Silflay Hraka

What Do Duc Duyen’s day has been like for the last seven years.

Wake up.
Misery.
Misery.
Misery.
Touch.
Misery.
Misery.
Misery.
Misery.
Food.
Misery.
Misery.
Misery.
Misery.
Misery.
Misery.
Sleep.

Repeat until death.

His doctors blame his condition on the dioxin in Agent Orange, the effects of which were last studied by the EPA in 1994. The results of that study were mixed at best, with most questions arising over the applicability of animal test results to humans.

For instance, in Duc’s case, his birth defects are thought to have been a result of his father’s exposure to Agent Orange 20 years after it was last sprayed. Dioxin has been shown to affect the sex organs of male rats, but only at strong enough levels that it also kills them.

….TCDD [ed. Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin] exposure of the adult male rodent causes reduced testis and accessory sex organ weights, abnormal testis structure, decreased spermatogenesis, reduced fertility, decreased testicular testosterone synthesis, reduced plasma androgen concentrations, and altered regulation of pituitary LH secretion. However, in laboratory animal studies, these effects are detectable only at TCDD exposure levels that are overtly toxic to the animal.

Another, more recent study states that …long-term observations in workers exposed to TCDD revealed that organs other than the skin were only marginally affected or not affected in association with TCDD exposure, so the position of the United States, as cold as it seems, is essentially correct. There’s not enough evidence to prove that Duc’s pitiful deformities are due to dioxin.

Research into dioxin exposure is ongoing, but there may never be an acceptable answer as to what caused Duc’s birth defects. Current research does not support the theory that dioxin caused his condition, yet it will almost certainly never be possible to prove that the chemical isn’t responsible. You can’t prove a negative.

Notes: Duc’s dad has also fathered two healthy sisters, not that that rules out the possibility of mutagenic damage to his sperm.

v A baby with two heads in Quang Tri

The couple already have two normal healthy girls. Duyen insists on
sucking milk all night long. The family is coping with other
difficulties as well; they are living in a makeshift house in the
village after their old solid house was washed away by floods.

It’s no wonder Duc suckled all night long–it was his only form of input from the world outside his skull. I’ve pasted the whole story, as I only found it in one place–the personal site of a graduated graduate student, so it’s very susceptible to link rot.

The hospital where Duc lives is run by the Vietnamese Red Cross, and they accept donations–theoretically one could lessen Duc’s burden somewhat by giving a dollar or two. The reduction of his misery shouldn’t rely on an accurate judgement as to it’s proximate cause. Anyone suffering from an understandable reluctance to give money to an organization in a stilll communist country should known that in the eyes of the American Red Cross at least, the VNRC is ok.

Still don’t believe there is a God? Still holding on to the idea that there is nothing larger than ourselves out there? Well, here is undeniable proof that God does exist. Halleluiah!!!!

The features editor at the N&O called me back this morning about the alternate Get Fuzzy that ran on Thursday. He was mystified as I at the change, so it must have been altered at the syndicate level. I’ve tried to find Darby Conley’s email address, but it’s hidden pretty well, and the Ucomics contact the artist page is down. If I decide I just have to know why the change was made, I’ll have to fight my way through the United Media beauracracy to find out.

The day-long rain finally switched over to snow about 9 o’clock last night, bringing with it the promise of cabin fever, which we’d already started to suffer from, there being no real reason to drive anywhere in the cold Sunday drizzle to begin with.

I’d gone so far as to re-install Diablo II on one of the upstairs PCs in an attempt to lessen the creeping claustrophobia. Couldn’t fine the original CD key–I suspect it’s residing in the landfill after being mistakenly tossed in the trash during a spring-cleaning, but no matter. I found one online and used it instead. Ngnat and I spent an enjoyable hour or two hacking zombies to bits while Scotty dragged himself from toy to toy on the floor below. It really didn’t do anything for my dose of cabin fever, but having us all upstairs and away from her did the wife a bit of good.

A bit that was promptly used up when the DVR cut off the last half-minute of Sex and the City, HBO having started it late, but that’s a tale for a parallel universe. I’ve elected not to tell it, so as to preserve her ladylike image in the eyes of the Internet.

Ngnat’s bedtime is 8:00, with stories and various entertainments until 8:30, when the lights are turned out. She’s been staying awake way past that time lately, so once the street was covered in white I got her up, pulled wooly stockings then jeans up over her pajamas, put on her coat and snow boots, and took her out into the storm.

As, the sheer glee of being not only up and out of bed after bedtime, but being OUTSIDE! IN THE SNOW! We walked around the cul-de-sac, turning around every four feet to look at the footprints we’d left behind. Ngnat stomped in puddles of slush, secure in the faith of the mighty fortresses that were her pink plastic boots. I wrote her name in the snow* and she spelled out the letters. The Sainted Wife joined us for a time, but with Scotty M asleep upstairs, she couldn’t go far. We made locomotive noises and waked without lifting our feet, so that two rails of black stretched out behind us, stark against the white powder surrounding it, and we caught snowflakes on our tongues.

Had he known, and been, well, alive, it would have warmed the cockles of Charles Schulz’s heart. It was Ngnat?s idea, and the only time she has ever seen children catch snow on their tongues has been during her repeated-ad-infinitum viewings of a Charlie Brown Christmas. She’s the third generation of my family he’s snared. I stopped reading Peanuts sometime in the early 90s. Schulz had lost his touch by then, and every other strip was about the horrid Spike, when what I wanted was Shermy, Schroeder and Violet, but I still have all the books–they’re some of the first things I can remember reading, and before I could read, my father read them to me. Now I read Love Is Walking Hand in Hand to Ngnat at bedtime, and so pass the odd fondness for Metropolitan Life advertisements onto another generation.

Eventually the snow accumulated to such degree that Ngnat no longer needed to catch single flakes in order to eat them–her mittens were white with built-up accumulation. We made our way back to the house, past old footprints and railroad rails already disappearing under a new blanket of powder, to sit inside by the faux gas fire logs. Within an hour one would have never known we were outside.

Ngnat’s getting close to the age when permanent memories first start to form. It would be nice if this were one of them.

*With my feet, you filthy animals.