The Russian Pivot - Inflaming the Left This Time!

Radicalization comes in all forms - Left and Right.

Over the last few years, we have seen a concerted effort online to influence public opinion, worldwide, through social media postings.  And it has been working.  Given the anonymous nature of the online experience, it isn't hard to set up numerous fake accounts and post opinions and make it seem like what you are saying resonates with a lot of people.  With bot accounts and now AI, this will only get worse - and a lot of people are talking about (but not actually doing) going offline.

Our European friends are scrambling to find more Euro-centric alternatives to American "tech" (that is not really tech per se, but more of a psy-ops operation) and I don't blame them.  I noted before that when I used to fly out to Silicon Valley every month for Patent work, we actually made silicon, hence the name.  Then, it was realized that software, particularly operating systems, was where the real money was, and silicon became a commodity item.  Computers got cheap, operating systems stayed the same price or got even more expensive.

Operating systems became commodity items as well, and Silicon Valley made its last transformation into Bullshit Valley.  It became a big advertising and propaganda agency - buying and selling eyeballs by tracking people through their web browsers and social media sites (now called "apps") and the smart phone made sure we were plugged-in 24/7.  Back in the 1970s, people wasted 4.6 hours a day watching television, today they waste more than that on their smart phones.  It is the new television.

The real money isn't in selling computers or operating systems or software, but in accumulating data about people and manipulating people into doing things.  More than one person has noted how it seems the smart phone "listens" to what we are saying and then promotes products in response.  Maybe this is not literally true, but I suspect they do read your e-mails and texts and of course try to track what sites you visit and then sell this information to retailers.

So Amazon sells you a widget after you texted Grandma about it.  What's the harm in that?  Maybe you even got a good price on it - or maybe not, as it seems flexible pricing is now the norm online (looking at you, Wayfair!).  But early on, some bad actors on the world stage realized that public opinion could be altered through social media and individuals could be targeted for radicalization.

We're not just talking ISIS here, either.  Remember the whole Qanon conspiracy?  It seems quaint now, in retrospect, but it was supplanted or perhaps morphed into Pizzagate, Gamergate, and eventually the J6 insurrection (ahem! I meant to say, guided tour of the Capitol Building).

We watched in horror as Russian trolls and their paid allies trolled America with a lot of nonsense.  The CoVid epidemic added to the pile - convincing Americans of government over-reach and vast conspiracies at work.   That sort of thinking still goes on today.

Of course, not everyone was convinced.  People on the left dismissed Qanon et al as utter nonsense and put up signs saying (unironically) "We believe the science."

But it seems lately, the online troll army has pivoted.  Having driven Republicans clinically insane, they now turn their efforts to Democrats.  Why not?  After all, the GOP is firmly in power and firmly under the influence of Putin, whose portrait adorns the Oval Office today.  Why propagandize them further?  It is a self-sustaining ecosystem at this point.

Before the 2016 and 2020 elections, if you logged onto Reddit r/all, you would be bombarded with messages from r/conservative or r/the_donald (the latter started as a parody site lampooning Trump before morphing into a cheerleading section).  You might come away with the impression that the entire world was enamored of Trump, even though he was elected twice by a minority of the population (and in one instance, a minority of the voters).

Today, well, Reddit has flipped.  Conspiracy theories like Qanon are banned and r/the_donald is gone as well.  In its place are just as radical left-wing discussion groups promoting everything from "guaranteed annual income" to communism, etc.  The drumbeat is that America is rotten, we need to tax billionaires, we need free healthcare, free college, free money, and free jobs.  Not all of these ideas are without any merit - the tax system is skewed to favor the wealthy of course.  And our healthcare system is a weird patchwork of Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, private (unaffordable) insurance, and no insurance - and a billing system that makes no sense whatsoever.

My latest "bill" from Medicare is a case in point. An "office visit" is billed at $743 for a half-hour consultation,  "Patient Savings" (a discount) is listed at $606.21.  The balance is divided to $109.13 paid by Medicare and $27.66 by my supplemental insurance.   I owe nothing.  But an uninsured patient would owe $743!  It makes no sense whatsoever.  And talk about paperwork!

But I digress.  We can have rational discussions about these things, but not online, of course.

