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Dr. Nancy Olivieri is back in the news--in a fairly modest way. Dr. Miriam Shuchman has published a book--one she has been working on for years, about the famous Olivieri case. Olivieri was one of the main physicians carrying out clinical trials with a drug to treat patients with thalassemia, a rare blood disorder. As more results came in, Olivieri change from one of the biggest boosters of the drug, to a critic who was worried that the drug was doing more harm than good, and no one should take it.
The pharmaceutical company Apotex, mostly famous for producing cut-rate generic drugs, acted in the most ham-handed way possible, stopping the trial and refusing Olivieri permission to publish the reasons for her misgivings--indeed threatening to sue if she went public at all. Shuchman apparently makes it clear, however, that she is also somewhat sceptical of Dr. Olivieri. At an earlier stage in her career, she applied for major dollars for clinical trials on this drug--and did not mention warnings of its toxicity that had already circulated in the research world. She is apparently one of these people who thinks whatever tune she has chosen at the moment, everyone must dance to it. Schuchman thinks there is now significant evidence that the drug that was tested, if it is used properly, can help quite a few people--and thalassemia sufferers in other countries are getting more benefit from it that patients in Canada, partly because of the publicity about Olivieri.
There will always be a debate about Olivieri herself, and whether she was right to oppose the drug so completely when she did. The larger question, however, is more interesting. Are clinical trials, in general, ethical?
There was a piece in the news quite recently about what was called the first clinical trial on humans that actually worked. In the last few decades, hospitals were giving large amounts of oxygen to premature newborns who struggled to breathe. There was an assumption that there was no such thing as too much oxygen, and when the babies showed signs of being unable to be weaned off the O2, the experts were baffled. One doctor proposed a classic study--one group of babies with the usual dose of O2, another group with a small dose. Lo and behold, the latter group did as well or better throughout the test, and were able to be weaned off once they were bigger with no difficulty.
Are clinical trials ethical? If your state of knowledge is such that you just don't know who is more likely to be harmed, the control group or the experimental group? If your knowledge is such that you're pretty sure the drug you're testing is toxic, as in Olivieri's case?
In one episode of House, the good doctor said matter of factly that the new benefactor wanted to give a hundred million dollars to the hospital, and take over the board, simply to carry out clinical trials--"and that is unethical; [I'm paraphrasing] it involves treating patients in a way that is different from: do no harm, find the most promising for this patient, here and now."
There have been several cop shows about how the drug companies will try to control the news about a product on which they hold the patent--letting the good news out in the most effective way possible, suppressing the bad news.
The Ontario government is directly supporting clinical trials involving cancer therapies.
I've been looking for Steely Dan, Greatest Hits from 1978, for years at a cheap price, and finally found it for 6 bucks at the supermarket. I felt guilty about buying another compilation--I've owned A Decade of Steely Dan for a long time. But I remembered the 1978 compilation as having better production values, and some good tunes that I missed. I once owned the 1978 disc as an LP.
Sure enough, Greatest Hits is a great album. The overall sound is great, and every tune (except maybe East St. Louis Toodle-Oo) is a gem. The one tune that A Decade adds (for me) is "Deacon Blues." [Update: oops! I almost forgot "FM"). So maybe I'll keep it. "Babylon Sisters" and "Hey Nineteen" I could live without. Conversely, Greatest Hits has "Show Biz Kids," "Pretzel Logic" (which I really missed), "Any Major Dude," "Here at the Western World" (new with this compilation), "Doctor Wu" (ahhhhh), "Haitian Divorce," "The Fez," and "Josie." Of course, there's something to be said for tracking down some of the original albums....
This is all old-technology stuff, but the 1978 album had virtually no liner notes--you can't tell who's playing what solo. "A Decade" is a bit better for that. Now the Net has a nice set-up; pick a tune on a compilation album, and you are taken back to the album where the tune first appeared--lyrics, players, and solos. If a tune is added for the first time, then the lyrics, etc. are with the compilation.
Other albums I used to own as LPs, and still dream about: Aretha Franklin, "Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky)"; Quincy Jones, "You've Got it Bad Girl"; Don Ellis, "Connection". Aretha and Quincy have put a few tunes from these albums onto compilations, but I miss the albums as "entities." Hey Now Hey had a great version of "Somewhere," and a 12-bar blues called "It Ought to Be Just Right Tonight." Quincy had a quiet side and a loud side--the loud side included "Superstition," and Dizzy Gillespie's tune "Manteca." I once used "Superstition" to test stereos in a store.
