Spousal conversations

Came across this page concerning Amelia Earhart and her husband George Putnam. I thought this passage was cute:

Weather delayed the beginning of the flight from Boston to Newfoundland. Finally, on June 3rd, the Friendship took off for Trepassey only to be turned back by weather near Halifax, Nova Scotia. The next day, the Friendship and crew successfully landed in Newfoundland only to encounter gales or fog for days that prohibited their takeoff for Europe. The telegrams that follow tell the story of the wait.

George, knowing that Amelia had not packed a change of clothing wired:
SUGGEST YOU GO INTO RETIREMENT TEMPORARILY WITH NUNS AND HAVE THEM WASH SHIRT ETC --STOP

Amelia answered:
THANKS FATHERLY TELEGRAM NO WASHING NECESSARY SOCKS AND UNDERWEAR WORN-OUT SHIRT LOST TO SLIM AT RUMMY CHEERIO AE

Vaccination rant

silmaril asked a while back, and recent news reminded me of it, so: the Vaccination Rant. (Edit: Now with more LJ-cutting for your Friends page.)

There are two main angles to the vaccination/anti-vaccination debate: the scientific ("do the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks?" - i.e. "should we get vaccinated?") and the civil-liberties ("given what we know about the science, should we compel others to be vaccinated?") (There's also a third angle, but I'll leave that till the end.)

I'm not in favour of making all vaccinations compulsory, but I believe there is a very strong argument for some vaccinations to be every bit as compulsory as, say, paying your taxes. When I talk about the "anti-vaccination movement" here, I'm not talking about every instance where people have opposed a specific vaccine; I'm talking about people who are categorically opposed to mandatory vaccination in all cases.

( Part 1: the scientific angle )

Part 2: the ethical angle

But let's leave the science for a moment, and move onto ethics. We know vaccines have risks and benefits, and we know the ratio of these varies from one individual to another. Could compulsory vaccine be justifiable?

I went a-browsing through anti-vaccination sites and picked out several pertinent quotes, fairly typical of anti-vaccination material:

( Spot the common mistake. )

( Worked example: the Green Snuffles. )

Although RL epidemiology is more complicated than that simple model, the same principle holds. The argument "it's my kid, so it's my choice" is dishonest, and looking solely at the the benefits to your kid (supposing that there *are* benefits) is selfishness. It's not just freeloading, enjoying the benefit of other kids' vaccinations without offering the same benefit to others; you're actually increasing the risk to the same kids whose vaccinations are protecting *your* child.

Every parent wants their child to be happy and healthy, but that doesn't give them the right to achieve that at another kid's expense. Would you teach your kid to steal other kids' lunch money?

*****

Speaking of vaccinations, there are two new vaccines coming out for the Human Papilloma Virus. So far, it's looking pretty good: near-100% effectiveness against two major strains of a virus that infects half of all sexually-active women in the USA and appears to be behind 100% of cervical cancer cases - one of the major causes of death in women, particularly young women.

( You'd think people would welcome this. )