Enter the Epstein files.  The whole Epstein thing has been floating around for literally decades.   Like any clickbait news article about Trump, we are told that "soon" there will be damning revelations and people will go to jail!  But days pass and either the "startling revelations" fail to materialize or fail to be startling.  Or maybe nothing ends up happening because the news media has the attention span of a toddler.

Heard any news about Gaza lately?  Yea, me neither.  Glad that is all wrapped up!  /s

What is annoying to me is that there is some meat in those files.   For example, the whole Bill Gates thing is very embarrassing to him and explains why he and his wife inexplicably divorced a few years back.  Melinda Gates has very carefully commented while not confirming, saying only that it brings up painful memories about her divorce and she is concerned for trafficked girls.  She confirmed without confirming.

But other stuff online puts Qanon to shame.  Posters on Reddit claim that people on Epstein island were eating babies based on some very weird notebook entries in the files apparently from a young woman or girl who had (one might infer) a late-term abortion.  She does not come right out and say this, but instead wrote poems about a lost infant, in between pages of obscure codes and pasted-in excerpts from newspaper articles.  I had a girlfriend who went to Smith College back in the day who kept a similar notebook - she was batshit crazy, schizophrenic.  These meandering writings are hardly proof of anything, much less a smoking gun.   And she never said anything about anyone eating babies.

On Reddit, though, some posters - no doubt agents of the Russian Internet Research Agency, treat this as gospel, along with a host of other crimes that are at best, hinted at in the documents, but for the most part seem to be fabricated from whole cloth.  I get the impression that we are being trolled here.  Tired of toying with the emotions of Republicans, these bad actors are trying their games on Democrats - trying to get people riled up to the point where they can't think straight.

There may be another explanation as well.  You can discredit damning evidence by lumping it in with stupidly fake "evidence" and then saying, "Well, this part is obviously false, so the rest must be false as well!"  The GOP did this with the Bush "National Guard" controversy.  There was some real question as to whether Bush Jr. ducked out of service in Vietnam by joining the National Guard and then maybe not showing up consistently.  There was also the issue of his opponent, John Kerry, had actually served in Vietnam.  How do you defuse such a situation?

Well, just prior to the election, a "document" surfaced which appeared to implicate Bush.  But it was such a laughably poor forgery (clearly drafted in MS-WORD, which did not exist at the time the document was purported to have been written) that it was easy to use this to discredit any critique of Bush's "war record."  Meanwhile, Kerry was roasted over the coals by the "Swiftboat Controversy" which was a Carl Rove operation and basically fabricated from whole cloth.

Maybe the same thing is happening here - by making extreme accusations, such as baby cannibalism - one can discredit the entire Epstein scandal as overstated.

Perhaps.

But I think it is also being used to further radicalize the far-Left and influence elections.  Another drum beat you hear on Reddit is that "centrist" Democrats are no good and unless a far-left radical candidate is on the ballot, one shouldn't vote.  It is the same argument made in 2020 about "Killer Kamala" that convinced many young people to not vote at all, and hand the election to Trump.

Which is why I am not out on the streets protesting ICE as they round-up illegals who are often Trump supporters.  The people protesting are often the same ones who sat out the last election or chanted "Killer Kamala" or whatever.  Like the soon-to-be deported Trumper, they got what they wanted, only it turned  out to be a horrible mistake.

And yes, some on the far-Left actually wanted Trump to win, hoping that everything would go to hell in a handbasket and usher in a new era of Communist paradise.

You know what? Fuck radicals on both sides.

Why Linux Hasn't Supplanted Windows (Win11 Sucks!)

M'Lady!

People are freaking out about Windows 11.  It has ads in it and is clunky and slow, particularly when you try to "upgrade" an older computer to that operating system.  People have complained that it is too cloud-oriented, for example, default searching online, when you want to search your hard drive.  Others claim it is too invasive - tracking your usage and online movements in a similar manner to your smart phone.

All I can say is, "Ha-ha! I'm still using Windows 7 Ultimate, thank you! Bought and paid for!"  Of course, it is no longer supported, but "support" with software these days usually means invasive updates (at a time not of your choosing) that install bloatware and spyware and disable your adblocker.

