….. not all that solid.
But what is space travel really like? How long does it take? and what does it entail? Well, it takes us about 8 hours to get to the moon, which is not too bad I suppose …… however it takes about 2 years to get to Saturn …… which sucks balls given the fact that Ipod touches only last about 4 hours these days …….and lets not forget all those people who spend their time on the Space Stations, sometimes spending months at a time there …….
Furthermore, like most form of travel it does take it’s toll on a person, most those smiling, bright, and healthy people you see in those pictures will suffer from depression, motion sickness, radiation exposure and depressed immunity, many will also loose alot of their muscle mass and bone mass as well, making their bones as floppy as a toddlers (try and squeeze a babies head …… feels like a bouncy ball !)
The low gravity environment also makes it very hard to keep anything down, many astronauts tend to get very nauseous, head ache prone and dizzy while in space.
So how do space cadets fight off the blues, upchucking and muscle loss? The answer is quite simple …….. drugs …….
Most NASA space travelers take uppers (smart pills that get you high and keep you awake for days at a time, the most used of which is provigil), they also take a combination of a drug called scopolamine and another dexedrine which when combined will turn you into a zombie which can think for it self (the best way to think about it is that they take the scopolamine to subdue their emotions and bowel so that they don’t get nausea or cabin fever and combine it with dexedrine which will boost their productivity and keep them on course (pun intended)).
It’s interesting that Scoplamine was first used in mind control experiments by the CIA in the 1950′s, then by the colombian cartel to turn human trafficking victims into zombies and subsequently by NASA to make ships fly straight and stop pilots from killing each other …………
NASA is also training their latest crop of Buzz Lightyears to restrain and subdue each other then induce comas on each other just in case one of the crew becomes unruly.
They’re also trying to use stem cells to keep peoples bodies growing while in space.
So if you want to become an astronaut you need to:
a) develop a drug habit
b) turn yourself into a zombie for weeks on end
c) Be able to with stand a 6 month flight to mars and back.
d) Have the heart to tie down and drug up other crew members.
e) Live with no TV or good music for a while
f) be content with not having the same mobility you had prior to flight and end up being hobbled the minute you step back on earth.
Fuck it …….. the cool space suite ain’t worth it ……. I’m sticking to weekends in Bahrain …….
The Boys and The Girls
We’ve all been there, seen it or done it ….. Barbies …….. we’ve all heard of, seen, or owned a barbie doll at some point …….. this fact might be embarrassing to about half the people reading this right now. You see for girls this was the ultimate in awesome ….. the best-est thing ever. Most boys however, would be embarrassed by the fact that they like barbie dolls at the age of four, or harboured a secret collection of barbies dating back to the 80′s but what does it really mean?
If you ask people of our generation (well at least the more liberal folk) they’ll usually tell you it means nothing and that there’s nothing wrong with it; probably a “stage” the person you’re going through. However, those of us born in the 60′s, 50′s and 40′s would probably see it as blasphemy of some sort or other (yes, I am referring to the Kuwaiti population as opposed to the population in general and I know I might be over generalising …… but I can …. so live with it)
But is there really nothing wrong with it? Is it really just a toy or is there a difference between boys and girls and the way they see perceive toys? It’s very hard to pin point, in fact it would be damn near impossible if it weren’t for the magic of google ……
Using googles eye-tracking tech psychologists at Texas A & M took a group of 30 toddlers (3-8 month old boys and girls) and put a doll and a toy truck in front of them then gawked at them. The results of this admittedly less than scientific test are rather interesting.
For one thing most of the girls went for the doll and kept staring at the doll (particularly the face) and really wanted it where are boys just couldn’t decide, half of them went for the doll while the other half went for the truck, worst still …… the boys took longer to make their decision (about 25% longer) which means that we are probably born thicker than the girls are …….
But seriously, what could we gain from such an arbitrary study? Should we assume that we’re born liking trucks or dolls? Or that boys like both while girls like one or the other? That a girl is born a girl while boys might be open to gender identity disorder?
The authors of the study claim that it mirrors other such as the one of monkeys, the one where they compared pink and blue preference, in that it proves that gender identity dictates preference (boy like cars because boys are meant to, girls like dolls because they are meant to). I think they are wrong and am arrogant enough to say so.
