The hangover remedy is perhaps the one subject that invites the most derelict among us to confidently assess both the biology and chemistry at work in the act of poisoning the self - for the express purpose of creating a master potion that can be admired and remarked upon by the evening's survivors. Since the act of consuming alcohol is an act of self-inflicted poisoning, we should have the kind of elaborate antidotes one might find in a 16th century theatrical production. These are remedies built out of painful experiences - and before we can examine these morning-after miracles, we should understand a bit more about what determines the extent of the poison's damage.
Hangovers are built upon seven foundations.
1. The amount of alcohol consumed over time. The liver breaks down approximately one drink per hour. If you consume two drinks in the first hour, you enter your second hour with one full drink still fresh in your system. If you consume two more drinks in your second hour, then your third hour begins with two full drinks circulating in your blood - and so on.
2. Age. The older you get, the harder it is to recover. In general, a 21-year-old is going to fair much better after six SoCo & lime shots than a 40-year-old.
3. Weight. The lighter you are, the harder you fall. This is a brutal truth, and it is seen time and again in mismatched weight groups who are gathered at the bar and keeping pace with each other.
4. Genetics. Some of us are better able to digest the fermented juices. Genetic predisposition in favor of alcohol consumption is found particularly among European descendants.
5. Food ingested prior to imbibing. Drinking on an empty stomach allows for faster absorption into the bloodstream and is all too often a disastrous path.
6. Hydration. "With each drink, you effectively lose more water than you take in - and that leads to all sorts of problems, like a searing headache," writes Maureen Farrell in Forbes.
7. Congeners. These are the toxic chemicals that are formed during fermentation. In general, the darker drinks - red wine, bourbon, scotch - contain more congeners than the lighter options, like white wine, gin, and vodka.
The ideal cure for a hangover should look first to those seven foundations. Am I drinking too quickly? Is my drinking crowd considerably younger than I am - or notably heavier than me? These are somewhat easy to measure. The question of genetics is tougher, and there you simply have to look to yourself: how many drinks can I really handle to maintain a pleasant day tomorrow? Make sure you eat something before you go out - and ensure that you mix non-alcoholic beverages into the overall volume of fluids consumed, preferably water.
Hangovers can be prevented - or at least lessened - in the types of alcohol we select. Consume lots of red wine and you are going to be in trouble; stick with a high-end 100% blue agave tequila and you may emerge unscathed. Choice can go a long way in determining your morning.
But if prevention is thrown to the wind, what is the magic formula that can make the misery end? Well, this author has heard several over the years: a double espresso with an egg and some sugar; coconut juice (not coconut milk) and a lime; club soda and four dashes of bitters (whatever they are); on and on the creative chemists go. These examples each have elements of the four ingredients that compose the real remedy - headache pills, Alka-Seltzer, certain vitamins, and sports drinks.
Headache pills should only be taken at the onset of the hangover. It is a popular misconception that they should be taken on the night of the binging. If consumed before bedtime, aspirins will only cause your stomach to become more irritated when you really need to sleep and ibuprofen will mess with your liver when your liver is already overloaded.
Alka-Seltzer. The old plop-plop fizz-fizz model will put a ravaged stomach at bay.
Vitamin B, C, and E. Alcohol consumption of three or more drinks is actually quite damaging to the body. According to the Life Extension Foundation, "The consumption of alcohol results in the formation of two very toxic compounds, acetaldehyde and malondialdehyde. These compounds generate massive free-radical damage to cells throughout the body. The free-radical damage generated by these alcohol metabolites creates an effect in the body similar to that caused by radiation poisoning. That is the reason why people feel so sick the day after consuming too much alcohol." Referencing LEF again, vitamins B, C, and E are "nutrients that neutralize alcohol byproducts and protect cells against the damaging effects of alcohol."
Sports drinks provide more nutrient absorption than water and are additionally fortified with salt, a vital component in dehydration recovery.
There are two other popular hangover cures to avoid. It is commonly thought - among people that really do need to talk to somebody - that additional alcohol will help, but any more consumption during a hangover is just going to amplify the problem. It is also a mistake to consume coffee, as the last thing you want in your body is a diuretic.