I am still using an older version of Chrome, too, which gleefully reminds me it is outdated, every time I start it.  Of course, the new version of Chrome won't install on my ancient Toshiba laptops, which is fine, as I disabled updates ages ago when Chrome decided to block adblock plus (itself outdated) so I still can surf the Internet, largely ad-free.  Microsoft hates this one simple trick!

But what about malware and spyware and hacker attacks?  The software companies implore us to enable automatic updates on the basis that they will protect us from evildoers.  I still have an old copy (which no longer updates) of Microsoft Security Essentials and it seems to work OK.   If some new "bug" should appear, I guess I would just toss the computer in the trash or just reformat the hard drive and re-install Windows.  Oh, how I love having install discs for all my software which I own - bought and paid for - some of it over 25+ years old!

But of course, I realize this will not go on forever.  You can drive your old 1960's car on the road, but unleaded gasoline will eventually erode the valve seats and an engine rebuild is in order - at which time, you'll probably upgrade to Holly fuel injection or maybe just park the damn thing as a garage queen and 4,000lb paperweight and buy a new Honda to drive around.  Upgrades are inevitable, it seems.  I no longer write BASIC code on a PDP-8 or an Apple ][ computer.  Times do change.

But with any luck, maybe I will be dead before I am finally forced to upgrade from my ancient software suite.  We did buy a "Chromebook" on the advice of a reader.  It is OK, I guess - more of an elaborate smart phone than a laptop.  You don't run programs, you run "apps" - and many of these require payment on a monthly basis or have intrusive advertisements.  Everything is in the cloud - you will own nothing and you will be happy - and the powers-that-be will track every damn thing you do, too!

Sometimes, the tracking is off and often in hilarious ways.  We have gone entirely wireless, using our smart phones as hotspots for our lone television or our hoary old laptops. Since the AT&T hub is in Atlanta, we get lots of ads for businesses in Atlanta, and our phones seem to believe we live there.  YouTube, last night, had ads for Canadian companies and US companies, showing ".ca" website domains!  The man has no idea where we live - and I like it that way.

Other than that, it works as well as the wired solution - perhaps not suited for gaming or 4K resolution, but it gets the job done and is entirely portable, too.  It is also cheaper than having a cell plan AND a DSL or cable modem or fiber optic or whatever hardwire solution people use these days.  A lot less hassle, too!

Speaking of which - I am off-topic here - my neighbor told me that AT&T notified him that they are pulling the plug on his landline this year.  He either needs to migrate to all-cellular or to a VoIP solution via his internet connection (the latter I did long ago, before we went all-wireless).  The "twisted pair" copper line analog switched system of Great-Grandpa Alex is going away, in favor of packets of digital data batting about the ether.  What took so long?  It is the end of an era but will go by unnoticed.

People today - particularly young people - don't even make phone calls, which is one reason I think we are all estranged from one another these days.  They never experienced sitting in the kitchen talking on THE phone (which had a 10ft cord on the handset and a dial) talking for hours (it seemed).  It's after 5! The long-distance rates go down!  The irony of that era was that it was often cheaper to call cross-country than to the next county!  60 cents a minute - sometimes a buck or more!  Boy was Dad pissed when he got the phone bill!

But then again, Dad was pissed about a lot of things.

It is sad, to me, that "kids these days" will never experience the bittersweet experience of talking on the phone with your high school girlfriend for an hour or more, sometimes saying nothing at all, for minutes at a time.  Phone calls were intimate which might be one reason why our ADHD Aspergers PTSD generation is so afraid of them.  It is, in a way, the same when Grandma got her first cassette tape answering machine and was too nervous to record a greeting message.  That would be too prideful!  Announcing yourself like you were the Queen of Romania!   Even worse, she was scared to leave a message as well. "Hello!  Is this thing recording?"  Young people today are the same (even older people) - refusing to leave a message and just assuming you'll call back using caller ID.  I guess the generations are not so much different after all.

But I digress...

I decided to order a copy of LINUX - the Red Hat version, which came in a collection of seven DVDs with little or no instructions.  I have one laptop that I bought cheap for parts but was able to get to work with Windows 7.  It runs OK, but I can't install my ancient version of Chrome on it, as only the latest version is available online.  I tried Opera, but it seems even clunkier than Explorer.  So I thought it was a good candidate for some experimentation with UNIX.

