Thoughts on Drug Advertising

Pharmaceutical commercials on television are required to list possible, often scary (or even deadly), side effects. (Not every conceivable side effect need be mentioned.) But the actors on such ads are always portrayed as smiling, happy customers, as if the dreaded list of possible side effects is more theoretical than real.

Perhaps some of the actor-patients in drug commercials should be required to portray patients whose clinical outcome is not the desired one. That might make drug advertising more realistic and discourage people from pestering their physicians to prescribe the advertised product.

Drug advertising, particularly for newly approved drugs, serves a useful function by informing people of the existence of a drug that might benefit them. Current advertising, however, raises hopes for improved health outcomes while downplaying possible drug dangers.

At one time, consumer-targeted drug advertising was not allowed at all. The current regulations, though helpful, are too permissive. Advertising should state what a new pharmaceutical can be used for and direct potential customer-patients to consult their own physician for more information and advice as to whether they could benefit from the medicine. As long as the drug is not portrayed as a miracle cure (suggested by a screenful of happy patients), it should be unnecessary to list potential side effects. The many television viewers who are not potential customers for the drug manufacturer’s product would appreciate the scaled-down ads.

Thoughts on Today’s News

Hamas may indeed be forced to accept the “peace” plan presented by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu today. It is a one-sided plan in Israel’s favor, however, and it does not guarantee that there will ever be a Palestinian state. Netanyahu continues to reject any Palestinian state, even though he has “accepted” Trump’s proposal that suggests that such a state is possible if certain unlikely conditions are, at some unspecified time, met.

It is ironic that the “Board of Peace” proposed to oversee the implementation of the Trump plan is to be chaired by Trump himself. This provision is meant to strengthen Trump’s case for receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. But Trump has supported Netanyahu with the ordnance  responsible for flattening nearly all of Gaza. Trump deserves indictment for war crimes more than a prize for peacemaking.

The most Hamas-friendly provision of the Trump proposal is amnesty for Hamas fighters. On the other hand, Netanyahu presumably never expects to be held responsible for his own war crimes. 

Hamas will not, I predict, accept Trump’s plan anytime soon.

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It appears that a government shutdown will be upon us in just over 24 hours, as Senate Democrats seem unwilling to support the House’s continuing resolution. Withholding their votes on the budget is virtually the only leverage the Democrats have in the current Congress and with the current president. Many Democrats, myself included, have urged Senator Chuck Schumer to demand rolling back some of the provisions of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” But I am concerned that the Democrats are demanding only healthcare-related concessions. They should be making more demands. Having more demands makes getting at least something in any future compromise. The GOP, led by Donald Trump, will reject any compromise unless widespread public demand for it materializes. I am reluctant to make predictions about that.

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Dolly Parton has announced that she is postponing her appearances in Las Vegas because of “health challenges.” I sincerely hope that her death will not come anytime soon, but the announcement made me contemplate losing a woman who can only be called a national treasure. Should that terrible thing happen during Trump’s term, Parton will not likely get flags flown at half staff or a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, honors shown the supremely underserving Charlie Kirk. (I have called Kirk elsewhere a mendacious, heretical demagogue and a talented propagandist who was a menace to the Republic.)

Pencil Sharpener

I don’t use ordinary #2 pencils very often. I probably use them most often for marking walls when hanging pictures. For ordinary writing, I invariably use one of several mechanical pencils. I do like to maintain a reasonably complete home office, however, so my office has always contained an electric pencil sharpener. When I moved to Clifton Springs, I discarded an outrageously large sharpener and replaced it with a much smaller electric sharpener from Staples. That device was not very good and recently completely failed to perform its only function. I discarded it and ordered a similarly sized electric sharpener by Bostitch. That device arrived at my doorstep yesterday. It works great. (Ironically, between the time I ordered the new sharpener and when it arrived, I purchased yet another mechanical pencil.)

The photo below shows the front of the box my new sharpener came in:

In the lower left corner of the box are graphics that presumably describe features of the sharpener, but I have no idea what “Power Meter” means. There is no meter on the shapener. Why does the power meter picture show a pointer at 6?