I didn't realize until I just went Googling now that Quincy Jones co-produced my favourite Aretha Franklin album. It's a bit like the time I discovered "Feels LIke Home to Me," which was on the radio constantly sung by Chantal Kreviazuk, was written by Randy Newman. Typical: one reviewer of the Aretha album says "Just Right Tonight" is the best thing on it (Amazon review in above link); another hates only that tune, out of the otherwise "great" album.
Here I go again, speaking ill of the dead.
For a while we've been watching Breakfast Televission on CITY before we leave in the morning. There Bob Hunter has been, in his pajamas and robe, discussing the main stories in the papers.
When he died, a memory stirred. Didn't he admit fairly recently that he had just given up, or mostly given up, his car? I found it.
The great environmentalist was taking his car back and forth to work, in a very transit-friendly city, until March 2001--when he was close to 60. A year earlier, in 2000, he wrote some kind of paean to the joys of the car, and urged environmentalists not to attack cars as such, but the polluting fuels that we still, unfortunately, use.
Think globally, act locally Bob? Born in 1941, he was (just) too old to be a boomer, but surely this is a familiar pattern. Endless lectures about the environment, even about the amount of carbon each of us consumes--especially if we drive. Time magazine "hero of the planet," or something. Yet he drives every day. He at least attempts an excuse--he is so far out in the suburbs, he's hardly in Toronto at all. It would take a long time to take transit. Poor baby. Now that he's (at least partially) converted, he loves reading on the LRT. He couldn't have figured out this possibility before?
And what made him change? Not to giving up his car completely, but cutting back on its use for commuting?
He was almost crushed between two tractor-trailers on the freeway. "I came as close to being killed as I can remember." He was fwightened into changing his habits. References to St. Paul, etc.
He also realizes something about himself. "There was no rational reason for me to take chances like that. It was just a bad habit I'd gotten into. Pushing the envelope. Always in a rush." Does this even help explain some of his famous exploits with Greenpeace--putting himself between the whalers and the whales? Adrenaline rush, in addition to the chance to make a career, which is what actually happened?
Did he always give in to impulses of hope and fear, driven by his own comfort? If so, this isn't environmentalism; at best it's epicureanism. I guess we're supposed to appreciate his honesty.
On the other hand, there's another founder of Greenpeace who is avoiding the cliches of environmental scare tactics: Dr. Patrick Moore.
One of the many things that make me wish I could get to New York on a fairly regular basis: Slate refers to the Museum of the Chinese in the Americas. Specifically, Gish Jen discusses the current exhibit on Chinese restaurants.
There are reminders here of how the Chinese for some time were stigmatized--perhaps more than any other ethnic or immigrant group. I think about my own experience, growing up in a village on the Canadian prairie, with the one Chinese store/restaurant, "Woo's".
No doubt there were some townspeople who patronized the place more than my family did. For one thing, it was uniquely open on Sunday and in the evening. I don't think my parents were the only ones, however, who had little to say to, or do with, the Chinese family. How lonely it must have been to be the one Chinese family for miles around. Maybe the Chinese in these little villages became part of the community in Calgary, about an hour away by car.
When we moved to Calgary, when I was about 12, I was surprised to find myself running into one of the sons of the Chinese family, now grown up: Jim Woo. He was working as a carpenter. He knew exactly who I was, and he was very nice to me: "Hi Lloyd." I reciprocated, but I still remember feeling a bit guilty and awkward, even as I thought: great, now that we're in Calgary, and either grown up or growing up, we can put all that small town stuff behind us.
As the years went on, my parents came to quite like Chinese food--meaning, I guess Cantonese, lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork, deep fried stuff. Later the younger generation discovered Szechuan--spicier, and based on noodles rather than rice. I've experienced a bit of Thai food. In some ways that old Wasp-y world, with a few Scandinavians, Germans and Ukrainians, is like a lost civilization.
