Up your nose

I get tubes stuck up my nose pretty often, mostly for photography, occasionally to burn off some obnoxious tissue, always with anesthetic. I still hate it, but that's OK, I know why it's happening, and it's with my consent. A couple of times during hospital treatment they tried to give me a feeding tube (preceded by a fairly stiff guide wire, and quite a bit thicker than the laser thing) without anesthetic (I'm sure they had a better reason than the Guantánamo doctors), and like Yasiin I cried. I can't imagine how a human being could do that to another human being against the latter's will, day after day. (My doctors gave me a stomach tube instead, under sedation.)

President Obama has said,

 “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are — being held on a hunger strike,” he said in May. “Is that who we are? Is that something our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our children?”

 I guess that's your call, Mr. P. Let us know when you figure it out.

New York Telegraph Sunday Magazine, September 30 1917, clipped by Djuna Barnes. Via  Mutant Eggplant.