Christopher Hitchens TV - Fulke Greville - Jarod Kintz - John Q 2002 - Theresa Appah - Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! 2006 - The Young Ones TV - William Shakespeare - Matthew 9:35 - Matthew 10:1 - Dispatches TV - Department for Work and Pensions TV - Sylvia Plath - Thomas Wolfe - Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict TV - Laurence Sterne - Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives 2012 - Tonight TV -
Once you assume a creator and a plan it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well ... And over us to supervise this is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea. Christopher Hitchens v Tony Blair: Is Religion a Force for Good in the World? debate2010
O wearisome condition of humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity;
Created sick, commanded to be sound. Fulke Greville, Mustapha, 1609
I like to call in sick to work at places where I’ve never held a job. Then when the manager tells me I don’t work there, I tell them I’d like to. But not today, as I’m sick. Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale
When people are sick, they deserve a little help. John Q 2002 starring Denzel Washington & Robert Duvall & James Woods & Daniel E Smith & Anne Heche & Ray Liotta & Shawn Hatosy & Heath Wahlquist & David Thornton & Laura Harring & Troy Beyer & Kevin Connolly & Troy Winbush et al, director Nick Cassavetes, pal
Here in Africa, or in Ghana, we believe that every sickness is a curse or is caused by the devil. Theresa Appah, African Evangelical, interview Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch
Steve Dixon has been collecting airline sick-bags for 23 years. In that time he has amassed a collection of more than 180 bags. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! 2006
I’m afraid I couldn’t find any needles, Neil. So we’ll have to use six-inch nails. The Young Ones s2e5: Sick, Vyvyan, BBC 1984
This sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise. William Shakespeare, I Henry IV IV i 28-29, Hotspur to Worcester and Douglas
Sickness is catching. O, were favour so! William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream I i 186, Helena to Hermia
’Tis very like: he hath the falling sickness. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar I ii 255
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Matthew 9:35
And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. Matthew 10:1
Two and a half million people are on disability benefit. It cost us £13,000,000,000 a year. Now Channel 4’s Dispatches has uncovered evidence that a tough regime of tests is secretly trying to push almost 90% of these claimants off the sick to look for work. Dispatches: Britain on the Sick, Channel 4 2012
The head of the mental health charity MIND stepped down from the official scrutiny panel calling the system inhumane. ibid.
It was Labour who first hired Atos. ibid.
Even losing a whole arm is not considered enough to quality for significant disability points. ibid.
The Atos assessors have targets for the number of people taken off benefit. ibid.
In 2001 the Work Capability Assessment was not entirely fit for purpose but since then it has been significantly improved. Department for Work and Pensions statement
I sat on the toilet and leaned my head over the edge of the washbowl and I thought I was losing my guts and my dinner both. The sickness rolled through me in great waves. After each wave it would fade away and leave me limp as a wet leaf and shivering all over and then I would feel it rising up in me again, and the glittering white torture-chamber tiles under my feet and over my head and on all four sides closed in and squeezed me to pieces. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Most of the time we think we’re sick, it’s all in the mind. Thomas Wolfe
Peggy once gave a lunch for Pollock at the Chelsea Hotel. Pollock as belligerent and got so drunk that he threw up. A guest told Peggy, ‘You should frame the carpet; it could be worth millions someday!’ Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, BBC 2016
I am sick as a horse. Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
America. Bountiful. Innovative. Entrepreneurial. Diverse. Aggressive. Sick. Americans get sick more often than Europeans and people in other industrialised countries. And they are getting sicker … ‘The one thing that’s changed is the food, and the radical change is the genetic engineering of our food supply.’ Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives, 2012
‘It’s sub-microscopic shooting from the hip.’ ibid. Dr Robin Bernhoft
‘The process of insertion + cloning creates massive collateral damage … This creates unpredicted side-effects.’ ibid. Dr
BT Toxin Kills Human Kidney Cells. ibid. Institute of Science in Society, ISIS report 14th March 2012
‘I see a lot of kids now, kids come in with leaky guts … The food they are eating is leaking into their blood stream. ibid. Dr Michelle Perro, paediatrician
‘Patients with allergies – I try to keep them away from GMO foods.’ ibid. Dr John Boyle, allergist
The vast majority of genetically modified crops are engineered to make it easier for farmers to kill weeds. ibid.
Round-Up & Birth Defects: Is the Public Being Kept in the Dark? ibid. EarthOpenSource online article
Has Britain got a sick-note problem? The job sectors where many aren’t turning up for work. What life is like for those on the long-term sick. And what’s the cost to the economy. Tonight: Britain on the Sick, ITV 2023