Y’all, I Think He Has a Brain Tumor
I’m trying to decide if Ben Carson has a brain tumor. If he doesn’t, then here are your possibilities:
1. Brain surgery isn’t as hard as we first thought.
2. He stole that surgical outfit and took a picture.
3. They let a really dumb guy perform surgery.
4. He’s a brain surgery idiot savant.
Ben’s latest is that, unlike his fellow Republicans, he would keep the Department of Education. That sounds really good until he says why.
“I actually have something I would use the Department of Education to do.
It would be to monitor our institutions of higher education for extreme political bias and deny funding if it exists.”
In Ben’s mind, extreme political bias is the teaching of Sir Issac Newton. Gravity. Damn Shakespeare. History of any sort before Ronald Reagan.
And all employees of the Department of Education under Carson would be named Bubba or Bobbie Sue, be from Aladamnbama, and be high themselves.
You’d need a brain, first.
1Don’t ignore the definite possibility of extremely excellent drugs.
2I am amazed at how people think he might be a serious contender to the White House. This statement basically reflects his attitude towards the first amendment–Freedom of Speech anyone–in Carson’s mind, if you do not like the speech-too bad, the whole Department of Education gets defunded–I do not get it–these are the same people who call themselves the Freedom defenders–like the Freedom Caucus–etc? It is more like a free for all–People need to wake up.
3He’s a brain surgery idiot savant who is getting dementia.
4I vote for choice 4.
If choice 1 is true, my life is wasted because at about 10 or 11 for a while I wanted to be a brain surgeon. That was of course after cowboy, Indian, Beatle, and Indy race champion.
And I refuse to think about the consequences of choices 2 and 3. Ewwwww. Choice 4 it must be.
5He has already promised Kim Davis any Cabinet position she wants.
6May we have an option #5, please? Mental Ben is the love child of either David or Charles Koch and has become their most recent tool for the John Birch Society manifesto. They gave T-Rump the staff and Mental Ben received the ALEC speech writers.
7Grrrr. Sorry, but I get annoyed at the idea that people are ‘all one piece’ and that intelligence — or even intelligent ways of thinking — carries over from subject to subject. I have no doubt that Carson WAS a great brain surgeon, and may still be despite his insane politics. (And, btw, I’d still pick him rather than Hillary to poke around on the inside of my skull.)
‘
For me, if the topic is sewing, driving, football, basketball, opera, how to cook or catch fish or geography, the only reason my opinions would not be as stupid as Carson’s are on politics is that I’d be smart enough not to pretend to have opinions on subjects I know I am ignorant about.
Carson IS truly, dangerously insane politically, with ideas formed by, among others, W. Cleon Skousen — Google him, or just remember his first ‘acolyte’ in recent public life was Glenn Beck. Carson comes from a Bircher background as well as being a 7th Day Adventist — not the most intelligent of splinter Christian groups, about on a level with Jehovah’s Witlesses.
8Actually he would be getting rid of the Department of Education and creating a Department of Censorship.
The only way a WingNut can ‘win’ an argument is by changing what words mean.
9Does this mean that research universities would be required to make their science research conform to his notions about science? This would be worse than Dubya’s policy of rating the soundness of science correspond to the percentage of industry funding. These are the kinds of ideas that would lead American science into mediocrity and make China No. 1.
10Sorry, but would anybody pay attention to his babbling if the GOP couldn’t shove him out there and say, “Lookie, y’all, we got a black guy too!”? This seems to be the only GOP version of outreach to minorities.
Maybe I’m wrong. There are other foamers out there just as loopy as he is, but generally they have to have a radio or TV show for people to listen to them.
11I’m going with No. 4, also.
More seriously, as someone else said recently (don’t remember where I read it), Carson is evidence that intelligence and intellectual rigor in one field are not fungible into others.
I’m convinced Carson says these crazy and dangerous things because he’s never thought about them, and is parroting what he’s heard or read somewhere else. He’s a highly-accomplished professional, but also completely naive about the world outside his own, specific area of medicine, who has been convinced by others that he’d be an awesome president. And for the last two or three years, they’ve fed him a steady diet of idiocy that he can’t even begin to sort through.