Well, the experiment hasn't gone well so far.  LINUX might be a swell operating system for industry or for banks of servers, but it isn't ready for retail prime time.  The install procedure scans the computer and them bombs out, claiming the PCI interface is whacked as the BIOS is saying one thing and the hardware another ("Expecting 16" it says). I searched online and the only two options are to update the BIOS (good luck with that) or "press e" and change the boot instructions to disregard the issue (warning: may be unstable).  Problem is, I cannot find the place where I am supposed to press "e",

Obviously, I will have to research more.   Or maybe this computer is just too old.

What is clear to me is that, despite what online LINUX fans claim, it is hardly a ready-for-primetime operating system for retail users.  I mean, I've used UNIX before - at the Patent Office back in 1987 (yes, it is that old!) and I am somewhat adept at assembling computers and playing with software.  It still is a pain-in-the-ass to convert a computer to LINUX.  I am sure that once it is installed it works great, but it is not a mere matter of slapping in the install disc and hitting ENTER.

Why, for example, do they not sell LINUX computers with the operating system pre-installed?  I mean, if LINUX is so great and Windows sucks so badly (and it does) why don't they have laptops and PCs for sale at Walmart with LINUX pre-installed, right next to the Chromebooks and Windows 11 systems?  Seems like a no-brainer to me.  If everything the LINUX mavens claim is true, then some entrepreneur out there would put together such a system and sell it.  And since LINUX runs faster on less hardware, you could undercut the competition on price.

Alas, it seems that even LINUX fans and tinkerers install the O/S on a partition on their existing Windows PC - and switch between the two, or operate one or the other as a virtual machine - or have one machine running LINUX while another runs Windows or Mac.  It seems that at the retail user level, LINUX is limited to hobbyists and tinkerers.

Which might be the appeal.  In the early days of the PC, it was only hobbyists and tinkerers.  And I say this going back to the days of CP/M systems and mini-mainframes.  I programmed quite a few of those, including a weird Olivetti machine that had a two-line red LED dot matrix and a built-in thermal printer.  Those were weird times.  Anyone else out there who wrote code for a TEKTRONIX graphics computer?  It had a phosphorous screen that kept everything on it until you "wiped" it for a fresh screen, It was an oscilloscope with a PC built-in.  We stored programs and data on large tape cartridges that had a thick aluminum backing plate.

Back then, the pain of experimenting and learning the arcane features of each machine was a way of gatekeeping.  I made friends with my bosses when they discovered I actually knew how to use that new machine they bought, but never got around to programming.  In the IBM-PC era, it was much the same early on - we built our machines from parts and installed DOS on our 20 Meg hard drives.  It was a small club of nerds and no one else was allowed in.

Sadly, I think the same is true of LINUX.  There is a core base of fanboys who preach the religion, but don't want anyone else to actually join.  The Holy Mass shall be said only in Latin!  Lay people may watch, but not understand or participate.

And if I was a younger man, I suppose I would invest the time and energy in learning all of this stuff.  But frankly, I don't have the time and energy left - and my personal processor and short-term memory are somewhat on the fritz as well.  I'll keep playing with LINUX, but I suspect I won't get far with it, nor will Mr. See find it of much use.

Maybe I will dust off that Chromebook and break down and pay $5.99 a month for Quickbooks online.

Ugh!

UPDATE:  Thanks to all the readers who wrote with suggestions on how to install LINUX.  Yes, I tried the download version before and that didn't work, hence my attempt via the DVD install (and many versions are available on eBay and Amazon with DVDs!).  Sadly, the convoluted suggestions provided only reinforce my conclusion that LINUX is well-suited for the computer hobbyist (something I used to be before the 1990s) but not ready for prime time.

Tellingly, more than one reader suggested partitioning the hard drive so the computer can be booted either in Windows or LIINUX.  And yes, I tried this, a few years ago.  Didn't work.  But it illustrates that LINUX isn't a replacement for Windows or other operating systems - a tacit admission that in a Windows world, we still need to interface with the vast majority of the planet.  LINUX isn't ready for prime time.

If I was younger and had more time on my hands and was still a computer hobbyist, I would tinker with it some more.  But for now, I think my computer years are waning anyway, so it isn't worth the effort.

Why did I give up tinkering with computers?  I used to pride myself on building my own PCs, perusing the pages (physical pages!) of computer catalogs and going on message boards to score cheap RAM or cast-off parts and interacting with other nerds as to how to troubleshoot various problems.

