What, you aren’t afraid, very afaid, of the staph ‘superbug’? Why the hell not? Aren’t you a good obedient American?

…that the Virginia Tech shooter, like so many other Deranged Loner Males, was a lifelong victim of bullying who might have been helped by some serious medical attention, and by efforts in the schools to encourage self-respect.

Fleetwood also notes that Washington’s state legislature passed a law to encourage anti-bullying programs in schools, but that it was opposed by Republican legislators. Well, why not? After all, the school bullies of today are the right-wing politicians, executives, and commentators of tomorrow.

Newsweek’s got a compelling cover story this week about “Men and Depression.”

HistoryLink cofounder Walt Crowley has his larynx surgically taken out today. My best wishes to Walt and his dear companion Marie.

Wednesday’s Seattle Times devotes its entire above-the-fold front page to a warning announcement, in six languages, pleading with people in de-electrified homes not to generate carbon-monoxide fumes indoors.

An Oregon State U. study shows that anti-smoking ads may actually encourage teens to smoke. As if that wasn’t the less-than-completely-hidden aim of the tobacco-company-sponsored “anti-tobacco” ads to begin with. You know: The ones that show smokers as gross-out outcasts (as in cool), and non-smokers as nice clean-cut jocks and cheerleaders (as in dweebs).

…postulates that people just might choose their mates based partly on an unconscious to be of one mind.

“Doctors say how we taste affects health.” The Colbertian response: Yes. If we weren’t so delicious, bears wouldn’t stalk us.

…there’s only one part of private-sector employment in the U.S. that’s been gaining jobs this decade. It’s the health care biz, including drugs and biotech. The whole rest of non-governmental employment: stagnant or dropping. Including info-tech.

In other words, our only source of job growth is a corrupt system rigged to maintain high stock prices for the drug and insurance companies, at the expense of U.S. citizens’ physical and fiscal well-being (and, due to the built-in inefficiencies of the employer-paid insurance system, at the expense of the entire rest of U.S. business).

Any attempt at health care reform in a future post-conservative government will need to take this into account. Its proponents will have to argue their plan will increase more well-paying jobs than it cuts, by cutting costs for employers.

…on the latest e. coli scare? Everyone agrees: Bluto did it.

Viagra for children. (Remember, that particular pill was originally developed as a blood-pressure regulator.)

Longtime reader Richard B. Webb responds to yesterday’s entry, in which I asked for a proactive progressive political agenda:

Clark Humphrey wants to know what progressives should believe in, and what things that they should support, in lieu of just being “against things” that the ruling party is in favor of. This got me thinking of things I’d like to see instead of what I do see:

Environmental Responsibility: We don’t own the earth, we are merely stewards. True conservatives should conserve, don’t you think? So the rape and exploitation of the land and its resources shouldn’t be allowed only for the already rich short term thinkers. Until we can create an orca, a salmon, or a black footed ferret, then we shouldn’t be following policies that eliminate entire species.

Responsible Foreign Policy: No more support and subsidization of terror states. How many right wing despots have we supported through the years simply because of some bogeyman like “communism?” Castro may be a thoroughly despicable world leader, but we’ve supported others that have been worse. So no support for Israel as long as they are terrorizing their neighboring countries.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation: There’s been a treaty signed. If we don’t support it, then it’s meaningless. India and Pakistan have the bomb, in violation of this treaty. I believe that they’ve signed, but even if not, then we should still “encourage” them to renounce nukes. We can’t very well tell Iran and North Korea that they can’t have nukes as long as we pretend that Israel doesn’t. At present, there is too much incentive to develop nuclear weapons, if for nothing else than to deter the aggression of the United States. If we developed a more “sensitive” and enlightened foreign policy, then the deterrence of nuclear weapons would not be needed. Therefore:

Out of Iraq: We have no business there, and our presence only makes things worse. A truly international peace-keeping force to try to maintain some sort of order, but as long as it’s U.S. troops almost exclusively, then we’re perceived as a foreign occupier, and will be bogged down in their religious civil war.