The study could mean that girls like things that look like humans because they like role play (every girls fantasy is being the bell of the ball/princess/all dressed in white or something to do with role play), boys tend to enjoy playing, messing around etc …… even into adulthood. But that’s probably wrong too.
I think it illustrates a far more boring and mundane point; we are influenced easily by social interactions with our parents as kids. We don’t know what we want, but we know what our parents want us to want because of clues they give us. If my father plays with the toy truck while I’m around him and encourages me to do the same while he tends to ignore me when I play with the barbie doll or even take it away from me then chances are I’m going to go with the truck because I want human interaction. If my mother buys me a toy truck and smiles when she sees me playing with it and does the same when my sister plays with her dolls then it must mean that I’m meant to have the truck while my sister is meant to have the doll regardless of my gender and if my truck has brighter colors than chances are it will seem more interesting to me as a toddler, especially when compared with a texture less doll.
Now the naysayers and firm believers among us would counter that my argument doesn’t explain why boys took longer to decide than girls. The answer lies in how easily influenced we are as kids by our parents, boys may not understand social cues as well as girls do or they may not even get the same amount of attention which is why they tend to take longer to decide, just look at how much women say when they gawk at each other at the local Starbucks for gods sake …. isnt that proof enough ……
Still whether you’re with me or with the original authors you can let them know what you think by emailing them
Ink.
Happy Eid …….
oh and Yes, I am a fan …….
You’ve gotta love tattoos whether it’s the “fake” ones that come with bubble gum packs that you lick and stick, hennah tattoos or the more traditional type, tattoos have often been seen as a fashion statement or a form of self expression. Personally I’ve always been a fan of them for various resons, namely the fact that that they just look cool no matter how you slice it.
They’ve actually been around since the 5th centruy BC and were found on human popsicles that date back to that era, and have been used in darker times to identify prisoners of war and by doctors (well …. witch doctors) for everything from fertility to acupuncture) and is still used to mark out areas for radiotherapy and to fashion nipples in breast reconstruction.
By and large tattoos have had a bad name …. for the most part people tend to associate them the unsaviory which is rather unfortunate and pretty darn wrong as a couple of plastic surgeons from poland came to find out in their european study.
Dr Antoszewski and his team conducted a suvey within their community asking why people got tattooed, when they got tattooed and whether they have more than one and the results are quiet interesting. For one thing most men get tattoos rather than piercing first where as (for obvious reasons ….. i.e. their mother wanted cute pictures of them) most women tended toget pierced first and for the most part people tended to get on average 3 tattoos over their life time. Also, most people were motivated by trying to express a certain aspect of their identity rather than pee pressure (a close second) where as most people got pierced ’cause of peer pressure. They also found that whether it was tattoos or pieced hoo hoo’s social background and drug taking/risk taking behaviour were not as closely linked as other surveys had shown, meaning that the image of a coke snorting, herion mainlining, toothless disease vagrant is dieing down in tattoo culture. Granted few rocket scientist get them but since when did rocket scientists have a sense of style or identity; they;re usually the annoying kid in class who kept breaking the curve and had his mother check his homework.
Another survey conducted by a dermatolgist, Dr Armstrong hailing from Texas Tech asked people why they wanted their tattoos off. For the most part people tended to get rid of tattoos because they’ve experienced a major shift in their personality such as finding God, a change of lifestyle or risk of social stigma given their current jobs, they also found that women tended to choose to keep their tattoos for them selves and pick areas that are hidden by clothing while men tended to want to chow them off picking their arms and for arms as the site of choice and that people tended to get rid of their tattoos about 20 years after they get them done.
And yes, unfortunately like most surgical procedures tattoos and piercings tend to harbor a risk of HIV, heptitis C and various other infections of the skin and do require care after the procedure to prevent things like keloids and scarring but I’m quick to point out that those risks are fairly minimal thanks to regulation of the industry in most countires and the introduction or sterile tattoo equipment.
It’s very hard not to think that tattoos are more so associated with our over all need for self expression that we’ve come to enjoy these days, just take a look at ur social networking sites, twitter and blogs, we’ve become people who like to scream it loud and proud and tattoos are just one more medium. Another thing that seems evident from these studies is that alot of people tend to regret tattoos that aren’t associated with personal meanings, in other words you wont regret a tattoo that means something to you (well you’re less likely to hate them in 10 years time)
Condoms ….. Plastic Bullet of Doom.