Then, one day, I realized I could order all new DELL computers for my office for $499 each (with 18" CRT monitors!) and just plug them in and be done with it.  I needed the time to work on Patents, not assemble computers. My hobby days ended abruptly and with it a lot of frustration dealing with various computer compatibility issues and whatnot.

It was fun, but like so much else in life, a real time-bandit.  Computers became a tool to do things with, not an end in of themselves, which they were, back in the early days of the hobbyist "home computer."

History Doesn't Repeat - It Rhymes

Somehow, this video seems even more relevant today.

I had a conversation with a couple of people who work at our local "Federal Law Enforcement Training Center" which is arguably the largest local employer and a source of pride locally.  Funny thing, but when we cross the border from Canada, they see our passports and say, "Gee, I know where you live!  I've been to Jekyll Island!"  And we reply, "FLETC, right?" and they nod and wave us through, forgetting to search our camper - not that we have any contraband, other than perhaps a can of Canadian Maple Syrup.

Anyway, I was chatting with these folks at a bar and I asked them if they had any ICE trainees there and they rolled their eyes.  "They are not sending their best," they replied, "or screening them very well."

"We screen them," he continued, "and more than a few had outstanding warrants!"

"So what did you do?"

"Oh, we called Glynn County PD and they picked them up, slapping the cuffs on them, right in the middle of class!"

If it wasn't so sad, it might even be funny.  But I was not surprised at all.  After all, the Nazi Brownshirts were formed from a collection of thugs and criminals, and allowed to run rampant on minorities and political enemies.  People were detained and put in extra-judicial concentration camps for weeks or months at a time, before being let go.  Yes, it was only until later that these camps became slave-labor and extermination camps.  In the beginning, they were political detainee prisons.

History repeats itself, or as one wag once put it, it rhymes.

Of course, like clockwork, those on the far-right, the wanna-be fascists and neo-nazis will cry, "everythng is Hitler with you people!  Give it a rest!"  Irony is lost on them.  They admire present-day dictators and fascists, from Russia to Europe and beyond, and even apologize for Hitler or claim the Holocaust was a hoax.  But if you point out the parallels between their thinking and Nazism, well, you're the bad guy.

It's called arguing in bad faith and much of these online "arguments" are from overseas bot farms, either in Rusia itself (the infamous Russian Internet Research Agency) or paid bot-farms in third world countries, such as this one in Pakistan:

I saw him down at the Mall!   I swear!  /s

Well, at least our Russian friends have moved beyond cheap click-bait videos selling bottle cutters.  I guess in Mother Russia, recycling old vodka bottles as drinking glasses is a thing.   In America, we have Dollar Tree - a lot easier way to get cheap glassware!

It is no joke that we are descending into fascism - if in fact, we are not already there.  The Hitler playbook is being followed word for word.  This time around, instead of German industrialists backing Nazism, we have billionaire "tech bros" backing MAGA-ism.  And instead of "Lebensraum" we talk of invading Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and most of the Caribbean.

The parallels go even further.  Hitler had his ill-fated "Beer Hall Putsch" and he and his cronies were prosecuted and jailed for it.  Trump had his "J6" insurrection which jailed many of the perpetrators - except Trump of course.  He was too much of a coward to show up in person, anyway.

The question remains, however, how much further we are prepared to take this historical re-enactment.  The Communists in Germany in the 1930s got into street brawls with the Nazis, which created discontent among the rest of the population.  Many Germans who were not Nazi supporters were willing to "go along" with Hitler being made supreme leader, if it meant peace and prosperity.

Of course, it did not.  It lead to utter ruin and defeat within a few years.

Many are arguing that Trump is using ICE to provoke some sort of incident or series of incidents in order to justify martial law and cancelling of the 2026 and 2028 elections.  And if they can't provoke an incident, they will fabricate one.  Why ICE is in Minnesota, which has a small immigrant population and not in Texas or Florida - which have huge immigrant populations - is a good question. Oh, right.  The latter are red States.

This is another aspect of fascism - and Republicans are quite open about this. The legal system and Presidential decrees are being used to "punish" blue States by denying TANF assistance and other forms of funding, for no other reason than retribution.  All that talk of Biden "weaponizing" the DOJ turned out to be merely projection.  Every accusation is a confession.

