From Way Back When "The Doctor Was In"

 The doctor, not Kevorkian, but ahead of his utilitarian bioethic time, saw the opportunity. He was not usually in the room where the straps were attached and the button pushed down. He seldom saw that ten year old body jump as all the muscles tightened at once. Technicians and nurses saw these jumps and put the rag in the ten year old mouth before they button pushed. They would come out then reporting, the patient is responsive, nauseous, disoriented but remarkably calm They would tell him that the button had been pushed two, three, perhaps five times and he had prescribed. His staff was well trained.

Today, he was in the room. Two years of electro-convulsive shock therapy had not cured this one. Carefully monitored jolts had not broken through the delusions that plagued this one. This male child still claimed to be a she. Yet the doctor had pledged to cure this child. That strong and healthy body should not forever be the vessel of a poisoned mind. The doctor demanded much of himself and his staff. He demanded a cure.

He was in the room when the button was pushed and stuck. He saw an opportunity when the ten year old body jumped , clinched and kept on clinching. He grabbed that opportunity with all that he had. He grabbed the wrist of a nurse as she reached to pull the clip from the head strap connector. He explained his reasoning as the body relaxed, the eyes stayed open. Doctor and staff, they waited six minutes to pull the plug from the wall.

Some of the skin over the temples pulled away when the head straps were loosened. The doctor seized his opportunity but then the child breathed a shuddering breath. One breath and then another, so the opportunity slipped through the doctor's fingers. The child's parents were entitled to a perfect body untroubled by a poisoned mind. They needed an end to this torture and worry. The doctor needed closure. They weren't going to get it. The child still breathed. .

Let's Flip the societal Clock

The age of consent is too high.  In European and North American cultures of the 20th and 21st centuries, marriages are contracted at age 20 or older. This is an absolutely ridiculous situation caused by the aberration of great wars. In Europe many men were destroyed by the two world wars. Surviving females with children posed a severe threat to the economies of their countries. Legislation was enacted to treat the symptom, single mothers, and not the disease, war. The most common laws restricted the marriage age in an upward fashion by raising the age of consent.  In North America, the Civil War resulted in the same kinds of laws being passed at even earlier dates.
Raising the marriage ages for both men and women did lead to an apparent reduction in single and unwed mothers. Unfortunately the reduction was short lived and most likely the result of an increasing balance of the sexes between and after these major conflicts. Still we are stuck with elevated legal marriage ages.
I said that this situation is ridiculous and here are my reasons.
Both males and females show almost no signs of infertility in their teenage years. Children born to parents, when both are teenagers, show few if any birth defects. But in both females and males there is a marked increase in infertility after the late teens. There have been many studies correlating the age of the parents with the number of birth defects. In every study, the number of birth defects rises significantly in each decade after the late teens. Men, in fact,  will contribute greater numbers of defective sperm and resultant birth defects in their children for each year they age past their teens. Their children will have lower intelligence, more mental illness, retardation and autism. A fertile old man is definitely a danger to society. Younger fathers and mothers are much more beneficial.
Children from the age of twelve show  responsible and mature behavior in societies that grant them adult legal rights. Societies that raise the age of adult legal status experience increased juvenal deliquency and antisocial behaviors in young adults and more problems with older adult social participation.  Many studies have been done that indicate the truth of these statements, although there  is no consensus of why.  It should be obvious that lowering the age of adult responsibility is beneficial to society.
Most education programs in the USA, I am not able to comment on European programs, demonstrate reduced participation by the students during the teenage years. All sorts of explanations are given for the high dropout rates and lowered achievement scores and each generation of teachers has been tasked with improving the curriculum. It is very likely that behaviorally and mentally capable students are negatively affected by being treated as irresponsible children. They simply stop relating to controlling teachers and a repressive environment.
With just these three acknowledgments, I suggest that we as a society give adult rights to twelve year olds with the right to marry. I further suggest that all adults over the age of 25 be required to use condoms and other birth control methods in every sexual encounter.

 

May 28th Journal Entry

Just thoughts.
People strive to know who they are. We analyze our actions, recall memories, learning to anticipate our own feelings. We say, "that is so like me" or  "I wasn't always like this."
What does it feel like not to have the memories needed to form a knowledge of self? It feels vaguely wrong. It is not acutely painful. I suppose a global temporary amnesia would bring sharp pain. But long-term amnesia has no sharp edges. It irritates like a pea under the mattress.
Live with such amnesia for years and it will not cause a sharp pain, even when you discover that the story of your life told by your parents is full of holes and falsehoods. You have learned to live with not knowing. I got past the need to dig for the truth, to fill the gaps, to know myself.
It was better to live in an imaginary world, with an imaginary history. My parents needed to protect themselves with whatever stories they could weave to cover themselves. The least i could dow was to pretend belief, allowing them to feel safe. That is so like me.

May 5th Journal Entry

In the afternoon I rented a car from Enterprise and drove Alexa to the Bland Clinic. I spent the morning getting warm while Lorrie and Mikey were at work. I rented the car because my friend Kim who had promised to come fetch me yesterday, was not answering her phone then or today.
Alexa was having her blood tested and also needed to have a regular prescription for hormones and blockers. She has been self-medicating for two years. She has been presenting as a woman for five years.
Alexa is a very brave soul, she has been doing everything necessary toward surgery since she turned 14. She has been adamant and out in a town so rural it is named Rural Retreat. She has face down bigots and made friends. Strangely, she has never learned how to drive. She tells me here mother drives too fast and scary. He father in his seventies does not pay enough attention to the road.
The Enterprise folk gave me a ride back to Allisonia when i turned in the car. I put the tent up in the "no camping area," after checking with a lawn mowing neighbor just downstream.  Good night, Father.

March 22 Journal Entry

I am designing the sail and mast today. While I am at it I will think about a reply to Congressman Morgan. He is a soul with limited compassion for the weak. One who believes that we do not have enough of everything to share with the world.
My mast and mast seat looks like a vagina waiting for a penis to slide into it. All this so the wind can push my trimaran. It reminds me of Charles Stross, who said through one of his story characters, "Power come from a big swinging dick."
The pilgrim, puritan women in America were adamant about the keeping, teaching, and enforcing of the Ten Commandments. These Ten Commandments were the only hope they had of living past middle age. In a country where all power did come from a dick between legs, women had no power. They were chattel, soon used up and thrown away. America was a land with its own Taliban in charge.
The command against adultery sounded good on paper, but any man could trump that commandment with a letter of divorcement for any reason. The usual was a simple, "she doesn't please me anymore."
An older woman's only hope lay in "honor your mother." Perhaps a dutiful child would see to her post good looks survival. So women perpetuated the patriarchal society as their only hope of self preservation. Women owned nothing, controlled nothing, not even animals. They had control of children, but only for a few years. Once that short teaching period passed all opportunity was lost.