As you may have gathered, I am a firm believer in the condom. As far as I’m concerned it is the bestest invention ever. Beats TV, the internet and even fermentation (where would we be without cheese and liban ……and yes even the Jesus juice too). However, recent studies seemed to have found a rather interesting/worrying side effect to safe sex.
It seems that in a fair percentage of cases penile vaginal intercourse without a condom can be a good thing as a recent article published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour suggests. Apparently consistent condom use is linked to such dangers as psycholigical immaturity (we don’t develop the right tools to deal with emotions) and lack of ability to deal with stress. Further more some other articles advocate penile-vaginal sex as a method to control blood pressure, heart rate and over all health, (all of these benefits apparently do not apply when there’s a piece of plastic in the way.
These rather bold statements on the medical marvel and much negated cure all that is unprotected vaginal sex have lead me to try and find out why that piece of plastic keeps fucking things up. One reason could be that the fumbling pisses both partners off and leads to elevated blood pressure, another could be the fact the pain related to the guy thinking he has to stick his ding dong in fast and furious till the girl has rug burns …… but by far the most interesting reasons I’ve found both have to do with seminal fluid-spunk.
The first is the apparent antidepressant properties of sperm (why I spent my money on weed in college is beyond me …….strike that ….. I don’t swing both ways ….. oh well ) and the other is that unprotected vaginal sex apparently helps you fight off HIV by boosting certain allo-immune factors (I failed immunology so you’ll have to forgive me if I’ve gotten this wrong).
Now I’m one of those people who thinks that everything and anything in medical literature should be published. We have loads of quack doctors running around as it stands so matters can’t get that much worse and the state the FDA is in at the moment drug companies can be feeding you cyanide tablets for shits and giggles and it’d be legal. However even with a publishing track record like mine (drivel of the highest order …..especially during the college years …. I cringe at how vain I was to think that I could change the world with just one typo-laden, ethically biased article) you’d have to be insane not to see that there is some bias in some of these papers. (all links are click-able and I encourage you to read the individual papers if you have the time).
For one thing none papers on semen analysis were conducted using monogamous couple only and did not offer a baseline or compared polygamous/polyamorous relationships, gay relationships or relationships involving sporadic condom use. Secondly the semen is the new prozac article doesn’t even tell you which compounds in semen act as antidepressents, so it’s the scientific equivalent of if you breath air between the ages of 12 and 18 you will grow tall very quickly.Plus there’s another point to be made, the semen explains why women benefit from unprotected sex but does not explain why men do …….
And as for the articles with the running commentry on how using a condom with make you go crazy, get depressed and lord knows what else ….. you have to bear in mind that most of these articles were written or co-written by the same person – Stuart Brody. PhD. Now he may have a point (I’ll confess I haven’t read everything he’s written and lord knows the guy can churn them out faster than a catholic family pops out babies) somewhere but I sincerely doubt that his rather erm …. rather controversially article “Lack of evidence for transmission of human immunodeficiency virus through vaginal intercourse.” would aid his credibility.
We all love being mavericks and expecially when it come to sex …… after all …. some would argue that everything we do revolves around our evolutionary impertive to “boom boom pow” as it were. However conducting a survey and saying that the reason why people should not think that vaginal intercourse is strongly linked to HIV is because of the” intellectual limitations of some respondents resulted in seropositive subjects failing to report anal intercourse or iv activity. Such failure often resulted in attributing HIV spread to vaginal intercourse.” Meaning that he wasn’t sure if the people he surveyed were fucked up the arse, shot up herione or bought condoms before they were involved in the study and there for can’t prove that vaginal sex actually lead to them getting HIV. Kind of like saying because people tend to smoke, drive cars and use mobile phones you can’t prove that people die in a car crash, they could have died because of smoking.
So I suppose the point behind this post is not to believe everything you read, most of the stuff we’ll read over the next couple of years of our lives will be manipulated, processed and doctored to suite people needs; sure I could have talked about any number of other studies and cure alls but this seemed the most interesting for numerous reasons.
