Wulfie's Wurld

Editorial: Nipples

Well, now that I have your attention . . .

And why do I have your attention? It's just a simple word. So what attracted your attention to that word? Was it a good connotation or a bad connotation? Did you start reading because you expecting something along the lines of a terrorist attack, or something along the lines of freshly baked bread, hot out of the oven? Pause for a moment and ask yourself that before continuing on. Are nipples good or bad?

Let's face it, nine times out of ten (or perhaps more like 99 times out of 100), when someone says or writes "nipples" (particularly as I did, using the plural), the listener/reader thinks of female breasts. Naked ones.

But aren't female breasts pornographic? Let's think about that for a moment.

Place yourself in the shoes of a censor or editor somewhere, say for a magazine, and you're checking the ads to make sure nothing inappropriate gets published. The ad is using a scantily clad female to sell whatever it is they're selling, which is a common practice. Imagine the female is in a low-cut evening gown. Like dancing the limbo, how low can you go? Stop at the clavicle? Nope, you can go lower. Stop at the top of the breasts and show no cleavage? Nope you can go lower. Where do you stop? Exactly at the point where the nipple is about to be revealed. Right? If you show the nipple, you've moved into the territory of "pr0n."

Speaking of cleavage, that's okay too, right? You can show cleavage all the way down to the navel. But how wide can that cleavage gap go? You guessed it. To the nipple.

What about the other directions? How high on the breast can you show before what you show enters the shadowy world of pr0n? How much of the side of the breast can you show? The answer is the same, isn't it? You can show up to, but not including the nipple.

Do you know what that means? Breasts are not considered pornographic. Only nipples. Does that make sense? Don't males have nipples as well? And isn't it okay to show male nipples in ads, on national television, and in public? What's the difference between male and female nipples? Size. What else is there? I can only assume that all our laws of pornography, written by male legislators and enforced by males police and male judges (remember, females are only recently in those ranks), are the result of "nipple envy."

How crazy is that?

Let me leave you with one more question. What would you rather see a picture of--and keep in mind only one of the choices is allowed on national news--bloodied bodies after a terrorist attack, or nipples?

Editorial: Pulling the Plug

I don't remember my great-grandfather, mainly because he died when my mom and my aunt were still young girls. He stayed in a small "grandma house" behind the main house. He apparently became fairly seriously ill, so they called out the doctor. Back then, doctors made what were referred to as "house calls." You can look it up in older dictionaries. They'd actually come to the house, nighttime and stormy weather, with their little black bag, to check out their patients.

He checked out my great-grandfather and saw that he wasn't long for this world. He went back into the main one and addressed the family. He told them that there was really nothing to be done, to make him as comfortable as possible, and to let him have as much beer as he wanted. The family kept him comfortable and loved, and he died peacefully in his own bed.

In contrast, my dad died in a hospital bed, surrounded by antiseptic smells, and with tubes to feed him, dope him, monitor him, and help him breathe.

I remember the Terri Schiavo debate. I'm sure we all do. There were a lot of opinions about a lot of things, most of them based upon conjecture and politics, and not much on personal desires. The media and the government had placed more metaphorical tubes in that poor family than a whole team of doctors.

And, of course, the debate raged in the political forums, mostly based upon emotional responses and being true to party lines than much of anything else. I got tired of hearing the same worn-out talking points from both sides, and wanted to find out how people really believed. So I posted an anonymous poll with four rather curmudgeonly choices. I expected to get a variety of responses, based upon all the discussion. Here is the poll I posted:

If I'm tubed up the yin-yang and the question arises about whether to pull the plug or not . . .

1. Leave everything in until I'm stiff and cold, cause I plan to fight back no matter what the odds.

2. Yank 'em when they're pretty sure there's no chance--I don't want to be a burdon to my family.

3. I'm too wimpy to decide--I'll leave it to Daddy/Mummy/Wifey/Hubby.

4. I think the Gubmint has my best interests at heart. Let them decide.

What surprised me most about the results of the poll was that despite all the controversy that preceded it, everyone responded with the same choice. Which one was it? Figure it out.

As for me, I like to tell people that when I die, I want to go like my grand-father, peacefully, in my sleep, not yelling and screaming like his passengers.

Editorial: Suicide

A week or so ago I was reading about the life of Vincent van Gogh and about his suicide attempts. He initially tried to eat his paints. They were poisonous back then. They're only toxic nowadays. That didn't work very well so he went out into a field and shot himself in the heart. Only he bungled that, too. So he walked back to the inn where he was staying and laid down on the bed without telling anyone. They found him lying in a pool of blood, called the doctor who tried to save him, and van Gogh suffered a seizure which finally did him in--two days after the attempt. Or was that a successful suicide.

This caused me to start thinking about suicide. No, not that way. I'd prefer to live an extra few thousand years, learn all the stuff I'm curious about, visit all kinds of places, and relearn everything I've forgotten. I personally think committing suicide is stupid. I also feel that being stupid is neither a sin nor against the law.

Poor ole Vinnie didn't get a funeral because, well, the Catholic Church can be cranky about suicides from time to time. Was it really a suicide? Although I'm sure Nirvana fans would call it a murder (small joke), the question is, what was the real cause of death--the seizure, the loss of blood, or the gunshot wound? Suppose he didn't shoot himself, but the seizure killed him because of left-over toxins from the paint several years earlier? Suicide or no? Is there some kind of statute of limitations between attempts that contribute to death and the death itself? Three days? A fortnight? No expiration? Does anyone wish to volunteer a cut-off time? What about complications arising from suicide attempts? What about unintended results? Is dying from a game of Russian roulette considered a suicide? Or an accident? Is it true that every year in the US, there are 400,000 tobacco-related suicides and murders?

And why are we having this discussion?

If someone's affairs are in order, bills paid off, family set up with financial security, and funeral expenses paid in full--what's wrong with suicide? Maybe the person's family doesn't want it, but are their desires that significant? There are divorces against people's desires on a daily basis. There are other kinds of death against people's desires on a daily basis. Sure, maybe suicide really is "self-murder," and maybe it is a sin (contrary to my beliefs), but wouldn't that be an issue between the person and God? Why should we as a society get involved over someone else's personal decision, if society is not affected by it?