While the best potion to ward off the crushing headache and queasy innards is really found in prevention, it is all too common that we will face that uncomfortable morning - and when that aching sun comes up, it is good to know that there are antidotes in the universe.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
With Recession in Mind - Advice for Intelligent Job Seekers
An effective job search requires depth of thought in alternative planning and in networking. It is important to follow a unique and intelligent methodology that separates one candidate from the rest of the population. In this regard, there are three strategies that should be incorporated - creative research, horizontal networking, and vertical networking.
Few people take the time to employ creative research in their job search methodologies - and this is a mistake. Any job search first begins with some kind of core research - how big the company is; where it is headquartered; an understanding of the basic divisions; etc. Core research is the most basic and benign, but as one gets closer to reaching out to the company in question - the research has to become more creative.
Regardless of the desired division, hiring managers need to understand revenue streams - and an intelligent applicant will reflect some knowledge on revenue. This information is readily available for all publicly-traded companies. One creative way to access this information quickly is to keep an online stock trading account open. For example, Ameritrade offers an ideal depth of revenue information on any public company - and this information is key to providing more color on the financial stature of a particular firm.
Company web sites are somewhat obvious places to visit when doing research, but going deeper into their media sections will usually yield some good nuggets of information. The media sections are usually found in the About Us areas - and here the applicant is looking for press releases, collected news stories, and anything that features quotes from company employees. When reading these documents, seek quotation marks - and who is attributed to the given remark. In future conversations with hiring managers, a reflection on an interesting quote made in these pages will yield a good amount of respect for the job candidate.
Social networks are a wonderful source for creative research. Linked-In and Facebook are the best properties in this regard. Linked-In will provide details on where a prospective hiring manager went to school, where they worked before, how many industry connections they have, how long they have been with the company, etc. This is extremely valuable information. Facebook demonstrates another color of the rainbow by yielding information on lifestyle interests - sports, books, travel, etc. These are great conversation pieces - and, when reflected upon, demonstrate a prospective candidate's determination and resourcefulness.
Networking horizontally with peers is fundamental to an effective job search. Industry events offer opportunities to build relationships with colleagues at other companies, and much can be learned about corporate cultures from these exchanges. It is not uncommon for peers to be aware of opportunities throughout the industry or to point the job seeker toward an effective recruiter. Peer relationships can have further benefits when it comes to references, and the horizontal network that is established will likely be with the candidate for the full term of a career.
Vertical networking is often overlooked by those that are seeking another job. This is a longer-term approach, but one that is built on a great platform. It is usually established a full year before an active job search is underway. Looking up the chain, it is smart to identify a mentor - and to work with this person on projects that will have exposure to others in the industry. These projects and these mentors will often offer clues and insight into other areas of responsibility that may or may not be of interest to the job seeker. Delving into an approach like this can lay the groundwork for a very effective job search - as there is an identification with the mentor and/or the projects at hand. Of course, should any of the people that make up the vertical network move on to other opportunities elsewhere, a fine contact database for the candidate is born.
Vertical networking down the chain should not be ignored. Many direct reports have friends in other companies, and these relationships may be of interest. Direct reports may also have relationships with customers that can yield valuable data on a future prospect. While this approach is somewhat tricky and depends largely on the relationship with the direct reports in question, it can set up some solid introductions for a future prospect.
Searching for a job is not always fun, but the above methodologies should make it more effective.
Few people take the time to employ creative research in their job search methodologies - and this is a mistake. Any job search first begins with some kind of core research - how big the company is; where it is headquartered; an understanding of the basic divisions; etc. Core research is the most basic and benign, but as one gets closer to reaching out to the company in question - the research has to become more creative.
Regardless of the desired division, hiring managers need to understand revenue streams - and an intelligent applicant will reflect some knowledge on revenue. This information is readily available for all publicly-traded companies. One creative way to access this information quickly is to keep an online stock trading account open. For example, Ameritrade offers an ideal depth of revenue information on any public company - and this information is key to providing more color on the financial stature of a particular firm.
