Yesterday’s ODI was devoted to breast cancer awareness and boy did they do a good job.
Lonwabo Tsotsobe is congratulated by teammates after the dismissal of Pakistan’s Nasir Jamshed
Pink wickets
Pink groundstaff
Pink sponsors
Pink Wanderers
Even pink plastic beer mugs
Boadicea's Chariot 
But it will show the marks just as much as white!
Backside says he’d never wear pink. 😦
Pink for girls and blue for boys is a relatively new custom. As late as 1927 pink was recommended by some stores as the colour for boys. It was only in the 1940’s that manufacturers settled on pink for girls and blue for boys. Well, that is according to this and other sites I have seen. But you are welcome to disprove the claim.
http://jezebel.com/5790638/the-history-of-pink-for-girls-blue-for-boys
Personally, I think far too much attention is given to breast cancer. It is a massive money spinning industry. It has so much going for it from a marketing perspective in the way that prostate cancer has not. But cancer generally is a big money spinner.The last thing that those involved in it want, is to find a cure. Its a bit like the anti-poaching industry. A legal trade in rhino horns and elephant tusks would do much to preserve the animals concerned, but it would eliminate the raison d’être for those who make their living from raising money for anti-poaching campaigns.
Other such causes that attract my cynical gaze are the Holocaust, campaigns for Racial Equlaity, Animal Cruelty, Child Protection, Road Safety, to name a few, but basically anything requiring the services of professionals, whether they be lawyers, accountants or doctors and anything that is foisted upon us by politicians or promoted by celebrities. The western society exists in a moral vacuum.
A good book to read is the Great Degeneration by Niall Ferguson.
“But cancer generally is a big money spinner.The last thing that those involved in it want, is to find a cure.” Discuss.
I seriously agree with sipu on this one.
I have thought for years that there is no serious will to ‘cure’ cancer, it is just one huge money spinner for the pharmaceutical companies.
The quality of life that their dubious drugs give as a so called ‘extension of life’ are not worth a bucket of spit.
Death generally being a seriously soft option.
Having hung round oncologists and wards and patients of same for far too many years, I have taken great care to have had prepared a legal document refusing all such treatment and resuscitation, which stands in WA law courts for reparations if they ignore it. I have it registered with the local hospital and all the medical facilities that I use. The bastards aren’t keeping me going for fun and profit, they seriously don’t like it but can do nothing against it!
If people want to ‘survive’ cancer, they would be far wiser to amend their diet in the first place and not acquire the condition. Modern western diets, especially the American variety are pretty well guaranteed to give it to you!
Re the pink bit. The last couple of years here in the USA all that is available is hideous vulgar day glo pink clothes for female children, even in the expensive stores. I would have thought the mothers must be tearing out their hair! The toys are as bad. (One cannot help but notice just walking through Macys) Enough to make any sane mother head for cut downs from the paramilitary stores for them!!
Thank you CO, for your forthright remarks. Very refreshing.
I perhaps started ‘seriously’ helping charities about 20 years ago, learned very early that competing with the big 3 was hard work (Cancer, Heart and AIDS) These 3 almost have the corporates tied up, too easy for corporates to donate their budget to one of them, doesn’t take too much thought or time and their collective consciouses are clear for a year.
If the views of Sipu and Christina can be borne out in fact, then the world-wide ‘investment’ in cancer research and treatment is either fraudulent or purposely ‘misdirected’. I will need some persuading that there is no honest endeavour in the field among the big corporations. So since I can’t prove a negative, some facts would be welcome beyond anecdotal evidence to convince the doubters.
Cancer, in all forms, is a killer – and I, for one, rejoice that money is spent on dealing with that particular nasty – in whatever form.
Sure, breast cancer has a higher profile than prostate cancer. If men were as willing to accept / deal with their ‘specific’ problems as women are – then, perhaps, prostate cancer would also figure highly on the ‘must-be-cured’ list of medical problems.
As for the comment that ‘The quality of life that their dubious drugs give as a so called ‘extension of life’ are not worth a bucket of spit.’ I could not disagree more.
I personally know of one woman, who didn’t bother with mammograms and was too terrified to go to the doctor when one breast was quite obviously diseased. Her family finally noticed and got her to a specialist who was prepared to treat her – most had decided that she was a lost cause because she only had a year to live – if that.
The ‘dubious drugs’ enabled her to live a further eight years during which time she (and her family) thoroughly enjoyed life to the full.
Carry on with the research, I say. If anyone does not want treatment to extend their life – so be it. But, don’t make the choice for those, like Maureen, who had another eight years of living her life as she always had – joyfully.
Janus I don’t think that it is a deliberately fraudulent industry, or at least, not by all. I do think it had gained a momentum and a monolithic quality that trades on the emotion of hope in the general public that is quite misplaced.
Examples such as Bo’s friend do happen, however, remissions are rarely as pleasant as Bo describes, most of them are pretty grim, funded too much by hope rather than reality.
Chemotherapy, which is where the money is has totally debilitating side effects to the body, they are after all total poisons. You would be surprised to know how many have their alimentary tract destroyed treating other cancers. The stench of colostomy bags in an oncological waiting room can be pretty stiff!
I will not bore you with harrowing tales ad nauseam. But remissions and cures are illusions. All these stories about being denied life extending drugs etc etc. No-one queries the quality of life in these supposedly wonderful extensions. People put on brave faces for their loved ones.
Too much of the whole industry is fuelled by fear and hope. I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, seen too much! Sometimes far better to go gracefully!
CO, you don’t have a monopoly of experience with cancer. Both my parents died from it but were helped considerably during their illnesses by skilled medical staff with the latest drugs. Of course hospital wards and hospices can be unpleasant places but lying down and dying which you recommend is certainly no less so and is probably far less dignified.
Maureen was not a friend – she was my daughter’s mother-in-law. In fact, I thought she was pretty stupid not to ever have had a mammogram which would have picked up her condition before it became so serious. I also think she was pretty stupid to stuff tissues in her bra to hide the fact that her breasts were misshapen.
But, the world has many Maureens who are too frightened to have tests or to deal with medical problems.
Maureen found chemotherapy horrendous, and after every treatment vowed that she wouldn’t ever have it again. But, she loved life and her family so much that she she faced the horror again and again – and for that I admire her.
So colostomy bags in an ontological waiting room stink – so what? So many ‘cures’ cause other problems – so what? So people are given hope in the face of imminent death – so what? Some may be able to face that Great Unknown with equanimity – other have so many ties, like Maureen, to make them want to continue to live.
I have other friends who have had mammograms and are now deemed clear of this particular cancer. So I say again – Hurray! for the money spent on trying to tackle this particular scourge – especially since it seems that my two granddaughters, who will not have inherited the propensity to have breast cancer from my daughter, will be monitored more carefully because their paternal grandmother died of breast cancer.