Santa is NOT Hazardous to Your Health

Who are you people who get a Ph.D or an MD and have the title "Dr." in front of your name and then decide that you know everything whether it related to what your degree is in or not and decide to proclaim your self-decided knowledge as the gospel of whatever. (Gospel of jackassery, from what I can tell here, but whatever you'd like to call it is fine with me.) Are you folks so danged miserable in your own lives that you just have to be a certain kind of a jackass around everyone else? Naturally, I'm not saying that all folks who are doctors are like this. But for those of you who are? Could you do us all a favor? Pipe down and go away, please? And while you're at it, leave Santa Claus out of your quackery, all right? All right.

Let's take a look at a one Dr Nathan Grills from Australia's Monash University. Now, I don't know if he has done an actual "study" or if he has just taken the liberty to use his title of "doctor" as a way to publish what is essentially an editorial piece in the British Medical Journal, but I do know that he's so completely full of crap that it almost makes me angry. And I'm not sure if I'm angry at him or if I'm angry at a medical journal for publishing this garbage. It's a medical journal! It's supposed to be about medicine! It's not supposed to be having articles/papers by some 27-year old doctor in Australia who claims that Santa Claus is a "...promoter of obesity, disease and even driving under the influence" and is, therefore, a bad influence for children.

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

Um, what now? Santa....Santa Claus is....is....Good Lord, man. What is wrong with you?!

According to the fine folks down under at the Herald Sun in an article titled "Boozy, fat Santa a 'bad example' (there's a catchy title!), we learn that this moron, this Dr. Grills, claims that Santa Claus is "...acting in ways that could damage millions of lives." Now, if you haven't decided that this definitely signals the end of all humanity and have rushed off to spend more time with your loved ones before society implodes upon itself, keep reading and I'll tell you how Dr. Grills claims that Santa is doing all of this. (Have a drink while you're reading if it helps! It certainly doesn't hurt when you're reading other posts now, does it?)

Grills (I'm dropping the "Dr." for the rest of this post, as I just can not stomach it) claims that "Santa's "rotund sedentary image" had the effect of making "obesity synonymous with cheerfulness and joviality" around the world." Ah, yes. The synonymous cheerful and jovial fat man which has taken over all parts of the globe including Somalia!

Ethiopia!

And Madagascar! Behold!

Yeah, I'm not seeing a whole lot of obesity, nor cheerfulness and joviality over there, how about you, Mr. Grills? Seriously. When I think "obesity" I don't think "Santa Claus". I think stuff like this. Behold!

Now that does not make me jovial nor cheerful. It makes me a little bit nauseous if you really want to know. But Santa Claus? He never makes me nauseous. (OK, the ones at the malls make me a little nervous sometimes, but nauseous? Never.)

Mr. Grills "....also noted that children are encouraged to leave out hard liquor such as Brandy for a man who has a lot of travel to do in one night." OK, see, this is where you can tell that Mr. Grills is so full of himself that he is unable to see past only what exists in his own world. Over here in America, we do not leave brandy out for Santa. We leave milk and we leave cookies. People who want to be all cutsey leave out carrots for his reindeer (do reindeer even eat carrots?). We're not wasting good brandy on some guy who, essentially, breaks into our homes. Milk. Milk and delicious cookies. Pay attention, Nathan! There are lots of traditions around the world besides yours! Shocking, I know!

Continuing along the article of idiocy, "Other dangerous activities on Santa's list of festive wrongdoings include "speeding, disregard for road rules and extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping", because "despite the risks of high speed air travel, he is never depicted wearing a seatbelt or helmet". Oh, for God's sake. What is wrong with you sir?!

First of all, you have NO idea if the man is speeding or not. If you're basing that on the fact that he has to visit every house on the entire planet, well then, I think that you've just stated the reason for making that concern completely idiotic. As far as the "road rules", um, Santa flies his sleigh in the skies. There are no roads up there. I've been in a plane and you know what I didn't see when I was flying? That's right. Roads. And those "extreme sports" you cite? I don't know that you know that he does that. I cannot recall the "roof surfing" and the jumping from chimney to chimney as part of my Christmas time lore when I was a child. Or even now (when I tend to act childlike).

What, exactly, are the "risks of high speed air travel" as you see them, Mr. Grills? When I'm on an airplane, that's "high speed air travel" is it not? I have never worn a helmet on a plane and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you have not either, you jackass. (And if I'm wrong and you have worn a helmet on a plane, just what do you think that is going to do for you if you're plummeting towards the earth?)

