"Chronic fatigue" cartoon in New Yorker.

[jeffrez]

I don't think that's fair, Mr Kite.
The cartoon is very ambiguous, and it wasn't at all clear to me what it's supposed to mean, to begin with.
And we are all allowed different points of view on this forum.
I assume that Mij might be as perplexed by the cartoon as i am.
And Mij didn't draw the stupid cartoon.

I thought I said as much when I said essentially that he was perfectly free to believe whatever he wanted about it? Even to be perplexed about it. I never said he drew it - I'm not sure what that comment is supposed to mean.

But if someone is perplexed about it, why are they arguing with those who aren't perplexed by it? With those who understand perfectly well what it says and means? It seems like if someone doesn't understand the cartoon, he or she should be deferring to those who do.

 

[Ember]

Back to the cartoon... Could it possibly be a sick parody of "Not tonight, honey; I've got a headache"? (Read "CFIBS.") Just a guess....

(I notice a Valentine's Day article on www.butyoudontlooksick.com! entitled "Not Tonight Honey, I Have Chemo..."!)

 

[Boule de feu]

Back to the cartoon... Could it possibly be a sick parody of "Not tonight, honey; I've got a headache"? (Read "CFIBS.") Just a guess....

(I notice a Valentine's Day article on www.butyoudontlooksick.com! entitled "Not Tonight Honey, I Have Chemo..."!)

This appeared on March 7?
Is this the same week the CBT GET study came out?

It could be a version of NOT TONIGHT, honey with a CFIDS twist...
But why say fatigue and abdominal pain. Why not call this Headache syndrome?

 

[jeffrez]

Back to the cartoon... Could it possibly be a sick parody of "Not tonight, honey; I've got a headache"? (Read "CFIBS.") Just a guess....

(I notice a Valentine's Day article on www.butyoudontlooksick.com! entitled "Not Tonight Honey, I Have Chemo..."!)

I think you're overthinking things. The author was making fun of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and IBS, and arguably in an extended sense, of the very idea that CFS/IBS are even 'real' disorders at all. Imo it's really not much more complicated than that.

 

[SOC]

We can all ask ourselves and each other questions, but the best way to find out -- the current NYer party line anyway -- is to keep asking either the cartoonist or the NYer until we get some answers. CBS's approach is brilliant. I hope he, or someone, gets an answer from the NYer to the questions, "What exactly is that cartoon supposed to mean and how is it humorous?"

 

[Boule de feu]

I have been struggling with a story I wanted to post.
Each time i've tried, part of my story got cut.

Could anyone help me with this?
NEVER MIND! I FIGURED IT OUT? FYI - I DECIDED TO POST MY STORY UNDER COMMUNITY LOUNGE, INSTEAD.

 

[jeffrez]

We can all ask ourselves and each other questions, but the best way to find out -- the current NYer party line anyway -- is to keep asking either the cartoonist or the NYer until we get some answers. CBS's approach is brilliant. I hope he, or someone, gets an answer from the NYer to the questions, "What exactly is that cartoon supposed to mean and how is it humorous?"

That's fine for a while, but eventually it will be seen as passive aggressive snottery and will backfire. I don't think the NYer considers it part of their job duties to explain to people what their cartoons "mean." I also don't think it's responsible to give your power away to the NYer and defer to what they might or might not claim that it "means." It means what you think it means, and if you are offended by it or otherwise have a problem with the cartoon, then imo the best way to address it is to write to the NYer and tell them you have a problem with it, and why. If you don't have a problem with it, then you don't. Very simple.

 

[SOC]

That's fine for a while, but eventually it will be seen as passive aggressive snottery and will backfire. I don't think the NYer considers it part of their job duties to explain to people what their cartoons "mean." I also don't think it's responsible to give your power away to the NYer and defer to what they might or might not claim that it "means." It means what you think it means, and if you are offended by it or otherwise have a problem with the cartoon, then imo the best way to address it is to write to the NYer and tell them you have a problem with it, and why. If you don't have a problem with it, then you don't. Very simple.

Whatever.

 

[Ember]

I appreciate being credited with overthinking

Just to clarify... If it were a parody, it would be an insult. The headache excuse is generally taken to be lacking in credibility. To draw a parallel, particularly with the "oh-so-clever" CFIBS would be offensive.

I'd hate to give offense by not seeming to take offense...

 

[Bob]

I have been struggling with a story I wanted to post.
Each time i've tried, part of my story got cut.