Progressive Taxation: The idea that the wealthy enjoy many more perks of living in a wealthy country, and should therefore help pay for the privilege. Furthermore, there should be a line below which no individual should fall, a safety net from poverty if you will, to keep people from starving in the streets. As part of this, I ask for:

Universal Health Care: Basic medical needs taken out of the hands of employers and guaranteed for all. This would involve rationing, similar to what Oregon has done. Not everybody can get premium health care under this plan, as that would be very cost prohibitive. Broken bones set for free, but heart transplants cost extra. Free inoculations and better living education, instead of paying for the illnesses later.

Trade: Free and Fair. We shouldn’t be supporting military dictatorships simply because they can produce cheap clothing in sweatshops. We shouldn’t create trade zones that encourage jobs moving to foreign countries that do not have decent living wage structures. Encouraging companies to move manufacturing to places that have relaxed or non-existent environmental protections simply moves the pollution from “advanced” countries to places where there are no safeguards. Not acceptable.

A Return to a Government of Law: No more “free speech zones,” No more domestic spying. No more illegal detainees held in foreign prisons in our name. No torture. Ever. No revolving doors between Congress and Industry and Lobbyists. No back door political donations designed to buy influence. I want public financing of campaigns. No corporate lobbyists making the laws that regulate their industry. I want enforcement of existing environmental and financial laws, such as mine safety regulations and insider trading prohibitions.

Investment in Infrastructure: OK, not a mesmerizing topic, but important none the less. Bridges, roads, tunnels, and yes levees. A dollar spent today saves 10 tomorrow. How much will it cost to rebuild New Orleans? Versus how much did we save by leaving a half-assed job in the first place? Penny wise and pound foolish.

An End to Aggression as Official Foreign Policy: Mostly by U.S. forces, but in support of international peace keeping and humanitarian efforts instead. Now I don’t object to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, as I believe that to be a legitimate use of force. That government was harboring persons who had brought harm to our citizens. That kind of aggression must be fought. But again, there’s no rational excuse for the invasion of a sovereign state that presented no threat to the U.S.

I want my freedoms, as guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of this country, to be respected. That includes law made by precedent, such as a woman’s ability to control her reproductive rights. I seek an end to this country’s war on drug users. I want less money going to corporate welfare, and more money dedicated to helping people that can use it better. Things like student loans, and medical treatment.

I want balanced budgets, with smaller government, but I don’t want that smaller government to be made smaller by the elimination of programs that help the average citizen. One could make government smaller by eliminating things like the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Labor, but these parts of government exist to preserve our resources and health. Instead, I’d like to see a reduction of farm subsidies and a reduction in the defense department budget. I’d like to see the enforcement budget for the Internal Revenue Service increased, with a mandate to aggressively pursue the tax shelters and other tax withholding schemes of the wealthy instead of the poor and working classes.

And I want accountability in my government. If you’re taking bribes as a government official, you get to go to the same prison as a bank robber or rapist. If you’re incompetent at your job, then you should be fired, and never be able to entertain the idea of a job in government again. If you’re found to be responsible for violation of the laws of this nation, I want you out of the government. Period. Especially if you’re guilty of war crimes and violations of international law. Impeachment is demanded and expected in such cases.So this is what I believe in, and what I would support in elections with my vote and with my checkbook. This is how I believe things should be. The sad thing is that this list is TOO progressive, and downright scary to many Americans. (This is one reason that I’ve never considered running for public office. My ideas are too scary.)

The end result would be a better, more enlightened world, with more opportunity and prosperity for the entire planet, not just for Americans. And it truly is a world view, not just a “Me First” mentality. Consider that Americans make up a small percentage of the planet’s population, but use up a significant fraction of the resources. We can only afford this by the exploitation and enslavement of the rest of the planet and its citizens. This is untenable.