UPDATE: Jan Wong used to do pieces called "Lunch with Wong"--I don't know if she still does or not. She's very smart, with a biting wit, and she saw it as her job in these features to open up her guests in a somewhat unpleasant way. The guest got to choose a restaurant, and the famous David Suzuki chose a Japanese restaurant--I think he said he did not eat in such places all that often. In any case, the staff recognized him, and offered him his meal on the house. (The Globe and Mail was paying). Wong, a bit indignant, reported to her readers that in all her years in Toronto (and before that Montreal, I believe) she had never been offered a free meal in a Chinese restaurant. I repeated this to the folks I was working with, and a lady of Chinese ancestry said: there is more competition among Chinese restaurants than Japanese, so it's harder for the Chinese to offer free meals. A very matter of fact explanation.
How fortunate that I was able to see Prime Minister Martin on TV this evening. It turns he's not a pathetic clown. I didn't know that--but now I have his word for it.
In fact, I learned that he's one of our most distinguished Canadians. Obviously I can learn from this man.
"As prime minister, I will never hesitate to describe what happened on the sponsorship file for what is was - an unjustifiable mess." Gosh, as this sentence went along I was expecting something like "disgrace," or "contemptible."
He's going to have careful studies done. "If so much as a dollar is found to have made its way into the Liberal party [do you mean: into the coffers of the party?] from ill-gotten gains, it will be repaid to the people of Canada. I want no part of that money." That sounds weird. As PM he makes spending decisions on that (taxpayers') money. Did we hear an early draft of the speech?
"In closing, let me say this: there are people who think I was wrong to call this inquiry, wrong to expose my government to the political cost of the scrutiny that has ensued. They warn we will pay a price in the next election. And perhaps we will." Gosh, Paul, I think you're sharing with us the private comments of Liberal hacks. EVERYONE ELSE IS THRILLED GOMERY IS AIRING OUT A LOT OF LIBERAL GARBAGE FOR OUR BENEFIT. DO YOU THINK WE'D PREFER THAT YOU GUYS BE ALLOWED TO KEEP ALL YOUR SECRETS?
"I fired Alfonso Gagliano." So he's the only one everyone is willing to refer to as a disgraceful crook?
Shorter Martin: Please, pleeeeeeeeze don't fire me. I've only had a few months on the job, and I'm getting old. How will this look to my family?
Premier McGuinty might be thinking that historically, Ontarians like to have a different party label in office in Ottawa than in Queen's Park . So if McGuinty has to choose, he'd probably prefer his own Liberal government in Ontario. Many rats are swimming in what appears to be many different directions, but is really the same direction--away from the sinking ship. Some of them have drowned, the poor bastards. You can almost see leaders thinking: I'd better make sure I'm not one of them.
UPDATE: "When I was young, I practically lived here in the Parliament Buildings. My father was a cabinet minister in four Liberal governments. He taught me that those who serve in public office have a duty to protect the integrity of government." Did I mention that my daddy should have been Prime Minister, too? We should have a dynasty going on by now--not this ridiculous "throw the bums out" routine.
I guess we should always say first that it is not clear how much influence conferences and treaties have on events. In 1919, the Bolsheviks were taking over Russia and a few satellites, unless someone applied considerable force to stop this from happening. Noone was going to. Austria-Hungary was gone. Germany, while soundly defeated in the minds of Allied leaders, was in some ways hardly harmed by the war, and indeed already re-building. In various regions about which the Allies had long discussions, someone who was strong locally was going to take over. These turned out to be the massive facts which brought about World War II and the Cold War.
Wilson's Fourteen Points inspired people all over the world to believe that despite the horrors of war and poverty they had been going through, a new dawn was possible, based on new thinking. The modern world could be good rather than evil. Wilson's most famous pronouncement was "national self-determination," but his recommendations for specific regions were not much help--and probably raised expectations that no one could meet. "Initially, he did not want to break up the big multinational empires such as Austria-Hungary and Russia." Enforcement was often an issue; Allied forces were leaving the battlefields of World War I in droves--and everyone knew it.
[blockquote]At the end of 1919, a chastened Wilson told Congress, "When I gave utterance to those words [that 'all nations had a right to self-determination'], I said them without the knowledge that nationalities existed, which are coming to us day after day." [/blockquote]
Who are these people? What do they want? Er, they're the people you invited to seek self-determination, sir.
The League of Nations was the most idealistic proposal of Wilson's, but it was also supposed to be the most practical. Instead of the U.S. being dragged into a war that is initially little or none of its business, subject to the approval of Congress and the American public, there should be a collective agency that can act. Not just the most interested parties, who may want to keep the war going, but parties interested enough to seek peace for the sake of trade and security. The status quo (post Mexican wars, Alaska and Hawaii), was always good for the U.S.; why couldn't everyone else see it as good? But surely the majority of peoples can't be expected to see existing boundaries, or a new set drafted in haste in Paris, as just, simply because the U.S. finds them convenient as a way to avoid war?
