I have said for years that if your have a chronic condition not being resolved, find someone who has a track record of curing that condition. Here is the same principle phrased differently.
Dr Barry Marshall
(Tom: This is a prime example of having the courage of your convictions!)
Some truths are too dangerous to ignore.
In 1982, a young gastroenterologist in Perth stared at his microscope and saw something that shouldn’t exist. Barry Marshall had been examining stomach biopsies from ulcer patients for months. Every single one showed the same thing.
Curved, spiral bacteria. Living in the stomach.
His medical textbooks were clear. The human stomach is sterile. Acid strong enough to dissolve metal kills everything. Bacteria cannot survive there.
But Marshall could see them. His colleague Robin Warren had been documenting them for months. Nearly every ulcer patient had these bacteria. Patients without ulcers rarely did.
The pattern was undeniable.
Marshall and Warren formed a hypothesis that would change medicine forever. What if bacteria caused stomach ulcers? What if the answer had been there all along, invisible because everyone knew it was impossible?
The medical establishment’s response came swift and merciless.
In the early 1980s, ulcer science was settled. Stress caused ulcers. Spicy food caused ulcers. Excess stomach acid caused ulcers. Lifestyle choices caused ulcers.
Treatment was equally certain. Lifelong antacids. Acid-suppressing drugs. Bland diets. Stress management. When those failed, surgery. Cutting parts of the stomach. Severing nerves to reduce acid production.
Ulcers were chronic conditions. Patients managed them forever.
Pharmaceutical companies earned billions selling acid reducers. Surgeons performed thousands of ulcer operations annually. The system worked. The science was settled.
Then two unknown doctors in Australia claimed they could cure ulcers with antibiotics in two weeks.
The medical community dismissed them as cranks.
Marshall and Warren tried everything to prove their case. They submitted papers to journals. Rejected. They presented at medical conferences. Audiences were skeptical at best, contemptuous at worst.
They attempted animal studies. The bacteria only infected primates, and ethical guidelines made human trials impossible for an unproven theory.
Marshall was trapped. He had evidence he knew was correct. He had observational data. But without proving causation, the establishment would never listen.
For those who remember fighting against systems that refused to see the truth, you understand what came next.
In 1984, Barry Marshall did something either brilliantly desperate or completely insane. He decided to infect himself.
No formal ethical approval. No hospital committee permission. He told his wife. She was horrified. He proceeded anyway.
Marshall prepared a culture of the bacteria from a patient with severe gastritis. He grew it in a petri dish until he had concentrated bacterial soup.
Then, on an empty stomach, he drank it.
Billions of live bacteria that supposedly couldn’t survive in the human stomach. He later described the taste as swamp water.
For two days, nothing happened.
Marshall worried his experiment had failed. Maybe his stomach acid had killed the bacteria after all. Maybe the textbooks were right and he was wrong.
Day three, he started feeling sick.
Day five, he was violently ill. Nausea. Vomiting. His wife noticed his breath had become unbearably foul.
Ten days after drinking the bacteria, Marshall underwent endoscopy. The results were undeniable.
His previously healthy stomach was inflamed, red, swollen. He had developed acute gastritis. Biopsies showed massive colonization of the bacteria that couldn’t survive stomach acid.
He had proven the bacteria could infect a healthy human and cause disease.
Marshall treated himself with antibiotics and bismuth. Within weeks, his symptoms vanished. Follow-up endoscopy showed his stomach healed, bacteria gone.
He had infected himself, made himself sick, documented everything with biopsies and photographs, then cured himself. One of the most dramatic self-experiments in modern medical history.
And the medical establishment still didn’t believe him.
Critics argued gastritis wasn’t ulcers. His experiment was uncontrolled. Correlation wasn’t causation. The resistance continued.
But Marshall and Warren kept fighting. They published case studies. They documented successful antibiotic treatments. They showed that eradicating the bacteria prevented ulcer recurrence, something acid drugs couldn’t do.
Slowly, grudgingly, the evidence became impossible to ignore.
By the early 1990s, medical consensus began shifting. Studies from multiple countries confirmed their findings. In 1994, the National Institutes of Health issued a consensus statement.
The bacteria caused most stomach ulcers. Treatment should be antibiotics.
Within a decade, ulcer treatment transformed completely. Before, patients faced lifelong medication, dietary restrictions, sometimes surgery. After, two weeks of antibiotics produced permanent cures.
Ulcer surgery rates plummeted. Chronic ulcer disease nearly disappeared. Millions were cured of a condition they’d been told was incurable.
