Biological Colonialism "Comedic Tour de Force"
Secondhand Smokette and I went to a Barnes and Noble this morning and I stumbled upon a new book: Larry's Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant--and Save His Life, by Daniel Asa Rose. Great: A comedic tale of biological colonialism and exploitation, I thought. Just what the world needs.
So, I have perused a few reviews. Here's a sample: This book is a side-splitting tour de force that whisks readers off to China on a quest to get a transplant for the author's cousin Larry. Second-time memoirist Rose recounts their exploits with an insuperable wit that will appeal to readers who crave unrelenting humor. In a more serious vein, Larry's challenging journey to China will resonate with readers who are rightfully concerned about the plight of American patients who may be relegated for years to an organ transplant waiting list. -- Library Journal, May 1, 2009
Yes, all that matters is what happens to Americans and our organ shortage. But here's the thing: Some poor Chinese prisoner was almost surely tissue typed to match Larry and then killed for his kidney. That's how it tends to work when Americans with plenty of cash in their pockets go to China to buy organs. In this vein, please read Smokette's powerful "American Vampire," about this same topic, in which she wrote:
But just as it is wrong for Americans to die waiting for organs, it also is wrong for prisoners to die because an American needs a liver, or for a child to die because his mother sold her kidney. And it is beyond reason that in a country that passes numerous regulations on the feeding and care of livestock, people don't want to judge those who, like vampires, troll for organs in the Third World.
But Larry is such a character and Rose is such a good writer--and no doubt, he opposes water boarding--so who cares? I am sure the "donor" literally had a "side-splitting" good time. Hilarious.
Labels: Biological Colonialism. Organ Tourism. Terminal NonJudgmentalism.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 12:13 PM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
That this happened is bad enough. That going to a country that stands accused of organ harvesting to buy a kidney is now considered a fit subject for a madcap comedy is much, much worse.
Too much further along this path, and they'll package the murder of the "unfit" as screwball farce.
Wow. And next year it'll be required reading in Eng.Lit classes, I'll bet. Sick.
Dear Wesley Smith,
As the author of LARRY'S KIDNEY, and as a longtime admirer of your work, might I respectfully ask you not to judge a book by its cover? I invite you to read LARRY'S KIDNEY in full and then explore its insights, both comical and serious, with your excellent readers.
Yrs, DANIEL ASA ROSE
daniel asa rose: Whey you and Larry went to China with $ in your pockets for a new kidney, you must have known that someone might be killed for that organ, a murderer, a drug dealer, a Falun Gong, or a political prisoner. China is a gulag. Whether it happened or not in Larry's particular case is really beside the point. You thought his life was worth that price.
Here's a quotation someone posted on Amazon: "What can you do? Larry is family. The prisoners aren't my concern, as they're not my family. Only their kidneys matter." Ghoulish.
Well this is what happens as the result of experimentation on non-human animals. Doesn't anybody get it? Honestly, I've never been interested in the Orient and know little about it -- and that's fine with me; is China one of the countries where they eat dogs and cats? It's where they didn't care what went into pet food, and then next it was stuff for human consumption. It certainly is where they can't handle rabies and club dogs to death in front of their owners if their owners don't kill them themselves. We had to open trade with them; very nice; thank you Richard Nixon (whom otherwise I liked very much) and the Skull & Bones; I wouldn't even want one of their kidneys. But no surprise that a country that's brutal to animals is brutal to prisoners and to women who are forced to abort their children, and to the aborted children, etc. -- and does not value life. We opened our arms to them rather than take the sane view (which contradicts human exceptionalism theory) -- that hell we're better than you not everyone is as good as everyone else enough with this liberal, "nice," Nuremberg, one-world, Eleanor Roosevelt garbage, stay away from us. Now we've got this book. What's the surprise? It's exactly what was going to happen. And don't start me on Caucasian Americans adopting kids from non-Western cultures overseas. Everyone was jumping up and down a about Woody Allen and Soon Yi; what bothered me was that Mia was getting the kids from overseas when there should have been plenty available to adopt right here. Don't start me on liberals. This is what you get when you go down their road. Then, surprise, surprise, oh, look what's happening, that's not "nice." Well most of the world isn't nice.
Gregory: Well that's another example of what goes wrong with America and apple pie, the "family" garbage. I've got family that I wouldn't mind if they were harvested and discarded for their kidneys, but I'd feel bad for whoever had to get their kidneys and be even more closely related to them than I am. Not to mention, hands down, I don't care what they did, I'd be on the side of the life of the prisoner being "harvested" rather than on that of theirs. All this "family" stuff has been valued too high and taken too far. Especially in the United States.
Again this is a reflection of yet another problem we've got in this country -- everybody had to, was supposed to have the "right" to, etc., go to college. Now we've got a bunch of "educated" ignorami in publishing, journalism, teaching, medicine, science, public relations, politics, and everywhere else -- and everyone is too good to do ACTUAL WORK. Everything ends up getting made in China, our pets suffer, thousands of years it took to develop mattresses and box springs and now box springs don't even have springs in them anymore and people sleep on "futons," I am sick and tired of Thai restaurants every time one turns around, children are aborted lest they interfere with their mothers' "education and careers," kids get adopted and brought over here from cultures not our own, our own men and women have "fertility problems," people have become so stupid that they think if it's on paper it must be good, hence "living wills," because they are NOT educated, and just think they are, and God forbid anyone actually work with their hands and create anything. So that sure this book gets touted, and even who wrote it doesn't understand what's wrong with it. Because everything is ok. Everything is as good as everything else. Everyone is as good as everyone else. Everyone is entitled to the same as everyone else. Everyone is supposed to go to college. We can be "multicultural" and get what is beneath us to do the work to create from them. NO IT ISN'T. NO THEY ARE NOT. NO IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. Well don't start me on the damned fools and Democrats and liberals again. Bunch of stinking stupids and hypocrites. Did SHS start listening more often to Michael Savage, by the way? Except for his stance on animal rights, he makes sense, and is saying what I just said, basically -- and likewise he is on the same page with SHS, which called him a "shock jock" for reasons I cannot comprehend.
Are these the same prisoners allegedly to have been used posthumously (without their consent) for those "Body Worlds" exhibits they have at science musea?
Dear Mr. Rose,
In the article that Wesley links to, we seed the following quotation:
'If you send your personal data to this center by e-mail or fax and accept the necessary body examination in Shenyang, China in order to assure a suitable donor, it may take only one month to receive a liver transplantation, the maximum waiting time being two months. As for the kidney transplantation, it may take one week to find a suitable donor, the maximum time being one month. Although the procedure to select a donor is very strict, the transplant operation will be terminated if the doctor discovers that there is something wrong with the donor's organ. If this happens, the patient will have the option to be offered another organ donor and have the operation again in one week. '
Waiting for an organ donor is a long and tedious trial. The fact that anyone in China would vouch for such swift matching should give one pause, since the donor's organs to someone in need is difficult, and besides which, you have to wait for somebody to die.
People boycotted eating tuna because of the risk that dolphins were being killed in the tuna nets, and yet I don't see you boycotting China because of the risk that somebody was murdered to give your cousin a new kidney.
In rebuttle to your request that Wesley read your book and discuss it with us, I would like to ask that you read the novel YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME by Mr. Dean Koontz. While his is a work of fiction and yours is reported to be non-fiction, I think you'll better understand our feelings if you read that novel, and see why many of Wesley's readers (myself included) think that your book is highly irresponsible.
Sincerely,
Tabs E. Fine
bmmg: I always wondered about where they came from, and the "body art" ones. It's another horror every time one turns around.
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