Thursday, March 26, 2009
Brain damage and popular activities
I know, I know. I'm inconsistent. Lazy, too. One bad side effect is that stuff I consider worth blogging about backs up on my desktop, an article jam that may flood central Oregon unless I do something about it.
Where to start, yeah, always the question. A somewhat local, kid, from up in Madras, about 45 minutes north of here, is in a coma because of head-shots he took in a Golden Gloves fight. He and his family are poor; prize-fighting, he thought, was a way to support his folks. He probably isn't going to recover, according to today's news. Subdural hematoma: several parts of his brain are dead and he's likely to require full-time care. He's 19 years old. That's awful, I agree. People cannot take repeated blows to the head or concussions without paying a dreadful price. Football, boxing, war. What a trio of guaranteed ways to turn people into semi-ambulatory cabbages. But it goes on and on. With lots of social approval.
Where to start, yeah, always the question. A somewhat local, kid, from up in Madras, about 45 minutes north of here, is in a coma because of head-shots he took in a Golden Gloves fight. He and his family are poor; prize-fighting, he thought, was a way to support his folks. He probably isn't going to recover, according to today's news. Subdural hematoma: several parts of his brain are dead and he's likely to require full-time care. He's 19 years old. That's awful, I agree. People cannot take repeated blows to the head or concussions without paying a dreadful price. Football, boxing, war. What a trio of guaranteed ways to turn people into semi-ambulatory cabbages. But it goes on and on. With lots of social approval.