True progressives must take a global view, seeking the betterment of all, and not just the few.

…the SeaTimes for finding Sunday feature space for a topic so seldom discussed, male depression patients.

I wrote the previous two installments of this series at WiFi-less coffeehouses. I’m writing this one in my kitchen. I still don’t have a permanent writing station installed here in New MISC Towers. (Anybody wanna go on an Ikea run sometime soon?)

One of my many platonic female friends suggested I turn my bedroom into an office and sleep in the living room, so I’d have a fully exclusive workspace. In this reasoning, I’d “commute” across the doorway, close the door, and thus be mentally prepared to fully concentrate on the tasks at hand.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way for me, for one reason.

For this friend, the computer is a work machine, period. She doesn’t even log onto her Comcast email, unless someone first sends her an email message and then phones her to remind her to read it.

Me? I live at this thing.

And it was far too easy, during my depths-O-depression, to slack off from real work (of either the potentially-for-money kind or the for-art-n’-expression kind), and just idle myself with other ‘puter-based pursuits.

I never got into the PC gaming universe. But I did spend hours upon days simply reading other people’s blogs and websites, or staring at “tasteful” nudie pix (hardcore doesn’t arouse me), or fiddling with my Mac OS desktop appearance settings.

If I’d been deskbound but truly work-motivated, I’d have spent at least some of those hours teaching myself programming or Photoshop image manipulation, or revamping this website (something I’ve been meaning to do since at least 2003).

Other people would call this condition “Internet addiction.” I prefer to see it as simply a symptom of my overall run-down-ness, which has thankfully lifted.

But my ongoing recovery still leaves me with the need to discipline my mind, to set myself down to a single task and remain with it until it’s done, ignoring all potential distractions.

The only thing is, I’ve never worked that way before.

When I was at my most desperate for work, I was also at my least motivated to get up and look for it. That didn’t mean I stopped or gave up; I knew I couldn’t do that. It meant I undertook every online application, every mailed-in resume, with a soap episode’s worth of internal emotional turmoil. I forced myself daily just to get these out.

Very few of these applications led to in-person interviews. At those, I behaved like a grunt soldier slogging through a muddy bloody trench. I fought against all odds to appear positive and lucid. Even then, I knew I couldn’t reach further, into becoming the perky hustler type I thought they all really wanted.

At the time, I said I had a “fear of sales.” More precisely, I succumbed to, but dreaded, the idea that I had to somehow adopt the persona of a high-pressure salesman just to pay my mortgage. I gained a hateful obsession with such self-help slogans as “marketing yourself for success” or “the brand called you.” I figuratively cowered in intimidated rage whenever I saw a website, a junk email, a newspaper ad, or an infomercial that defined aggressive sales-hustling as the only means toward material survival.

I didn’t want that. I still don’t. This world shouldn’t be all about the Survival of the Rudest.

Like many Seattle liberals, I’d developed an instinctual abhorrence toward toward the symbols of uber-aggression–elephantine SUVs, talk-radio bigots, political-corporate bullying, warmongering.

Beyond these, I’d added generic techno music, stupid white rap-metal music, the coke-snorting and fag-bashing antics of First Avenue fratboys, the incessant self-promotion of certain “counterculture celebrities,” and the elitist preachings of certain fundamentalist vegans and Riot Grrls to my own personal list of aggressive behaviors to shun.

But now, I’d come to believe that I both had to become just such a pompous pusher and that I couldn’t.

I just wanted to perform good work(s), and to be compensated accordingly. Was there really anything excessively naive about that?

I now know there wasn’t, and isn’t. I now more confidently believe not only that you shouldn’t have to act like a Qwest telemarketer, but that you needn’t.

No, there are many types of self-confidence. And ultra-loud bombast isn’t necessarily one of them. It could be a sign of suppressed intimidation.

I don’t need to turn into somebody else. I just need to become a better (more centered, more alert, more empathetic) me.