Post-Rant Regrets

So this will be short. I promise. Looking back on yesterday's post, I felt a little bad for adding to the amount of vitriol extant in the world and I was very tempted to either go back and rewrite it or just delete it. But I decided to leave it up because some parts of it were true and apparently I needed to get them out. A goodly amount is not true and, at best, represents the airing of some very dark thoughts that live deep inside me. It was like lancing a deep abscess and letting the poison out. Yuck on that anaolgy.

In the hours following the writing I found out I was not entirely right about my blanket defamation of the Telethons. Jerry Lewis was probably driven by unselfish motives and he probably actually thought that the spectrum of conditions represented by the title; Muscular Dystrophy, could be cured or at least improved with enough public attention. For that, he should be remembered and praised. It's also not true that no progress was made battle against MD as an entity.

There have been significant improvements in the treatment and understanding of neuromuscular diseases. For a couple types of MD, new treatments have caused almost miraculous reversals of disabilities. Some of these breakthroughs came after the ending of the Telethons but it's reasonable to think that they were at least in part due to work on the diseases during those Telethon years. One remarkable breakthrough involved the drug Albuterol, a common beta-2 adrenergic agonist used as a bronchodilator in COPD, asthma, etc. It has been found to be useful in treating several types of neuromuscular problems, especially Congenital Myasthenic Syndrome. There is promising work on the use of Albuterol in Parkinsonism. Go figure!

So it's a bit like the scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" when the Judean People's Front (or was it the People's Front of Judea?) were excoriating the oppressive effects of the Roman occupation with the exception of bringing clean water, public order, sanitation, medicine, roads, wine, irrigation, and peace to the region. I'm mean, aside from the advances in science and making of some people's lives so very much better, bringing the American People together for a common cause and demonstrating the benefits of altruism and taking care of our nation's children-- what did the Jerry Lewis Telethons ever do for us?

Alright, that's all the crow I'm going to chow down on. I still say "Fuck you, with bells on!" to Donald Trump.

See! I told you I was going to keep it short. I'll try again tomorrow. I have to go clean some rugs. Smudge pooped all over the house in the middle of the night last night. He came to my side of the bed and asked me to let him out but I thought he wanted to go out and chase a cat that's been in the neighborhood. My fault again. Sue got up with me and did some midnight cleaning so she's probably really dragging today at work. My fault too, indirectly.

More later.