And you can get syphilis from the toilet?

Perianal warts were most commonly seen in young and middle-aged men aged from 18 to 45, only 12.5% of whom had homosexual behaviors. Sauna was another predisposing factor of perianal warts in males in China

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17121025

A 21 year old male

A 21-year-old male presented with a 1-month history of fever, diarrhea, fatigue, sore throat, mouth lesions, lymphadenopathy, and a 9-kg weight loss. His medical history was remarkable for peptic ulcer disease, urinary tract infections, recent 5-month history of asthma, and pericarditis 4 months earlier. He had two suicide attempts, one of which was prompted by turmoils about his homosexuality, a history of polysubstance abuse, including intravenous drugs, and unsafe sex practices.

Initial HIV-1 antibody by ELISA, HIV-1 antigen test, and HIV-1 culture were all negative, as were the urinalysis and serologies for hepatitis B and C. Four months later HIV-1 antigen test was still negative, but ELISA and Western blot test were positive, and his CD4 count was dropping. This case was consistent with severe primary HIV disease, with negative HIV antibody test due to the recent exposure to the virus; seroconversion took approximately 5 months."

Dr. Laura isn't a very good traditional moralist.

About 10 years ago or so, when I was 16/17, I would listen to the Dr. Laura Show, which was extremely popular. I think she was at the height of her popularity then because I never seem to hear about her any more. She also attracted a fair bit of controversy.

I've heard of people criticize her because (1) she espounses traditional morality and (2) her lurid life and (3) her shrill unbearable manner.

I realize that I'm 10 years late in the game, but I wanted to criticize some her advice, which I think is bad advice from a conservative perspective.

Bad piece of advice no. 1: She advocated not getting married until age 30. Oh, and one is supposed to remain chaste until then.

Huh? People who practice chastity until marriage never wait until age 30 to get married. They marry young. For instance, among the people I went to high school with, all the serious Christians I know go married just after college. People who are 30 when they marry are never virgins. And in fact, in Sex in America, the authors reveal the very interesting fact, that 50 years ago, you would marry at age 19 or 21, but today, instead of getting married, you would begin your first sexual relationship at age 19 or 21. The reason the age at first marriage has gone up is preceisely because you can have sex without being married. People who believe to highly religious subgroups which condemn premarital sex still get married at young ages.

This same point is missed by people on the other side of the political spectrum. They will say something to the effect that one cannot expect people to remain chaste until marriage because people get married at age 30. Wrong. If people decided to remain chaste, they would not marry at age 30.

In fact, I remember a phone call in which a young woman who was 25 told Dr. Laura that she was engaged and that the wedding was a long ways off (2 years?) and that she felt tempted to have sex with her fiance. Dr. Laura firmly told her to suck it up for the sake of her morals. This sort of thing makes no sense. Why not get married already?

Then there is the fact that woman's looks rapidly deteriorate with time. Many say that a woman peaks at age 25. Whatever the age at which woman peaks though, it is much younger than 30! It's a good idea to start working on getting a husband when you are young and then marrying him at age 25 or so.

I think she says this kind of thing precisely because of her own messed up private life. Because she herself wasn't chaste when she was young, she doesn't understand the relationship between chastity and the speed at which you get married.

So what reason does she have for people putting off marriage until age 30? I believe it the greater stability that comes with marrying at an older age.

Bad piece of advice no. 2: Someone called and asked, my son is not interested in school. He wants to be a rock star. What should I do? Dr. Laura's advice? I don't know what will happen in the future. I don't have a crystal ball. I guess, buy him a moderately priced guitar.

What stupid advice. A sensible person would have said, the chances of his becoming a rock star or movie star or whatever is nil. Concentrate on getting yourself into the best career track you can, whatever that may be for someone who is not a good student (plumbing?). Then play guitar with your band in your spare time. If you hit the big leagues, you can always quit your day job.

I don't know how she could have messed this one up so badly.

Bad piece of advice no. 3: Someone who says do as I say and not as I do is a hypocrite. Someone who says do as I say and not as I did is a teacher.

I think this is Dr. Laura's response to her less than spotless record in life. But it makes no sense. Especially when she gives advice about sex. It is very well to say when one is in one's 50s that you should be chaste or whatever. But of course people will look to see how you behaved when you were in your teens and 20s.

A Primer on Persimmons

November-January is persimmon season.

There are two varieties of persimmons which are commonly available: (1) the conical Hachiya and (2) the round, flat Fuyu.

Any persimmon you buy should be be a bright deep orange color. The brighter and deeper the color, the better. It should be as free of black spots as possible.

Fuyu:
Fuyus can be eaten when they are crisp. But I think they are best when they are slightly soft, so I like to leave them out on the counter for a few days to let them soften up.

Hachiya:
The thing about Hachiyas is that they are completely inedible if they are not ripe. A ripe hachiya is *squishably* soft. It should look somewhat like an overripe tomato. Looking at a ripe hachiya, you would think that by the standards of any other fruit it was overripe. The skin should be wrinkled and a bit loose (not taut over the fruit) and the fruit itself should feel like a mass of jelly. The fruit should at a stage where you're afraid of handling it for fear that the skin will break.