So what does Mr. Grills suggest we do about such non-existent atrocities that are occurring during the most wonderful time of the year? Well, he "...recommended that instead of using a sleigh, the man himself should be "encouraged to adopt a more active method to deliver toys - swapping his reindeer for a bike or simply walking or jogging". I don't know about you, but although I know next to nothing about piloting a flying sleigh led by eight tiny reindeer and Rudolph, I would hardly call it "inactive". Is Mr. Grills suggesting that we make Christmas be on every single day of December? Because if he's going to have Santa walking from house to house, that's going to be a bit time consuming. It's hardly an activity that can be accomplished in one night. If you put all of the brandy that Mr. Grills is leaving out for the man, it could take all damn year as a boozed up Santa staggers from street to street. How is he supposed to get into our homes if he walks? You want him to jog carrying that sack of toys?! That's not going to happen! Oh, wait! Mr. Grills probably wants him to put the presents in one of those baby jogger stroller things that everyone is always pushing around while they jog. Yeah, that sounds real traditional. That's something youngsters will really be able to sink their imagination into all right.

Listen. Mr. Grills. In all of your reasoning as to why this whole deal with Santa is a problem, you've overlooked one key point. (Spoiler alert here!) See, Santa Claus isn't real. This stuff that you've described that he does? Yeah, that doesn't really happen. And when kids get to the age where they, sadly, don't believe in Santa Claus anymore, then that's when they know that those things don't happen. They're not going to be sitting around wondering how a drunken Santa is driving the sleigh without crashing through their rooftops. No, they're going to be wondering if they can stay awake longer than their parents so that they can sneak back out to the fireplace and sip that brandy themselves!

Lay off of the Christmas traditions, Mr. Grills. Put your sanctimonious conclusions somewhere that isn't going to annoy anyone else. That would include not in a medical journal. And folks over there at the British Medical Journal, what were you folks thinking? Don't give this man and other folks like him a platform to spew such ridiculousness. You're supposed to be publishing papers on how you're working on curing cancer and helping the blind to see and stuff like that. You're not supposed to be publishing papers about why someone doesn't like a fictional character. Next thing you know, Nature is going to publish an article "Why Spongebob is Offensive to Other Porous and Multi-Celled Aquatic Organisms".

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A Stint With Some Lint

I need to spend some time on oddities in other countries because quite frankly, if I keep focusing on the blatant idiocy over here in the US, I'm going to lose what small shred of hope that I have left. And there are odd individuals in other countries. Hoo-boy, are there ever! Let's go to Vienna to learn about one of them.

Meet Dr. Georg Steinhauser. Dr. Steinhauser is a researcher at the Vienna University of Technology, located appropriately in Vienna. Vienna is a good place to be for Dr. Steinhauser. After all, Freud was from Vienna. It's like the birthplace of psychoanalysis. I imagine the place is just swimming with psychoanalysts. And I'd like a team of those very psychoanalysts to tell me why it is that Dr. Steinhauser has spent the last three years researching what type of body hair it is that traps pieces of lint in one's navel, aka the belly button. Wait. What?

Three years. Three years studying and researching belly button lint. What the hell is wrong this man? He's a scientist, he's a DOCTOR for cryin' out loud! (Even though he looks like he's 12.) It's not easy to become any sort of doctor and being a scientist is no exception. Why on earth would you spend the time that it takes to become a doctor and then use the knowledge that you've gained and the training that you've had and spend your time pulling out belly button fluff? It seems odd, as I can pull out belly button lint without being a doctor! So I don't know why someone would, but I do know that he did.

According to the folks over there at The Telegraph (who have just been putting out fascinating stories lately, so thanks, Telegraph guys!), Dr. Steinhauser, "...made his discovery after studying 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button." He also asked his friends, family and co-workers about their own belly button lint. (I imagine that's the sort of thing you only get to do once, as once you've asked anyone about their belly button lint, it's highly probable that they're not going to want to talk to you ever again.) OK, I really hate to ask this, but what constitutes "a piece" of fluff? I mean, if there are two pieces in there and they're pulled out and meld into one, is that still two? Or what if there is only one in there and it breaks on the way out, then what? One or two? I imagine it's questions like these that keep Dr. Steinhauser awake at night. (Me, not so much.)

He did a chemical analysis on the fluff (because that's what scientists are supposed to do! Chemical analysis! But not on belly button lint!) and what he found will shock you. Or it won't. (You could still be in awe that someone has actually taken time to do this. I'm still a bit stunned myself.) He found that the lint wasn't just "...made up of only cotton from clothing." ::::gasp!:::: That's right! He found that there "...were also flecks of dead skin, fat, sweat and dust." (Was this news to the man? Was he thinking, "If it only were not for the lint, it would just be PRISTINE in there! Damn the lint! Damn ALL the lint to hell!")