Company web sites are somewhat obvious places to visit when doing research, but going deeper into their media sections will usually yield some good nuggets of information. The media sections are usually found in the About Us areas - and here the applicant is looking for press releases, collected news stories, and anything that features quotes from company employees. When reading these documents, seek quotation marks - and who is attributed to the given remark. In future conversations with hiring managers, a reflection on an interesting quote made in these pages will yield a good amount of respect for the job candidate.
Social networks are a wonderful source for creative research. Linked-In and Facebook are the best properties in this regard. Linked-In will provide details on where a prospective hiring manager went to school, where they worked before, how many industry connections they have, how long they have been with the company, etc. This is extremely valuable information. Facebook demonstrates another color of the rainbow by yielding information on lifestyle interests - sports, books, travel, etc. These are great conversation pieces - and, when reflected upon, demonstrate a prospective candidate's determination and resourcefulness.
Networking horizontally with peers is fundamental to an effective job search. Industry events offer opportunities to build relationships with colleagues at other companies, and much can be learned about corporate cultures from these exchanges. It is not uncommon for peers to be aware of opportunities throughout the industry or to point the job seeker toward an effective recruiter. Peer relationships can have further benefits when it comes to references, and the horizontal network that is established will likely be with the candidate for the full term of a career.
Vertical networking is often overlooked by those that are seeking another job. This is a longer-term approach, but one that is built on a great platform. It is usually established a full year before an active job search is underway. Looking up the chain, it is smart to identify a mentor - and to work with this person on projects that will have exposure to others in the industry. These projects and these mentors will often offer clues and insight into other areas of responsibility that may or may not be of interest to the job seeker. Delving into an approach like this can lay the groundwork for a very effective job search - as there is an identification with the mentor and/or the projects at hand. Of course, should any of the people that make up the vertical network move on to other opportunities elsewhere, a fine contact database for the candidate is born.
Vertical networking down the chain should not be ignored. Many direct reports have friends in other companies, and these relationships may be of interest. Direct reports may also have relationships with customers that can yield valuable data on a future prospect. While this approach is somewhat tricky and depends largely on the relationship with the direct reports in question, it can set up some solid introductions for a future prospect.
Searching for a job is not always fun, but the above methodologies should make it more effective.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
In a 2008 Recession, Look to Internet Media Companies
2008 is clearly going to present more discomfort in the financial markets - with the leering potential for an ugly recession on the horizon across the broader economic landscape. The credit crunch in the U.S. financial institutions - and the necessary discipline those institutions must exercise with over-extended consumers - is starving out the same spend-happy populations that usually feed corporate profits. This cycle will hit certain sectors harder than others. On the most basic level, any purchase that can be deemed unnecessary will likely suffer first. Examples of this include many product offerings in consumer electronics and technology.
However, should one choose to play the stock market in the 2008 recession, internet media companies might be one area to examine more closely. The curiosity about internet media is that the fragmentation is so extreme that predictive models employed in other sectors have zero value when utilized here. When referencing the internet, people are willing to talk about bubbles bursting again - and that is certainly going to happen with the many start-ups and ill-conceived business models out there - but the right brands with the right characters behind those brands will thrive in a recession.
The general media sector has long needed to go through a correction - and 2008 may provide that correction in the form of a recession. The television business - now in a costly writers strike - has made very little progress in evolving. Speaking to the advertising side of the business, the existence of Tivo alone is a ridiculous factor in the viability of tv networks to grow revenue. Nielsen - the media measurement company responsible for tv ratings - has begun issuing different measurement terms for advertisers to better understand viewership of their commercials. The learnings from the Nielsen change have had huge impact on many big name cable networks. Given this - and the Tivo effect, whereby consumers are bypassing television advertising altogether - the return on investment (ROI) in television is increasingly not there. Throw in a recession, and advertisers are going to have to look elsewhere.
On the print side of the business, material costs are going higher. Inflationary pressures on paper are notable - as more demand for wood products globally takes its toll. These back-end increases in costs are affecting newspapers and magazines alike. It is also becoming more costly to satisfy delivery demand. With oil prices at record levels, the cost to ship a magazine or a newspaper from one location to another is affecting the business model. Circulations are dropping, and subscription costs and advertising costs are rising. And like television, advertisers are asking for more accountability - and this is something that print and television properties cannot provide.
