RIP Bartcop, one of the first liberal bloggers

Blogger Terry R. "Bartcop" Coppage died Feb. 7 of complications from flu, pneumonia and leukemia. He was a liberal blogger before blogs. When he started up in 1996, I didn't even have a modem in my elderly IBM PC, let alone know what "websites" or "blogs" were.

It was awesome, finding a fire-breathing, no-bullshit liberal during the waning days of the Failure Bush's final term.He was calling the Fratboy "Worst President Ever!" while the finger-wagging media shitheads were still on board and dreaming of Bush in his flight suit.

Here's the Crooks & Liars writeup and TBogg's eulogy.

2013 In Review

Spent three months recovering from 10 days in the hospital. Have avoided being admitted to one all year. Will continue to avoid them in 2014.

Saw the results of a CAD project: my X-11 decals on a Mexican car!

Also, this guy's a drumming badass.

Fixed my car.

Drove to Atlanta to pick up a spare X-11 engine. Drove the Tracker around for a few more months with the damn thing still there.

Went to San Francisco. Wish I could have stayed awhile. Three days isn't nearly enough. And I graffiti'd Fort Point.

Added Frisco's Fort Point to my CAD fort projects.

Rush made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

My car fixed me.

Another guy used my X-11 decals on his car.

Started building again on Revell's 1/96 Saturn V kit. Amassed close to 1 gigabyte of research pictures and YouTube clips.

I finished the Atlanta trip (finally) by getting the spare X-11 engine out of the Tracker.

My mom died. Still doesn't seem possible. Still haven't heard a thing from the Perdido Bay Muscogee Creek tribe folks. Nice.

Fixed my car.

Fixed my car.

Managed to read and review 12 books, up from 6 in 2012.

Wrote this post.

Goodbye to 2013. You sucked.

I Get Email.

PZ Myers and other bloggers get dreary email rants from devout, googly-eyed screechers and godbots.

I get erection spam and wonderful opportunities to rake in cash:

Hello,

Under the United Nations scam victims rehabilitation scheme you are listed and approved to receive payment of US$750.000.00 as one of the scammed victims.

Be guided therefore to get in touch with the country supervising payment officer in Nigeria ASAP via his given information so that he can release your funds to you as per our standing instruction.

Name: Mr.Emmanuel Rhodes
Phone: +234 1890 0697
Email: ungroup@zoho.com

Notify us in writing as soon as you get paid of the above amount.

Faithfully yours,
Dr.Debra Green {Mrs.}

That's the third one this week! So nice to know that Dr. Green (Mrs.) is looking out for me.

It's October! Time for Sucky Slogans!

I blame the Germans or whomever it was that brought us "Oktoberfest." Now every October, we get to hear the results of slack-jawed marketing wonks' brainstorm sessions as they try to play off of that.

Rock radio stations give us...ROCKTOBERFEST!!

In the UK, it's Scotstoberfest.

But those marketing sessions don't always work out. Last year, the folks at Mini Cooper announced that it was..."Motortober." Motor. Tober. Sad.

With that in mind, I made my own list of ways to celebrate this month:

Sharktoberfest. Why only have "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel? Why not an entire MONTH of shark reruns?

SPARCtoberfest. Show Scalable Processor ARChitecture some love.

Sparktoberfest. All spark plugs & tune-up parts on sale!

Croctoberfest: A full month of Steve Irwin on "Animal Planet."

Shocktoberfest. A Texas-style execution party in which all pending executions are moved up to one a day. Everyone MUST GO!!

Cocktoberfest. International Porn Month. OR...

Cocktoberfest. Celebrate chicken in all its varied forms--wings, fried, baked, with dumplings, with rice...

Crocktober. It's all about "Fox News."

Proctober. National colon health awareness month.

Nocktober. Archery month!

Spocktoberfest. Sci-Fi (oh, sorry--"SyFy" *yawn*) does a Star Trek marathon.

Mocktober. Happens any other month.

Arktoberfest. We found Noah's Ark--for real this time! Honest!