Could anyone help me with this?
NEVER MIND! I FIGURED IT OUT? FYI - I DECIDED TO POST MY STORY UNDER COMMUNITY LOUNGE, INSTEAD.

It's been happening a lot since the forum upgrade... If it happens again, then try editing a previous post and pasting the text into it.
Otherwise, try pasting your text into a simple text editor such as notepad, before copying and pasting it onto the forum.

 

[Boule de feu]

It's been happening a lot since the forum upgrade... If it happens again, then try editing a previous post and pasting the text into it.
Otherwise, try pasting your text into a simple text editor such as notepad, before copying and pasting it onto the forum.

I did try both but it did not work. However, I figured out it's the semi-colons + quotation marks that was the problem.
I got rid of them, and voil! My whole story appeared again. MAGIC.

Thanks for your help.

 

[5150]

Well, there were some sweet poignant moments contained in some of the posts, and some fairly combative moments as well. From my final point of view, I certainly clearly know how I see this topic. There isn't a need for total buy-in from others. It's confusing to me that, when the majority of people who don't have CFS, but who will refer to it as CF, and then someone will use that CF reference in a joke due to not being educated properly about our disease. That's my take, and my email to The New Yorker reflects it.

Everyone is surely entitled to their own opinion. I'm wondering if the New Yorker editor, or drawer of the cartoon, will respond. Somehow, I don't think so Peace

 

[Boule de feu]

I doubt he will. This was probably done to provoke.

I can remember a comment that was made a little while ago by one of the TWIV members. He said that when he talked about CFS, he was swamped with e-mails for a comment he had done. Sorry, I can't remember who it was and in which context.

I wonder if the media know that by talking about CFS (or making a cartoon about it), it will increase their volume of readers. They must know that they are striking a sensitive cord and they are playing on that.

 

[Boule de feu]

Hats off to all of you who took the time to send an e-mail (or phone - wow!)

 

[Angela Kennedy]

Notice also how they misspelled the woman saying "stomack" instead of "stomach" to make her appear even more idiotic? Ask any doctor or ER doctor what the number 1 complaint is of everyone they see, and they'll tell you it's non-specific "abdominal pain" or similar issues. Iow, the cartoon is saying there's nothing "really wrong" with the woman, it's just a "stomach ache" that's all in her head. Not only that, but she's so mentally whacked out that her 'stomack' can't even hurt right - "it WOULD hurt, but I'm too tired" (read: too screwed up). I don't see how anyone can NOT be insulted by that cartoon.


P.S. to markmc, I saw Greenberg, and I didn't make any connection to CFS at all. It's an interesting take on it, but I'm not sure where you get that idea from.

If you want to read a story with a strong relation to CFS, read The Metamorphosis by Kafka. Gregor wakes up one day to find that he's changed into a giant "bug" (my reading: that he's developed CFS). He can't go anywhere or do anything in his "condition," he can't leave his house or room, loses his job, and he just relies on family members to bring him food and necessities. Eventually the family kills him through abuse/neglect, and then the story closes with them going on with their lives and him fading from memory just as he faded from life, almost as if he never even really existed. It's chilling it's so accurate. Of course, Kafka had TB, so he knew what it was like to be sick, weak, fatigued, etc. and to lose everything in disability, isolation, and alienation from the "normal" human condition. Obviously he was writing from the experience of TB, but the depth of insight and even much of the metaphoric detail definitely parallels and is applicable to CFS, or probably any other seriously debilitating illness, for that matter.

Yes, Kafka's Metamorphosis. I think it can be related to any devastating change in health status and how others treat ill people- but certainly it has much reasonance for people with ME (or synonymously, CFS). Ironically, this (to my mind, starkly accurate) reading of the story (the issue of illness and the intolerance of others) is often played down by the literary types as unsophisticated etc!

Interestingly - poor Franz Kafka has been deemed by various commentators as having psychosomatic illness, being hypochondriac etc. He even sometimes apparently implied the same- but this is open to interpretation. Kafka often wrote in an ironic style. But yeah - died of TB. He also made working conditions musch safer for many in Prague during his day job. Interesting man.

 

[jeffrez]

You might have to watch it again with an open mind and keeping my thought in mind. Don't know if we have similar symptoms, but other who do should be able to get the propaganda. So very subtle, we don't even realized we are being brainwashed.