Accountability and interaction are unique to internet advertising - and both are achieved at advertising investments (cost-per-thousand or CPM) that are considerably more reasonable. As the sickle of recession swings its way through the general media environment, more money will shift from the traditional print and tv sources to the more intelligent internet media companies. Consumer trust and recognition of select internet media firms will play an important role as well. As 2008 also represents a presidential election year, those trusted internet media sources will see a greater share of advertising dollars through even the leanest economic cycle.
2008 may remind us of the old Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. These are interesting times - and if stock picks are of importance, a closer look at the web should be taken.
However, should one choose to play the stock market in the 2008 recession, internet media companies might be one area to examine more closely. The curiosity about internet media is that the fragmentation is so extreme that predictive models employed in other sectors have zero value when utilized here. When referencing the internet, people are willing to talk about bubbles bursting again - and that is certainly going to happen with the many start-ups and ill-conceived business models out there - but the right brands with the right characters behind those brands will thrive in a recession.
The general media sector has long needed to go through a correction - and 2008 may provide that correction in the form of a recession. The television business - now in a costly writers strike - has made very little progress in evolving. Speaking to the advertising side of the business, the existence of Tivo alone is a ridiculous factor in the viability of tv networks to grow revenue. Nielsen - the media measurement company responsible for tv ratings - has begun issuing different measurement terms for advertisers to better understand viewership of their commercials. The learnings from the Nielsen change have had huge impact on many big name cable networks. Given this - and the Tivo effect, whereby consumers are bypassing television advertising altogether - the return on investment (ROI) in television is increasingly not there. Throw in a recession, and advertisers are going to have to look elsewhere.
On the print side of the business, material costs are going higher. Inflationary pressures on paper are notable - as more demand for wood products globally takes its toll. These back-end increases in costs are affecting newspapers and magazines alike. It is also becoming more costly to satisfy delivery demand. With oil prices at record levels, the cost to ship a magazine or a newspaper from one location to another is affecting the business model. Circulations are dropping, and subscription costs and advertising costs are rising. And like television, advertisers are asking for more accountability - and this is something that print and television properties cannot provide.
Accountability and interaction are unique to internet advertising - and both are achieved at advertising investments (cost-per-thousand or CPM) that are considerably more reasonable. As the sickle of recession swings its way through the general media environment, more money will shift from the traditional print and tv sources to the more intelligent internet media companies. Consumer trust and recognition of select internet media firms will play an important role as well. As 2008 also represents a presidential election year, those trusted internet media sources will see a greater share of advertising dollars through even the leanest economic cycle.
2008 may remind us of the old Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. These are interesting times - and if stock picks are of importance, a closer look at the web should be taken.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
This Season’s Mean Mycoplasma – Sketching Our Turn With Atypical Pneumonia
The hacking cough is dry this morning – as it was last night and the full and mirthless day before. It is a brittle tapping, meted out in brutal increments from a virgin chest cavity – the thinning rap like that of a taut drum prattling in a cold vacuum. My son is eight years old, and he is in his fifth day of fever and pneumonia. It is the last week of December, and the days and nights everywhere else are dancing in the smiling lights and the happy tick toward another new year.
When the cough comes it does so to wake him and to buck him apart. It has been with us now for a long enough time for it to be referred to as “his cough.” His cough is unproductive. His doctor tells us this. We are given the character of his cough and what we are to expect from it. His cough is a protest and a noise; it is a compression and an irregular release of compressions; it is a thoughtless hammering-on; it is hungry and it is wanting in its hunger.
His cough has made his eyes seem pinned in their darkened lids, and he looks at me with the hesitant knowledge that I hold a combination of everything and nothing in my bottles of antibiotics and Mucinex and cough suppressant and Advil. I am a shuffling pharmacy and an amateur scientist. I am a small dispenser of public knowledge and nervous humor and I am the universe. But we are living through the question – what is this bug that resists the syrups and the coated pills and the remedies?