Another interesting thing to look out for is when/how Brody’s work will be interpreted and used by the religious right …….. food for thought I say ……
Yes, here’s his email stuartbrody@hotmail.com. Have fun …….
You can’t go wrong if you shield your dong*
Yes, a boring sex ed. post ….. apologies ……
Tis the summer and we are all in heat, and this while being largely accepted as a good thing (who wouldn’t enjoy a roll in the hey once or twice a week with their loved one or “special friend” or “paid partner” or “friend who always gets you gifts for a good time” whoever he/she may be) is also a major cause of heart ache at your local casualty because it means that the ever diligent (yeah right) casualty officer will have to face a hoard of itchy hoo hoos and burning pee pees who’s numbers would make Globals debt look like spare change …. the poor bastard will be rolling in your STDs, you filthy horny mongrels ……… Imagine the poor man examining one of you and then eating a sandwich …. with his hands …..ugh ….. (he won’t be able to tell whether the smell was blue cheese or the remnants of your nether regions ……. )
Yes, I am talking about condoms and before everyone claims that they always use the damn things and know how to use them let me provide you with some numbers:
- Less than 25% of our age group uses condoms consitantly, when asked most of us say it’s because “s/he’s clean”, or “I was drunk” or “I couldn’t remember” or the ever so intelligent “I don’t need one”. Good news is about 95% of us do use condoms every now and then…… we’re just not smart enough to turn it into a habit ….. Damn monkeys that we* are ……
- The excuses given by the 18-30 year olds in the above study are garbage. Statistically speaking the only think that influences your likelihood of using condoms is what the boffins call ” safer sex negotiations” meaning … “Honey, I need you to wear a condom” ……. or in our case “7abeeby ’7an roo7 Boots” and apparently neither horneyness, alcohol, “the mood”, anger nor excitement have anything to do with it in the big scheme of things.
- Your negotiation skills are directly related to the amount of sex education you’ve had as a kid .….. which tells us exactly why Lipton Chai Latte outsells Condoms in this country ……..
So the take home message is that we need to buy more condoms and spend more time learning to wear them (or making our partners wear them), besides if you think about it over 500 years of R’n'D can’t be wrong really …….
Condoms were first used in 1490 during the syphilis outbreak( ….. it has been 500 years and people still come into hospital with burning urine ……) and since then we’ve gone from condoms made from intestines, to sheep skin condoms (still in use for those of us with allergies), to latex ones (very popular) and the female condom (not quite as popular, I blame the fiddliness of the damn thing …. diaphragms are a far better option IMHO), to spray-ondoms and even custom fitted ones for those of us who might be a little too well endowed (or otherwise perhaps) , there was even an anti-rape female condom developed at one point (the damn thing was a tampon with needles on the inside …… that way you could ensnare your assailant in yer hoo hoo as it were ….. very morbid indeed).
And whenever safe sex has come up in conversation we always end up talking about failure rates ….. yes, the failure rates …… I’ll put it to you this way: Like the seat belt you’re better off with it than without it and here are some fun facts to prove the point:
- In terms of preventing pregnancy condoms have a failure rate of 2 percent. That means for every hundred times you get laid and wear a condom you should expect expect to see two kids who look a little like you to show up at your doorstep at some point.
- In terms of reducing HIV condoms have reduced the risk by approximately 85% over recent years, bringing it down to 0.9 per 100 people per year (basically if you were HIV positive you would have to sleep with 1000 people with condoms to get 9 of them infected per year …… )
- Condoms also reduce the risks of genital herpes, genital warts, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and other diseases by varying rates as well (no less than 70% ….. I’m too lazy to look all of them up).
Lastly, yes, the and pollution and waste produced by condoms is significant and their manufacture does introduce various carcinogens into our bodies but the amounts are so small that they literally don’t count and the manufacturing process used to make condoms has about a tenth of the carbon foot print required to make that pink iPhone case you bought the other day ……
Oh and YES, YOU SHOULD WEAR CONDOMS DURING ORAL SEX YOU FUCKING TURNIPS …….. HOW DO YOU THINK YOU GET HERPES FROM COLD SOARS AND COLD SOARS FROM HERPES ……… THEY’RE THE SAME THING YOU GIMPS …….
