 |
Harold's Journal
Editorial Opinion By RWL - 24 October 1991
The Guru Of Gubblebum
It appears that if you offer a drug treatment program that consists of standing on your head, eating mashed potatoes, and reciting Alice in Wonderland while chewing bubble gum, you have a fair chance of getting certified as legitimate health care in Oklahoma.
As long as it "doesn't hurt anyone."
All you need is a TV barmaid to swear it worked for her.
Never mind that four
of your own doctors say there is no scientific evidence that it works.
Never mind that the only real independent study ever proposed for your
program was turned down by the research facility's committee on Human
Subject Review as unfit for human experimentation.
Never mind that you advertise it as "over 75%" successful when fewer than half your patients even complete the course.
Never mind that your policy calls for a "totally drug free" program, when it really isn't.
Never mind that you've been trying to get licensed for a couple of years and are just now getting around to hiring a real nurse to pass out the pills you advertise that you don't give.
Never mind that your "medical director" of 2 months tenure botched two blood tests and had another test report came back "almost incompatible with human life," and nobody on your staff was even trained well enough to weed them out from the material you presented to the state certification board. (That certainly shows your expertise.)
And never mind that standing on your head causes your customers' brains to melt until they absorb any goofball thing you tell them while they're in this upside down trance.
Never mind that all of your training material has to be "secularized" to hide it's origins because you're a disciple of the Guru of Gubblebum... that everything you teach your customers while they're in this condition is the output of that dead egocentric who decided to call his ramblings a religion because real science laughed at him.
Imagine.. the Guru of Gubblebum, perched upside-down on a W-meter (Weight Meter, or bathroom scales), spouting the verses of Alice, with mashed potatoes running out of his ears as he tries to chew his way into a state of infinity.
I believe I'd try to keep the Mental Health Board from hearing about that connection myself. Yep. I believe I'd scream for my first amendment rights, too.
Never mind that it's mostly a program of mind-manipulation. Druggies, after all, need their brains washed. They need to learn to communicate the good old fashioned way, with words like "beingness," "entheta," "PTSness," "havingness," "C/S-ing," "Q and A-ing," and other "enturbulating" terms of common, everyday usage.
Never mind that most of your graduates proudly announce that they are taking your "job placement" training; or are already working for you (in the medical records department?). You're not, after all, in the business of recruiting members for the guru, it's just that they naturally tend to lean that direction when they get done standing on their heads.
Never mind that stuff.
You have a pretty fair chance of eventually getting a license because
you "don't hurt anyone." That's great medicine. That's a real
comfort to the consumer.
You want a license to be proud of?
First get real proof that the program works. Second, clean up the petty stuff. Third, put a sign out there saying it's a religious organization operated by the followers of the Guru of Gubblebum for the spiritual treatment of drug abuse.
Then fully publicize all the tenants of Gubblebumism so your customers can decide if they want to join or not before they spend their shekels. All the tenants. Even those "confidential" ones.
No one will die of pneumonia. Trust me.
You do that, and most of your entheta will evaporate into nothingness. And I'll even quit Q and A-ing you.
(The events, processes
and characters depicted in this editorial are fictional and any resemblance
to any persons, processes, or events in the MEST Universe, living or dead,
is purely coincidental)