In 2005, twenty-one years after Barry Marshall drank that petri dish of bacteria, he and Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The Nobel Committee stated their discovery led to a revolutionary change in treatment and improved the quality of life for millions.
Two researchers working far from prestigious medical centers had overturned one hundred years of medical consensus. They were ridiculed. Rejected. Dismissed. They couldn’t get published in major journals. They couldn’t get funding.
The entire weight of established medicine said they were wrong.
And they were right.
When asked if he regrets the self-experiment, Marshall’s answer was immediate. Not for a second.
He had tried everything else. Proper channels. Submitted papers. Given presentations. All rejected. The self-experiment was a last resort, and the thing that finally broke through decades of dogma.
We like to think science follows evidence. That good ideas triumph through rational debate.
Reality is messier.
Scientific consensus can become entrenched. Established researchers protect territory. Journals prefer papers confirming existing theories. Pharmaceutical companies have financial interests in maintaining the status quo.
Revolutionary ideas, even correct ones, face enormous resistance.
Marshall and Warren’s discovery should have been accepted within months. The evidence was clear. The implications were enormous. Instead, it took over a decade of fighting, plus a dramatic self-experiment, plus mounting evidence from multiple countries before medicine admitted it had been wrong for a century.
Today, the bacteria is recognized as the cause of most stomach ulcers, many cases of gastritis, and some stomach cancers. Testing for and eradicating it is standard medical practice worldwide.
The bacteria that couldn’t exist in the stomach is now one of the most well-studied pathogens in medicine.
Barry Marshall, the gastroenterologist told he didn’t understand basic biology, has a Nobel Prize on his shelf. Because he refused to give up, millions of people were cured of a disease they’d been told was incurable.
Sometimes being right isn’t enough.
Sometimes you have to be willing to risk everything to prove it.
Bobby Fry at Bar Marco
In January 2015, Bobby Fry did something most restaurant owners thought was financial suicide.
He announced that Bar Marco, his upscale Pittsburgh eatery, would completely eliminate tipping.
Not reduce it. Not add a service charge. Eliminate it entirely.
Instead, every full-time employee would receive a $35,000 base salary, healthcare from day one, 500 shares in the company, paid vacation, and profit-sharing bonuses.
In return, they would work a maximum of 40 to 44 hours per week with two days and one night off. They would attend bi-monthly financial meetings. They would have full transparency into the restaurant’s earnings. And they would be treated like partners, not temporary help.
The restaurant industry called him crazy.
In an industry where servers often earn just $2.83 per hour before tips, where nearly 40 percent of workers live near the poverty line, where turnover averages over 60 percent annually, what Fry proposed seemed impossible.
But Fry had done his homework.
“You cannot tell me that your business model relies on paying people below the poverty line,” he said. “You gotta have more pride in your business than that.”
On April 1, 2015, the new model launched.
What happened next shocked everyone.
Within two months, weekly profits tripled. They went from approximately $3,000 to $9,000.
Revenues exceeded expectations by 26 percent.
Overhead costs dropped from 40 percent to 32 percent.
The water bill was cut in half. The linen bill was cut in half. Liquor inventory became lean and precise.
How?
Because employees who are invested in a business act like owners.
When the staff had access to the restaurant’s financial data, they started suggesting ways to reduce waste. They noticed which candle votives were safer. They tracked food spoilage. They managed linen more carefully. They treated every dollar like it mattered.
Because it did. Their bonuses depended on it.
By the end of that year, annual salaries at Bar Marco were expected to reach between $48,000 and $51,000, including bonuses. Three employees left to start restaurants of their own, taking the ownership mindset Fry had cultivated with them.
The model was so successful that Fry implemented it at Bar Marco’s sister restaurant, The Livermore, later that year.
Today, a decade later, Bar Marco is still operating in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, still serving its seasonal menu of small plates and natural wines. It was named one of Bon Appétit’s Top 50 Best New Restaurants and one of Thrillist’s Top 33 Cocktail Bars in America.
But the real story isn’t the awards.
It’s the proof that a different model is possible.
Fry built his philosophy on a simple observation: “Google is the best company in the world for how much money they make per employee, and that’s because they put all their time and energy into their employees. It pays off for them in fistfuls.”
He proved that the same principle works in restaurants.
When you treat workers like stakeholders instead of replaceable parts, they don’t just show up.
They show up invested.
Bar Marco didn’t just eliminate tipping.
It eliminated the idea that restaurant workers have to choose between passion and stability.
And it proved that doing right by your people isn’t just good ethics.
It’s good business.
