Lord, Bless This Bounty For Which We Are About To Conceive

In case you haven't heard, a set of octuplets was born in California last week. All eight babies are said to be doing well, as it their mother. As usual when a woman gives birth to a litter of Frankenstein children, the media is going gaga apeshit over this news. Personally, I find it highly disturbing. Highly.

We don't know much about the mother, because she and her doctors are in some sort of weird media blackout, only occasionally updating us on the status of these freak kids. But we can surely conclude that mother used fertility drugs and that she's a paranoid narcissist.

Because, seriously. How fuckin' full of your own infertile shit do you have to be to think you deserve to have six plus children at once? Only in America is this type of behavior celebrated and encouraged. Remember the McCaughey septuplets, the world's first surviving set of seven babies, born in Iowa in 1997? I do. They were on Oprah the following year, paraded out by their Christian nutbag parents in front of the bright lights and television audience of millions, all in an attempt to prove what a "normal" family they are. A "normal" family that gets a pre- babyproofed mansion as a gift from Oprah.

Now, of course, we have "Jon and Kate Plus 8," a TLC reality show dedicated to this couple with a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. We learn that they are also Christians and full of their own infertile shit. I love how these families are always religious, as if subverting god's own will is going to get you into the express lane to heaven. There's a reason he made you infertile, asshole! Fuck, they're not blessings, they're science experiments. Allah forbid you just adopt a kid or two and leave it at that.

I was watching "Jon and Kate Plus 8" a few weeks ago and Kate was talking about how she gets the kids to line up for shit. She says something like, "I just say, 'Birth order,' and they just know. They know that their birth order was chosen by god." No, not so much. Their birth order was chosen by which fetus was closest to the hole they cut in your overstuffed uterus. And the neonatologists did that, not god. Or Jesus.

There is nothing at all normal or healthy about a woman carrying more than, like, three babies in her at once. And even triplets is a stretch, both morally and anatomically. I can't believe any insurance company in this country would be willing to cover the delivery of eight premature babies at once and the subsequent ten years in the NICU they'll require. But then again, I guess that's what Oprah's for.

Drugs Vs. Drugs

I take Lorazepam, known colloquially as Ativan. I take it because I suffer from anxiety and insomnia and Lorazepam, working as a depressant, calms my happy ass down. I feel groggy and indifferent after a dose and I suppose those reactions make taking the drug a success. I have a prescription for it, therefore it's an "OK" drug.

Anyway, I was inspired to write something on the topic of prescription drugs after hearing the dearly departed Heath Ledger got nominated for a Golden Globe for his kickass performance in "The Dark Knight." Ledger, of course, died in January from a prescription drug overdose. Among the panoply of drugs found in the 28-year-old's system was our good friend Lorazepam. Just for the hell of it, I googled Anna Nicole Smith's death and what do ya know? Lorazepam was also found in her body.

Of course, Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith died from a combination of drugs (and a lot of them), not just from one anti-anxiety pill. But the bigger point here is where do we draw the line between an "OK" drug, like Lorazepam, and a "bad" drug like, oh, heroin? Drug overdose is now the second leading cause of accidental deaths among U.S. adults and obviously, that doesn't just include crack and other "street" drugs.

I'm certainly not implying that we should ban prescription drugs- I, for one, need my Lorazepam and I know others who need their pills, too. I'm actually one of those crazy liberals who say the war on drugs is a joke. I guess the problem I have is with perception. It's like prescription drugs are the "white collar" drugs (re: not that bad) and crack and smack are "inner city" drugs (re: the real problem). It's almost analogous to the dual bailouts: Wall Street/white collar America gets theirs without question while the car companies/blue collar America just gets their asses spanked.

culture

Get Your Fat Ass Outta My Face

The other day, I found myself in a similar argument with a friend over my smoking:

Friend: But why do you do it?

Me: Because I enjoy it and everyone hates it. You know I'm a contrarian prick.

Friend: But it's disgusting and it kills you.

Me: What doesn't kill you these days?

Then I proceeded to launch into my typical defense of smokers, which invariable involves comparing smoking to eating shit. To wit, there are roughly 400,000 Americans who die of cancer each year and not every single one of them was a smoker. In fact, most of them were probably fatasses who lived off sugar, uncaffeinated coffee, and high fructose corn syrup who passed anti-smoking laws because they worried about the effect of second-hand smoking on their treasured health. Let me repeat that fact: 400,000 Americans die every year of cancer and most of them were not smokers.

Secondly, what pisses me off as a smoker is that we as a society placate, coddle, and pity the fatties. "Oh, wah. I'm 600 pounds and I don't know why God did me like this!" God didn't shove mountains of shit down your throat. God did not invent the Oreo pizza or the deep fryer. And God probably doesn't consider being fat a "curse." Dude used to make shit rain frogs and killed tons of people just to prove a point about his severe jealously. You know, we shouldn't make excuses for these people. Just like me, they have a vice that should be frowned upon. But unlike me, they get Oprah specials and a bizarre outpouring of sympathy. Just because everyone is fat doesn't make it right, mmmkay? Besides, it's funny as hell to watch fat people fall down.

This brings me to the state of Maryland's decision to ban smoking in bars and restaurants a few years ago. OK, right. Because people go to bars and get shitfaced out of concern for their health. People waddle into restaurants to stuff themselves numb at the buffet (with room for desert!) out of concern for their health. If you're going to make it difficult for me to light up without being cited, then you better make it hard for fatties to access their drugs. Ban fatties from fast food joints! Make McDonald's, Burger King, and Little Debbie shell out big like the tobacco companies did in the 90s! Jesus! The hypocrisy here is really astounding.

Anyway, after I went through all that, my friend had to admit I had a point. Fuck yeah I do.