Saturday, October 25, 2008

Natural Selection at Work

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," mystified by morons since 2005! Actually it was long before that, but I only just started writing about it.

The Intelligent Design morons like to prove their case that some things are too complicated to have evolved. They trot out some bacteria that moves with this little propeller that looks -- and works -- like the rotor on a helicopter. Had to have been made like that! Where's the intermediate step?

Okay, all you ID morons, explain MRSA.

Over the past year, my daughter The Spare has gotten two nasty boils on her leg. They started as little nicks and wound up red, hot, and oozing pus. For the second time, she will be taking antibiotics ten days straight, for something you or I would have cured with a little Bactine, back in the day.

The Spare has MRSA (Methycillin Resistant Stapholo .... oh for the love of Sarah Palin's fruit flies! It's a long name.)

MRSA is bacteria that can withstand the onslaught of antibiotics. It is proof positive that natural selection works -- and works fast -- especially with bacteria.

My good friend Seth put it this way: "If you use an antibacterial soap on your countertop that promises to kill 99 percent of all germs, guess what? You leave behind one percent of germs that rock on, immune to the soap. These multiply, and pretty soon you've got a big, fat, naturally selected problem on your hands."

Just think of bacteria that live by the rule, "That which doesn't kill me only makes more of me."

Antibiotics have only been around for about 60 years. That's not even a blip of time in the great, grand history of Planet Earth. Even so, there are now bacteria that can thumb their flagella at antibiotics. Because their predecessors lived through previous assaults by antibiotics.

It's called NATURAL SELECTION, YOU ID MORONS!

It's very worrisome to me that The Spare, at 14, has already had problems with MRSA. This does not bode well for her future. (This, and the fact that she doesn't give a fig about her schoolwork.)

On the other hand, MRSA has a Right to Life. I'm sure Mrs. Palin would agree that MRSA is a living thing, and all living things have a Right to Life. Except perhaps fruit flies.

I've saved the worst part for last. The doctor says that Mr. Johnson and I are also carrying MRSA, although we're hardy enough to keep it at bay -- just now. (I'm surprised the little buggers didn't get in my surgical site, but I might not be out of the woods on that.)

The doctor wants my spouse and I to swab the inside of our nostrils twice a day with antibacterial ointment. And to not pick our noses.

Dammit, when you get to my age, nose-picking and flatulence are two of life's pleasures that it's hard to live without! I'll try not to pick my nose, but my fingers just want to gravitate to my nostrils. I'll have to take up knitting or some such.

Yours from the forefront of Natural Selection,

ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

8 comments:

yellowdoggranny said...

mrsa will eventually kill us all off...
blip...we're history..
no picking of the nose?....dang...sad news indeed..

Anonymous said...

Girl you made me go on the interwebz. Darn it. No nose picking? *laugh* I'm all creepified now.

But this was a great article.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1919361/posts

KrisMrsBBradley said...

I outlawed antibacterial everything from my house a long time ago. Kids need to play in dirt, maybe eat a little and build up a resistance to crap. All the germaphobes are going to kill us with their cleanliness, lol.

JaAnBe said...

Just be sure not to pick your nose while you are knitting - eeek!

BBC said...

I've always contended that if you try to keep your environment too sanitary that you will end up with problems.

Your body is made fight what comes at it and if you, hum, I'm not sure how to put it right now, but I've never worried about all that and just live with what is out there and allow my body to be exposed to it so it can learn how to fight it.

Of course the body doesn't always win on this planet of chaos. Germs get tougher, but so does the science of combating them.

Some day we may get that all figured out and have much better bodies than what natural selection gave us.

Besides, I sometimes think that natural selection also decides that there are too many here and introduces ways to kill some of us off.

Whatever, I'm an omnipresent being so whatever happens to this body or how long it is here is of little concern to me.

*Spends two hours in a hot springs with a warning sign about possible nasty things in the water, returns home, pets cat, scratches butt, picks nose.*

Well, if I don't do another post you will know why, ha ha ha.

You have a strain of herpes in you also, big deal.

BBC said...

Natural selection dictates that you get tough or you die. So don't give her antibiotics. Tell her that she has to get tough or die.

Well, that really isn't an option to a loving mother is it?

That is why I contend that this god (spirit) is an evolution, and a doctor that is trying to figure all this out because being a spirit in human form with opposing thumbs is pretty cool.

democommie said...

anne johnson:

I have worn boxing gloves for a number of years, to combat another "bad habit", the no more nosepicking thing was a happy accidental byproduct. And, yes, that would indeed mean that I'm not typing this with my fingers.

Servitor Lucem said...

And, you wanna know why there are so many antibiotic-resistant bacteria these days? because of the practice of raising beef cattle in feedlots. See, cattle are evolved to eat grasses, and are very good at turning them into protein. What gives them fits, though, is a diet high in grains, which are just the seeds from grasses. It upsets the pH in their digestive tracts, and make their digestive systems more prone to infection. So, how are these infections fought? By giving cattle more of the grass they are supposed to eat? No, sirree, those infections are fought by feeding the cattle loads of antibiotics, and this is done by literally dumping thousands of pounds of antibiotics on the ground in the feedlots.
Nice, huh? Here are the miracle drugs that put an end to a lot of infectious bacterial diseases, and greedy operators are dumping them on the ground, so that they can stave off the diseases that occur in their unnaturally-fed cattle.
Nice.