Here is a photo of the bottom of the sharpener box:

I had purchased the sharpener knowing nothing about its warranty. I was impressed by the 7-year warranty promised on the box. My delight was diminished when I read the sharpener instructions:

Notice the section labeled “ONE-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY.” Sigh!

On Charlie Kirk

 I do not approve of political assassinations (or any other kind of assassinations, for that matter.) I mourn for Charlie Kirk’s family, but I cannot grieve his loss. Kirk espoused racist and anti-gay views, and promoted unfounded conspiracy theories. His passionate support for so-called Second Amendment rights is ironic, given the way he met his demise. (He was quoted in The New York Times as having said: “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”) Charlie Kirk was a talented propagandist, but he was a menace to the Republic.

It is a travesty that flags are flying at half-staff to honor Kirk’s memory. If he deserves such an honor, then so does every other gunshot victim. Were we to follow this logic, flags would fly at half-staff every day of the year. Perhaps sending a message that way would not be a bad thing.

Labor Day Haiku, 2025

Labor Day weekend
A time for Trump to rid us
Of public unions.

I added the above haiku to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago yesterday. You can read about it on my Web site here.

Advice to the President

President Trump wants to hold on to power through unconventional, mid-decade gerrymandering. An alternative strategy (and perhaps an even more effective one) would be to substitute attractive policies for his destructive and unpopular ones.

The Clock

My latest poem celebrates my Howard Miller wall clock purchased many years ago. (See photo below.) Howard Miller has produced many beautiful timepieces. My clock is modest when compared to the company’s grandfather clocks; it is lovely nevertheless.

My poem “The Clock” was a long time coming, but I am satisfied with the result. Do read it on my Web site.

Unfortunately, Howard Miller is going out of business. Apparently, a weak housing market has resulted in reduced sales. President Trump’s tariffs also contributed to the company’s demise. Howard Miller will not be the last company killed by our out-of-control president.

Thoughts on the Pending Paramount/Skydance Merger

Is CBS, in pandering to the tender sensibilities of President Trump to gain administration approval of the merger of its owner Paramount with Skydance Media, diminishing the value of the property and making the transaction less attractive to Skydance?

Summer Memories

Last night, at Open Mic Night at Sulfur Books, I read my poem “Summer Pleasures.” That poem evokes various experiences of my childhood in New Orleans. Members of the audience had childhoods different from my own, of course, but I had hoped that my poem would inspire them to think of their own childhoods.

One woman told me that “Summer Pleasures” did indeed cause her to recall her own childhood memories. She raised the question of what sort of memories present-day children and teenagers will have to look back on when they become adults. Will they recall playing video games and texting friends on their cellphones? Or will they remember being driven by parents to organized activities like soccer practice and soccer games? Will their memories and, in fact, their childhoods be impoverished in comparison to those of their parents or grandparents? Or, perhaps the joys of a present-day childhood are merely different from those of a less technological age but somehow wonderful in their own right.

Bring the War to Russia

What if, on December 8, 1941, President Roosevelt had gone before Congress and asked for an increased military budget to build more weapons to defend against Japanese aggression, rather than asking for a declaration of war against the Empire of Japan?

Would enhancing America’s defenses have been a reasonable action in 1941? Or did the nation do the right thing by mobilizing for total war against Japan?

If you believe that active military action against Japan was indeed the proper response to Pearl Harbor, then why do we limit military shipments to Ukraine to defensive armaments? Can the war in Ukraine possibly have a satisfactory resolution—not simply the “peace” that President Trump seems to desire, but a victory for the West and punishment of Russia for its aggressive expansionism—if the war is never seriously taken to the Russian homeland? Why are Russian civilians not experiencing the daily horrors being visited by Putin’s military upon the civilians and the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine?

It’s time to ensure a Ukrainian victory against Russia, not simply a holding action that can only result in Ukraine’s ultimate defeat and the country’s annexation by an expanding Russian empire.

The Texas Ten Commandments Law

In June, the Texas legislature passed a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public elementary and secondary school classroom. By any reasonable calculus, this law is unconstitutional. Whether it will eventually be declared such is to be determined. If the Supreme Court eventually gets to weigh in, the Republican justices will likely undermine the wall between church and state even more than they have weakened it already.

