The sick joke of sick-jokesters

By Ed Goldman

Most of my liberal friends and many of my conservative ones (a more equally divided number than you might guess) express surprise at my support for the death penalty. To those who argue it’s not a proven deterrent to murder, my point is that being executed will deter at least one person. (The executee, if I need to spell that out.)

I’ve never really expected to expand on this topic—this column’s meant to be fun-based journalism—but I read a horrifying story in the Wall Street Journal a week ago. It reported that hackers were demanding a ransom of five million dollars from a hospital to not release nude photos of its cancer patients.

One cancer patient was upset enough to sue the hospital to demand it pay the ransom. Another said if people saw her nude (clinical) photos, her office mates “would download them (and) joke about it at work.”

First things first: Let’s find, prosecute and execute the hackers. There’s no reason people like this should be allowed to take up the valuable real estate of civilization.

Second: Let’s encourage the immediate firing of anyone who would view nude photos of cancer-stricken colleagues and “joke about it.”

I think it’s long past time to end the incredibly stupid and useless lives and antics of computer hackers and cancer jokesters, respectively (and respectlessly).

As I’ve revealed here before, my wife of 29 years died more than 16 years ago after a nine-year battle with cancer. During that near-decade of failed hopes, she was subjected to being x-rayed and photographed many dozens of times, often in the nude. If I found out that some masturbatory morons had got hold of these images and were either hoping to profit from them or laugh about them, well, I won’t clarify the course of action I’d take—that would count as “premeditated” when I went on trial—but let’s just say I’ve been assured by my neighbors that they’ll testify I was ”a loner,” “a nice enough guy,” and that the news of my actions made them “shocked and deeply saddened.” These are the key phrases to use for the news media.

I’m also practicing this phrase for when I’m arrested: “I heard voices.” Yes, I’d go for the inanity plea.

These hackers—well, damn near all of them—are unconscionable and cowardly. They’re sick individuals. While they may not be as deeply disturbed as the people who wander into schoolyards, department stores, places of worship and picnics with assault rifles—sometimes leaving behind “manifestos” to be pored over, allowing cops, psychologists and politicians to read them and come to the staggering conclusion that these people may have been in serious need of help—their senses of morality and humanity are just as twisted.

To be a hospital patient is to submit to humiliation at almost every turn. Not just undergoing the constant and frightening X-rays, MRIs and CT-scans, but also being forced to re-describe your condition and symptoms to every non-physician you encounter as you’re referred hither and yon for “follow-up” (rarely, follow-through) care. (My May 1 column will feature an interview with Carol Burger, owner of 15 rehabilitation-therapy clinics, who laments the disparate procedures of hospitals and insurance companies: the lack of a “continuum of care.”)