bi punks, cat grammar, depressing pharmaceutical stuff, black male models making history

[firecat]

"Let's Remember Buzzcocks Frontman Pete Shelley as the Proud Bisexual Punk He Was" by Danny Addice

Buzzcocks’ biggest single, “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” bemoans a guttural feeling all queer people have lived through. Just the song’s opening verse alone hits hard with that bitter despair: “You disturb my natural emotions / You make me feel I’m dirt / And I’m hurt / And if I start a commotion / I’ll only end up losin’ you / And that’s worse.” Simple yet raw — a common theme in Buzzcocks songs.

Even Pete Shelley’s more open-ended love songs remained queer in the sense that almost every single track was genderless, swapping out “he” and “she” with “you” and “I.”

"Mark Twain and his cats [10 pictures]" by Abraham Piper

Includes several of his quotes about cats...but not my favorite:

You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use. --Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad

"Opioid Nation" by Marcia Angell

Discusses the history of opiate use and the current situation in the context of four books about it. Thanks jesse_the_k!

"Alton Mason Makes History As First Black Male Model To Walk In Chanel Show In 109 Years" by Sabrina Barr

This is one of those historical firsts where you aren't sure whether to celebrate or feel grumpy because really, it took until 2018 for this to happen?

"Investigation of generic ‘cartel’ expands to 300 drugs" by Christopher Rowland

It used to be that once a prescription drug went off patent, you could rely on an inexpensive generic version becoming available. No longer. Also, prices are being raised astronomically on some formerly inexpensive generics.

Comments

Thought of this

[jesse_the_k]

...when I read Maia Szalavitz’s article on “What the media gets wrong about opioids” in a trade mag for journalists, the Columbia Journalism Review:

The “relatable” story journalists and editors tend to seek—of a good girl or guy (usually, in this crisis, white) gone bad because pharma greed led to overprescribing—does not accurately characterize the most common story of opioid addiction. Most opioid patients never get addicted and most people who do get addicted didn’t start their opioid addiction with a doctor’s prescription. The result of this skewed public conversation around opioids has been policies focused relentlessly on cutting prescriptions, without regard for providing alternative treatment for either pain or addiction
[… snip …]
It’s important for journalists to understand that criminalization is not some sort of natural fact, and laws are not necessarily made for rational reasons. Our system does not reflect the relative risks of various drugs; legal ones are among the most harmful in terms of their pharmacological effects. With the exception of the legislation that resulted in the creation and maintenance of the FDA, our drug laws were actually born in a series of racist panics that had nothing to do with the relative harms of actual substances.

https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_health_care_fight/what-the-media-gets-wrong-about-opioids.php

Re: Thought of this

[firecat]

YES, I read that one (love CJR). I loved what it said about avoiding language with built-in bias.