"The Choking Game" and other disturbing images

As I was watching "Football Night in America" on NBC last night, a commercial for tomorrow’s Today Show came on (side note: I've always loved the "Tomorrow, on Today" commercials; the unintended wordplay just cracks me up).

Anyhow, the top story planned to cover “The Choking Game,” a way in which young kids are asphyxiating each other in order to get high. My first instinct was to dismiss it after I got hosed by Jenkem, the not-real drug made from sewage gas. However, it turns out that The Choking Game is not a hoax, as this original report from Today in August 2005 reports, and to top that off, as this Q&A from ABC News around the same time shows, this practice is relatively horrifying.

In short, many children have died or been seriously injured from choking each other in order to get a quick high, which seems preposterous to me — I mean, whatever happened to whippits? There are plenty of good ol' fashioned inhalants around the house (markers, glue, etc.) that kids can get their hands on; why are they resorting to hurting each other?


Though the articles above are very quick to quell the idea that this is in any way sexual — similar to the way adults asphyxiate each other during sex — Freud might disagree. I'm not saying this is the case, but it might show early signs of masochism.

However, I'm not a psychoanalyst, no matter how much I may want to be, and my chosen path is simply to identify things as they are. In this context, my question is:

Should we be encouraging our kids to smoke pot and drink?

Of course not, but at the same time, demonizing these much, much safer drugs very well could be leading to people resorting to this kind of activity. Though this may or may not be true, I think The Choking Game simply proves that trying to get high is a natural human inclination (please agree or disagree at will). Would it be better, no matter what our kids are doing, just to teach them responsibility with regards to getting high? Clearly, having a sip of whiskey with their friends out back of the house is nowhere near so dangerous as momentarily killing themselves.

On that note, Happy Post-Holiday Monday!!

Higher Education wasting my time again

My post on Alzheimer’s from last week explained that scientists were working on a way to diagnose the disease before it happens.

Now, it appears that a different study shows that amount of formal education is directly proportional to the speed at which Alzheimer's deteriorates the brain.

Great. Does this include years of teaching as well?

Tramps Have Babies?

And now for your regular dose of Friday Fear-Mongering.

Got a tramp stamp? Not only are you a sucker for trends, but you might not be able to get an epidural in Canada if you ever get around to spawning.

A group of Canadian anesthesiologists published a 2002 report regarding the potential permanent spinal damage that can result from sticking an epidural needle through a lower back tattoo.

This report was based on a study of three women, none of whom had any negative effects from getting the shot through their tatts. Nonetheless, Vancouver hospitals are changing procedures for when tramp stampers have their little ones.

Christian protagonists, knocking back the booze

Apparently, alcohol is breaking down the barriers of Christian fiction, at least according to this piece.

I am all for this. I think many Christians (as well as many other people in general) need to understand that drinking alcohol moderately (or even occasionally to excess) does not automatically make you a drunkard. In fact, showing a good Christian protagonist drinking (as many good Christian people do) might possibly help people realize that they don't have to choose between Jack Daniels and Jesus Christ. A healthy portion of each is probably good for everyone.

Not only secular doctors hate poor people

Really not sure what this proves, but apparently "religious" doctors are no more likely to care for poor patients than "non-religious" ones.

"This came as both a surprise and a disappointment. The Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist scriptures all urge physicians to care for the poor, and the great majority of religious physicians describe their practice of medicine as a calling. Yet we found that religious physicians were not more likely to report practice among the underserved than their secular colleagues."

If people want to judge adherents to their specific faiths, that's one thing; not that I agree with religious in-fighting, but at least they are on the same playing field. But what does this say about "secular" people? Do they need God to care about the poor?

A Public Service Announcement

Ladies and Gentlemen:

 
As implausible as it sounds, eating popcorn heated with microwave radiation after soaking them in genotoxic chemicals is bad for you.   Dr. Cecile Rose says so.  WebMD has picked up the trail. 

Saletan Challenges Our Puny Minds

There is lots of good stuff on Slate today, including William Saletan's Human Nature Blog where he discusses new surgery that promises to repair genital mutilation and tax payer funded sex changes in Brazil. His question: Is genital mutilation a crime if you don't want it but a right if you do? (Thanks Dylan)

You can go to Slate's comment board with an answer if you are brave, but you are also welcome to share your opinion within the friendly confines of the Quail.

Her life just got a lot worse

Some questions are better left unanswered. Not saying she shouldn't have tried to catch her husband sleeping around, but this is just unfortunate.

We are all on drugs

The Pasty Quail will always take statistics with a grain of salt, but regardless, many of the people you know (no, not just your grandparents) are fucked up on painkillers.

While the rumors are true that a Vicodin washed down with a couple beers can make for quite the pleasurable evening, is seems rather strange that pharmacists will deny women the pill but have no qualms about handing out addictive drugs like they're candy.

Wait, smoking is unhealthy?

As an unapologetic yet self-conscious smoker, this editor of The Pasty Quail is highly critical of what Slate magazine's William Saletan refers to as the the international jihad against tobacco.

Granted, this topic is neither new nor groundbreaking, but the article plays a nice middle ground (Saletan is a professed non-smoker), and uses "logic" — a novel concept — to point out how smoking bans may have merit, but treating smokers like farm animals certainly does not.

And Finally Some Good News

Canadian scientists have discovered a gene that can turn-off the development of cancer cells.