This is information I could not find online. I would always buy firm taught hachiyas, wait a couple of weeks, at which it would have softened somewhat and deepened in color. It would "look" ripe to me. I think I must have discarded at least a dozen hachiyas before finally buying what looked to me like badly overripened hachiyas, which are of course perfectly ripe hachiyas.

I would recommend buying already ripe hachiyas as opposed to buying unripe ones and letting them ripen on the counter. Hachiyas seem to take a very very long time to ripen. (At least, more than 2 weeks, which is the longest I've waited).

Hachiyas are considered superior to Fuyus in flavor and I heartily agree. While Fuyus are very good, Hachiyas are absolutely divine.

The Lives of Others

Just watched "The Lives of Others." Very good anti-communist movie.

I loved watching the main character Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) more than anyone else in the movie. Intense, conscientious, and competent people are always fascinating to me. The writer and actress charcters are sexy, but somehow I didn't enjoy watching them anywhere near as much.

One thing I found somewhat unconvincing is why Wiesler is so moved by this writer/actress pair into changing his core beliefs. This is a man who has been a part of the Stasi for 20 years. He teaches a class on interrogation. He has ruthlessly "interrogated" (tortured) people. And he hasn't blinked. But all of a sudden now he begins to melt. What is it about these people that moves him? He seems to be in love with the actress. Is that the reason? Is this is the first time he has spied on arty types as opposed to "priests and peace activists," a phrase used in the movie? This great change of heart would have been more convincing if Wiesler had been young and just starting out rather than a seasoned veteran.

Another aspect of the movie which irritated me is that various arty and literary types (playwrights, directors, newspaper publishers) are portrayed as brave anti-communists. But generally most arty/literary types are far leftists and very sympathetic to communism. In the US for instance, Hollywood was full of Communists. And in fact, the hero the writer, is actually a committed socialist and state-approved playwright. It is only after a very good friend is blacklisted and commits suicide that he beings to rethink his loyalty to the regime.

Final comment is that the movie was wrapped up so very neatly, which is not a bad thing. No loose ends. The writer learns exactly the extent to which the actress snitched on him. He discovers that Wiesler had protected him, and Wiesler learns that the writer has discovered that he protected him.

It is refreshing to see a Communist era movie. Despite my fault finding, the movie was very good.

Slapstick Ballet

I attended a performance of Prokofiev's Cinderalla by the Amercian Company Ballet.

First, the program. The story of Cinderalla is narrated in this jokey manner which is meant to be funny, but isn't. It's tedious in the extreme.

The actual ballet: I didn't find the music memorable at all. This is apparently the third choreographed version of the ballet. I hated it. The wicked stepsisters and their dates to the ball are presented as buffoons. They take dancing lessons but are terrible. By terrible I mean, they do a slapstick version of bad ballet dancing.

The audience laughed at their antics. But I didn't find it funny at all. You come to a ballet to see, beautiful, elegant dancing, not slapstick. Every now and then, for instance, at the ball, you would get actual ballet dancing, which was a pleasure. I loved the scenes in which the attendees of the ball are dancing in unison. Then the moment would be ruined by the slapstick bad dancing. Ugh!

Another point I don't understand is why the wicked stepsisters were presented as ridiculous. Wickedness is not the same as ridiculousness.

Louvre in Atlanta

Apparently, the Louvre has lost some or all of its public funding, and now has to generate a lot of its own funding. One way to do that is to loan artworks to other museums. That is the Louvre in Atlanta exhibits came to be. The exhibits span three years. Atlanta was chosen because the people at the Louvre figured that as New York and Washington D.C. already have world class museums, there would be much more excitement generated among the hicks in Atlanta. Which is true I think. The exhibit was packed when I went.

I loved the first year's exhibits on paintings collected by Louis XIV-XVI. My favorite is the Union of Drawing and Color by Guido Reni.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

I love the European paintings gallery at the Met.

I love paintings my the old masters. My favorites are Van Dyck, Reni, and Caravaggio.

If I lived in New York City, I would visit this great museum once a month, at least.

The Drowsy Chaperone: PoMo Musical

"The Drowsy Chaperone," a relatively new Broadway musical is stupid and boring. What makes it utterly abominable is that it is a postmodern musical. It has that knowing, ironic quality about it which I hated.

The play begins as follows: the theater is dark. The omniscent narrator of the play says a small prayer along the lines of, "You're going to a Broadway play. You utter a small prayer. Please god, don't let it be boring. Please god, let it be short." Get it? Here we are at a Broadway play in which the narrator is also talking about seeing a Broadway play.

When the lights come on, we see the sitting room of a small apartment. The narrator is a character of the play. The narrator is meant to be a square boring type. He wears a cardigan and some ill-fitting pants. He looks about 50. He loves Broadway plays. He decides to play the soundtrack of one of his favorite plays from the 1920s, "The Drowsy Chaperone."

As the soundtrack plays, the actual Broadway play takes place in the narrator's living room. The narrator, seated in his armchair in the corner, provides commentary throughout.