Perhaps we will pull back from the brink and moderate Republicans will team up with Democrats to rein in Presidential power and return much of it to Congress where it originated - back in the days when Congress governed instead of merely giving up and telling the President, "do whatever."

But even if we pull back from the brink, the damage has been done and it won't change back for decades, if ever. Our former allies in Europe are waking up to the realization that they may have to go it alone, in terms of national defense, as the US can no longer be counted on as a trusted ally, if an ally at all.  Ironically, this may address one of the sticking points recent administrations have had with NATO - that the US is funding the bulk of European defense and NATO countries are not living up to their pledge of 2% of GDP for defense funding.

This also spells good news for India and China, as our former allies in Europe and elsewhere - and I think we can safely say they are now former - make trade deals with those countries, now that they are freed from the fetters of American dictates.  America may go from being the world's largest trading partner to one of the least, much as we did when the Smoot-Hawley tariff act was enacted back in 1930.  History is rhyming, once again.

Which brings us to recession - or even depression.  It is no secret that the job market right now is in the tank.  Company after company is announcing massive layoffs, claiming that "AI" will replace employees.  Car sales are sagging and fast-food restaurants are offering dollar menu items, this time in the form of $5 meals, as consumers cut back on discretionary spending.   With wages low, inflation high, and the cost of housing staggering, the average worker is feeling the squeeze.  How much longer can this go on?  Are we going to "rhyme" 2008 all over again?

Like I said, it rhymes, not repeats.  Hitler came to power at the end of a major depression.  A major depression may be the end of Trump, even if he is able to prop up the economy for a few more quarters by slashing interest rates with a new Fed chair.   Low interest rates will lead to higher inflation, raising housing costs (a goal Trump has stated explicitly) which in turn will put the squeeze on the middle-class.  Who will buy the $100,000 pickup trucks then?

I guess to me, what is so sad is that here in 2026 we are still dealing with holocaust deniers, fascist admirers, moon-landing deniers, flat-earthers, born-again Christians who don't follow Christ, and other forms of wishful thinking and personal delusion.   Will human beings always be in this struggle?  Will rational thinking always take a back seat to jingoism and too-good-to-be-true come-ons?

It is depressing, to me, that so many people have fought and died, over the Centuries, to get us where we are now - and all for nothing.  We are still dumb as rocks and willing to follow the first snake-oil salesman to come down the pike.

Depressing thoughts, I know.  But there you have it.

It's All Greek To Me! - How Latin Was Used for Gatekeeping Medicine, Religion, and the Law

Half of learning any trade is learning the lingo.

I recently had another CT scan at Mayo.  They are very thorough there, but you end up getting referral after referral and each new doctor wants to run more tests.  I am hoping to be done with this, but the cardiologist wants to run a "stress test" (the chemical kind, not the treadmill kind) with a scan.   I told him that friends had this and it "felt like dying" and was like a heart attack.  "Well, it is, kind of, but not really" he replied.

I am not sure what the end game is here.  Parkinson's disease usually ends in a heart attack, after many years.  So even if they find coronary artery disease, I am not sure that treatment will extend my life much.

But what got me to thinking (again, a bad habit) was the reports I get from Mayo.  They are very thorough, to be sure!  And results buzz on your smart phone as you are walking to the parking lot after the procedure.  This is first-class medical care, to be sure - and I have yet to receive a bill for any of it.

Interpreting the results is another matter, as often they arrive, literally in Latin.  Fortunately, in the Mayo "app" they have a feature where Latin words are hyperlinked to a "patient-friendly" explanation of terms.

So the following report, for example, appeared on my phone, on the way home from the procedure:

EXAM: CT ABDOMEN PELVIS WITHOUT AND WITH IV CONTRAST

COMPARISON: None.

TECHNIQUE: CT of the abdomen and pelvis is performed with and without intravenous contrast.

FINDINGS:

Noncirrhotic liver. No focal hepatic lesion. No biliary dilation or radiopaque gallstone.

Spleen, pancreas, adrenals and left kidney are unremarkable. Simple 5 cm right lower renal cyst. 9 mm right lower renal probable cyst with dense wall calcification. No urinary calculus or hydronephrosis.