“Dad,” he asks between the kick of unexpected half-coughs.
“Don’t talk.”
“Am I getting better?” His hair is greasy, slick now with new sweat. His lips are cracked – layered in dead lip debris, dusted in white crust, with lasting orange markings at the corners of his chapped mouth from the few ounces of Gatorade that was forced into him.
“I don’t know,” I say.
He gives me nothing because I have given him nothing. I am raising him in nihilism, and the blank vapid ether that we are both breathing needs noise and color and shape. We seem to realize this together and accept it together. It may be that we can draw on facts, be comforted in the most uncomfortable facts; that we can pull on this full breast together and find inebriation in its nourishment.
“You need to drink,” I tell him.
“I am drinking.”
“Water doesn’t count. The Gatorade has sugars and things called electrolytes. Your body needs these things. Your cells – the little cells that you are made of – need these things.”
“I don’t like the Gatorade. It smells like wax.”
“That’s the pneumonia tricking you. Don’t listen to it.”
He does not look at me when he says this next thing, and I can see ruinous thoughts settling in his face. “Why is it so mean?”
{}{}{}
My son has a red belt in Shotokan karate. It is an achievement that has come after repetition and correction – over and again – correction and repetition, like an ocean smoothing a stone. The Shotokan discipline strives for perfection through repetitive action and the incorporation of diverse katas, which are themselves an increasingly complex series of movements that demand still more repetition in order to be fully understood and mastered.
Over the course of this schooling, he has been asked to break a variety of pine boards, each new one thicker than the last. When the wood does not give, he is asked to throw another strike and then another, his knuckles at times pinker and fleshier in their swelling – the knock of his small bones against the unforgiving square thwacking in a tight echo across the length of the dojo. It is a physical world in need of breaking.
I think of the times he has been stopped there and steadied there in his simple white gi – the times he was asked to imagine a different plane and could not see it. He had been there and not been there – it had been suggested that he be beyond there. And it is the same now. The thing that needs to be broken is not tangible – and yet it is the truer obstacle.
{}{}{}
I am sitting on his mattress in the dark, listening to his short breathing. He is curled up and baking in the hot wrap of his skin. I have forgotten why I am holding a towel, but I have wrapped it around my forearm as if I intend to repel some aggressive animal. Little makes sense – and horribly most of it does. The drugs are not working. I have taken the time now to learn more.
His cough has an identity. It is known in medical circles as Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
According to the CDC, Mycoplasma pneumoniae sends 100,000 Americans to the hospital every year. Its incubation period is one to four weeks, so it is carried quietly. It is the leading cause of pneumonia in school age children, and its trends are unknown.
It is a very small bacterium – one that lacks cell walls. Mycoplasmas are members of the class Mollicutes, which means soft skin. Without a cell wall the organism is resistant to the effects of penicillin and other beta-lactam antibiotics, which disrupt bacterial cell walls. The genetic code of Mycoplasma pneumoniae is more similar to mitochondria than to other bacteria. According to The American Lung Association, “Mycoplasmas are the smallest free-living agents of disease in humankind, unclassified as to whether bacteria or viruses, but having characteristics of both.”
The bacterium causes what is known as atypical pneumonia – a longer fevered sickness with unproductive coughing and general malaise as key features. On a website created for Middlebury College to better understand the Mycoplasma pneumoniae bug, Katherine Howard writes, “There are 5 recently proposed (and controversial) associations between mycoplasma infections and human disease: AIDS, malignant transformation, Gulf War Syndrome, Crohn’s Disease, and Rheumatoid arthritis.”
{}{}{}
I find paper and draw characters that represent white blood cells and characters that represent bacteria. They face each other – in my crude animation – prepared as they are to fight. The fight is demonstrated in violent scribbling lines, irregular slashes and arcs, wide and unstable loops and scores and strikes and stabs. Each white blood cell wears a gi. They drink Gatorade and eat toast, slurp soup and down spooned medicine. At first, the white blood cells lose and die in numbers – and the darker and uglier bacteria cheer. But then the nourishment kicks in, and the white blood cells are awarded red belts. There is a conclusive re-gathering, and the bacteria are routed. This is the storyboard that plays out.
