October 17, 2012

Congratulations to Chelsea Clinton for taking on the cause of diarrhea.

It's a very serious cause, deserving of the Clinton family's philanthropy, and I'm genuinely impressed that a young woman with political ambition chooses — as a cause with which to burnish her image — diarrhea.

52 comments:

Chip S. said...

Well, look how far logorrhea took her father.

MadisonMan said...

Does she have political ambitions? I'm not so sure.

pm317 said...

"For me, it's not complicated. We know what works and we should be doing more of it. And when we don't know what works, we should be innovating and spending time and energy on designing these solutions to solve problems that haven't been solved yet," said Clinton.

She makes it sound so simple and it is for high achievers (not for Obama likes -- have you heard any of his plans or god forbid, vision for his second term?)

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

She has political ambitions? She better get in gear then. She's nearing her mid-thirties. Just about over the hill.

Unknown said...

As for her political career, running on diarrhea is not very solid.

Shouting Thomas said...

Could it be that Africans are actually responsible for their own problems?

Could it be that Africans might have to decide to change in order to solve their own problems?

I hear the voice of the do-gooder colonialist in Chelsea. The problem may prove to be much more intractable and intrinsic to the culture than she thinks.

Cue late night comedians! What a gold mine!

pm317 said...


I hear the voice of the do-gooder colonialist in Chelsea.


I agree, that is the danger. I hope she is aware of the pitfalls of nurturing such mindset.

Shouting Thomas said...

So, you flood a poorly governed sub-Saharan country with relief dollars.

That country is ruled by an elite that systematically loots the treasury for their own enrichment.

Where do those relief dollars go?

The history of US AID might well be remembered here. You might want to check into what US AID actually produced in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.

lexy_nesbitt said...
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I'm Full of Soup said...

Are you shitting me! [someone had to say it]

pm317 said...

So, you flood a poorly governed sub-Saharan country with relief dollars.

That country is ruled by an elite that systematically loots the treasury for their own enrichment.

Where do those relief dollars go?


Romney had a good plan in a speech he gave at Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) about how to disburse US aid to these countries.

Heh, I go to CGI page thinking I have to do a big search to find that video and then lo and behold, it is the featured video on the front page. I refreshed the page many times but still his video comes up first. Bill is voting for Romney.

Here is the direct link to Romney's speech.

Oso Negro said...

She did grow up in a family where shit got totally out of control.

pm317 said...

Yeah, now we have to hear all these substandard jokes. Give it a rest. You are showing your class.

Earth Girl said...

My 9-month-old granddaughter spent 4 days this week in the hospital because of viral diarrhea. The only treatment was an IV to rehydrate her as her little body fought off the attack. I kept thinking of all the babies that die every year because they do not have access to simply rehydration methods. So good for Chelsea.

John said...

The Gates Foundation has been on this issue (clean water in particular) for a decade. The end game must be insight so a Clinton wants to jump aboard the wagon so she can claim the victory.

rehajm said...
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Molly said...

thanks for saying this A.A. It is an extremely serious problem in poor countries (and for children in poor countries), and I'm sure Chelsea had people telling her, "people will make fun of you for this." So (although I don't like the Clintons in a political sense) I have to say this decision shows some strength of character on Chelsea's part.

Molly said...

thanks for saying this A.A. It is an extremely serious problem in poor countries (and for children in poor countries), and I'm sure Chelsea had people telling her, "people will make fun of you for this." So (although I don't like the Clintons in a political sense) I have to say this decision shows some strength of character on Chelsea's part.

Patrick said...

This young woman seems destined for a figurehead job at a non-profit.

Wince said...

Does this mean she runs for office?

Rumpletweezer said...

I'm waiting for a celebrity to adopt the cause of encouraging slow drivers to move to the right lane on multi-lane highways. Is there any other single cause that would do so much good for so many people?

Anonymous said...

I don't understand? Wasn't this all solved by the World Health Organization and the UN?
What about all the money we spend on foreign aid, didn't that cure most of it? Well between that and WHO and the UN, what is the problem?
What happened to all that money?

Kate Danaher said...

Why is this reminding me of Cybill Shepherd, Constipation Activist?

http://staugustine.com/stories/040705/hea_2998472.shtml

(I remember listening to a radio interview at the time, where the host was specifically instructed by her handlers to keep to the topic of constipation )

Anonymous said...

What is the problem? Didn't the World Health Organization take care of this?
What about all the foreign aid we spent?
Where is the audit for both?
This is a crock. There will be a few smattering cases, grossly exggerated, then horse face come in, hand out some generic asprin, and claim success.
You can't trust any Clinton on anything.

carrie said...

Well, she has to do something productive. At least she picked a good cause to tag onto.

carrie said...

