Meg 375: Crazy Train

[Trent]

Re Strontium Dog untold vs hearsay I feel I should point out that ALL of Johnny Alpha's stories are actually made up. 😉

[IndigoPrime]

There's an 80% chance Dredd is circumcised

Dredd was 'born' in the 2060s. Chances are, things will change significantly by then. (In most countries, a combination of money and awareness shifted things regarding circumcision, and once the tide shifts, it can happen very quickly.)

Re Strontium Dog untold vs hearsay I feel I should point out that ALL of Johnny Alpha's stories are actually made up.

Well, quite. I think what mosts gets me is how much of an outlier that first 'reboot' tale feels like now. The others — including the relentlessly grim Life and Death — feel similar in tone to the original run, but Kreeler betrays its origins as being devised for something else entirely. (In all honestly, I'd have preferred Strontium Dog to have continued in that vein. It would have been interesting to have had a different take on the character, but there you go.)

[JOE SOAP]

There's an 80% chance Dredd is circumcised

Dredd was 'born' in the 2060s. Chances are, things will change significantly by then. (In most countries, a combination of money and awareness shifted things regarding circumcision, and once the tide shifts, it can happen very quickly.)

Maybe that irradiated desert air brought some knob eating pathogens if left to incubate in the unwashed cheesewrap - or some judicial holdover from the scorched sandy wastes of the Battle of Armageddon -


Another compelling explanation referred to earlier involves the ritualization of circumcision's prophylactic effects, especially as many different human groups and cultures that live in desert or other hot environments have adopted it as part of their customs. Infections, initiated by the aggravation of dirt and sand under the foreskin, are not uncommon under such conditions and have even crippled whole armies, where it is difficult to achieve sanitation during prolonged battle.

A US Army report by General John Patton stated that in World War II 150,000 soldiers were hospitalized for foreskin problems due to inadequate hygiene, leading to the statements: "Time and money could have been saved had prophylactic circumcision been performed before the men were shipped overseas" and "Because keeping the foreskin clean was very difficult in the field, many soldiers with only a minimal tendency toward phimosis were likely to develop balanoposthitis [Patton, 1987b]. Army urologists stated "Had these patients been circumcised before induction [into the Army] this total would have been close to zero".  In the Second World War Australia had to send urologists to circumcise all of its troops fighting in the North African campaign who were not already circumcised [Short, 2006]. Similarly sand was a problem for uncircumcised men during the Gulf War in Iraq ("Desert Storm") in the early 1990s [Gardner, 1991; Schoen, 2007e]. 

http://www.circinfo.net/what_caused_many_cultures_to_remove_it.html

[TordelBack]

It's a miracle the fragile ol' human race survived long enough to develop all these child mutilation rituals. But helpful that Surgeon General Patton was on hand to give us the benefit of his entirely culturally-unbiased objective interpretation.

[Frank]

In most countries, a combination of money and awareness shifted things regarding circumcision

The USA has been the richest nation on Earth for the last century - about the same time circumcision really took off (f-nar). It isn't associated with poverty or ignorance either - college educated males are more likely to be circumcised than those without health insurance (see article linked to above).

US rates of circumcision have actually increased in recent decades, with the only notable decrease being on the West coast (due to Latin immigration) - but Dredd patrols MC1, not MC2, and the only Catholic part of Rico was his name. It's custom that means the USA is the only 1st world nation to adopt the bris en masse* - it's difficult to make confident predictions about something that's already an anomaly.

I love that we're having a serious, in-depth discussion about Judge Dredd's tackle, complete with academic citations.


* Dads want their wee boys' wangers to look like their own

[Dandontdare]

It bugs me when long-term posters change names - who are you?

[Fungus]

It bugs me when long-term posters change names - who are you?

Indeed.

[NapalmKev]

It bugs me when long-term posters change names - who are you?

Indeed.

He is Milo Yiannopoulos, and I claim my ten pounds!

Or he is Sauchie/Butch/John Wagner, whatever's your poison.

Cheers

[Frank]

.
Let me be Frank.

[Colin YNWA]

To be fair in time honoured story telling fashion he did foreshadow the change in another thread.

Still took me a moment to catch up.

[Hawkmumbler]

.
Let me be Frank.

...Sidebottom?!

[Eamonn Clarke]

There's an 80% chance Dredd is circumcised

Dredd was 'born' in the 2060s. Chances are, things will change significantly by then. (In most countries, a combination of money and awareness shifted things regarding circumcision, and once the tide shifts, it can happen very quickly.)

Maybe that irradiated desert air brought some knob eating pathogens if left to incubate in the unwashed cheesewrap - or some judicial holdover from the scorched sandy wastes of the Battle of Armageddon -


Another compelling explanation referred to earlier involves the ritualization of circumcision's prophylactic effects, especially as many different human groups and cultures that live in desert or other hot environments have adopted it as part of their customs. Infections, initiated by the aggravation of dirt and sand under the foreskin, are not uncommon under such conditions and have even crippled whole armies, where it is difficult to achieve sanitation during prolonged battle.

A US Army report by General John Patton stated that in World War II 150,000 soldiers were hospitalized for foreskin problems due to inadequate hygiene, leading to the statements: "Time and money could have been saved had prophylactic circumcision been performed before the men were shipped overseas" and "Because keeping the foreskin clean was very difficult in the field, many soldiers with only a minimal tendency toward phimosis were likely to develop balanoposthitis [Patton, 1987b]. Army urologists stated "Had these patients been circumcised before induction [into the Army] this total would have been close to zero".  In the Second World War Australia had to send urologists to circumcise all of its troops fighting in the North African campaign who were not already circumcised [Short, 2006]. Similarly sand was a problem for uncircumcised men during the Gulf War in Iraq ("Desert Storm") in the early 1990s [Gardner, 1991; Schoen, 2007e]. 

http://www.circinfo.net/what_caused_many_cultures_to_remove_it.html

A consultant urologist told me that the commonest minor surgical procedure carried out on British soldiers during gulf war 1 was circumcision for precisely the above reasons. Some of us might quibble about the use of the word minor but apparently it was the major difference in operation rates between British troops, most of whom were not circumcised before the war, and the US troops, most of whom were.

The forum is a funny old place, eh what?

[The Monarch]

And in other news i still have no meg because my comic shops a shower of bastitches

[BPP]

So now when Dredd is taking an absolute pounding he's thinking 'oh well, I'll be a bit narked having to get off the street for some rejuve'

Seems a bit PSI rod for your back in the long run.

What annoyed me more was how dull, decompressed and yank TV the whole thing was. 'Oh moley, not my family... You're family is fine, but my family....' Ugh. Don't care. Dull characters, no reason for us to care about them or anything happening to them. No humour, nothing original. Yuck.

[TordelBack]

Oh sweet Jovus I'm in partial agreement with BPP on the Meg review thread! What fresh hell is this.