He coughs through his nose, lets me fill another plastic cup with orange-flavored Gatorade. He cracks a small smile. This is all he has, all I can give him. We play it out together and again, repetition and correction – again, correction and repetition.
When the cough comes it does so to wake him and to buck him apart. It has been with us now for a long enough time for it to be referred to as “his cough.” His cough is unproductive. His doctor tells us this. We are given the character of his cough and what we are to expect from it. His cough is a protest and a noise; it is a compression and an irregular release of compressions; it is a thoughtless hammering-on; it is hungry and it is wanting in its hunger.
His cough has made his eyes seem pinned in their darkened lids, and he looks at me with the hesitant knowledge that I hold a combination of everything and nothing in my bottles of antibiotics and Mucinex and cough suppressant and Advil. I am a shuffling pharmacy and an amateur scientist. I am a small dispenser of public knowledge and nervous humor and I am the universe. But we are living through the question – what is this bug that resists the syrups and the coated pills and the remedies?
“Dad,” he asks between the kick of unexpected half-coughs.
“Don’t talk.”
“Am I getting better?” His hair is greasy, slick now with new sweat. His lips are cracked – layered in dead lip debris, dusted in white crust, with lasting orange markings at the corners of his chapped mouth from the few ounces of Gatorade that was forced into him.
“I don’t know,” I say.
He gives me nothing because I have given him nothing. I am raising him in nihilism, and the blank vapid ether that we are both breathing needs noise and color and shape. We seem to realize this together and accept it together. It may be that we can draw on facts, be comforted in the most uncomfortable facts; that we can pull on this full breast together and find inebriation in its nourishment.
“You need to drink,” I tell him.
“I am drinking.”
“Water doesn’t count. The Gatorade has sugars and things called electrolytes. Your body needs these things. Your cells – the little cells that you are made of – need these things.”
“I don’t like the Gatorade. It smells like wax.”
“That’s the pneumonia tricking you. Don’t listen to it.”
He does not look at me when he says this next thing, and I can see ruinous thoughts settling in his face. “Why is it so mean?”
{}{}{}
My son has a red belt in Shotokan karate. It is an achievement that has come after repetition and correction – over and again – correction and repetition, like an ocean smoothing a stone. The Shotokan discipline strives for perfection through repetitive action and the incorporation of diverse katas, which are themselves an increasingly complex series of movements that demand still more repetition in order to be fully understood and mastered.
Over the course of this schooling, he has been asked to break a variety of pine boards, each new one thicker than the last. When the wood does not give, he is asked to throw another strike and then another, his knuckles at times pinker and fleshier in their swelling – the knock of his small bones against the unforgiving square thwacking in a tight echo across the length of the dojo. It is a physical world in need of breaking.
I think of the times he has been stopped there and steadied there in his simple white gi – the times he was asked to imagine a different plane and could not see it. He had been there and not been there – it had been suggested that he be beyond there. And it is the same now. The thing that needs to be broken is not tangible – and yet it is the truer obstacle.
{}{}{}
I am sitting on his mattress in the dark, listening to his short breathing. He is curled up and baking in the hot wrap of his skin. I have forgotten why I am holding a towel, but I have wrapped it around my forearm as if I intend to repel some aggressive animal. Little makes sense – and horribly most of it does. The drugs are not working. I have taken the time now to learn more.
His cough has an identity. It is known in medical circles as Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
According to the CDC, Mycoplasma pneumoniae sends 100,000 Americans to the hospital every year. Its incubation period is one to four weeks, so it is carried quietly. It is the leading cause of pneumonia in school age children, and its trends are unknown.
It is a very small bacterium – one that lacks cell walls. Mycoplasmas are members of the class Mollicutes, which means soft skin. Without a cell wall the organism is resistant to the effects of penicillin and other beta-lactam antibiotics, which disrupt bacterial cell walls. The genetic code of Mycoplasma pneumoniae is more similar to mitochondria than to other bacteria. According to The American Lung Association, “Mycoplasmas are the smallest free-living agents of disease in humankind, unclassified as to whether bacteria or viruses, but having characteristics of both.”
