The Progressive Puppy

A Tale of Two Doctors: Ron Paul and Abraham Verghese

Dr. Abraham Verghese, the Compassionate Physician Dr. Ron Paul Could Never Be

Cursory Examination:  Unless you're a bellicose Ron Paul supporter with a loathing for all things progressive, you know the Republican presidential candidate and former gynecologist suffers from terminal homophobia.  A skilled propagandist cannot spin away the dehumanizing actions and words of this ultraconservative politician.  Queer folk recognize that the "individual liberties" mantra chanted by hardcore Paulites is nothing more than mob rule dressed in bright red stilettos and a lily white thong.  Ron Paul and his admirers may grind against the Everybody-Is-Equal pole, but once the house lights come up we see that the crusty politician doesn't give a shit whether LGBT Americans are treated like second-class citizens - or even criminals.  When Paul's spokespeople indicate otherwise, they're being disingenuous. 

Diagnosis:  The Southern-fried Bible thumpers who want to re-criminalize intimacy between consenting same-sex couples have Ron Paul's blessing.  "Ignore Lawrence v. Texas!" screech religious zealots in Paul's home state. "The Supreme Court can't tell us which laws to enact."  Predominately Caucasian areas that hanker to bring back segregation can dust off their beloved "Colored Restroom" signs.  According to Ron Paul and his minions, the majority of residents in a particular region should be permitted to oppress any minority for any reason.  (The federal government has no role in assisting the poor or protecting the marginalized, the downtrodden, the different - that's Tea Party Theory 101.)

"The individual suffering from AIDS certainly is a victim – frequently a victim of his own lifestyle – but this same individual victimizes innocent citizens by forcing them to pay for his care," Paul callously wrote in his 1987 book, Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution after 200-Plus Years.

Let me tell you about a different type of physician, a medical professional who demonstrated bravery and compassion at the onset of the AIDS epidemic.  His experiences are detailed in a beautifully-written memoir titled My Own Country: A Doctor's Story.  Abraham Verghese, an infectious disease specialist of Indian descent, worked as a resident at a small hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee when the first AIDS patients started appearing in the emergency room.  In those days, the deadly affliction was known as "gay cancer" (among other, more demeaning, sobriquets).  Many of these young men had moved to large cities when their "Christian" parents, upon discovering their sons were homosexual, kicked them out of the house.  When they realized they were dying they returned home, most of them still shunned by their families.  

From the very beginning, it never occurred to Dr. Verghese to blame patients for their condition (as Dr. Paul did).  Although hobbled with misinformation and prejudice, Verghese treated these young men humanely.  Against all odds he attempted to ease their suffering - including, in some instances, those with little financial means and no health insurance.  If the situation warranted, he made house calls.  He listened to their personal stories.  He befriended them.  He touched them (a fact which frightened his wife and elicited scorn from his fellow hospital employees). 

It has been reported - and this isn't difficult to believe - that Ron Paul is so uncomfortable around homosexuals that he once swatted away the hand a gay volunteer, a guy who worked on his campaign and raised cash for him.  He refused to use the bathroom of another gay supporter.  Can you just imagine how Dr. Paul would have cringed in the presence of a person who was infected with the HIV virus?   Obstetrics was a prudent career choice for the Southern Baptist physician.  Heaven forbid he should've been required to care for the "sinners" who, he piously ascertains, brought a plague upon themselves.  ("Society pay for this? No way. Let them die in the street.")

Every progressive should read My Own Country and discover the true meaning of Christian compassion.

Why I Was So Moved By "The Help"

When I was growing up in East Texas there were two women who made a profound impact on my life. One was named Georgia, the other was Rose. I loved them both dearly and I'd like to think they regarded me with some fondness. Unfortunately, I will never know for sure how they really felt. Georgia and Rose were housekeepers employed by my family as "help." They were African-Americans ladies, and we lived in the segregated South - yes, Puppers, I am that fucking old - where the smiles conferred by both races occasionally rang false. Being a kid in the Bible Belt at a time when children were expected to be seen and not heard, and whipped with a leather strap for misbehaving; when youngsters were seldom privy to adult conversations and upon no occasion allowed to participate in family decisions; I was never told Rose or Georgia's last names, or what part of town they resided in, or what sort of lives they led when they weren't performing domestic chores for my mother (at embarrassingly low wages, I'm sure). To Mama, who had a near-pathological aversion to kitchen appliances, they were as indispensable as the air she breathed. Rose toiled at our house Monday through Thursday until I started in kindergarten. When she vanished from our lives, Georgia began showing up and would be there, baking or scrubbing on something, when I got home from school in the afternoons.