Chocktoberfest. Chocolate on sale, leading up to Halloween.

Shaqtoberfest. Shaquille O'Neal gets to program one TV channel for the entire month.

John Wayne and Mythology

I recently sat through John Wayne's 1956 "The Conqueror," widely known as The Movie that Killed John Wayne.

In an epic disaster of mis-casting, Wayne plays Temujin, the Mongol chief who's more famously known as Genghis Khan. Imagine that stilted manner of speaking you've heard in Western after Western coming out of the mouth of the terrible Mongol as he fights the Tartars!

His is not the only lily-white face, either. Imagine Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, William Conrad, and Lee Van Cleef. Not so much as a paleface-in-Asian-makeup to be seen. Really, the only ethnic folks have names like Gomez and Armendariz.

The film was shot in 1954 out in the Escalante Desert near St. George, Utah, about 100 miles downwind from the Yucca Flats nuclear test range, which had been active for the previous 3 years. Eleven nukes were lit off in 1953 alone. Apparently the cast and crew knew about possible radioactivity: there are photos of Wayne toting a Geiger counter!

The movie premiered in 1956. Seven years after that, director Dick Powell died of cancer. By the early 1980's, 46 of the 220 people who worked on the film were dead of cancer, including John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Susan Hayward, and Pedro Armendariz (who shot himself in 1963 upon learning he had terminal cancer). A total of 91 people had contracted cancer to some degree.

Producer Howard Hughes was horrified by the apparent link between his movie and the deaths of cast & crewmembers. He spent $12 million to buy up as many copies of the film as he could and for 17 years--until 1974--kept it out of circulation.

Here's where the mythology comes in. It was easy to find gossip about this Hollywood Horror; I picked the Straight Dope website, where someone asks, "Did John Wayne die of cancer caused by a radioactive movie set?" Cecil Adams replied at length, laying out the story of the shoot and its nearness to the test site, laughing at Wayne's line delivery, and noting that:

Experts say under ordinary circumstances only 30 people out of a group of that size should have gotten cancer. The cause? No one can say for sure, but many attribute the cancers to radioactive fallout from U.S. atom bomb tests in nearby Nevada.

I didn't give it much thought the first time through, but during a later search (while watching the movie) in which I wondered how radioactive the area is today, I found a site with a deeper focus on the question of whether "The Conqueror" killed John Wayne.

Michael D. Shaw wonders, "Was The Movie The Conqueror Really Cursed? A Look At Radiation Paranoia." He sketches out the back-story quickly, then looks at the expert claim of Dr. Robert C. Pendleton:

With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law.

Pendleton was quoted in a People Magazine article. Shaw says,

This sounds impressive until you do some basic research. According to the National Cancer Institute, at the time the article was written, the overall incidence of being diagnosed with cancer in a person's lifetime (age-adjusted) was about 40%. As it happens, this number still holds today. Thus, in a cohort of 220 people, 88 would be diagnosed with cancer at some point.

I have no idea how Pendleton came up with his "30-some." If anything, given the heavy smoking habits of many in the movie business at the time, including Dick Powell, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendáriz, Susan Hayward, and John Wayne at five packs a day, 91 is completely within the expected range. The only "astonishing" thing is that the People article did not mention the smoking habits of any of the deceased stars.

It makes the story less sensational, doesn't it? We humans like to look for big conspiracies and causes. It gives an otherwise mediocre movie a veneer of risk and mystery: Was this the scene where he got his fatal dose of radiation?

The Movie that Killed John Wayne? Not so much.

The Three-Thousand Dollar Grapefruit (part 3)

This is the part I've been most hesitant to write about: the actual procedure.

On June 14th, I just did what these guys did. I'm still amazed when I read that page, especially by the guy called Roger, who recommends using a vacuum pump.

That still kinda freaks me out. It'll definitely draw the fluid out more quickly than the "gravity drip" approach the other posters (and I) used. I just don't like it. Don't try it at home, kids (obligatory disclaimer).