No bowel dilation or wall thickening. Multiple colonic diverticula but no evidence of active inflammation.

No lymphadenopathy. No ascites. No peritoneal or retroperitoneal lesion.

Aortoiliac calcifications without aneurysmal dilation. Patent visualized vasculature.

Urinary bladder is partially distended. Prostate size is within normal limits.

Degenerative changes in the skeleton.

Translation? You are as healthy as a horse.  The liver thing was a real surprise.  You'd think years of drinking would have caused some damage.  But no - healthy liver, gall bladder, kidneys, etc.  This made me feel great, although the Parkinson's thing is still an issue.  The only organ I wore out was my brain, apparently.

But again, it got me to thinking, why was the report written in code when a plain language version was also avaialble?  And this got me to thinking how Latin has been used, over the years, in the fields of Medicine, Religion, and the Law.  Yes, at one time,  lawyers spoke in Latin and even today, Latin terms are used to describe certain concepts - e.g., pro se, res ipsa loquitur, stare decisis, bona fide, mens rea, amicu curiae - the list goes on and on.

Every first year law student buys a copy of Black's Law Dictionary and memorizes the meaning of all these terms, much as first year med students (I suppose) study Gray's Anatomy, which also documents a host of obscure and common medical terms, usually in Latin.  But of course, the granddaddy of them all was the Bible, which for centuries, was available only in Latin.

In fact, that was a big sticking point with the Protestant reformation - the idea that the "Word of God" should be available in the native tongue, and not read in some mystical dead language and then interpreted to the masses by the anointed few.  Vatican II - still controversial to this day - allowed for Mass to be said in the local language, but some conservatives still pine for the "good old days" when the Priest would spout Latin gibberish.  Maybe the audience didn't understand a word of it, but it sure sounded pretty elegant!

The list goes on and on.  Scientific terms were (and are) often in Latin, particularly in fields of biology and botany. Plants and animals are given species names in Latin, along with their colloquial native language counterparts.  The Norther Cardinal is also the Cardinalis cardinalis, which sounds so nice, you say it twice.  Oddly enough, Catholic prelates are named for this bird - or vice-versa, I forget which.

Even the stars in the sky are given Latin names, like proxima centauri, the closest star to our solar system.  One wonders why, but then again, the naming of these things dates back to a time when people actually studied and read Latin, but rarely spoke it.  Latin was, I guess, a universal language.  So Scientists, Doctors, and Priests could converse, so to speak, even if their native languages were disparate.  I guess also too, it made sense that the language of only one country would not dominant these fields, much as English does today in world commerce or French did in world diplomacy.

But I can't help but wonder whether gatekeeping was also part of the deal.  By putting professions behind a paywall of sorts, you could keep the amateurs out of the guild.  And perhaps I am overstating this.  After all, even without Latin, each profession or field has its own lingo and terminology that only practitioners are familiar with.  A simple Latin phrase, for example, can describe a complete concept in an abbreviated format - in a manner which those in the field quickly and easily grasp.

Acronyms are arguably the Latin of today.  We use three-letter acronyms to describe concepts in science and technology, rather than spell these things out longhand.  Funny and odd-sounding names (e.g., Bluetooth) are also used to label functions or technology.  Latin has become a dead language in that regard, at least going forward.

Speaking of which, no one learns Latin anymore.  One of my ancestors taught school in Pompey, New York in a one-room schoolhouse in the 1800's.  The curriculum included both Latin and Greek, neither of which appear in the current school curriculum of that County today - or indeed, anywhere else.    My older brother took Latin in the 7th and 8th grades, but by the time I was in Junior High, the teacher had retired and was not replaced.  Students today struggle to learn English - their native tongue.

And indeed, when it comes to Latin, why bother?  Other than in naming a few things and reading Roman numerals, there seems to be little point to it anymore.  Common Latin phrases and terms have morphed over to the English language - a language that seems to absorb terms from every other language on the planet.  You can be a Doctor, Lawyer, or Scientist without being fluent in Latin.  One only needs to know the names of things relevant to their profession.  Priests, I am told, are still required to learn Latin, although fluency may not be required.

So, I suppose it is not gatekeeping per se, but also has utilitarian functions.  But it also is a way of separating the plebes from the higher-ups.

Just stupid things I think about in waiting rooms.