*Alternative titles that would have worked just as well:
Cover your stump before you hump
Before you attack her, wrap your whacker
Don’t be silly, protect your willy
When in doubt, shroud your spout
Don’t be a loner, cover your boner
If you’re not going to sack it, go home and whack it
If you think she’s spunky, cover your monkey
If you slip between her thighs, be sure to condomize
It will be sweeter if you wrap your peter
She won’t get sick if you wrap your dick
If you go into heat, package your meat
While you’re undressing venus, dress up your penis
When you take off her pants and blouse, slip up your trouser mouse
Especially in December, gift wrap your member
Don’t be a fool, vulcanize your tool
The right selection will protect your erection
Wrap it in foil before checking her oil
A crank with armor will never harm her
No glove, no love!
Mary Roach, A Woman After my Own Heart
Not really a post more like a showcase of one of my favorite contemporary writers and a woman after my own heart. You’ll also notice that I’ve changed the theme to something that looks a little like the original theme the site started off with (aptly named “Doc”). You can blame plastic for the face lift …… who says black and green can’t work together ……
For more info on Mary Roach (the woman in the youtube video) please visit her website. She’s one of the finest scientific writers I’ve come across in a long while and has published 3 books (Stiff and Spook on death and the afterlife and Bonk on sex and sexuality) all of which have been more of an influence than most of the big wigs you’re likely to meet at any medical school.Ms Roach if you’re reading this please allow me to extend my services as an intern in perpetuity …….
Smoking …… The Next Green Tea?!?!?!!?
Fuck you Marlboro Man!
I thought I was going to be riding a horse and have balls as big as boulders by my third packet! Instead I hawk up a lung every morning ……. goddammit* !
We all smoke from time to time. Some of us rarely, some with that occasional drink, some of us indoors or in our cars and others at various cafes.But despite our best efforts to get addicted to the stuff smoking has been in overall decline over the past 40 years as more and more of us tend to fear loosing our lungs to a little white stick.
Despite this rather sharp decline and the tax hike that Mr Obama has instigated (120% …… two thumbs up my friend ….. kudos …. now all you have to do is legalize marijuana and you’d be the bestest president ever) the industry continues to flourish and provide people with jobs in many south american countries and well we can’t just fire them all once the world is rid of smoking. Can we?What would the implications be? Will people revolt in certain countries? Will it add to the recession? Will we suddenly get an influx of kidney donations from various less than well off countries?
Or will the industry try and save itself? Surely there must be some benefit to smoking….. there’s no way something that looks this cool could be all that bad, could it?
Sadly, the tobacco plant in it’s current form will probably kill you and has about as much nutrition as prison gruel but thanks to (corrupt? Well paid? Benson and Hedges Sponsored?) researchers at the University of Verona in Italy there might not be the end for smoking or the Big Tabacco. Professor Mario Pezzotti and his team of researchers have been trying their hand at genetically engineering a strain of the plant that produces interleukin 10 (IL 10) a chemical which is naturally produced in our bodies and may be beneficial in the treatment of various immune and inflammatory disorders. The team have now manged to get the plant to produce the substance in 3 different compartments and in very ample amounts.
They’re now planning to start testing it on rodent models as a potential treatment for type 1 diabetes and the initial results seem quite promising. It’s ironic that a plant that we have now labeled as toxic may soon be considered main stay therapy for many conditions such as auto0immune arthritis, diabetes and other conditions. Worse still, every single smoker will rejoice as health spas will soon be offering you an post massage choice of Cigar, Pipe or cigarette. Could tobacco be the next green tea? Or (far more likely) could the tabacco industry have finally found some way to unshackle themselves from ad companies and their cheesy over used Ad campaigns designed to make smoking look cool ?!?!!?!? Is this the death and return of big tabacco? and will the institute of tobacco research actually work towards curing disease?
More importantly how much did it cost Benson, Hedges and the rest of the gang to genetically engineer that strain of Tabacco and when will I be able to prescribe my first cigarette to a four year old for the sake of his health?
* For the record I rarely smoke more than once a week and almost never cigarrettes. The implication that I’m a chain smoker only helps to get the point accross better …… I’m a big fat liar …. apologies …..
Curing Cancer….. Yes it is worth it ……
Apologies …… I’m actually going to try and argue out a serious point here ….. and yes, I am well aware that the fine people who run Q8Health could probably do a better job at this sort of thing* (serious medical stuff …. involving educated arguments, etc.)….. I just thought I’d give it a go anyway …..