His findings were published in the Medical Hypotheses journal. How this qualifies as a "medical" anything is beyond me. He wrote that it's the "...scaly structure of the hair" which "enhances the 'abrasion of minuscule fibres from the shirt' and directs the lint towards the belly button." Basically, the hair acts like velcro. He also said he learned that "Abdominal hair often seems to grow in concentric circles around the navel." Concentric circles. Uh-huh. OK, well, good to know. That will help me...when? In case I'm ever on Jeopardy! one day? ("I'll take things only I know for $1000, please, Alex.)

So if you have a concentrically hairy stomach, you're going to have a linty navel. Sure you can shave your abdomen hair if you're really shooting for a "fluff-free navel", but that will only work until the hair grows back. (Again, something that I probably could have told you through casual reasoning and without a Ph.D.) He also mentioned that new clothes "can shed up to one thousandth of their weight to the belly button every year."So if your favorite sweatshirt seems to be getting smaller over the years, it might not be because you're getting fatter! It might be because it has just shed itself off and into your belly button, making the shirt seem smaller and you seem larger. So check there first before heading off to Jenny Craig or over to Kirstie Alley's house.

And although Dr. Steinhauser is a scientist, there are (sadly) apparently others who may not be scientists (and who could tell in this instance?) but who are also fascinated by the lint within one's navel. Take a one Australian bloke Graham Barker for instance. His belly button lint is usually red even though he rarely wears red clothing. (EWW! Do I have to guess why it's red?! I'm not gonna!) Graham is so fascinated with the fluffy stuff within his navel that he "...has been collecting his own navel fluff in jars every day since 1984." Um...1984? WTF? "The achievement has won him a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's largest collection of navel lint."

Was there a big field of competitors for that distinction? I don't think there was. And I don't know that I consider something a "world record" when it's extremely likely that you're the only one in the world who does that particular something on purpose! That doesn't necessarily mean that you're worthy of holding a "world record" as much as you are worthy of earning the distinction of someone who clearly needs therapy.

This isn't the only research project that Dr. Steinhauser has immersed himself in. Yes, there are others. Others that are equally fascinating! He did a year long study on how the abrasion of wedding rings causes trace particles of the gold to flake off. He conducted that study by weighing his own wedding ring once a week during the first year of his marriage. He now weighs the ring once every six months and says that he will publish a life long study at the end of his scientific career which he will call "the work of his married lifetime." (By the way, over that year, his ring became 6.15mg lighter than it was when he first started weighing it. He used that figure and applied it to the number of married couples in Vienna and calculated that "2.2 kg of 18-carat gold" were lost every year to abrasion. Ok then.)

He has also studied the amounts of barium and strontium in the snow before and after fireworks were set off and determined that since the barium levels were almost 500 times higher after the fireworks than before the fireworks and that high barium levels can really aggravate a person's asthma, that those with asthma should stay away from fireworks celebrations.

Dr. Steinhauser seems like a smart guy, but I fear he's just a bit too eccentric to be able to put his brilliant mind toward some sort of really important research. What's next for this guy? Which mushroom variety is toenail fungus the most similar to? How often to humans grow new nose hair? Is there a constant butt-crack length to butt-cheek width ratio? You never know. And you don't need to know! But if you ever do need to know, Dr. Steinhauser is your go-to guy for sure.

(Final Side Note: Good Lord, yes, there's more. :::sigh::: While scouring the Internet for pictures for this post, I ran across documentation of the pastime of the one aforementioned Graham Barker, collector of the navel lint. And I thought it just wouldn't be right to leave that stuff out, so here you go. Graham had a blog called My Navel. The site is still up, but it appears he has stopped updating it. There are several close up pictures of the lint he has removed from his navel. There is even a ruler in the photos so you can have some sort of a scale in your head as to the lint's actual size.

There is also the almost obligatory GrahamParker.com. There you can find links to other webpages of his as well as download his CV.

And Graham seems to have another site/blog entitled "Graham's Paddock". This has several subsections, not all of which are about the lint. It also seems to be current and up-to-date. There is more belly button lint documentation there, including photos of the lint stored in jars and separated by decade. There are also recipes for his favorite salads and soups. Go figure.)

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The AMA - More Diverse Than You Thought

Well, here's a headline you don't see everyday (thank God).