Art Is Not Luxury
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Inception
The final moments of “Inception” (2010) came together in a quiet room on the Warner Bros. lot, far removed from the collapsing dreamworld where the story unfolds. A small wooden table was placed beneath soft, even lighting, chosen carefully so nothing in the frame distracted from the spinning top at its center. There were no folding cities or crumbling architecture present during filming. The setting was deliberately plain, almost mundane, designed to feel grounded and real.
Christopher Nolan positioned the top himself, ensuring its placement felt natural rather than symbolic. Leonardo DiCaprio stood just outside the frame while the camera focused entirely on the totem. What audiences never saw was that there was no trick involved. There were no visual effects, no hidden mechanics, and no digital manipulation. It was a real object spinning on a real table, followed by a cut to black that would go on to redefine how modern film endings could function.
The ending had been debated long before the final scene was filmed. Nolan, who wrote and directed the film, envisioned ambiguity from the beginning. To him, confirming whether Cobb was dreaming would undercut the emotional journey. Studio executives initially raised concerns, worried that viewers might feel frustrated without a definitive answer. Nolan pushed back, insisting that the ending was not about logic or proof. It was about release. Cobb’s choice to stop questioning reality was meant to serve as the film’s true resolution, even if the audience continued to question it.
To achieve the shot, the production team used a custom metal top designed to spin longer and more smoothly than a standard toy. Several identical tops were prepared in case of damage or inconsistency. Cinematographer Wally Pfister worked closely with Nolan to keep the visual language restrained. The camera remained locked in place, and the lighting was kept neutral and domestic to reflect the film’s version of the real world. Crew members stood quietly as each take was filmed, watching the top spin, tilt slightly, and continue.
DiCaprio remained on set throughout the filming, even though he never appears in the final frame. In later interviews, he explained that Nolan never told him whether the top would fall. Instead, he was instructed to play the moment as one of emotional relief. Cobb sees his children and chooses not to look back. DiCaprio later said that decision mattered more than the mechanics of the dream. Michael Caine, who appears in the final sequence, once mentioned that Nolan told him scenes featuring his character were set in reality, a comment that only intensified debate rather than settling it.
The filming itself was simple but tense. The top had to be spun repeatedly, with dozens of takes recorded for the editing room. Some spins ended too quickly, while others appeared too stable. Nolan wanted a take that suggested instability without confirming it. After production wrapped, Nolan and editor Lee Smith reviewed the footage carefully, selecting the exact frame where uncertainty felt strongest. There was no musical emphasis and no visual cue. The cut to black arrived suddenly, leaving the audience alone with the question.
When the film was released, the ending became an immediate cultural flashpoint. Viewers debated endlessly over whether the top eventually fell. Critics praised Nolan’s restraint, noting that the refusal to explain elevated the film beyond a puzzle and into something more reflective. The ambiguity turned the ending into a conversation rather than a conclusion, extending the life of the film far beyond the theater.
Pfister later admitted he expected the final cut to show the top falling. He was surprised when the screen went black at the premiere. DiCaprio shared a similar reaction, saying the uncertainty gave the film its lasting power. Nolan later clarified that the emotional truth was what mattered most. Cobb’s peace was the answer, even if the question remained unresolved.
The scene is now studied in film schools for its precision and confidence. A single object, a locked camera, and a bold editorial decision combined to reshape expectations of cinematic closure. What appeared to be a simple spinning top was, in reality, a carefully crafted illusion designed to linger.
The top never stopped spinning on screen, yet in that suspended moment, Cobb found peace, and the story of “Inception” (2010) refused to settle into certainty.
Carroll O’Connor
Carroll O’Connor buried his son in 1995, then walked into court and spoke drug dealers’ names out loud, turning private grief into a public fight that Hollywood largely avoided.
Most Americans knew Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, the loud, abrasive television character whose bigotry was exposed through satire. Offscreen, O’Connor was almost the opposite: disciplined, private, intellectually rigorous, and deeply protective of his family. That distinction mattered when tragedy entered his life for real.
In March 1995, his son Hugh O’Connor was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment. He was thirty-three years old. The cause was a heroin overdose. Hugh had struggled with addiction for years, cycling through rehabilitation programs, relapses, periods of sobriety, and setbacks. Carroll and his wife, Nancy, spent enormous sums on treatment, medical care, and legal help, believing that persistence and resources could overcome the disease.
They could not.
Instead of retreating from public view, O’Connor did something few celebrities dared to do. He spoke openly and angrily. He publicly named individuals he said supplied the drugs that led to his son’s death. He repeated those names in interviews and in print. One of the men sued him for defamation.