We’ve all been touched by cancer. We all know what it feels like and are well aware that there is never a happy ending, only some comfort in the fact that a person is eventually cured. We also know that the ministry spends alot of money ….. far more than most other government institutions and rarely has to face cutbacks despite under-performance year in and year-out; not to mention the fact that we’ve become one of German Healthcares’ top ten sources of income and have spent so much at The London Clinic we practically own the damn thing.
So when someone finds a vaccine for cervical cancer (fifth most deadly cancer in women worldwide) . (the cervix is the front part of the uterus…….. it’s kind of like the bumper ….) you’d expect our people to be all over it (if only so that Dar Al Shifa, Royal Hayat and the other ones can fill their coffers).
And just so we’re clear we’re not talking about some vaccine based on sharks cartilage, Chinese herbs or chanting like some Sherpa, we’re talking about a 3 – shot vaccine (sorry girls …. it’s either 3 needles or cancer ….. you just have to tough it out I’m afraid). And the best part is that it actually does work and has undergone numerous clinical trials (with practically no side effects).
A Specimen of a uterus and cervix …. the big ball is the cancer … well a tumor … it may not be cancer … but it does look like it.
The drug itself (known as Gardasil) doesn’t actually kill cancer cells, instead it provides women with immunity against the leading cause of the cancer (the human papilloma virus). The virus is in most of the male and female population by their late teens (in most countries) and is also the leading cause of genital warts (the things that stick out like skin tags …. commonly present as anal warts in our 16-20 female population …. I wonder why …. ). At the moment it’s only approved for 12-16 year old girls who are not sexually active and have therefor yet to be exposed to the virus but is probably safe for the general population.
At a time when our healthcare budget is about 962 million and we spend well over 100 million KD trying to give people a summer vacation in Germany while some distant relative gets his tooth taken out, surely we can afford to spend a couple of million instigating what could be a landmark campaign against cancer. For one thing the drug itself doesn’t cost all that much (about 300-500 dollars per person …. which isn’t alot for a cancer cure …. if it were me I’d charge you bastards at least 2 grand a piece ….. and yes, that is in KD) and our population isn’t all the big. Then there’s the fact that we have a department in every hospital specifically assigned to giving out vaccines (It’s the public call it Preventive Medicine …… we call it medical nirvana …. no sick leave, no fights, no sick patients and no dead people).
So using the numbers from the CIA world factbook (apparently we have a population of 2,596,799 (including expats and those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to have full citizenship) and a below 14 female population of 338,634) which when multiplied by the cost of the vaccine (500 dollars) and a 30% markup the local drug dealers (= people who have distribution rights in the country and tend to peg the prices according to arbitrary numbers their kids dialed on their mobile phones) would amount to a grand total of about $220,112,100 and sure 220 million dollars (64,399,298.03 KD) is alot but it’s only a 6.7 percent increase in our total healthcare budget for this year (2009-2010) and would make sense economically since the cost to treat cervical cancer in Kuwait is astronomical (everybody wants to go to Germany or the States and those who don’t end up having to wait for aaaages to get any treatment)
It would also do our side (I can’t believe I just referred to the ministry of health as “our side” … ugh ….. ) a world of good in terms of publicity (especially after that video with the babies head pulled off …. and yes, from what I’ve heard it was a still birth ….. just steer clear of a romanian midwafe at Jahrah … just incase … ) if they were one of the first middle eastern countries to “cure” cervical cancer (it’d be like the good old days …… before leopard hijabes, annoying stickers and idiots who over do it with the hair straightener ….. the fuckwits).
However as with any form of progress and any ideas which actually involve thinking and enthusiasm it’ll probably never see the light of day ….. we still don’t have it available in the damn country …… oh well …….
At least people in the U.K. might get lucky ……..
* No, I’m not being sarcastic, I actually think that you’re one of the very few places on the internet where public healthcare reform in Kuwait is actually being discussed in a correct and mature manner.
Roxannne …… Put on the Red Light…….*
I wasn’t going to post this originally and expect a rather negative response ….. for the most part many of you will think I’m being sexist, making fun of women or mean to degrade them …… this is largely untrue …. I’m only shedding some light on a topic rarely discussed and have the utmost respect for most people regardless of their gender …..