My essay The Texas Ten Commandments Law examines the details of the Texas legislation. I examine the source of the biblical text that must be on the mandated posters and consider why some people might think passing this law was a good idea.

Put Supreme Court Justices on Vacation

The Supreme Court has become the “No-Surprise Supreme Court.” The justices take cases seemingly adjudicated rationally and definitely in lower courts and deliver the most unlikely, far-right decisions that ignore the clear meaning and intention of the Constitution and statutory law but satisfy Donald Trump and his Republican sycophantic minions. Once a case is accepted by the court, a goofy, law-free decision is assured. The latest decision is a perfect example of a ruling that has a certain facial logic, but is guaranteed to have a devastating effect on the rule of law in this country.

Given that the court operates this way nearly always, why do we need the justices at all? Let them all go on their oligarch-funded 12-month vacations and save themselves the trouble of figuring out how to contort the law out of all recognition to reach the decision they want, in their heart of hearts, to reach. Journalists can, with 90% certainty, generate the democracy-killing decisions the court would hand down were the justices actually sitting. And they can do it without the long, anxiety-producing delays we typically endure. If the court is going to wreck our democracy, why not do it and get it over with?

Current Supreme Court Justices

A Mechanism for Better Poetry Reading

I often read poetry in public, usually my own, but sometimes the poetry of others. In particular, I have been reading poetry at Sulfur Books at its monthly Open Mic Night. Usually, reading a poem is straightforward, but not always. Sometimes a line, at least considered in isolation, can be read in more than one way.

Last night, I read my latest poem, “Lament for America,” at Open Mic Night. (Although it made no difference to me one way or another, for the first time, performers actually used a microphone, a helpful change in light of the larger audiences Open Mic Night has been attracting.) The poem does not rhyme, and its line lengths vary between 11 and 18 syllables. Every line, however, contains five metrical feet of varying meter. In other words, five syllables in each line are stressed. I thought it essential that this unifying characteristic of the poem be made as clear as possible in my recitation. A thoughtless reading of the poem could obscure its essential unity.

To assure a proper reading of the poem, I thought of annotating the text with accent marks to indicate stressed syllables. This seemed clumsy, however, and might even have obscured the words themselves. I then hit upon an idea that actually worked quite well. I rendered the stressed syllables in red. Well, technically, I used a red font to indicate each word or part of a word whose first syllable only is stressed. Coloring only individual syllables, I reasoned, threatened to encourage a choppy delivery.

Here is the beginning of “Lament for America” as it appeared on the page from which I read my poem:

Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, has lost her luster,

And Lady Liberty weeps for want of freedom,

Her torch of enlightenment no longer a beacon to the world.

The Mother of Exiles no longer welcomes the masses,

And those who accepted her welcome find it withdrawn.

I was surprised that this mechanism not only assured that lines were read with proper emphasis, but also that it made reading the poem more fluid. My working theory is that concentrating on the red text maintained my concentration generally, leading to a better reading.

Lament for America

Many of us are concerned about the future of our country and worry that the grand experiment that is the United States of America may be coming to an end. It is important not to give up, not to give in to the administration that seeks to replace our democratic institutions with autocratic ones. Certainly, the myriad No Kings rallies across the country this past weekend offer some hope that the citizenry is getting fed up with Donald Trump and his minions and, ultimately, will insist on a return to sane democratic governance.

In my systematic reading of the Bible, I recently read the Book of Lamentations. It seemed fitting to lament the attacks visited upon the Republic by the Trump administration, just as Jeremiah (or whoever wrote the book) lamented the destruction of Jerusalem. The result of my musings is my new poem “Lament for America.” The poem may seem bleak, as do our current circumstances. But it may inspire us to elude the tragic destination to which the nation seems to be heading.

Another Burma-Shave–Inspired Poem

I’ve been looking through the stack of papers on my desk. On a church bulletin insert, I found the beginning of a poem I scribbled down during a service. I hadn’t remembered writing it at all, but I thought I might make something of it. It addressed the firing of scientists in the medical field who are being dismissed by the Trump (or is it the Musk) administration. Reflecting on what I had written, I realized that I could recast my proto-poem as a series of Burma-Shave–inspired demonstration signs. (See Protest Sign Lessons and Plans.) The product of my ruminations was the following:

Medical researchers
Sent away
No longer keep
Disease at bay.