The play: Janet Van Der Graaf (sp?) is a movie star and is about to marry a certain person. Her chaperone is the drowsy chaperone, though a more accurate description would be boozy chaperone. She's drawsy because she's drunk.

Wedding preparations: The fiance is also an actor, in toothpaste commercials? He smiles a lot and is generally a foppish ridiculous character. His friend decides to take over the wedding preparations and asks him to leave the premises. In a setpiece which is supposed to be comic but is just stupid in the extreme, the friend puts the fiance on roller skates and blindfolds him. I'm still not sure why. The fiance then sings the song, "I'm an accident waiting to happen."

Janet then decides to test her fiance's love for her by pretending to be someone else and then aggressively coming on to him. The fiance who is blindfolded kisses her. She then leaves and confronts him later and breaks up with him on account of his infidelity.

There is a Latin lover character, a Latin guy with a terrible accent and preposterous romantic pretentions (that is, he thinks he is romantic but is actually absurd). This lover decides to break up the wedding by seducing the bride. He mistakes the chaperone for the bride and ends up seducing the woman who is only too willing.

A series of incredible low points follow. The lowest point is where Janet sings a song to her fiance about her disappointment. The narrator says, though the lyrics are just absurd, the melody is beautiful. The melody, like all the melodies in the play is one of these generic, basically pleasing, 20-ish melodies. But the lyrics: "I put a monkey on a pedestal." To have to listen to such rot!

Janet and the fiance make up. It is at this point I think that we get a long commentary which is purportedly comic but actually tedious from the narrator about how things always work out on Broadway but never in real life. We also learn that he is divorced.

Janet and the fiance marry. The drowsy chaperone and the Latin Lover also marry.

Another pomo moment, Janet asks the chaperone for advice. "L---- while you can", she says. Does she say "leave" or "live?" We don't know because the Latin lover drops his walking stick when she says leave/live. So the narrator "replays" that scene a few times. So we see that line done a few times by the performers.

Then we have the final extravaganza number. I think an "aviatrix" or female pilot shows up. I don't remember why she's there. I think that may have been the point. To have someone there for no reason at all.

I think during the final extravaganza, there's a power outage. So the extravaganza stops. The play has occassionly interrupted by the narrator's phone ringing, so he has unplugged it. Turns out it was the building electrician who had been calling. He comes to the apartment to fix something. He goes through the apartment, which is also the place where the Broadway performers, comeplete with aviatrix's airplane, are standing. He finishes his job and leaves. Again, this scene is meant to be hilarious, but it is just extremely tedious.

The narrator is in anguish. He talks about how awful it is that the moment was ruined. Should he replay the entire record again? Instead he decides to just start where we had left off (thank god!).

Another important pomo moment happens during the intermission. I think a scene change is going on behind the curtain. The narrator eats a power bar because he has a low blood sugar issue ("issue" pronounced with a very sibilant ess sound).

When he puts the second record for the second half of the play onto the phonograph, we get another play, set in China. The narrator has put on the wrong record. The Chinese emperor is played by the Latin lover with the exact same preposterous accent. An English visitor to his court is played by the woman who plays the drowsy chaperone. Why do the Caucasians find the Asians so interesting? the English visitor sings.

The narrator then puts the correct record on.

The play is meant to be funny, but it isn't. The jokes are cringe inducingly bad. The play within a play and the commentary are meant to be clever but aren't.

It is very difficult to come up with a winning musical. Creating a musical out of sneering at a musical doesn't make a good musical. For instance, having to listen to the song "Monkey on a pedastal" was absolute torture. And anyway, I don't think a 1920s musical would have been as stupid as all this.

The narrator says repeatedly that he loves musicals because he finds them transporting. That life is difficult and dull and depressing, but the musical isn't. I agree that the old Broadway musicals are happy, fun, and exciting.
But the problem is his frequent interruptions and commentary on the goings-on and the whole ironic winking pomo quality ruin any chance that the musical has of being transporting (not that the play which unfolds in his living room had much chance of doing that).

Don't see it.

Frick House

I love the Frick museum in New York City. Of course, the Metropolitan Museum's art is of the same quality. But what distinguishes the Frick is that you get to see art displayed in a real house, as opposed to a whitewashed room.

My brother said he isn't at all interested in looking at furniture in museums but that he enjoyed the furniture at the Frick exactly for this reason. I agree.

Bach

It's funny, I don't particularly like listening to Bach, but I love to play Bach.

Live? How live?

Store bought yogurt claims to contain live cultures, but I wonder how it compares to that of home made yogurt. The thing is, when you make yogurt at home, you have to consume it within a few days because the action of the bacteria turns it more and more sour, until at some point it's inedible. But that doesn't seem to happen with store bought yogurt. Or if store bought yogurt does become more sour, it happens much more slowly. So does home made yogurt have a larger bacteria count? I know home made yogurt has a much more diverse set of cultures as opposed to the single digit number of bacterial cultures that store bought yogurt has which are mandated by the government. Or in the production process, are the bacteria in store bought yogurt attenuated somehow? Now, the good bacteria is supposed to be one of yogurt's main plus points. So, is homemade yogurt much healthier than store-bought yogurt?