Chemical Warfare.

Apparently, chemical weapons were used on US troops in the first Gulf War. Unfortunately, it was our own government who employed the chemical weapons on US troops. CNN reports on a study that was done for the "congressionally mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses" finds two causal agents:

The report identifies two Gulf War "neurotoxic" exposures that "are causally associated with Gulf War illness." The first is the ingestion of pyridostigmine bromide (PB) pills, given to protect troops from effects of nerve agents. The second is exposure to dangerous pesticides used during the conflict.

While CNN doesn't identify who used the "dangerous pesticides," I can only guess that with our country's history of using chemicals to deal with naturally occurring hazards (see Agent Orange), that it was the US deploying the pesticides.


The US also has a fine history of experimenting on its own soldiers and civilians, as the early atomic bomb tests ably demonstrate:

Not to mention the fallout about 65 miles away in Las Vegas. Roll those dice, baby!

Notoriously, we also have the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, conducted over an amazing 30 years by the US Public Health Service and only stopped when it became public knowledge that the U.S. government was deliberately failing to treat study participants so they could study the effects of this fatal-if-left-untreated disease...of course, the participants were poor Black men, so I guess the government thought, "eh, who really cares."

So the idea the government would deliberately infect our troops with experimental medicines and expose them to poorly researched chemical pesticides isn't exactly a shocker. The only question is whether George H.W. Bush will be brought to justice for presiding over this act of chemical warfare.

Another sign that age has crept up on me.

I suppose I should tell the story of how I've ended up in bed in the middle of a Monday afternoon hopped up on percoset and valium, but your imaginations are probably much better than the truth.

So I'll give you a few moments to think up the scenario...

Time's up.

The correct answer is not that I've chucked it all to the wind having been utterly and entirely and absolutely rejected in my job search during the past year's MLA extravaganza. In fact, in the relative calm of an empty house, I've managed to do a little reading in the direction of my hopes for next fall's job search.

Neither would it be correct to answer that I've become depressed by the post-holiday lull that is early January, that dead and dreary space following the outrageous excesses of December. January is merely a precursor to my birthday, and far from being depressed about yet another year rolling by, I still look forward to getting free stuff in the early days of February.

The correct answer would have something to do with the National Gallery of Art and that infernal skating rink that sits in the middle of the sculpture garden. Of course, it would also have something to do with the beautiful spring-like weather we had yesterday and the fact that my daughter, not yet three years old, is about the right height to make me bend over close to eight inches to support her while she tries skating for the first time.

A few times around the choppy ice at the NGA rink (sorry folks, but they aren't too careful with the zamboni at the NGA), bent at the waist to keep a toddler on her feet, and you'd be hurting, too. However, the real pain didn't manifest itself last night or even overnight...no, it waited until I was walking to pick up a few croissants this morning on Columbia Road. Two blocks from the house and I'm walking briskly to get home in time for the kids to eat before school, and bam my back seizes up like someone fused all the moving parts. Luckily, I could hobble around and complete my morning errand, but it only got worse until I ended up in the emergency room at GW Hospital...where they were able to see me sometime around 1:30 p.m. (this tactic being used after I'd called the GW Medical Faculty Associates' "Urgent Care" appointment center and secured an "urgent" appointment for tomorrow. Sorry, but my back hurts today. Now. Intensely.) and filled me up with prescriptions for percoset and valium.

So I suppose it isn't all bad.

I may have to add to my one resolution for the year (remember it: publish publish publish) the following important resolution to stretch stretch stretch in the mornings and maybe at night, too, lest I find the gum band in my back has finally snapped for good.