Overall, it took about 2 hours. I sterilized everything, wore gloves, and barely noticed the needle (the cold pack was a lot colder this time). Taped it in place and waited.

Two hours, drip drip drip.

Two. Freaking. Liters.

Credit to the ultrasound tech (in Part 2)! Her estimate was on the nose.

I'd read enough to expect the reddish-amber serous fluid that a hydrocele fills up with. I wasn't expecting two liters of it. You go down the soft drinks aisle of any store and you're presented with bottles 4 inches in diameter and a foot long! It just doesn't seem possible.

It's not a permanent fix, though. A month later, I drew another pint.


No one seems to know what causes them. But I've got a theory, based on the last couple of months' medical crap I've gone through. Remember that the price tag on all of this came from getting shuffled to the Emergency Room for high blood pressure (280/150).

For the past ten years, I've been aware of my BP running high, typically in the 180/110 range. I've had some occasional swelling of both legs below the knees, had both knees messed up by fluid accumulating in them, and more recently my right elbow "went out" the same way for several days. It makes sense that excess fluid's got to go somewhere (assuming the excess blood pressure interferes with the kidneys' filtering function), so maybe that's what gave me the hydrocele.

My theory was given a boost when I went to the ER again on July 12. They set me up with IV fluids...and damned if I didn't end up with something bigger than a baseball. It grew pretty steadily on its own until it reached its "normal" humiliating size.

Maybe I'll set up an experiment--empty it out for the third time and see how my medication-enforced lower blood pressure affects things.

[Update (Aug. 25, 2012): the lower blood pressure didn't seem to slow things down. I only bothered draining the thing 4 times in total--once each in June, July, and September 2010 and in January 2011. Each time, it came back. Now I'm just waiting for the Medicaid doctor to get his stuff together so I can get a urology appointment to get this damn thing dealt with once and for all.]

The Three-Thousand Dollar Grapefruit (part 2)

Yup, I chickened out (read Part 1), unable to move that needle, unable to rid myself of the most humiliating thing my body could have done.

Nothing for it but to call a urologist, set up an appointment. The visit alone would cost $150.00. I was willing to pay it at that point--I just wanted the damn hydrocele GONE. I set up a May 20th appointment.

Montage: Wake up on the 20th, shower, breakfast, drive to the urology center, sign in, fill out 15 pages of name, address, phone numbers, medical history, allergies, sit and wait, my name is called, I give a urine sample and sit in the exam room.

Nurse comes in to check my blood pressure. Hand-held electronic all-in-one tester, pretty cool, but holy crap is the cuff supposed to be so tight that my hand goes numb?

Nurse looks confused. Tries it again. My fingers tingle and she looks confused again, goes to get a different machine. It does the same thing, my fingers tingle, she looks confused, and now she's gone looking for a regular cuff & bulb. I already know I've got high blood pressure, but she can't look confused now that three different tests show something like 290/150.

Holy crap.

The doctor comes in shortly, has me drop my pants, looks the grapefruit over, tells me there's about a liter of fluid there, asks why I waited so long, and tells me to get my ass to the ER to have the BP looked at. He calls for an ultrasound of the grapefruit while I'm there. I'm out the door.

Cost so far: $150.00.

Montage: Drive to ER, park, walk a lap around the Emergency department until I find the admissions desk...another blood pressure test, a thermometer...ushered to a small exam room, drop the pants, show off the grapefruit, why'd you let it get like that, no money, no insurance, left it alone because it wasn't a problem until now, follow me...another exam room...put on this backless robe and hop on the bed...it's quiet, so I whip out the current "Dresden Files" and read...family arrives, encumbering me with company...nurses arrive in a swarm, poking, prodding, and now I'm wired to an EKG machine, bleeding into sample vials, and talking to another doctor, answering all the standard questions with standard answers.

I'm wheeled to the Radiology department and the first woman to touch my junk since 1996 works her ultrasound machine, confirming that I've got a hydrocele, there's no cancer, and there's no communication between the hydrocele and my abdomen: no hernia. She found both testes, showed me that there was good blood flow in both, though the right one was being crowded by that freaking fluid reservoir dangling there. She even used the machine to estimate that I was toting about 2 liters of fluid therein.

