Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 23, 2012

Sure is nice sitting here not doing much of anything…..think I’ll do it some more…

And here I thought “Eric the Red” was a reference to hair color.

Another oxymoron raises its ugly head: “Medical science”. Almost everything that was gospel (according to the doctors) has been proven wrong. Why don’t we go back to bleeding people to get rid of the “bad humours” that are causing their physical problems. Toward the end of his life Pasteur recanted his germ theory.

If you don’t like what medical science has proven, just wait a couple of hours.

Interesting that Frazz refers to his ‘viking ancestors’. Frazier is a Scottish name, so I wonder at what point the Scots got mixed with the Scandinavians in his tree.

Actually, Newfoundland is a province in Canada, not a country.

I haven’t had any tan lines in years.

Health is over rated!

Grainbelt: It wasn’t just to visit; they were the palace guards in Byzantium. They also turned trading posts into cities: Dublin, York, Kiev, etc. Strange they couldn’t handle those Skraelings.

I think it was Redd Foxx who said, “All these health nuts are going to feel stupid when, years from now, they’re dying of nothin’”

Medical science advances just fine, and doesn’t actually get overturned all that often. The problem comes not from the scientists, but from the science journalists. A scientist will publish a paper with a conclusion something like “In our preliminary data set, the correlations are consistent with the possibility that consumption of Food X might reduce the incidence of cancers of the spleen in some portion of the population. Further study is needed to verify this possibility.” And then the popular press gets ahold of the abstract for this paper, and writes up an article saying “Scientists show that Food X prevents cancer!”. When another study is done that finds “In our preliminary data set, the correlations are consistent with the possibility that consumption of Food X might increase the incidence of cancers of the gall bladder in some portion of the population. Further study is needed to verify this possibility.”, then the popular press writes up an article saying “Scientists show that Food X causes cancer!”. There’s been no real change in the actual state of the science, but the media makes it look like a complete reversal.

Opinion registering hereinafter: maybe the word ‘vik’ as written is whatever…the SOUND is different is in these words…victim and victor and vicar…and ‘ike’ is goddess of victory…Nike…Vike…remember Dyke? Vikings sounds the long ‘i’…therefore they are NOT ‘wanderers’…they ARE victorious SLAYERS. They brought war to Europe. It’s still there, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. We ALL have Viking ancestors.

Sharuniboy: For every example of someone who lived years longer than their medical prognosis, there are hundreds or thousands who expired about the time the doctor said they would. Edge cases are memorable but rare.

Medical science also has a cure for living longer, they simply proscribe various medications that slowly kill you.

Medicine is perhaps more an art than a science.

Night Gaunt: I was referring to the American colony in Newfoundland (1001-1006). There is no mention of Scraelings in those other places, for which your explanation is correct. For that matter, the Normans (north man) were ethnically Scandinavians, even if they did speak a French dialect.

puddleglum: A sizable part of England (the north part) was under the Danlaw (Danish law), including York. Just as Hadrian’s Wall controlled traffic rather than stopping it, one traded between England and Scotland – especially in the period between Roman and Norman times. Plenty of time for romantic involvement – particularly since Norse and Norman genomes would be relatively identical.

Yes, I am quite familiar with the Vikings, thank you. That’s pretty much 100% beside my point, however.

By that standard, everyone with Western European ancestry from North of the Mediterranean can talk about their ‘viking ancestors’ – in fact, given how far back that is, and the mixing that’s occurred since, pretty much everybody who has ancestors in Europe can validly claim viking ancestors by that.

There comes a point when it ceases to be a useful description. If that were his reasoning, he could, just as usefully, refer to his French ancestors.

Of course, since he refers to his Viking Ancestors sailing to America, not sailing to Scotland, that clearly wouldn’t be referring to his Scots ancestors distant Scandinavian ancestors, anyway.

Yes, medical practitioners do make mistakes. However, those of us who are alive because of modern medicine tend to have a less cynical view. I am thankful that I do not live in an era when a cancer diagnosis was functionally a death sentence.