Turns out I wasn’t alone in my outrage over Merck’s lobbying efforts to mandate STD shots (using their own drug, naturally) for kids, a marketing putsch I frothed over here, and here, and here. Bowing to pressure from parents, the company is immediately suspending this effort, as reported by Associated Press.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you can’t make a difference.

Drugmaker stops lobbying efforts for STD shots

Merck criticized by parents and doctors for pushing cervical cancer vaccine

TRENTON, N.J. – Merck & Co., bowing to pressure from parents and medical groups, is immediately suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate that adolescent girls get the company’s new vaccine against cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance.

The drug maker, which announced the change Tuesday, had been criticized for quietly funding the campaign, via a third party, to require 11- and 12-year-old girls get the three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.

Last night I saw Michael Crichton on Charlie Rose’s show and was surprised to hear, for once, I talk-show guest who was careful to stick to the facts as he knows them.

I don’t share Mr. Crichton’s view on global warming (he doesn’t believe in it; this snotty speech will give you the overview), but honestly I’m not in a position to evaluate all the data and reach a scientific conclusion. What I do have is the evidence of my senses: increased storm activity, melting polar ice, and the vast expenditure of money by insurance companies in arming themselves against future financial effects. My experience of insurance companies is that they do nothing for the good of anyone but insurance companies, so if they believe in global warming, I believe in it.

What was refreshing about Mr. Crichton was his allegiance to the facts as he knows them. Unlike Jane Smiley, he didn’t purport to be able to read the mind of George W. Bush or to channel past events involving the quote unquote president. He parsed administration actions, like the partial ban on stem-cell research, for both the upside and the downside. When Charlie Rose tried to paraphrase Crichton’s words, the latter would gently but firmly correct him because the paraphrase wasn’t right. At other times, Crichton said, “I don’t know.” And why didn’t he know? Because he isn’t a mind reader, hadn’t been at the event, didn’t have empirical evidence, wasn’t presented with the data — and so, he couldn’t know.

Contrast this with the bulging-eye, popping-vein school of commentary on Fox News or MSNBC or, really, anywhere else. In media terms, Crichton was cool, and so much commentary has become hot that he almost seemed as though he didn’t belong on TV. An adherence to the facts as one knows them? Why would we expect that? And, given their personal interest, how many people in entrenched political camps want that?

Here’s a recent New York Times piece about Robert and Aline Crumb, their new book, and their open marriage. By the way, I used to know one of Aline’s “second husbands” (who admitted that he hung out with her to get to Crumb himself).

Weird dream from early morning (3 a.m.?) of July 21, 2004:

I’m on what seems to be a campaign bus for George W. Bush. Everyone on board hates him, especially in the back where I am. A woman comes to get me and says I’m to see him personally, that I’ve been granted special time. I’m taken off the bus and go to sit with him in a dentist’s office he’s using. He has me sit down across from him and I take a good look at him. He’s wearing a white doctor’s uniform, has a stethoscope around his neck, and seems absolutely out of his mind. His hair is wild and his eyes are darting. He inserts a probe into the palm of my right hand – I ask him if this is absolutely necessary and he says it is. The probe is attached to a long catheter tube, and when he’s got it fully inserted, he starts to pump with a foot pedal and his large purple balloon rises from inside my palm. I’m amazed by this. He looks it over approvingly and says to the woman that this one seems just fine. I’m speaking with him sympathetically – he just can’t seem to get a break, I know he had good intentions in Iraq, it’s a shame no one likes him – while he performs the same procedure to the other palm. He’s surprised by my sympathy – and so am I! I’m wondering how much of a weasel I am; am I sympathetic because now, confronted with the man behind the headlines, I feel for him, or because he’s the president and I’m a sheep? I’m led back onto the bus and the woman announces to everyone that my procedure was a great success. I hold up my palms for all to see. They jeer at me for being friendly to Bush and saying nice things.

After a bit, Bush comes onto the bus and sits down next to me. I must be his only friend. I don’t think I’m his friend at all, so I’m confused by my own reactions, because now I’m feeling truly sorry for him if he has confused me for a friend when my only idea was to be polite. Now thrilled by our budding friendship, he has offered to detour the bus so he personally can drive me home. I give him directions. At some point the bus becomes a large stakebody truck in which we’re all sitting in the back. We pull up to my home – which is more like an apartment complex with a large parking lot. We pull in and I jump out excitedly to show everyone who I’ve got with me – I may not be entirely crazy about him, but hey, he’s hanging out with me, so this shows a new level of power and influence for me. I say, “Mr. President, can you wait 30 seconds? Please? I’d really like to get a picture.” I can’t believe I called him “Mr. President” because I know damn well he wasn’t elected – now I’m really feeling like a weasel, but I’m excited by the prospect of my having a photo of the two of us together that I can use on the website. He says, “You really mean two minutes” and says it to mean that I have only two minutes.

