Month: July 2009

I was reading a back issue of the Health Affairs journal and came across this paragraph, which more than anything, clearly elucidates how I feel about wise law and the importance of philosopher kings. A solution is to have less laws, or at least, less restrictive laws, and more powerful judges and rulers, as long as the latter are virtuous they will see the complexities of what is laid before them and rule with justice and magnanimity.

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As doctors we are restricted from helping those in pain at the end of their lives to end their own suffering.We are restricted from using marijuana to help those suffering from the nausea of chemotherapy.We run riskswhen using drugs “off label” for conditions that have proved to be remediable but for which the drug maker has neither sought nor received permission to list as a “use.” And we are asked to balance our moral position on these issues—and many others—against the possible legal consequences of acting in what we consider
to be our patients’ best interests. The laws that govern medical practice are not created by physicians or ethicists but by governments. Like most laws, they lack the ability to distinguish subtleties in the human experience that might require extraordinary interventions. Yet as physicians we must consider the needs of
each person and individualize our actions in our patients’ best interest.

So it is 1 AM and having eaten nothing of substance all day, the yearnings of the stomach finally inspire a raid on the meager cache of food left here for the 2 weeks Orcus and her dark company will be on vacation. Of this cache is included Marie Callender’s “Country Fried Chicken and Gravy.” To cook such food requires a microwave, more time than I expected and the ability to decipher contradictory and labyrinthine instructions. As I was standing by the microwave I began to inspect the packaging of this food item. In short, it is one of the most depressing things I have seen.

Where to begin? The thing that catches your attention first is the prominent scene on the back of a joyous grandmother and grandchild carefully making a homemade dinner from scratch. As if the picture wasn’t enough, the pretentious little logo under it informs us: “Food from the heart, made with love and care.” Are you fucking kidding me? Do you really think the shit that came out of the microwave really is supposed to make me feel as excited as the dinners my own grandmother used to prepare? The food is devoid of love and care, it is neither nourishing nor comforting, but just a tool to stop the hunger pains. Is this food supposed to have a moral aim, a Platonic aim? Is the packaging supposed to make us feel loved, as if we are worth the culinary efforts of a grandmother, or otherwise? Sitting alone in my room, forcing the non-food down my gullet, I had other thoughts.

Is the Marie Callender’s company comprised of guardians – doing what is best for their charges with wisdom and justice? Are we the wards of the company? The little “note” is signed “LOVE MARIE,” don’t you know? That got me thinking: there must be people out there that actually feel a connection with this packaging, otherwise it wouldn’t sell. There must be some poor bastard out there who wants to be loved through his food product, who estranged by kind or removed by mortality from his loved ones, yearns for surrogates. But it’s like a show of affection by someone who molested you – it is a tactic to deceive and dominate, it is not real love. For the Marie Callender company, to dominate your wallet.