Autocracy vs. Democracy

Widespread faith in democracy is on the decline. The autocrat, after all, can make needed changes quickly and without interference. Unfortunately, the autocrat can be wrong.

A democracy is slower to act and less prone to catastrophic mistakes.

Sadly, autocracy is sometimes the result of a terrible democratic failure.

What Laws Will Be Needed in 2029?

After major American upheavals, the country has perceived a need for new laws. New, sometimes transformational, laws were enacted after the Civil War, the 1929 stock market crash, World War II, Watergate, 9/11, and the 2008 financial crisis.

Assuming that Donald Trump’s presidency ends in a conventional election in which Republicans are decisively defeated—admittedly, not a sure thing—what new laws (and repeal of existing laws) will be necessary?

We Need More Democracy

I find it distressing that some people who feel that the government is not working for them believe that scrapping our democratic institutions and being ruled by a dictator is a rational alternative. It is not; it is a pact with the devil. Unfortunately, many of our so-called democratic institutions are not all that democratic. Read my suggestions for enhancing our democracy in my essay We Need More Democracy.

Identifying Movie Lovers

I made a list of my favorite movies the other day, and it struck me that it would be interesting to compare my list with movie lists of friends. I am calling friends with similar lists cinema companions. Actually, I don’t expect to find people with a very similar list, but comparing lists is a good way to identify serious movie lovers. You can find my own list and some thoughts about lists and comparing lists here.

Stalinist Tactics Come to America

What follows below is excerpted from Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography by Harlow Robinson. It describes the arrest of Lina Prokofiev, who was married to composer Sergei Prokofiev. Lina was not a spy, but she had been consulting with foreign diplomats in her attempt to escape Stalin’s Soviet Union.

This awful story is distressingly similar to what is happening in Trump’s America. (I learned only tonight that the administration has deported children who are American citizens.) ICE agents, sometimes masked and showing no identification or warrant, are grabbing people off the street and deporting or trying to deport them.

WAKE UP AMERICA! THE FATE OF THE REPUBLIC IS IN YOUR HANDS!

Lina’s arrest—“on suspicion of spying”—was tragically typical of thousands (perhaps even millions) of others that occurred during 1948.

On February 20, as she was lying in bed with a cold, Lina received a telephone call from a friend in Leningrad. The friend told Lina she had sent her a package via another friend who was arriving that day in Moscow by train. She asked if Lina could meet this person at the railroad station not far from Lina’s apartment. When Lina explained that she was sick, and asked if the person couldn’t come to the apartment with the package, her friend insisted that Lina needed to go herself. Reluctantly, Lina agreed. Since she thought she would return in a few minutes, she didn’t even bother to dress very warmly.

As she was waiting in front of the station, a dark-colored car suddenly drove up right in front of her. Someone got out and asked Lina whom she was waiting for.

“What business is that of yours?” she replied indignantly.

“Do you know that you’re waiting for a criminal?” the man asked her.

“You must have made a mistake,” Lina replied, beginning to feel uneasy. “You have the wrong person.”

The men in the car were very insistent that she was the person they wanted, however. Finally they instructed her to get into the car.

“Come with us and we’ll explain everything,” they said. “If we’ve made a mistake, you can go—we’ll even bring you back home.”

They forced Lina into the car and drove off. As they passed the apartment building on Chkalov Street, Lina was hoping desperately that Oleg or Sviatoslav [her two children] would appear. She asked where they were taking her.

“We’ll explain everything in a minute,” they said.

But there was no need to explain when the car passed through the gates of the Lubyanka, Moscow’s most infamous prison, on Dzherzhinsky Square across the street from the Children’s World Department Store. When they were inside, Lina immediately recognized a man sitting there as someone she had seen in the subway and on the streets. He had been following her. There had been a few other subtle signs that she was being watched, but Lina had failed—or refused—to take serious notice.

Lina was to spend years in the Gulag, only being released after the death of Stalin.