I just finished reading Kathryn Stockett's magnificent novel "The Help." One of the major characters in the story is a black woman named Ailbileen. She keeps house for a self-involved white lady who spends little time with her children and is desperate for social validation. (Already, I knew this family.) In the book, Aibileen regularly whispers things to the toddlers she looks after, simple things like "You are smart" and "You are good." Reading those episodes struck a personal chord; they were so remindful of the support and encouragement bestowed upon me by Georgia and Rose. Like a lot of LGBT youth, I was relentlessly bullied in school even though (believe it or not) the word "gay" hadn't made it to Cherokee County in the early sixties and in those days "queer" was the slur of choice. My mom barely noticed a bruise or a cut, and my folks thought I was crazy when I begged to be transferred to another school. ("Please, I'll take the bus! I'll ride my bike. I'll walk!" "You've got to learn to look after yourself, Max Jr. Now stop standing in front of the TV, I can't hear a blessed thing.") But the two black women who cared for me knew what it was like to be diminished by society, and they treated me as if I were a favored nephew. This earned them my devotion, for what that was worth.

As I matured and formed my own opinions about the racial unrest that came rumbling through the Piney Woods, I often thought back on these two kind-hearted women that oversaw my upbringing and provided me with more good food and raw affection than my mother ever managed. The main thing that parents should do for their offspring is try to protect them from physical harm. My Mama and Daddy couldn't do that. They didn't come across as unkind or hateful people, and I never heard them speak disrespectfully to Rose or Georgia (who, they agreed, "knew their place") - but like most whites, they were totally immersed in rural Texas values and disinclined to eschew the trappings of racial privilege. I was the pancake baby, the throw-away child. My school years, which whizzed by them in an alcoholic blur, were a rhapsody of black eyes, wrenched shoulders, and busted lips that, unless a hospital visit was involved, elicited little comment.  But our "help" provided sweet balm for the innumerable hurts that rained down on me.

Once, after a particularly awful week of bullying, Georgia walked into my bedroom and noticed me changing my shirt. As she stood there holding the laundry basket, I saw her eyes widen and heard a sharp intake of breath. I glanced down at my naked torso and, perhaps for the first time, realized how broken and battered it was. The bruises, having been administered at different times throughout the month, bloomed in a rainbow of colors. Georgia sat down on the edge of my bed and hugged me.  She said, "Don't you let them mean boys make you change. You are my baby, and you are perfect exactly the way you are."  Those were words I had never heard from my parents, or at any church.

A film version of "The Help," directed by Tate Taylor and starring Viola Davis and Emma Stone, is set to be released on August 12th. I look forward to seeing it. (You can watch the official trailer on YouTube.)

Meredith Vieira Lobs Softballs at Glenn Beck

Yesterday, Glenn Beck emerged from his Tea Party bulwarks for a mutual admiration chinwag and book-pimping session with Today Show's Meredith Vieira.  Beck was accompanied by Keith Albow, conservative pal and co-author of his new self-help tome, The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life.  (Check out WalMart's low prices on fine literature!)  Like the pundit's recent paranoid novel The Overton Window, "7" wasn't really written by the Fox News shill/hate radio host; he hired lackeys to create and bang out the actual sentences. 

In the following video clip you won't see Beck shed any patriotic tears (his stock in trade), but you'll hear him talk about weeping - which is almost as satisfying.  You'll also witness Ms. Vieira's predictably lame attempt to confront Mr. Hate concerning his incendiary language and how that might have related to the Tuscon tragedy.  Needless to say, Vieira flubs this golden opportunity.  Beck's insane conspiracy theories go unmentioned.  Same thing with his loathsome attempts at character assassination.  At one point Beck laments that in the past he "was a guy that I would've hated. I was a very bad man."  (Was?)  Meredith has her consoling big sister vibe going, and the entire interview is instantly forgettable - but it does demonstrate how major TV networks lend credibility to the nation's most dangerous crackpots.

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The Book in the Woods

I was nine-years-old when I discovered the giant illustrated book in the woods.  It was the largest book I'd ever seen, dwarfing even Me-Maw's oversized King James Bible which was so heavy that it had its own special table in the dining room.  (The Tyler cousins and I were forbidden to touch that Bible, upon threat of a switching - but we were forced to listen to instructional passages read to us before evening meals.  I feel certain Me-Maw was really a frustrated actress at heart - and she used these moments of religious tutelage to fulfill her thespian yearnings.  The suffering expressed by her Naomi could bring a torrent of tears to my tender eyes:  "Do not call me Naomi! Call me Mara (מרה), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me."  I could certainly relate with that.)   

Where Me-Maw's Bible was filled with illustrations of Noah and the Flood, Salome and John the Baptist, The Tower of Babel, and Lot's wife turned to salt; the book in the forest - evidently a medical tome many decades old - was jam packed with hundreds of vivid photographic plates and colorful paintings showing patients suffering from elephantiasis, leprosy, hypertrichosis, neurofibromatosis, acromelagy, just about any disfiguring ailment known to humankind.  There were burn victims galore, innocent babes with vital organs growing outside their little bodies, people with taloned fingers and faces ravaged by skin cancer, twisted spines and webbed feet. 