12MD’s make lousy politicians. This guy is in way over his head from the very start.
13I’m going with the time-honored medical tradition of Doctor’s self-medicating. Not sure what drugs he’s on, but they’re not the good ones.
14Maggie: correct … Carson, Paul pere et Paul fils.
15More like a brain rumour. Does he or doesn’t he?
16I think Braxton is right. Carson suddenly decided he could be President, only he doesn’t know anything about how stuff works in practice. He hasn’t studied enough to know what he needs to know and seems to be saying he “will” learn on a “need to know” basis. And the ignoratti believe that’s sufficent.
17Dr. Carson does not have a brain tumor. He is a brain tumor.
18Esther,
19We’ve seen that movie before. The ignoratti blindly accepted Bush the Lesser in 2000. And, true to type, Dumbya never got up to speed (but Cheney covered).
We’ve also lost at least decade of world competitiveness while flailing around pissing up various Neocon ropes in a windstorm.
Carson, along with his fellow passengers in the GOP/TP Clown Car, are proponents of totalitarianism. They’re prime examples of big government being disguised as small government. For them and their supporters, less freedom = more freedom. I read recently that many foreign governments and citizens are wondering what is wrong with the GOP/TP. The answer is that they’ve transformed themselves from a governing party into a dangerous cult, thanks to their most revered president, Ronald Reagan, who started them on the path to hating themselves, their fellow citizens, and their own government. Their politicians, pundits, radio entertainers, and others in rw media have done a very thorough job of brainwashing them into believing any crackpot idea they propose. They are no longer capable of thinking for themselves and look to other right-wingers to interpret things for them. They seem to have no idea that they’re these folks’ useful idiots.
20So I looked up his medical publication history on PubMed. Over the last 30 years he has 138 publications listed; the earliest ones were in neonatology, later ones of course in neurosurgery. Lots of case reports and case series. Lots of papers where he was the middle author in a series (typically that means he didn’t initiate the study or do the writing, but provided some subject expertise.) He has also a lot of papers on how to care for children with condition X (sometimes with other authors, sometimes by himself.) He’s clearly highly regarded in the peer-reviewed medical literature as an expert on neurosurgical care of children with very serious illnesses.
But there are some interesting papers on other stuff, too. An editorial in Surg. Neurol. in 1996 that sounds a whole lot like his stump speeches today (only without the anti-evolution stuff) – he made it big, media discourage inner-city kids from trying, God is important, being rich is good, America is the best. There’s an editorial on disparities in care (2012, J Neurosurg) and an article (Pediatrics 2009) on disparities in access to pediatric neurosurgery (another middle author one), pointing to much lower access for Hispanic patients.
So I’d guess he is – or has been, skills in this may slip with age – a first rate pediatric neurosurgeon. His knowledge outside that area, though, seems to be based on anecdote rather than data, with his own experience quite prominent. And he is alarmingly unwilling to acknowledge the expertise of anyone with comparable credentials in other fields. Climate scientists? Evolutionary biologists? Physicists? Pshaw. He would not be the first really arrogant neurosurgeon I’ve run across in my 40+ years around medical schools.
21Prup said, “not the most intelligent of splinter Christian groups,” but I read, ” not the most intelligent of sphincter Christian groups.”
I like my reading better.
22Note to Republicans: The Presidency is not being a king. Spread the word.
23My four year old granddaughter revealed the secrets of her heart to me recently, about her future. She wants to be a bone doctor, (not a surprise, we have a number of physicians in her immediate family) a mommy (they just had a new baby in her family and she is “in charge”) and a “tyrannosaur.” (very age related)
24Dr. Carson has achieved success in his field, I have not followed him enough to know it he has children, but he is definitely a “terrible lizard” that wants to be “Rex”. He is a dinosaur, and should not be allowed anywhere near the presidency. My granddaughter would do better, much better, she takes very good care of “her” baby, and knows when you need a cast on your arm or leg, or a bandaid or pretend shot. And she is reasonable about bedtime and when to get off the stage.