They don't get mailed to the paper, especially if they're full of nonsense, unsourced "facts" and bizarre assertions with little to no basis in reality.
They do if it's the London Free Press we're talking about.
Time to review flu shots
Regarding the article Flu shot flunkies (Jan. 17). Through the years we have gone to expensive ends to protect the frail elderly from the ravages of the annual flu. Initially we focused our efforts on immunizing those at risk. For a while we even banked on the whimsical concept of "herd immunity" among them.
We have to stop. Herd immunity is a "whimsical concept"? Right out of the gate, Mr.Jamie Harris is spouting a line of nonsense so ridiculous that the editors should have tossed this letter into the bin without further thought. Does Mr. Harris think that smallpox and polio and measles just went away? That they got tired and moved on? Shall we say "fucking moron" or let himself shoot off his penis?
When it was proven that the uptake of immunity within the herd and by the individual elder was more miss than hit, we resorted to trying to protect the "at risk" population by immunizing society in general and caregivers in particular.
Fucking moron. Nobody has ever contended that vaccines are perfect, but 64%-95% efficacy is nothing to sneeze at (that pertains to pertussis), and it isn't hit or miss. The Japanese tried not vaccinating children against the flu. The result was "there was a rapid increase in excess deaths after 1994, the year in which mass immunization formally ended, [which] supports the conclusion that the effects observed in earlier years were due to vaccine-induced herd immunity" As to the hit and miss, researchers conclude that "37,000 to 49,000 excess deaths from all causes were averted annually when the Japanese program of mass immunization of schoolchildren against influenza was in effect." Nearly the entire population of Sarnia, Ont. is not hit or miss.
Oh well, let's just dive into the truly insane part. Plug your nose and stuff your ethics into a water tight bag, 'cause it gets messy.
Perhaps it is time to step back and reconsider the annual influenza outbreak.
The point of the annual flu shot is to increase the life expectancy for aged people, many of whom are experiencing profoundly diminished quality of life, making everyday a struggle.
The annual flu is a natural pruning tool and the consequent pneumonia was regarded, in kinder times, as "the old man's friend."
Instead of conspiring to coerce health-care providers into accepting shots, maybe a humane reconsideration of the entire flu shot ritual is long overdue.
Posted By: Jamie Harris, London
Posted On: January 21, 2012
Editors Note: As published in The London Free Press on Jan. 21, 2012.
Anyone who writes that "The annual flu is a natural pruning tool and the consequent pneumonia was regarded, in kinder times, as "the old man's friend." is either insane or lying. Mr. Jamie Harris has obviously never seen an old person with pneumonia, or has and wasn't bothered by it. I doubt the families of the great number of people killed every spring by the flu consider it a mercy. There is already a "pruning" of people who were not looking to die from the flu. Their compromised immune systems left them at risk, but it shouldn't be a death sentence because some soulless ghoul like Harris thinks the tree needs trimming.
Jamie Harris is probably a crank, most definitely someone without a ton of compassion. The London Free Press is, once again, to be ashamed of itself (were that possible). The ramblings of lunatics are not supposed to pass an editor's desk unworried, are they? Better to ask Harris to write a fully sourced column, and allow him to make his insane point properly, than to grab any piece of shit flung from the monkey cage and paste it on the bulletin board with a big "Look At This Shit" banner on top it, isn't it?
I make myself laugh.
I guess now is time to unveil my own clever artwork, to be used to graphically and colourfully enhance my shallow prose. I'm becoming a creator so that I don't run afoul of the coming hordes of copyright lawyers. Of course it will suck.
Jamie Harris of London Ontario?
Update:
From the comments, the Reverend PaperBoy, him what knows what is what about newspapers lets me have it!
"Ha! you have no idea how the letter to editors column works!"
Truer words were never spoken. Read his comment and learn how craven is the process of putting letters in the paper.
9 comments:
Ha! you have no idea how the letter to editors column works! What ever fills the space you need to fill between the huge advertisements for group discounts on ballroom dancing lessons is what goes in, as long as the letterwriter has included a return address and phone number. If you think that pile of dogcrap was bad, you should see the urine-soaked written-in-crayon missives from the dimmest corners of humanity that don't get published.
Mr. Harris' letter could pass for the work of a SUN chain columnist, except that he writes better than most of their paint-chip eating Rob Ford cheerleaders.
In the interests of full disclosure, did Jamie Harris not return your snow shovel?
I don't care what you say, Hamie Harris' letter made me smile and I'm positive my breakfast eggs tasted all the better because of my high spirits.
Don't you see? Karma is patient. Karma waits. And Karma made sure that some youngster read Jamie's letter. Someday, that youngster - by sheer coincidence - will be the Duty Nurse in whatever ward an elderly Jamie Harris lie wheezing watery rasps. And that Nurse will remember to introduce themself as "the old man's friend". It's too Dickensian *not* to happen that way.
Rev,
Silly me for hoping for better. Really. Silly me. I am way too pollyanna for my own good.
Superfun,
I guess I woke up, read the letter and thought, if I don't complain, the who? Who dammit!
And yes, he has my shovel. I told they were on sale too.
Crazylegs, I like the way you think, Mister.
it isn't that we don't like to get good, sensible letters from thoughtful readers, but such people do not write letters to the editor. Nope, we get the cranks, the malcontents, the conspiracy theorists, the nutjobs -- people who normally would just blog and leave the rest of us alone, but who, for some reason, want their name in the newspaper and want to nail their little manifesto to the door of the church in the hope that everyone will see just how clever they are.
Nine times out of ten, anything not actually libelous or otherwise likely to land us in court that is properly signed, gets put in the queue for use in the paper. Coal for the fire, grist for the mill, something to throw in the ever slavering maw that is the empty page that must be filled.
Besides, it lets the readers think we care what they think and lets them bother someone else (the editorial page editor, who is always someone who loves to argue and has opinions on everything) thus allowing the rest of us to get on with our important work typing up whatever the mayor or MP said today or finding which elementary school collected the most canned goods this week or writing that hard hitting expose about which restaurant among our advertisers has the best chicken wings.
Thanks for the information Rev. I honestly thought that a newspaper would receive a veritable avalanche of useful, thoughtful letters. I am obviously incredibly mistaken. Mistaken to such a degree that I am aghast at my ignorance. Lesson learned.
I'm still going to poke the dummies who write dumb letters. It just won't be as much fun without the conspiratorial thoughts I imagined were behind them. Now they really are just sad, sick people.
Mental health professionals need to understand the specific training in the UK. In these four companies, with well-trained, experienced therapist training courses.
psychotherapy south london
Post a Comment