The bacterium causes what is known as atypical pneumonia – a longer fevered sickness with unproductive coughing and general malaise as key features. On a website created for Middlebury College to better understand the Mycoplasma pneumoniae bug, Katherine Howard writes, “There are 5 recently proposed (and controversial) associations between mycoplasma infections and human disease: AIDS, malignant transformation, Gulf War Syndrome, Crohn’s Disease, and Rheumatoid arthritis.”
{}{}{}
I find paper and draw characters that represent white blood cells and characters that represent bacteria. They face each other – in my crude animation – prepared as they are to fight. The fight is demonstrated in violent scribbling lines, irregular slashes and arcs, wide and unstable loops and scores and strikes and stabs. Each white blood cell wears a gi. They drink Gatorade and eat toast, slurp soup and down spooned medicine. At first, the white blood cells lose and die in numbers – and the darker and uglier bacteria cheer. But then the nourishment kicks in, and the white blood cells are awarded red belts. There is a conclusive re-gathering, and the bacteria are routed. This is the storyboard that plays out.
He coughs through his nose, lets me fill another plastic cup with orange-flavored Gatorade. He cracks a small smile. This is all he has, all I can give him. We play it out together and again, repetition and correction – again, correction and repetition.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Handguns, Long Guns, and the Second Amendment – a Supreme Court Decision on Meaning
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
This is the second amendment. While it is not over embellished in the tortured bloom of legal English more reflective of its era, it has succumbed to the gray shades of our times and to the scrutiny of a more convoluted and complicated nation.
After considerable debate in the lower courts over a desire by the District of Columbia to institute a sweeping gun ban, the Supreme Court very recently decided to reopen discussion on the meaning of the second amendment. On November 20, 2007, Gun Owners of America issued a press release. “The decision by the Supreme Court to rule on the DC gun ban gives them an historic opportunity to return to the original meaning of the second amendment,” said Gun Owners of America’s Executive Director, Larry Pratt in the release.
But what is a reasonable definition of the arms we have a right to keep and to bear? The DC ban is a comprehensive look at guns in the home – inclusive of both handguns and long guns, such as shotguns and rifles. Long guns do not typically face the same scrutiny as handguns in most states, and this makes the DC ban more aggressive than prior firearm regulations.
It is reasonable to accept bans on certain arms. One can assume that rocket launchers and hand grenades – while arms that might be found in the arsenal of roaming post-apocalyptic militia – are not appropriate for the current American household. Additionally, it is commonly agreed that swords and switchblades are items that beg for confiscation. But handguns and long guns are different matters, and it has long been considered that the second amendment is speaking specifically to them.
The National Rifle Association has forever held that long guns satisfy two reasonable purposes – the right to defend the home and the freedom to hunt wildlife as permitted by law. These are modern amalgamations of the second amendment, as crime and leisure hunting were not on the minds of the Bill of Right’s authors; our founding fathers were more concerned with tyrannies and the potential for aggression from the warring imperialist nations then lurking in the world. However, this modern adaptation seems sound. Should a criminal kick in your door, there is nothing like the sound of a shotgun’s shlick-shlack as the shells slip into their chambers. The DC ban crossed this line and prompted the Supreme Court to take another look.
But what about handguns? According to the Violence Policy Center’s Handgun Ban Backgrounder, “Although handguns make up only 34% of firearms, approximately 80% of firearm homicides are committed with a handgun.” The original DC ban centered on handguns exclusively, as the city had wrestled anxiously with violent crime. A 2006 report from the Legal Community Against Violence, titled Regulating Guns in America, details the effectiveness of the DC handgun ban: “A 1991 study documented the effectiveness of Washington DC’s law banning handguns. Following the enactment of the ban in 1976, there was a 25% decline in homicides committed with firearms and a 23% decline in suicides committed with firearms within the District of Columbia. No similar reductions were observed in the number of homicides or suicides committed by other means, nor were there similar reductions in the adjacent metropolitan areas in Maryland and Virginia.”