"Faith in their own exceptionalism has sometimes led to a certain obtuseness on the part of Americans... a tendency ... to assume that American motives are pure where those of others are not." Americans can honestly say they don't want an old-fashioned empire--but they do want the entire world to operate in a way that is favourable to them, and they are prepared to fight wars and develop military bases to ensure this happens. They are generally able to see their self-interest coinciding with justice, and that is what they want to see.
UPDATE: I guess Wilson's two biggest blunders were: entering the war when he did (either earlier or later would have been better); and pushing for an Armistice, instead of something closer to Unconditional Surrender (which has been a U.S. trademark in other wars).
Literally as soon as Wilson announced that the U.S. was coming in--in March 1917, the German and Austrian generals made sure Lenin got into Russia. Maybe there was no way of foreseeing what would happen--at Paris in 1919, no one seemed sure whether the Bolsheviks would be defeated by the Whites, the Poles, the Germans, etc., or would be a force to reckon with. In any case the Allies were no doubt glad to have the U.S. in the war, and no doubt so would I have been if I were alive at the time. I am tantalized by Jonah Goldberg's suggestion that it would have been better if Germany had defeated France. Probably all the Germans wanted was Alsace and Lorraine (again), and a few other places. They would have been a strong liberal democratic/social democratic regime able to face the Bolsheviks. They could have weathered the Depression better than Weimar did. Perhaps: no Hitler?
Then there's the Armistice. Virtually everyone was appalled at the slaughter in the trenches, and it obviously seemed a good idea to stop it somehow. This was Wilson's humanitarianism, his determination to do things better than those cynical, nasty old Europeans. But: the Armistice resolved nothing. Unconditional Surrender, if it is meant literally, may not be a great idea either, but at least it captures the idea that someone has to be soundly defeated before a war is over. No Allied armies ever marched into German cities, so Germans were able to delude themselves that they hadn't really been defeated. In fact their economy and population, as the French kept warning, were in better shape than the French. The German high command, sensing which way the wind was blowing, shifted from an admission of defeat to something different.
I'm swamped (mostly grading), and in any case I may be approaching a hiatus on this blog. The most interesting ongoing thread here, for me, is "the U.S. today and ancient Sparta." I've made some progress on a draft article called "The War on Terror: A Thucydidean Perspective." So even my thoughts on Woodrow Wilson should possibly be saved for that. But then again, I may blog on it a bit.
Current events:
1. It's hard to believe Tom Delay is going down, but Republicans seem to be saying he is doing a terrible job of defending himself. Does he have more to hide? If he's going to hurt the party, they will want him gone by the end of this year.
2. The voting for Pope had gone on long enough that I was beginning to think it wouldn't be Ratzinger. He was so clearly the front-runner with the Italians, Europeans and others that if he didn't make it early, I was guessing he would have peaked, so it would be someone else. Either I was completely wrong, or he got a narrow victory before it could get away from him. At his age I guess he is kind of an "interim" Pope anyway. The Cardinals will have some time to decide what direction to take the Church in after Ratzinger is gone.
3. Canada may have a federal election soon. It's hard to see the seat count changing dramatically, except that the separatists will do extremely well in Quebec. If they take enough seats from the Liberals there, there may be a Conservative minority government---propped up by the separatists. Thanks Jean [Chretien].
Why do I not think the Tories will win big? I think the Toronto suburbs still don't trust them on social issues--and there may not be much appetitie for tax cuts or military spending either. They have ditched an anti-abortion position--but they want to campaign against gay marriage?
In the public library by my office I read quickly through a sad article in Rolling Stone on the children of famous rock stars. Once again, the magazine announces itself as not really a magazine about the music scene, but a magazine which is intended to make boomers feel they are staying in touch with the music scene. These "young" people aren't stars, and probably never will be. There's no reason to think they are producing music or anything else that is particularly interesting. But the boomers will remember their parents.
One highlight (not in the online excerpt): Trixie Garcia says her father Jerry Garcia and other members of the Grateful Dead were not really hippies or flower children, like their fans, at all. If anything they were pirates--out to get what they could.
We rented Sideways. It's OK, but I'm not sure what the critics are raving about. My suspicion is that it's just more flattery of the boomers.