Some days most days I wish I was him …..
Hookers, whores and call girls ……. perhaps I can sympathize with them because my calling involves largely the same hardships; we both work odd hours, are subjected to a fucked up system with rude and crude clientele or patients and rarely (if ever) get any thanks for it. Infact for the most part both medical staff and prostitutes get named and shamed in the papers regularly despite the best efforts of many working in their respective indutry(ies).
Like working for the Ministry of Health, prostitution subjects workers to violent people, those who are lurid and ofcourse the scorn of society for what is viewed as wrong, perverse, arrogant and generally rancid task that ought to be banned or at least regulated. And prostitution holds the same false stereotypes as healthcare does in terms of economic yield as everyone assumes that you’re making a boat load of cash …….. No I don’t drive round in a Bentley ……. and yes my daddy promised me I’d be rolling in it once I got through medical school ………. It’s been a while and the money still hasn’t started rolling in ……
Despite what most people think and the moral views held by our society prostitution is infact on the rise and although I have absolutely no data to support this a trip to your local casualty coupled with a 3 day trip to any given Dubai/Bahraini hotel would argue in my favor far better than any statistics ever could (and before you ask I’ve yet to pay for sex …… although it’s been a while ……. maybe I should book that room at the Grosvenor …… oh wait my salary means I can’t afford it ….. damn ….. wish I taught English lit. ….. at least I’d enjoy teaching kids Bukowski and getting slammed by the Students Union for it ….. ).
Ofcourse our fair ladies of the night are thought to be disease ridden, filthy, slime cunted and addicted to heroin. THIS IS GARBAGE; the industry is pretty darn healthy as the CDC (American Centre Center for Disease Control) recently revealed that the prevalence of HIV in the industry is far less than that of the general population (another stereotype put to rest); this ofcourse is based on a very limited study and does not take into account prostitution as a result of human trafficking and other illegal and largely inhumane activities which should be banned for the sake of both our industries …….yes, I do have a heart and a moral imperitive; though I rarely choose to act upon it ………
I’ve also always found it interesting how clients relate to prostitution and how they feel about it; most people I’ve talked to seem to mirror what most studies have concluded. They say that it’s because it’s easier, less complicated and you get exactly what you want from the relationship namely some fun, drinking and dancing and none of the drama everyone is afraid of essentially none of the maintenance and all of the benefits of a fun ride (no pun intended). I’ve personally always loved the drama that comes with a relationship; the fights, the making up, the going out to restaurants that nobody else goes to for fear of seeing someone you know …… fucking brilliant …. especially the fights ….. I could never keep a straight face and would end up laughing through the whole thing ….. explains why the longest relationship I’ve had lasted 2 weeks ….. I digress ….. apologies ….
I also think that there’s also a need for female contact that many people in our society lack, this makes social development skewed and by and large leads to a person going for a paid discreet type of thing rather than an awkward courtship which most people won’t approve of in the first place. Then there’s also the simple excuse for going to a hooker ….. “she’s fuckin’ hot and I’m fucking horny” …….. This is especially true of my married bretheren who seem to think that they have to cheat on thier wives as a requirement after a certain age …… fucking idiots don’t know when they have a good thing going ….
But then again some reports seem to say that most prostitutes tend to hate their job, want to kill themselves and have suffered some form of childhood trauma. I suppose that’s another thing that it has with medicine, we all hear about the good doctors who honestly enjoy their work and those of us who are abused by it and just want to die or kill the bastards who come in sick everyday …..
At the end of the day I doubt that anybody would be happy about or enjoy the idea of prostitution being on the rise but unless and until we become more mature in the way we handle relationships with the opposite sex its just one more thing we all know exists but never talk about (making it one of many industries that’ll never have health and safety standards, moral ones or any form of sanctioned regulation ……)
And anyone who thinks that prostitutes deserve to get raped, beaten and drugged up should just have a conversation with one of them at their local casualty …….. you can’t help but salute our working women for the shit they have to put up with day in and day out ….. from the law, society and the four year old adults they serve day in and day out.