The front door is locked, so I try to scramble in from an upstairs window, except they have large wooden barriers from the inside. Meanwhile, my neighbors and guests, specifically including my friend Elaine, start to flood out to check on all the excitement. My wife hands me the camera very reluctantly – she hates Bush and can’t imagine why I’m hanging out with him and, worse, am excited about it! – but I grab it and run back to have the assistant woman take my picture. Bush poses with me and I’m wondering just how useful this picture will be given that everyone hates him and he’s lost his mind and looks it. Bush shakes Elaine’s hand, but while everyone else is impressed to see him in my parking lot, no one else is eager to shake his hand. He scowls and climbs back into the stakebody truck. I run after him and ask if please I can get him to go to meet my son Lex’s friend Brandon, because the boy idolizes Bush.

This is just the tonic Bush needs, so we’re off again.

Five thoughts that recur whenever I come across the latest PBS pledge drive and Dr. Wayne Dyer’s show “The Power of Intention”:

1. The Shaya thing – I’ve seen this three times now and always come in at the same point in the story. Because I never get to see it all, Dr. Dyer might tell me that Source doesn’t want me to see it all. More likely, I’m switching over from another program during a commercial break. On a similar note, I’m reminded that Jack Kirby also called God “The Source” but that was in comic books circa 1972.

2. Suspending judgment – Every time he talks about suspending judgment I’m reminded of what I’ve just read (or not read) in the newspaper. Maybe we need more judgment. And when he says that when you judge someone as stupid you are merely showing that you’re capable of judging them as stupid – why is that a bad thing?

3. He’s anti-drug, not as a moral choice but as a personal choice. That’s fine. As a reader of William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe I’m aware of the upside of drugs. And I believe many American Indians use drugs to get closer to Source. So who’s right? If he can’t handle them, that’s a separate issue.

4. This show makes a bad argument for funding PBS, because Dyer’s show is essentially an infomercial that he should be paying for on basic cable. PBS is a bonanza for him, but it’s not a free ride:  We’re paying for it.

5. Why is it sophisticated for the PBS base to sneer at some religions (let’s say Pentecostals, or Southern Baptists), but heartless to attack a guy who preaches a mushy pantheism to the cultured and comforted few? Because most people choose their religions based upon class, and it’s easy to mock the lower class. And also because pantheism doesn’t require much in the way of adherence to doctrine (since it has none), just a determination to be nice.

For several years in the early 1990’s, I was a frequent reader of tarot cards for other people. I remember my sister seeking guidance from the cards, and my wife, and assorted friends. I didn’t read them to offer divination, I read them the way Carl Jung read them: as a key to the subconscious of the seeker.

When you read the cards in this way, allowing people to make their own connections, they reach metaphorical associations and conclusions they wouldn’t have otherwise. “The dark-haired woman” becomes fixed in their mind as “Sally,” the friend they hadn’t been thinking of, but who of course will be rushing to their aid now that they’ve thought of asking her for help.

Some time last year I joined Netflix, and in an odd tarot-like way the system has brought me circling back around to earlier artistic interests and obsessions of mine, as well as new associations. Specifically: Thirty years after first being introduced to dadaism and expressionism, I’ve had a recent re-immersion in the latter thanks to the films of Fritz Lang and, especially, “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.” Just as it would not occur to the questioner to think of “Sally” until the cards jog their memory, I would not have found myself brought to this film had I not begun my Netflix account with two Werner Herzog films (“Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre, Wrath of God”), which led the system to suggest other arty German films. It’s wonderful at this point to discover an artist like Fritz Lang and feel as thought you’ve found something fresh that you also already knew in some way.

And what is “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse” about? A svengali of evil, evidently dead but somehow still operating, sets in motion a chain of events that are seemingly unrelated but deeply connected in ways that the film’s lead, Inspector Lohmann (played with riveting naturalism by Otto Wernicke), cannot ever fully puzzle out. “Mabuse” is a puzzle box where all the pieces don’t fit, or perhaps more appropriately, where they fit in more ways than seem possible. The film includes a chase scene that goes nowhere except right back to where it began, a locked-room escape that turns the villain’s weapon into a mechanism of egress, and any number of appearances by characters who aren’t really there, either in the form of silhouettes, recording devices, spectral images, voices from the grave, or imputations from an evil manifesto.

After watching it no fewer than three times, the second time with the excellent commentary track by “Mabuse” scholar David Kalat, I still haven’t fully solved the film and never expect to. Rather than having gained an explanation from it, I’ve gained an enlightenment. That’s what tarot does for you, and that’s what art does, too.

