Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Readers Digress

My mother used to subscribe to the Reader's Digest, and as the subscription has not run out, we get it. I leaf through it, mostly looking for the jokes; once in a very long while, they'll have an interesting article. Interspersed between all of the ads for macular degeneration magifiers and incontinence aids.

Today, I was looking at the current issue, and found an alarming -- as in, intentionally alarming -- article about serious things that can go wrong with your body, that have serious implications, which you need to take seriously. Like what, I thought. Well, how about a guy who lost his vision because he didn't take an eye condition seriously, didn't immediately call up an opthamologist and race over there, horn blaring, to get it checked out right away! My goodness, I thought. What is this seriously serious condition?

Floaters. Those little particles that everyone gets in their eye, from time to time. This guy didn't think anything of it, and three days later, he was virtually blind in one eye from a torn retina that COULD have been fixed that very same day .... had he only raced over. But he didn't.

To me, the scary part is that people read that magazine - elderly, easily frightened people - and take their nonsense seriously. That's not to say that they don't put in useful information. Floaters could lead to serious problems -- but how often, how many, in what condition? They don't say. They just scream BLIND!!!!!

The jokes are occasionally good. But that's about it.

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