*Yes, sting is infact the shit ……
Chinese Democracy
Healthcare in Kuwait is abysmal, it’s kind of like working in a giant cookie factory and seeing all the cookies come out burnt to a crisp or being eaten by one of your co-workers (the one that weighs about as much as the factory does) thus leaving you unfulfilled by all the work you put in and leaving your factory in ruin …….
When I first got here I thought it was because we had substandard equipment ….. it turns out that we have a surplus of most equipment in most departments (except for disposables such as gloves, sutures etc ….. something tells me that the sutures tend to end up in my colleagues private clinics while the gloves magically turn into balloons for their kids birthdays).
I then got to thinking that maybe it’s because of the doctors themselves, if you think about it most of them are lazy bastards who end up skiving off work by the time they get their consultancy (it’s kind of like being the five star general in healthcare) …. which got me thinking that it’s an administrative/ human relations problem and that employing a “carrot and stick method” (Yes, I am trying out some new vocabulary here and no, I do not feel comfortable with it yet ….. it’ll grow on me though …. ) may be the key to solving all our problems; I assumed that if you gave the big wigs enough incentives then productivity would increase …… turns out all the incentives were always there and in traditional Kuwaiti fashion they all got all their bonuses regardless of whether they showed up for work or not and lets face it ….. I’ve yet to see a Kuwaiti doctor get fired over here ……. so there’s no use in implementing any sort of incentive scheme or an ombudsman (kind of like a department that watches over all the other ones …. think of it as quality control with fangs of steel) of any kind.
And after spending some time with my patients I thought that it was all their fault. Most patients don’t understand the difference between a doctor, a physiotherapist, a nurse or a maid and the vast majority tend to take you for granted and walk in with the preconception that there are only two types of doctors in this world ….. the blonde* ones who know their shit and the dark haired flunkies who will use you as a lab rat.
Furthermore most people tend to use their local casualty service as their family practitioner, surgeon, cardiologist, bone doctor and chemist all in one department and refuse to wait more than ten seconds to be seen and then rip his/her head off for not being a morning person or even worse for not knowing the diagnosis right off the bat. But I suppose that’s not it either since most people do infact attempt to get to the polyclinic (mistawsif) only to find that the doctor they were hoping to see is infact the medical equivalent of a dildo in an all male orgy (why go for the plastic stuff that’ll chafe the hell out of yer asshole when the real thing is just fifteen minutes away)
Which is why after spending the past couple of years working as one of the low level grunts in said factory, I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to introduce good/adequate healthcare in this country is infact just like trying to introduce Democracy in The Peoples Republic of China. It’s a goal that is not attainable for far too many reasons to list.
The way we’re going about healthcare over here would be the equivalent of demanding elections in China, buying them electronic polling machines, allowing the public to cast their votes and then throwing a hissy fit when the communist party is voted back into government because that’s the only thing the Chinese have been introduced to and the only party they feel threatened by.
The Ministry of Health have gone through the trouble of buying multi million dollar equipment, building multiple polyclinics (mustawsafat) as well as multiple general and specialized hospitals without explaining to ANYBODY how they work, what their responsibilities are and how a person should go about getting a checkup, colonoscopy or even a routine x-ray done.
They’ve sent people abroad for upto 10 years to train in surgery, medicine and trauma and psychiatry only to bring them back and tell them to work as low level grunts without giving them any orientation, objectives or motivation and have made it so that even the home grown doctors from the local university feel neglected after their first year.
Worst of all is the attitude patients assume as a result of the current system and standard of care, most patients will automatically think that the standard of care they’re receiving depends on their nationality, willingness to pay fees for tests, background history (alcoholic, drug addicted or just plain happy go lucky), family background and lastly how scared doctors and nurses are of them; which is why many patients tend to complain about the smallest things and many nurses/doctors end up having the crap beaten out of them at some point in their careers.
I really can’t see the current healthcare system improving over the next couple of years, no matter how many times our ministers get changed and how many hospitals they plan to build; the fact of the matter is that the damn thing was forged from parts that can never be mended.
Cover of the album that took over a decade to be released …. only by the time it was done nobody really cared …..
And if/when they do get it right like the Guns and Roses album aptly named “Chinese Democracy” it’ll be too little too late ……..
* Yes, you read correctly in the Kuwaiti Healthcare system blondes are considered smart ……… goddamn it we’re fucked …..
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