They aren’t dying wishes, because they’re still alive. So here are a few selections, with commentary, from the “living wishes” of what some prominent baby boomer celebrities would like to do before they die, as posted on MSNBC.com:

STEPHEN KING, Author, 59 (Above)
One of the world’s best-selling novelists, with more than 25 top sellers under his belt, King has built a loyal fan base of millions by consistently scaring them. His latest, “Lisey’s Story,” came out in October last year.

“I’d like to outlast George W. Bush’s second term of office.”

TO-DO LIST

1. To live to see George W. Bush tried for crimes against humanity.
2. To fly in space—orbital would be fine—and to write about it.
3. To see “American Idol” canceled.

I don’t care about #3, but I’ll join him in the other two.

JOAN JETT, Rocker, 48
A member of the Runaways when she was only 15 and lead singer of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Jett is one of the original bad girls of rock and roll—who doesn’t drink or smoke, is a vegetarian and reads ancient Hindu philosophy in her downtime. Her record “Sinner” came out in June.

“Accept what is going on and grow with it and adjust to it.”

TO-DO LIST:

1. I’d like to go to India and Africa, do some serious traveling.
2. To somehow combine my love for animals, nature and children.
3. To learn a language. I took French in school, but I didn’t like the teacher so I learned nothing.

Nothing stopping her from doing #1 — just book a show or two in those regions and more than pay for it. No problem with #3; she already knows a language: English. (Unless she means learn another language.) As for #2, perhaps she could combine these things by taking my kids and dog to the park on Sunday. That would “somehow” combine her interests. In fact, if Joan is going, not only will I go as well, I’ll even drive and pack lunches. Joan: Email me. I speak your language.

ERIC BOGOSIAN, Playwright, 53
This monologist and playwright became a household name in the late ’80s with the movie version of his play “Talk Radio,” then buffed up his Angry Young Man status with stinging monologues like “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll” and “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.” Fast-forward 20 years. Eric Bogosian still writes plays and dabbles in Hollywood movies, off-Broadway productions and TV, lately as Capt. Danny Ross on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” His work is speaking to a new generation: “SubUrbia” got revived last fall and “Talk Radio” starring Liev Schreiber opens on Broadway next month.

TO-DO LIST:

1. Learn to speak Armenian.
2. Master the yoga posture Eka Pada Koundinyasana.
3. Read The New York Times headline US FORCES LEAVE IRAQ TODAY.

While I’m thrilled to see a playwright on this list, I’m unconvinced that Eric Bogosian is — or ever was — a “household name.” Perhaps in his own household. The households of others? Not so much. What I like about his list is its specificity (plus, I like saying “specificity” in my head while writing): unlike Joan, he doesn’t want to learn “a” language; realizing that he already knows at least one language, he wants to learn Armenian. He doesn’t just want to take up yoga; he wants to master a certain position. He isn’t waiting for nebulously defined charges against the quote unquote president, he wants a definite action with legitimate reporting of it. Given his mindset (concrete actions and goals), Bogosian should be in business. Or running the government.

Speaking of someone who once ran the government, or at least part of it, here’s the list of doctor-by-telepathy Bill Frist, who once inaccurately diagnosed Terri Schiavo over a video feed so that he could wring political capital from it:

BILL FRIST, Former Senator, 54
Frist served two terms as Senate majority leader before relinquishing his seat in November. A physician for 20 years, the Tennessee native has traveled to Afri-can nations to set up a hospital and provide medical care since 1997. He plans to leave for his next trip—to Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Sudan—on Jan. 30.

“Medicine as a currency for peace—it’s not just a mantra, it’s something I live.”

TO-DO LIST:

1. Continue yearly trip to African regions without health care to perform needed surgery.
2. Fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and work to provide clean drinking water to poor areas.
3. Treat heart problems in gorillas at D.C.’s National Zoo.

Bill, I am with you on #2. If you can find some way to do that in what we euphemistically call “developing” countries without 90% or more of the aid going to strongarm thugs with submachine guns who hide under the rubric of “government,” all the better. Because sadly, I think that’s job number one in most of these areas. With regard to #3, I share your concern about these gorillas as well as their gorilla kin and indeed the entire ecosystem that supports them, in the wild or not. But I don’t remember you as much of an environmentalist. Have you had a change of heart (no pun intended), now that you’re so far removed from the levers of power? Wish you’d had it sooner.

With regard to #1 on your list, though, there is simply nothing anyone can do about it. You say you’d like to “continue yearly trip to African regions without health care to perform needed surgery.” Sadly, as a former Senator it doesn’t matter where you go, you’ll have health care. I wish we could make this dream come true for you by taking it away, but you’ve got it for life (just as the benefits and entitlements due convicted felons who happened at one time to be in Congress continue to roll on). If it’s any comfort, there are 45.8 million Americans without health care; I only wish you were one of them.