I guess director Alexander Payne--born in 1961--is a shade too young to be a boomer. On the other hand, he's presumably spent his career pitching ideas to the boomers. Here it's: let's face it: you're 40, either divorced or sliding into that kind of singlehood that's kind of pathetic, your dreams for yourself haven't come true. Even worse, you're a nastier person than you'd like to admit--in fact, you have something in common with the people who do you dirt. Let's not be judgmental, let's smoke some pot and sleep around, trying not to hurt each other too much, blah blah. 40 in 2004 is obviously too young to be a boomer--but the boomers like to see stories about people a shade younger (and sexier) than themselves, and this middle aged ambiguity/anxiety stuff seems to be inexhaustible these days. (I guess the other big movie idea now is aging boomer, 60ish, with almost unbelievably young sexy woman. My God! How did he get her?)
We rented the movie partly because Sandra Oh is very good in Grey's Anatomy on TV (otherwise not a great show); she also stands out in the movie. I think the best performance is by Thomas Haden Church. He was on a show back in 1995 with Debra Messing (now famous for Will and Grace) called Ned and Stacey. Now that was a funny show--I gather, just about impossible to see now.
We see Church first as the true 40ish California guy--handsome, still able to make a little money as an actor (although he's switching, pathetically, to voice-overs), shirts never tucked in, always open for fun, and to a great extent a fun guy to be with. Then of course his sort of mechanical, grating selfishness and hedonism shows itself, as well as the panic about aging. He has fully intended to show up and get married on Saturday all along--it's the best chance he's got left--but he spends the week trying to kid himself about that.
UPDATE: The main protagonist is MIles, played by Paul Giamatti. In the end, even though wild man Jack (played by Church) has pretty well screwed up his love life, Mile seems to have started something wonderful with a beautiful blond, Maya (played by Virginia Madsen). This of course is the kind of fantasy I object to.
But it gets worse. Miles and Maya both really know their wines. With Maya it goes either deeper or to more of a divine gift: she has a great palate, not like that bullshitting SOB she used to be married to. So Maya and Miles are both deep somehow. I've never really gotten the whole "wine is deep" thing--I guess I'm not a connoisseur of anything. I can see appreciating meals and food as a whole--but there's hardly a reference to food in this movie, and I think Miles finally drinks his best, long-saved bottle at some greasy take-out place. Putting wine before food? I don't get it.
Worse: Miles has a manuscript. A novel. He's been flogging it unsuccessfully. For most of the movie he's waiting to hear from one publisher. No dice again. He's so deep, and the world is so uncaring. Surely he can't be stuck teaching middle school for the rest of his life? Oh. My. God.
Worse: When Maya hears there is a book, she asks to read it. Probably being polite. As they say good-bye after a slightly awkward date, he brings it up--not her. Do you still want to read it? Ah, sure. He reaches to the back of his car, and gives her one box. She's obviously a bit daunted, thanks, etc. He reaches back again: another box.
In the last few minutes of the movie, she has read it all, and she has some intelligent and encouraging comments. Don't give up writing, MIles. You have real talent.
Is it just me? It strikes me that in the real world he'd be more likely to meet a beautiful blond who would say "you have a nice ass" (and, er, she'd be lying) than to meet one who would read this whole bloody manuscript and comment on it with love, intelligence, and consideration. Both boxes. This is like the fairy godmother, an ideal thesis supervisor, the hard-nosed agent who will work for you for nothing, a sibling and a lover, all rolled into one. But they're deep, baby. They're so, so deep. Not like those vulgar people.
This is the boomers. They have an artistic side that makes them deeper than their parents. It's just that they're having, er, a little trouble getting published. They need to relate to people who understand.
The widespread respect and even reverence for JPII has become very obvious. Yet there is a widespread suspicion that many of the young people who are so excited about him have no intention of following his teachings. John Derbyshire has pointed out that the decline in church attendance has continued in the West during all the Pope's years in the papacy. (Dramatic link from Instapundit). Maybe the hope of the Church is in the Third World, but Derbyshire suggests that what goes on there is always a mixture with powerful strands of paganism.
Is there really a kind of cultural Catholicism at work? Not going to church, much less confession, women on the pill, not wanting to be too different from everyone else, yet a kind of fierce loyalty to distinctive Catholic traditions?
Just questions--but they take me back to Sinead O'Connor again.
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