TWO freaking liters?

Back to my exam room. I'm told that I need to produce another urine sample...or they're going to put in a catheter. I order everyone out and do it.

Montage: Doc shows up, writes a scrip for BP meds...a social worker for the billing department comes in, talks about the paperwork she's about to give me...the nurses return and unplug me from the EKG, pull the IV out of the back of my hand...clothes back on, gather my stuff, out the door.

The prescription was 4 bucks. I wish that were the most expensive item.

I got the bills a few days later:

Doctor: $314.00
Ultrasound tech: $133.00

ER:
Venipuncture...$52.00
ER visit "high severity"...936.00
UA automated w/micro...$72.00
Metabolic Panel total CA...$38.00
CBC w platelet auto diff...$85.00
Vascular study limited...$649.00
US exam scrotum...$461.00

$2,293.00

Twenty. Three Hundred. Bucks. Add in the doctor's and tech's fees, and it's $2740.00.

Heh. Where is the money going to come from? No insurance, no health plan, and I make at best $15k per year. I put in for the charity/financial help plan from the social worker, but I've yet to hear anything out of them, even after a few calls. I've already paid the two least expensive fees--the doc and tech.

I did a follow-up to the urologist a few weeks later. Another $150.00, so now we're looking at $3,000 in total costs from the medical folks...with nothing to show for it. The urologist wanted to do surgery, was all set to make the appointment, but I reminded him that there's no money there. He set me up with a finance counselor; she gave me a photocopy of a brochure, I did the Google hunt, and I quickly found that I don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. I went looking for medical insurance plans.

Heh.

The plan I could afford had a $10,000 deductible. The one I wanted had a $500 deductible, but would eat one paycheck a month.

Okay, screw that.

I dug around, looked at Blue Cross/Blue Shield, didn't even bother to fill out the qualifying survey. By that point, I just didn't care anymore. Tired of the crap. Time to go back to the do-it-myself approach!

The Three-Thousand Dollar Grapefruit (part 1)

Imagine, if you will, carrying a good-sized grapefruit around all day, all night. It's there when you sleep, when you wake, when you use the restroom.

Did I mention that it's in your scrotum? Think that through. Imagine for most of a year having no idea what the hell this thing is or what caused it, but pretty much overnight your pants don't fit.

Add to this a lack of medical insurance and no money at hand to pay for an ER trip.

That was me in July of 2009. I did a bit of Google searching, sorting the crappy fake-med "information" out from the real thing, and quickly eliminated cancer as a possible cause. It wasn't a hernia. It took several tries to get the right combination of words in a search, but once I figured out that it was fluid that had collected in there, the answer popped up quickly in a search: hydrocele testis. Yeah, I know I should have gone to a doctor, and like that, but that lack of money was a bigger worry than a painless thingie. I don't have any credit cards. Never have. I live entirely within my means, or I do without.

I took to wearing long shirts. Once it got cold enough, I wore a jacket. I tended to avoid public places when I could. All the while, I was wondering how I was going to get rid of the damn thing.

Sometime in April 2010, while hunting for urologists and trying to find out how much surgery was going to cost, I found sites like this one, where several guys described a do-it-yourself approach using a #20 gauge needle and some surgical tubing. Simple!

But I freaking hate needles.

Surgery's a 30-minute outpatient thing, 2 weeks of recovery...easily a couple thousand bucks for hospital time, doctor fee, anesthesiologist, and whatever else. Did I mention the money thing?

The do-it-yourself approach...under twenty bucks.

I read that forum a few times, and it seemed really straightforward, except for the damn needle. Seems crazy, sitting here re-reading the forum and my own post, here--my little 'inner dialogue' voice shouts, "Are you INSANE?! Go to a freaking hospital! Find a doctor! You're asking for an infection!"

Screw it, I thought. I'll do it myself.

