I happened to look at the back page of the A section of the New York Times this morning.  With all the other "news" clamoring for attention, the Times chose to show the pictures and bios of the most popular plastic surgeons in the New York area. It most definitely is an advertisement for more people who want such stuff.

Now a word about the people who actually NEED the help of these specialists who seem to be the top money makers in reworking the faces of those not actually (from my point of view) needing any changes. If you have seen the pictures of children from around the world who NEED such operations because they were born with hideous malformations of their mouths; these are the people who need such doctors.  But these doctors don't get rich off of such patients.  They feed on the insecurities of those who do not want to grow older naturally, thinking that to be forever young is the only way to go - and have the money to afford the best.  Thus, a list of those doctors who supply a remedy for a spurious need is high-lighted in the NY Times, much like the full page advertisement of desperate merchants who have to move this season's goods to make room for the next.

Those children, many of who do not make it past childhood because of their deformities, are paraded for your attention in much smaller stories to the fact that you can be helpful by helping them - paying the doctors who specialize in making little horrors into passable humans with a fair chance to make a success out of life.

I really didn't want to knock the doctors who specialize in botox injections to freeze wrinkles (or whatever that substance does) or to lift sagging faces, breasts and bottoms.  There seems to be an incestuous relationship between older women and these medics.  They need one another and obviously do not need the rest of the world to look at them with pity for being old, wrinkled and sagging,  This list of doctors is symptomatic with one of the things wrong with this world and the people who are wealthy enough to support the economies of some countries.

Did you need a page full of top cosmetic doctors?  I do not think so.  What we need is more news and with fewer slants from the writers who, of course, do the bidding of the owners and the editors who are now fighting for their lives against the tide of electronic reportage of the news.

The emergence of this back page advertisement points to the historic fact that most people grow old gracefully and accept the marks of time. What is so pointless is the use of resources for such a frivolous and wasteful purpose.