April 24, 2007

Sucks to be so busy

So much fiskatorial goodness out there today and no time to deal with it properly. So I'll just note that the Morning Show mentioned a cartoon sent in by our friend and commenter Walter Wallis, who then graciously sent it on to me. It's by New Yorker cartoonist Alex Gregory. I can't seem to easily find an online version to link, so at the risk of possible copyright infringement, I uploaded it. Apologies to Mr. Gregory, and if anyone knows a site with the same cartoon please let me know so I can change the link.

Here it is.

Posted by Ken S at April 24, 2007 07:56 AM | TrackBack (0) |
Comments

Absolutely perfect, Ken!

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at April 24, 2007 08:12 AM

Nobody lived past thirty, for sure. Hell, most people didn't live past one. There's a reason why the Romans didn't make an effort to forge a relationship with their children until they reached the age of seven, when they could be considered "in the clear" for not dying of something that is easily preventable today with a shot or a pill. That's why people who carp about the simpler days of yore get on my nerves so badly. Infant mortality was normal. The plague, cholera, polio, sewage in the streets, dirty water, back-breaking lives requiring extreme physical labor. Yeah, those were the days.

Posted by: Emily at April 24, 2007 08:30 AM

And let's not forget the toll childbirth took on women.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at April 24, 2007 08:57 AM

What Emily said. (Interesting: Lileks' "Bleat" today has scenes from a cemetary, including many shots of graves of children who lived fewer than five years).

I cringe tremendously every time someone (usually someone with very little grasp of science) rants on the "dangers" of immunizing kids.

I have an aunt who raised her children during the polio era (none of them contracted it, thank God.) Ask HER about vaccines and how she feels about them. Or read about the diphtheria epidemics of the 1920s.

I also hear people carp about antibiotics. I contracted scartletina when I was eight. Three days later I was back in school, thanks to antibiotics. Had I been born pre-antibiotics, many kinds of "secondary" problems could have resulted: blindness, deafness, blindness AND deafness, death, rheumatic fever....

A book that made me VERY thankful for antibiotics (and the people who research them) was "The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat." I had no idea how dangerous even childbirth was before antibiotics.

Heck, I'm just happy to live in an era where we have Advil....

Posted by: ricki at April 24, 2007 09:07 AM

A case of bacillary dysentary when I was seven and we were in India left me so weak that, between feverish sweats, I could barely tip out of my cot and crawl to the toilet down the hall so that I stream liquid out both ends - antibiotics saved my life.

Posted by: DirtCrashr at April 24, 2007 10:36 AM

Thanks for posting it!

And I second Ricki's Advil appreciation. :)

Posted by: Kate P at April 24, 2007 11:41 AM