MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM STEVES OF GRASS

For some cheerful Christmas nonsense, I invite you to visit Songs of Eretz Poetry Review for a blast from my past http://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2015/12/a-poem-for-christmas-day-sir-gawain-and.html, a parody of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  Merry Christmas!

Review of "Your Child's Asthma" by John Hunt, MD

Editor’s Note:  Enjoy a poem by Dr. Hunt in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review published simultaneously with this essay:  http://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2015/12/poem-of-day-leaves-by-john-hunt-md.html.

My former college classmate, and current friend and fellow physician poet John Hunt, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist and allergist/immunologist, recently published “an asthma doctor’s guide for parents” entitled Your Child’s Asthma.  It is available from Amazon for $16.95 in a large sized paperback, $9.99 for Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Your-Childs-Asthma-Guide-Parents/dp/0985933216.  The book is about 200 pages in length and may easily be read over a weekend.  The ease of the read is greatly facilitated by Dr. Hunt’s non-patronizing, non-condescending, storyteller’s word choices and tone.

Although written for the layman, students of the medical arts would also benefit from Dr. Hunt’s wisdom, if one were willing to set aside his central thesis that asthma is a symptom rather than a disease.  Dr. Hunt admits to being an allopath in his introduction, but then violates the cardinal rule of allopathy--that there is almost always only one cause for all of a patient’s symptoms.  Dr. Hunt insists that the hallmarks of asthma--wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath--are actually caused by various insults to the respiratory system, such as viral infection and allergies--multiple causes.  Mainstream allopaths believe that asthmatics have something inherently amiss that allows usually harmless exposures to trigger asthmatic symptoms--one cause (an asthmatic is an asthmatic because he has asthma).

It is a shame that Dr. Hunt chose to couch his otherwise excellent advice and easy-to-understand explanations of complex material within his non-mainstream paradigm for asthma, as readers might be mislead into believing that their own, otherwise trusted, mainstream physicians do not know how to treat asthma or are behind the times.  Worse, it is a shame because many otherwise willing readers will pass over his otherwise helpful book.

The Noblest and the Best

I attended Amherst College from 1983 to 1987 and graduated with a BA in biology.  I was so proud to have been accepted there that on June 10, 1983 I wrote a paper for my high school AP American History class on, as the Amherst Fight Song goes, “the man who gave his name to [my] college upon the hill,” British Major General 1st Baron Lord Jeffery Amherst (pictured).  And even though my memories of my time at Amherst are not fond, I was also proud to be a graduate of what was then the top liberal arts college in the country.  I was proud, that is, until I found out that the college leadership is seriously considering replacing its “Lord Jeff” mascot with something more “PC.”  It seems that, as the Fight Song goes, “the story of his loyalty and bravery and fame” does not “abide here among [them] still.”  For shame, Amherst College, for shame!  I believe a little history lesson, courtesy of naïve then eighteen-year-old Steve’s AP American History class paper, is in order.

In 1758, Prime Minister William Pitt put into motion his plan to secure North America for the British Empire.  He promoted then Colonel Jeffery Amherst to Major General (over dozens of superior officers) and put him in command of the British colonial forces with orders to eliminate France from the continent.  The Indians allied themselves with the French and resisted the British.  Thus, the French and Indian War began.

Known as “the cautious commander,” it was said of General Amherst that he would “rather take a year than take a chance.”  He was not dashing or bold.  Rather, he was a brilliant strategist who planned every move and anticipated every enemy action.  He attacked only when he was sure the risk was low.  And, as the Fight Song goes, “he conquered all the enemies that came within his sight,” while doing everything possible to preserve the lives of those under his command, half of whom were colonists.

General Amherst is also known as “the father of biological warfare” for his practice of deliberately spreading small pox among his Indian enemies.  Not sporting?  Perhaps.  But by doing so he saved the lives of his own command and, by winning the war faster as a result, probably spared the lives of the surviving Indians and many Frenchmen. 

By 1760, Amherst had captured all of the strategic French forts in New York and Ohio as well as the city of Montreal with minimal British losses, essentially ending the conflict.  His overwhelming victory was formalized in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, which granted England all of French North America.  Had that war gone differently, we just might all be singing La Marseillaise.

Thirteen years after the Treaty of Paris, the colonies would declare themselves independent.  King George III turned to his best General, Lord Amherst, and asked him to lead the suppression of the rebellion.  Amherst declined, saying he, “could not bring [himself] to fight against those to whom [he] had been so much obliged.”  Instead, King George was forced to rely upon the less competent (some would say grossly incompetent) Generals Howe and Cornwallis.  It is not unsafe to say that if Amherst had accepted his king’s commission in 1776, we just might all be singing “God Save the Queen.”

I conclude with these words from the Fight Song:

You may talk about your Johnnies and your Elis and the rest,

For they are names that time will never dim. 

But give [me my] only Jeffery, he’s the noblest and the best,

Till the end [I] will stand fast for him.

Oh, Amherst, brave Amherst!

‘Twas a name known to fame in days of yore.

May it ever be glorious

Till the sun shall climb the heavens no more.