Montage: It's May 15th. Hopping into car, driving, shopping, finding the supplies, drive home.

The next morning (May 16th), I had everything set: needle, tubing, 2-quart bottle, a cold-pack (anesthetic--you put an ice cube or whatever on the spot to be poked, get it numb, and you're done), rubbing alcohol.

I could describe the process in a montage...but there's no need.

Goddamn needles.

A #20 gauge, half-inch needle doesn't look like much until you're sitting there about to jab it into your body.

Goddamn needles.

I sat there, shining steel a millimeter away from The Grapefruit. I sat there long enough that the cold pack was a lukewarm pack and I could feel the goddamn needle.

I chickened out.

How to Smack a Chickenhawk...

...with poetic style. Yeah, I'm a few years late, but this is what occurred to me to scribble about tonight.

I first became aware of a work by Oliver Wendell Holmes when I read John D. Billings' "Hard Tack and Coffee" last year. Billings didn't pull his punches in criticizing the cheerleaders who pushed hard for war against the South in the run-up to the bloody conflict--yet who mysteriously vanished or had important matters to attend to when their opportunity came to stand and fight. Billings quoted a poem in which Holmes questions the manhood of such men by comparing them to women, which was likely a powerful critique back in the 1860's, but it's dated for the same reason today. Women today can kick serious ass--and we should note that many of them are in the military, doing work our sweet little men of today are too cowardly to manage (8 minute video of manly Young Pubbies giving excuses for why they won't enlist to fight in Iraq). Give those same SLM's 20 years--they'll be pushing for a war they'd never fight in. I'd embed the video, but I'd rather keep attention on the poem:

"The Sweet Little Man."

Dedicated to the Stay-At-Home Rangers.

Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles,
Each at his post to do all that he can,
Down among rebels and contraband chattels,
What are you doing, my sweet little man?

All the brave boys under canvas are sleeping,
All of them pressing to march with the van,
Far from the home where their sweethearts are weeping;
What are you waiting for, sweet little man?

You with the terrible warlike mustaches,
Fit for a colonel or chief of a clan,
You with the waist made for sword-belts and sashes,
Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet little man?

Bring him the buttonless garment of woman!
Cover his face lest it freckle and tan;
Muster the Apron-String Guards on the Common,
That is the corps for the sweet little man!

Give him for escort a file of young misses,
Each of them armed with a deadly rattan;
They shall defend him from laughter and hisses,
Aimed by low boys at the sweet little man.

All the fair maidens about him shall cluster,
Pluck the white feathers from bonnet and fan,
Make him a plume like a turkey-wing duster,--
That is the crest for the sweet little man!

Oh, but the Apron-String Guards are the fellows
Drilling each day since our troubles began,--
"Handle your walking-sticks!" "Shoulder umbrellas!"
That is the style for the sweet little man!

Have we a nation to save? In the first place
Saving ourselves is the sensible plan,--
Surely the spot where there's shooting's the worst place
Where I can stand, says the sweet little man.

Catch me confiding my person with strangers!
Think how the cowardly Bull-Runners ran!
In the brigade of the Stay-at-Home Rangers
Marches my corps, says the sweet little man.

Such was the stuff of the Malakoff-takers,
Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan;
Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers,
Brave not the wrath of the sweet little man!

Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maidens!
Sauve qui peut! Bridget, and right about! Ann;--
Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens,
See him advancing, the sweet little man!

When the red flails of the battle-field's threshers
Beat out the continent's wheat from its bran,
While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers,
What will become of our sweet little man?

When the brown soldiers come back from the borders,
How will he look while his features they scan?
How will he feel when he gets marching orders,
Signed by his lady love? sweet little man!

Fear not for him, though the rebels expect him,--
Life is too precious to shorten its span;
Woman her broomstick shall raise to protect him,
Will she not fight for the sweet little man?

Now then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-Home Ranger!
Blow the great fish-horn and beat the big pan!
First in the field that is farthest from danger,
Take your white-feather plume, sweet little man!