"AMA acts against trans fats, texting while driving"

Um, what? Trans fats and texting while driving? Weren't we already aware of the 'trans fats are bad' message? I think that we were. Were we bad? Why are we being told again? Oh, wait, they're just supporting the bans on trans fats that are already in existence. Good Lord, they need to hold a meeting and vote on this crap? They weren't supporting the ban before? Is there some movement afoot that has set out to overturn the trans-fat bans and they need doctors to support it? Aren't they supposed to be working with the sick, the dying, the weak? I'm pretty sure at least one of those groups needs a doctor.

Now, as far as the texting while driving "warning"? I'm pretty sure that I can figure out on my own that it is not safe to basically, operate a typewriter while simultaneously operating my motor vehicle at a high rate of speed. Yeah, I think I can grasp that concept without the AMA's help, thank you very much. There's even a little link on the side of that article which reads "Texting while driving is bad, doctors agree." Is that supposed to mean something to me? That doctors agree that texting while driving is bad? Not race car drivers or bus drivers, but doctors. Hey, you know what? Anyone with half a working brain could agree with that statement. I'll bet you that electricians agree that texting while driving is bad. I'll bet you that scuba divers agree that texting while driving is bad. Bakers, butchers, candlestick makers, all of them will agree that texting while driving is bad! (Baristas at Starbucks might be a different story. They've got those made-up names for the sizes of coffees, not to mention the made-up names for the coffees themselves. What the heck is a Carmel Macchiato anyway? =) But everyone else is in agreement.)

According to a story from the folks over there at the AP, the American Medical Association "...took a stand against two unhealthy habits — eating foods made with artificial trans fats and text-messaging while driving." An unhealthy habit? Texting while driving is an "unhealthy habit"? No it isn't! It's not "unhealthy"! It's unsafe!! I don't hear the folks over at MADD saying that driving drunk is "an unhealthy habit"!

And really, I wouldn't care if the AMA thought that texting whilst driving was an "unhealthy habit" or if they thought that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Which, might I point out, is also not a medical issue that should be of concern to the AMA!) But I do care because at their semi-annual powwow that they held in Chicago on Monday, they "agreed to lobby for more state legislation banning text-messaging while driving or operating machinery." Are you kidding me?!

There already IS legislation against texting while driving or operating machinery. It's called "distracted driving"!! It's basic premise is to not do things that are not going to distract you while you are driving! Hence the name! Are they going to propose legislation for each and EVERY INDIVIDUAL action that can distract someone while driving? A no putting on make-up law! A no eating nachos law! A no playing with the radio law! A no shaving law! A no reading law! A no yelling at your kids who just won't shut up law! Are they going to have all of those?! NO! Because they're covered under the term "distracted driving"! WE DON'T NEED MORE LAWS THAT WILL DO NOTHING EXCEPT FOR COST THE TAXPAYERS MORE MONEY!! Sorry I was shouting. I realize that there's no need holler. I apologize. But I'm still torqued.

According to a one Dr. Peter Carmel, an AMA board member, "Texting while driving takes the driver's attention away from the road, which can lead to accidents." It does?! For reals? No S, Sherlock. In other news: Water? Still wet! The sun? Still hot! Back to you.

"Under the new policy, the AMA also will encourage doctors to educate patients about the risks of texting while driving." I'll tell you what, if I go into see my doctor and he tells me, "Good news! Your leg isn't broken, it's just sprained. But if you were texting while driving you could have lost your entire leg and maybe more!" I'm going to have to hurt someone. Why is it that doctors are educating people about the texting while driving thing? Has the DMV not taken the reins on this one for some reason? Are the doctors also going to remind me to change my oil AND the filter every 3,000 miles, making sure I don't forget about the filter?! They better not.

If the docs want to roll out a public service announcement, I'm good with that. I have zero problem with that and think that it's a fine idea to educate the public in a way that will not cost the public money AND in a way that might actually do some good. We really don't need an individual law for every little thing out there. We don't. I swear. Trust me. Just once. Please?

One more thing on their list of things the doctors are going to do that has very little to do with being a doctor? Go on. Guess. If you guessed "Global warming" you're correct!! If you said, "Global warming? WTF?" you're ME!

The AMA adopted a policy that will "Encourage doctors to take a stronger role in promoting "green" polices to fight global warming. The policy acknowledges that extreme weather and temperature changes could lead to heat-related illnesses and increases in infectious diseases and respiratory problems." No word on what those "green policies" are that they want to promote. And I can't even fathom a guess, it's so bizarre! So, what, they all got together and said, "Yep, when it gets really hot, people might get sick and they might get infectious diseases and they might have problems breathing. Yep." Is that what they're telling me? (Don't answer that. I know it is. I just can't stand it.)

Have they found a cure for cancer? Did I miss that announcement? Why are they talking about this? How long was I asleep? What is going oooonnnnnn?????? (My head...my head......)

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