The second amendment does not appear to have taken too much of our well-studied and violent present culture into account. Conceived in a time when plumbing had yet to be invented, how prescient can we now expect the Bill of Rights to be? Much of the famed document was written in reaction to a since-extinct monarchy – with an explicit desire to not repeat the ills of that monarchy. While the Supreme Court will have much to deliberate, (it would be a side-note curiosity to understand their definition of “militia” in these post-9/11 days), the second amendment may very well be showing its age.
As weapon technology advances, it seems reasonable to keep some of these deadly items out of the hands of the general population. Many in the anti-gun establishment are seeking compromises that constitute bans based on gun barrel lengths. The decision – for now – is in this generation’s Supreme Court.
This is the second amendment. While it is not over embellished in the tortured bloom of legal English more reflective of its era, it has succumbed to the gray shades of our times and to the scrutiny of a more convoluted and complicated nation.
After considerable debate in the lower courts over a desire by the District of Columbia to institute a sweeping gun ban, the Supreme Court very recently decided to reopen discussion on the meaning of the second amendment. On November 20, 2007, Gun Owners of America issued a press release. “The decision by the Supreme Court to rule on the DC gun ban gives them an historic opportunity to return to the original meaning of the second amendment,” said Gun Owners of America’s Executive Director, Larry Pratt in the release.
But what is a reasonable definition of the arms we have a right to keep and to bear? The DC ban is a comprehensive look at guns in the home – inclusive of both handguns and long guns, such as shotguns and rifles. Long guns do not typically face the same scrutiny as handguns in most states, and this makes the DC ban more aggressive than prior firearm regulations.
It is reasonable to accept bans on certain arms. One can assume that rocket launchers and hand grenades – while arms that might be found in the arsenal of roaming post-apocalyptic militia – are not appropriate for the current American household. Additionally, it is commonly agreed that swords and switchblades are items that beg for confiscation. But handguns and long guns are different matters, and it has long been considered that the second amendment is speaking specifically to them.
The National Rifle Association has forever held that long guns satisfy two reasonable purposes – the right to defend the home and the freedom to hunt wildlife as permitted by law. These are modern amalgamations of the second amendment, as crime and leisure hunting were not on the minds of the Bill of Right’s authors; our founding fathers were more concerned with tyrannies and the potential for aggression from the warring imperialist nations then lurking in the world. However, this modern adaptation seems sound. Should a criminal kick in your door, there is nothing like the sound of a shotgun’s shlick-shlack as the shells slip into their chambers. The DC ban crossed this line and prompted the Supreme Court to take another look.
But what about handguns? According to the Violence Policy Center’s Handgun Ban Backgrounder, “Although handguns make up only 34% of firearms, approximately 80% of firearm homicides are committed with a handgun.” The original DC ban centered on handguns exclusively, as the city had wrestled anxiously with violent crime. A 2006 report from the Legal Community Against Violence, titled Regulating Guns in America, details the effectiveness of the DC handgun ban: “A 1991 study documented the effectiveness of Washington DC’s law banning handguns. Following the enactment of the ban in 1976, there was a 25% decline in homicides committed with firearms and a 23% decline in suicides committed with firearms within the District of Columbia. No similar reductions were observed in the number of homicides or suicides committed by other means, nor were there similar reductions in the adjacent metropolitan areas in Maryland and Virginia.”
The second amendment does not appear to have taken too much of our well-studied and violent present culture into account. Conceived in a time when plumbing had yet to be invented, how prescient can we now expect the Bill of Rights to be? Much of the famed document was written in reaction to a since-extinct monarchy – with an explicit desire to not repeat the ills of that monarchy. While the Supreme Court will have much to deliberate, (it would be a side-note curiosity to understand their definition of “militia” in these post-9/11 days), the second amendment may very well be showing its age.
As weapon technology advances, it seems reasonable to keep some of these deadly items out of the hands of the general population. Many in the anti-gun establishment are seeking compromises that constitute bans based on gun barrel lengths. The decision – for now – is in this generation’s Supreme Court.
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