Well, she has to do something productive. At least she picked a good cause to tag onto.

Renee said...

Yay, Medicine, not contraception!

TosaGuy said...

heh heh heeheeheee....diarrhea

Renee said...

"This young woman seems destined for a figurehead job at a non-profit"

Like Caroline Kennedy?

virgil xenophon said...

@Molly

Strength of character? No, more like "social positioning" (to borrow a phrase from David Thompson.) i.e., selecting a problem, pretending to be concerned about it, and thereby becoming "interesting." Thompson, writing about another pretentious, egalitarian, hand-wring dame of like ethos, writes: "By indulging...she's signaling her own moral, social and intellectual superiority. It's what egalitarians do."

Darrell said...

And everyone said that she didn't know shit. That'll teach them.

Darrell said...
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edutcher said...

She's waded in it all her life.

And her parents dispense more than any other couple on the planet.

Good to see someone find their niche.

Christy said...

When researching family history at the National Archives, I found a folder for one guy in the Civil War pension files with 1-1/2 inches of detail on his diarrhea that started during the war and never, ever, stopped.

Aridog said...

What John said at 8:31 ...

tshanks78 said...

Nice to see Chelsea Clinton taking on diarrhea. If she dedicated herself to the eradication of bullsh*t she would never leave the house.

Darrell said...

A few drops of bleach in the water could solve a lot of those problems. If only bleach wasn't on the Left's demon registry, like DDT and CO2.

Aridog said...

@Christy ... and never, ever, stopped

Believe it. Once dysentery caused diarrhea develops it never fully goes away. Never. Been there, done that, still doing that, got multiple tee shirts...almost 60 years later. Some folks ask if I got it in Vietnam or elsewhere in Asia?...nope, right here in the Rocky Mountains wilderness as a kid.

No BFD...one learns to avoid causes and otherwise to deal with it. OTC Immodium AD is quite helpful. No cure that I know of, but the doc's keep finding new names for it, :-)) ... and better treatments.

Critter said...

all the really cool diseases were already taken.

Baron Zemo said...

She really should work to stop the spread of herpes.

Just get her Daddy to keep zipped up.

Priceless.

Comanche Voter said...

Well since her daddy suffered from logorrhea, why not?

furious_a said...

One would think the handlers would have packaged it better like "preventable gastrointestinal diseases" or "safe water", but anyway...

If some impoverished village somewhere gets a safe water system or poor chil'len their Typhoid innoculations because she drew attention to them, then good for Chelsea.

Geoff Matthews said...

Dysentery is a fatal disease for infants. My 3rd child was hospitalized because of it.
And this in a 1st-world country.

LordSomber said...

"Where do those relief dollars go?"

Depends™.

Indigo Red said...

Diarrhea is estimated to have caused 2.6 million deaths in 2009, 1.1 million were people 5 yrs and older. Another 1.5 million people under age 5 were killed by diarrhea that same year.

Diarrhea is ugly, messy, and deadly. It's apparently easy to make fun of. But the facts aren't funny and neither are the dead - over 1500/day.

http://rehydrate.org/diarrhoea/index.html

Aridog said...

LordSomber said...

"Where do those relief dollars go?"

Depends™.

Damn, that's good :-))

Long term its not quite that desperate. If you're not dead.

Methadras said...

Fact is stranger than fiction. Of all the causes to take up in the world to make yourself look like a saint, I'd say, diarrhea would have never have made it on my list. In any universe.

n.n said...

While treating symptoms is indeed noteworthy, it would be more effective to address the causes.

In Nigeria, "diarrhea" is a metaphor for broadband corruption sponsored by dreams of instant gratification that span generations and controlling interests.

ndspinelli said...

Shitty job, but I guess someones got to do it.

AllenS said...

There's a very good possibility, that her first bout of diarrhea was caused by an eating disorder of foods that upset the digestive system after learning that her father was probing a young girl about her age, with a cigar.

The fact that she would make this disorder her calling? Who knew?

ampersand said...

I can see the bumper sticker now,
"Runs Chelsea Runs"

Anonymous said...

I heard an NPR story about this a few years ago. Apparently zinc is absent in the diets of most diarrhea victims in this part of the world. This was not understood clearly until recently. I child that is dying of diarrhea can generally be saved by getting a dose of zinc. The death toll has been atrocious, and the solution is so simple. As some have said, to some extent, the problem and solution have already been identified, and the effort is well under way. However, I think it is good when celebrities attach themselves to worthy causes, since it tends to draw beneficial attention. Isn't that why everybody loved Lady Diana, because she was involved in mine clearing and such? At least Chelsea's not down sucking up to Hugo Chavez or some other common liberal idiocy.