Sunday, June 03, 2007

I MEAN SURGEON GENERAL


C. Everett Koop, before he became a fixture on late night television selling, "HELP, I've fallen and can't get up" buttons, he was the Surgeon General of the United States.
C. Everett Koop, what a handle! And bushy eyebrows, all fancied up in his blue military uniform, after all, he was a GENERAL! Remember, he was the anti cigarette guy.


Then came the Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. She's a hero, and not just because she’s the patron saint of masturbation. (Which, frankly, is reason enough.) The first African-American and the second woman to serve as Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Elders was censured for her outspoken views throughout her abbreviated tenure (September 1993-December 1994). However, it wasn't her commitment to providing sex and contraceptive information to the nation's youth, her advocacy of legalizing RU-486, her being labeled the "condom queen" or even her willingness to consider legalizing drugs that got her fired. No, Dr. Elders lost her job when she acknowledged that "masturbation is part of human sexuality and it's a part of something that perhaps should be taught" as part of sex education in the schools. Responding to questions at the 1994 World AIDS Days conference, Dr. Elders noted "We've not even taught our children the very basics. And I feel that we have tried ignorance for a very long time and it's time we try education."


Now, W is got a new guy for the General's job: James Holsinger. Dubya has this to say about the guy. Read it.
But what W doesn't say about someone is sometimes much more important then what he does say. Seems like it is always that way, isn't it. W doesn't tell us that this nominee for Surgeon General thinks it is ok to discrimate against other Americans who are different from him, or who don't think the same thoughts he thinks.
Ezra Kornscrabble.

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