Interesting medical news this week: first, that humans and animals can transmit diseases back and forth to each other (it used to be that animals got all the blame); second, that the common cold, which is usually caused by the rhino-virus, can at last be knocked out fairly quickly; however, the medicine, pleconaril, won’t be available for several months.
Lest I lead you astray, I should point out that the rhino in rhinovirus and the rhino in rhinoceros both mean nose or snout, depending on your opinion of the wearer. To complete the etymology, whether in the time of Caesar or Chaucer, oceros meant horn. A rhinoceros has two horns on its snout, and you, dear reader, at worst have a virus in your nose. The ancient Romans, by the way, got their name for this thick-skinned family, which ranges from Africa to Asia, from the ancient Greeks. The Greek word was rhinokeros.
Yuletide medicine: Doctors at the University of California San Francisco this week debunked another urban myth: "Contrary to popular opinion, poinsettia plants are not dangerous. The myth of the deadly poinsettia originates from a single questionable case in Hawaii in 1918; there have been no serious ingestions involving poinsettia since then. The plants are safe to have in the home during the holidays."
What isn’t safe, the good doctors say, is gorging yourself on holly berries and mistletoe. They "can be poisonous if swallowed in large quantities." Most adults aren’t likely to go on a holly-berry binge, but pet owners and parents of toddlers, beware. If you have small children, hang up pyracantha instead of holly and keep the mistletoe well out of your toddlers’ reach, the doctors say.
From my point of view, kids grow up too fast these days anyhow, so let’s not encourage them to hang around under the mistletoe.
Weekly comments on the ‘War on Terrorism’
• I took some heat from several readers when I wrote on Nov. 8 that "those West Marin residents who continue to believe that US support for bad governments somehow led to the Sept. 11 attack are the counterparts to today’s skinheads who believe that Jews deserved what Hitler did to them." (I was using the dictionary definition of "skinheads" as white youths who "sometimes participate in white-supremacist and anti-immigrant activities.")
By now, thanks to Osama bin Laden’s own words – it’s clear the al Qaeda and Taliban leadership are megalomaniacs – not caped crusaders. Moreover, televised celebrations in Kabul, Kandahar, and elsewhere in Afghanistan each time the Taliban is routed demonstrate we’re liberating that wretched country, not attacking it.
To my mind, bin Laden is another, half-crazed Hitler, so it’s interesting to see how the war is being viewed in the land of the Third Reich. Writing in Sunday’s Chronicle, correspondent Frank Viviano noted that until recently many Europeans opposed the war, and "the most vociferous of those critics had been in Germany....Today, according to the daily Frankfurter Runschau, the loudest German protests against the United States are mounted by small neo-Nazi fringe groups that identify with the Taliban’s totalitarian philosophy." In short, the skinheads.
• There are so many reasons to feel the US is doing the right thing in Afghanistan, why the hell has Attorney General John Ashcroft decided to resurrect the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1778? The now-notorious acts limited the rights of US citizens to be free from searches, seizures, and invasions of privacy unless there was probable cause to believe they had committed a crime. The new USA Patriot Act just pushed through Congress and signed into law by President Bush is designed to allow similar campaigns against resident aliens living in America.
However, the most lasting effect is likely to be on American citizens, who may have their phones and email tapped – or their computers’ hard disks secretly copied – for simply speaking out against Administration policies.
The Alien and Sedition Acts, you may recall, were pushed through Congress and signed by President John Adams at a time when relations between the US and France were badly strained although no war was ever declared. By 1802, the acts had all expired or been repealed, and public resentment against them led to the death of the Federalist Party, which ultimately was recognized as being as anti-immigrant as worried about France.
• I find it amazing that Americans and their Congress can be convinced to accept the new USA Patriot Act, which eliminates one constitutional right after another, in an attempt to prevent a repeat of terrorism that could have occurred whether or not the act had been in effect on Sept. 11. Moreover, if so much of the Bill of Rights is to be sacrificed in the name of the War on Terrorism, why is it that Attorney General Ashcroft won’t let the FBI look into the background checks done on terrorism suspects who have bought handguns? It seems the attorney general is so committed to the Second Amendment that if Osama bin Laden himself had bought a handgun in this country, Ashcroft would make sure the FBI couldn’t pry into his background check.
I don’t know if that’s compassionate, but it’s certainly conservative. Merry Christmas.