To a youngster growing up in backwoods East Texas in the sixties, these visuals were both disturbing and mesmerizing - like a deadly car wreck you can't look away from.  The pitiful human beings pictured in the book wore no clothes, which added a terrifying titillation factor.  Of course these days the most sensational and jaw-dropping images are available to kids of all ages at the click of a mouse - but for a rural lad who had never even seen a nude photo before, female breasts dissected, waterhead infants, deformed toddlers, and old men dragging around watermelon-sized testicles was potent stuff.

*****

Behind our small frame house near the Angelina River was a dense stretch of woods (mostly pine trees) that extended approximately six miles to a railroad track and then, on the other side of the track, picked up again and continued on for who knew how far.  At that young age I didn't have many friends - truth be told, I had no friends - and I spent most afternoons walking up and down the train tracks.  There wasn't much to see, actually - or anything of interest to a youth who didn't get excited at the prospect of killing animals.  My dad had already taken me hunting with him a few times.  The experiences ended disappointingly for us both.  I simply got no pleasure from slaughtering wildlife.  I appreciated the feel of nature, the sights and smells of the forest.  But imagination was my bosom pal.  It was enough.

How many times did I walk past that burned down old house?  A dozen?  Two?  What on earth was it doing out there in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by barely penetrable piney woods?  I called it the ghost house, even though there was nothing spooky about the property, and certainly no supernatural spirits - real or imagined - lingering within the jumbled clearing.  The ruined structure was sitting maybe a quarter mile from the train tracks, nothing left of it but a concrete slab, some blackened support beams, and a few charred walls.   There was a scorched sofa, two chairs, and a daybed that somebody apparently tried to pull from the fire and haul into what must once have been a back yard.  After giving the place a cursory investigation first time I laid eyes on it, I typically ignored it as I passed - until one morning when I was strolling by (warbling a Gilbert and Sullivan ditty, if memory serves), I suddenly wondered if the whole thing could be turned into a sort of clubhouse.  (Y'know, a club with a single member?  I was such a dork.)

So, like any budding set designer enslaved by creative impulses, I walked into the ghost family's backyard and started rearranging the moldy furniture to see if there was any pleasing effect to be had.  There wasn't.  But when I dragged the sofa to a different location I discovered a flat metal box I'd not noticed before with rusty hinges but a secure lid.  Inside the box was the book.  Inside the book were the medical pictures - those shocking, bizarre, never-in-a-million-years imagined images that to this day haunt me. 

I spent the remainder of that morning - and many other mornings - perusing the book in the woods.   Eventually I brought a knapsack into the forest, stuffed the thing inside the bag, and took it home with me.  I hid it at the bottom of my closet.  In my spare time I copied down a list of all the unfamiliar maladies, along with a detailed description of symptoms.  One couldn't be too careful in those days.  I'd nearly perished from scarlet fever when I was five-years-old and the story grew more gruesome and heart-wrenching each time a relative related it to me.  (Which they did. Frequently.)  So from that point on, and for several years to come, before any trip to the pediatrician, I would always cross reference my symptoms with those found inside the book.  This inevitably required a visit to the local library.

(There's much more after the jump ...)

Mental Health Break: Edward Gorey's Epipleptic Bicycle

Embley and Yewbert were hitting one another with croquet mallets
When they heard a noise behind the wall
And an untenanted bicycle rolled into view ...

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adapted on tape by Scottie and Jonathan

Sarah Palin's Life For Kids To "Emulate"

In September, a religious book publisher called Zondervan is planning to release a biography about Sarah Palin aimed at youngsters aged 9-12  - which means there won't be any big words in it that Sarah herself might not understand.  The book, called "Speaking Up: The Sarah Palin Story," is the first in a series of slender tomes portraying the life stories of famous Christians.  Biographies of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and U2 frontman Bono will purportedly follow ... 

From Associated Press:  Kathleen Kerr, an acquisitions editor for Zondervan's Zonderkidz division, said the subjects are prominent figures who children hear about in the news and role models for tweens who are "working for the betterment of the world in which we live and who are motivated primarily by their Christian faith."  Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, has often referred to her faith and what she sees as her calling to public service.  Palin has credited God with readying her heart for the birth of her youngest child, Trig, who has Down syndrome. At one time, Palin said, she wasn't sure if she would be patient enough, but those doubts dissipated when he was born.  The biography by Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Zondervan is unauthorized. Author Kim Washburn said she was unable to interview Palin and didn't speak with anyone close to her. (I betcha Palin is kicking herself for not tapping into this venue first.)  From The Hill:  The book begins with Palin's childhood in Alaska and shows that "with guts, character, determination and unwavering faith in God, even an ordinary person can change the world," Kerr said.  Author Kim Washburn was not granted an interview with Palin, but used her memoir "Going Rogue: An American Life" and news accounts to help her write.  She said she was impressed by Palin's work ethic and independent streak, which may resonate with girls.

Can a "Palin for Preschoolers" be far behind?  After that I suppose we'll see a version of Palin's life geared toward the "Young Adult" market - as if teenagers in America don't have enough problems already.