Didn’t get a room for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con? It’s probably too late now.

As their site says, “Comic-Con 2007 Starts NOW.” Given the problems with room registration, that’s sounding less like a pledge than a threat. Rooms went on sale this morning at 9 a.m. Pacific and went off sale almost instantaneously, through a mixture of breakdowns, timeouts, and soldouts. Well do I remember the days when one could saunter down to San Diego and pick up a room last-minute if one was of a mind to. Try that now and your room would be in Orange County or Tijuana.

Months ago I set a reminder in my iCal and on my Treo that rooms went on sale this morning and to for God’s sake book one! Our group who goes every year strategized in advance and Paul, who is a hotel professional, strongly suggested that he and I separately book suites in the hopes that we could get one (and, if we wound up with more than one reserved, cancel one of them).

At 8:55 I was ready. Had the browser open to try online reservations, had the phone at the ready to try phone reservations. For the next 48 minutes, the toll-free phone number was busy, and I lost every bit of cool I had trying to book a room online. The system kept crashing: timing out due to overload, or telling me that my session had timed out after 12 minutes with no activity (the activity, of course, being trying to get their overloaded servers to load the page). At one point I actually got far enough in the process to book an Embassy Suite for four nights, but when I clicked to confirm the site kicked me off again. By the time I got back on, it was gone. Just when I had visions of crashing somewhere in Petco Park, Paul called on my cellphone to say he’d managed to book a suite. Phew!

Here’s what I emailed him (cc’ing the rest of the group):

Bless you, my son. You have clearly saved our souls yet again. (Without Paul, there would be no room.)

Phew!

I cannot even begin to describe the ordeal this morning was trying to get a room…!

Please note that Paul and I agreed to book the Wednesday night “preview night” as well, given that last year it took about two hours (!) to get through the mob into the convention center on the first day!

I think if terrorists really wanted to take down our society, they’d hit the Con. Please don’t forward this to terrorists!

Lee

As you see from that, it no longer matters how early one leaves to get to the Con on Thursday morning — once you’re there, you still cannot get in. We were preregistered and the line we had to wait in was still so long that I was sure at the end of it someone was handing out sacks of cash. This year we’ll be staying over the night before (which gains us admission to the Preview Night, and, most probably, a drinking and poker night in our room).

So: Thinking of just “dropping in” on the San Diego Comic Con this year? Take some friendly advice: don’t.

While I’m on about Dick, I should add that his influence will be continue to be felt as a character appearing in other pop literature. As with R. Crumb, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Henry James and other real-life people, we can expect plenty more appearances of PKD like this forthcoming thinly disguised fictional biopic.

“Your Name Here” (2007)

The lines between reality and perception blur in this comic journey into the life and mind (literally!) of one of sci-fi’s most brilliant authors. Paranoid conspiracies of the highest order, drug-fueled interdimensional shifts, and 1970’s pop culture combine for the mind-bending adventure of the century.

“Your Name Here” tells the tale of the Sci-fi author William J. Frick (Bill Pullman) during the last few days of his life. Penniless and living in squalor, Bill Frick is on a mission to finish his latest literary masterpiece. His inspiration is the actress Nikki Principal (Taryn Manning): the object of his obsession. After evading a lengthy visit from an IRS agent (Dave Sheridan), Bill has a sudden stroke and wakes up in a limo with none other than Nikki Principal herself, who informs him that his current literary endeavor is going to change the world. He looks out his window and soon realizes that he has become a God amongst mortals, as murals and statues of him permeate the entire city. The vast majority of people worship him, but some like the nefarious Maurice Kroger (M. Emmet Walsh) want Bill’s knowledge and power for their own malicious agenda. Over time Bill realizes that he is now living in a world in which he created, he is living one of his novels. “Your Name Here” continues the tradition of “Being John Malkovich”, and “Adaptation”, and creates an alternative universe that captures the essence of America’s most provocative Sci-Fi stories.

Android version of PKD:

PKD referenced in “Zippy”:

PKD as depicted by Crumb:

So my outrage about mandated vaccines to address cooked-up “epidemics” isn’t going away, which I think is a good thing. Being outraged is healthy.

How many incidents of cervical cancer are there? Try fewer than 8.5 for every 100,000 women, as of 2002. (And the trend continues downward.) So the comparison to the polio vaccine doesn’t hold water. In 1952 alone, when polio infection was at its height just before Salk released his vaccine, there were 58,000 new cases of polio. There are fewer than 11,000 cervical cancer incidents a year, and our population has grown by 40%, from 157 million to 260 million.

So much for the “epidemic.”

I do enjoy the immediate response of many parents in Texas to this forced vaccination: the equivalent of “over my dead body.”