It has nothing to do with an open mind. It has to do with the facts. And the fact is that "Greenberg" has absolutely nothing to do with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome whatsoever. Greenberg is a film about a guy who is going through a quasi mid-life crisis after a mental breakdown, who travels across the country to house-sit his brother's house and take care of the dog while his brother's family goes on a trip. He walks around, does 'normal' things, builds a dog house, goes swimming, meets people, attends parties, goes out to dinner, goes to the hospital to visit people, physically runs, drinks and does drugs, and even almost drops everything and goes off to Australia to go scuba diving on the drop of a hat. In the end he decides to become a responsible grown up and commit to a relationship he was running away from. None of that has anything to do with having chronic fatigue syndrome in the least, and neither Ben Stiller the star of the movie nor Noah Baumbach the director are known to have any ties to or interest in or knowledge of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, either in their personal lives or as common themes in their work.

I will say it is more than a little bizarre that people here clainm that a movie that has absolutely nothing to do with CFS is really about CFS, and that a cartoon that's titled with the very words "Chronic-Fatigue Syndrome" actually has nothing to do with it. Kind of like a bizarro world, in fact.

Where do you get off insulting me by calling me close-minded, anyway?

 

[eric_s]

I think the cartoon is very bad. I don't like censorship, but it's not funny to joke about ill people.

If ME/CFS was more established, had a lab test and were better understood, they would probably never print such a cartoon. And as long as the situation is as it is, it's damaging to us if there is such a cartoon that will lead to people not taking ME/CFS seriously.

So i think it's good if people write to them or even call. Wouldn't this be a job for this newly founded alliance, that PR is part of? Since the CAA is not doing advocacy anymore.
In the end what we have to do to stop that kind of thing is doing all we can to adcvance the research, i think. As soon as more is known about ME/CFS this will probably stop. Why not send those idiots links to the articles and clips about the recent spinal fluid study?

 

[Boule de feu]

Well, said! =-)

 

[markmc20001]

It has nothing to do with an open mind. It has to do with the facts. And the fact is that "Greenberg" has absolutely nothing to do with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome whatsoever. Greenberg is a film about a guy who is going through a quasi mid-life crisis after a mental breakdown, who travels across the country to house-sit his brother's house and take care of the dog while his brother's family goes on a trip. He walks around, does 'normal' things, builds a dog house, goes swimming, meets people, attends parties, goes out to dinner, goes to the hospital to visit people, physically runs, drinks and does drugs, and even almost drops everything and goes off to Australia to go scuba diving on the drop of a hat. In the end he decides to become a responsible grown up and commit to a relationship he was running away from. None of that has anything to do with having chronic fatigue syndrome in the least, and neither Ben Stiller the star of the movie nor Noah Baumbach the director are known to have any ties to or interest in or knowledge of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, either in their personal lives or as common themes in their work.

I will say it is more than a little bizarre that people here clainm that a movie that has absolutely nothing to do with CFS is really about CFS, and that a cartoon that's titled with the very words "Chronic-Fatigue Syndrome" actually has nothing to do with it. Kind of like a bizarro world, in fact.

Where do you get off insulting me by calling me close-minded, anyway?

I wasn't trying to insult you. Misunderstanding and mis-communication Mr kite.

Also, if you look back at my post I think don't said chronic fatigue syndrome, I think said neuro-immune disease.

His mid-life crisis looked alot like my life is with neuro-immune disease. I'm not bedbound but mentally impared.

Anyways, no worries. I may have got it wrong about that particular show. However, I'm convinced that hollywood, as well as the mainstream media, plays a part in propaganda to help causes of the special interests. That was my point, even if I got that greenberg show wrong.

 

[markmc20001]

I have a better example of how Hollywood plays a roll in propaganda. One directly related to CFS or fibro(can;t remember the exact term used in the show). "House" is the name of a Doctor show on TV where a Doctor sees alls kinds of patients. I think it was a CFS patient showed up complaining fatigue and pain. House rolls his eyes, insults the heck out of her. Then house goes over the the pharmacy and gets some good drugs. Empties the drugs in his pocket for later use. Fills the empty drug bottle with some small candy. Then gives the candy fillee prescription drug bottle to the patient. Made a big joke out of the lady having CFS. Basically gave the same impression as this cartoon. Make it look like we are all whiners and lying about what is going on.

A better example of hollywood propaganda is the journalist news report from Al Jazeera called "empire and the hollywood war machine". Analyzes how the pentagon uses hollywood for distributing propanganda.