O’Connor did not retract his statements. He welcomed the case.
In 1997, a jury ruled in O’Connor’s favor, finding that his claims were substantially true. The individuals involved were later convicted on drug-related charges. The courtroom became a place not just of mourning, but of record-making.
The choice came at a cost. Hollywood was comfortable discussing addiction only when it remained abstract or safely personal. O’Connor refused both. He testified before Congress, called for stronger enforcement against drug traffickers, and criticized systemic failures in law enforcement without euphemism. He framed addiction not as a moral failing, but as a medical condition exploited by criminal networks.
He did all of this while continuing to work.
O’Connor returned to television in In the Heat of the Night as Chief Bill Gillespie, a role marked by restraint, authority, and moral gravity. It stood in sharp contrast to Archie Bunker’s volatility. The performance earned him another Emmy and revealed an actor channeling grief into control rather than rage.
Privately, the loss never eased. The stress took a physical toll. O’Connor underwent multiple heart surgeries and lived with chronic pain, yet continued speaking publicly about addiction and accountability. He insisted that silence protected the wrong people and that naming systems mattered more than protecting reputations.
Carroll O’Connor died in 2001 at the age of seventy-six.
He is often remembered for Archie Bunker. That memory leaves out the harder chapter, when he chose confrontation over comfort and accuracy over discretion. Faced with a loss that satire could not soften, O’Connor used his voice not to perform, but to force attention onto a reality many preferred to keep unseen.
He understood something fame often hides:
Silence shields systems.
Naming names forces reckoning.
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Dissolve Your Problems
Gary Webb
A cardboard box of declassified documents should not be dangerous. But in the summer of 1995, a reporter named Gary Webb found a paper trail that did not fit the official story. He was sitting in a quiet courtroom in California, looking at evidence that linked a local drug ring to a foreign war funded by the United States government.
Webb was not a celebrity. He was a grinder. He worked for the San Jose Mercury News, a solid regional paper known for covering Silicon Valley tech, not international espionage. He wore simple clothes and drove a used car. He believed in the old rules of reporting: if you find a document that proves a lie, you print it.
He did not know that he was about to touch the “third rail” of American journalism.
The story he was chasing was simple but terrifying. In the 1980s, cheap crack cocaine flooded the streets of South Central Los Angeles. Lives were destroyed. Neighborhoods burned. At the same time, the U.S. government was illegally funding a guerrilla army in Nicaragua called the Contras.
Webb’s documents connected the two worlds. He found that Contra sympathizers had sold tons of cocaine in Los Angeles and used the profits to buy guns for the war. He found that government agencies knew about it and looked the other way.
He spent a year verifying the facts. He traveled to Central American prisons. He tracked down pilots and dealers. He built a map of names, dates, and bank accounts. The evidence was heavy, specific, and undeniable.
In August 1996, the Mercury News published “Dark Alliance.”
The reaction was immediate. For the first time, a newspaper put its full investigation online. The servers crashed from the traffic. In Los Angeles, people read the story and finally understood why their neighborhoods had fallen apart. The story did not just make news; it validated the suffering of thousands of people.
Then the system woke up.
The three biggest newspapers in the country—the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times—had missed the story. They had more money, more staff, and better sources in intelligence agencies. But a regional paper in San Jose had beaten them.
According to the unwritten rules of the media establishment, this was impossible. If the story was true, the major papers had failed. If the story was false, order could be restored.
The institutions did not send reporters to investigate the drug dealers or the government officials. They sent reporters to investigate Gary Webb.
They picked apart his word choices. They attacked his personal character. They used anonymous sources from the very agencies Webb was exposing to deny his claims. They did not try to advance the truth; they tried to silence the messenger.
This is how the machinery works. It does not need to arrest a journalist to stop them. It only needs to isolate them. When the pressure becomes too high, the system demands a sacrifice to return to normal.
The fracture happened in his own newsroom.
Webb’s editors, who had initially celebrated the story, began to feel the heat from the national press. They stopped defending the work. They stopped defending him. In May 1997, the newspaper published a column apologizing for the series. They called it “flawed.”
They didn’t fire Webb. They did something worse. They transferred him from the investigative desk to a small bureau in Cupertino, 150 miles away from his family. His job was no longer uncovering state secrets. His job was to write brief reports about police blotters and local parades.
He arrived at the new office, and the phone did not ring. The silence was absolute.
Webb refused to quit. He kept digging. He wrote a book expanding on his evidence. But the label “disgraced reporter” followed him everywhere. The major papers had successfully branded him as a conspiracy theorist. He applied for jobs at daily newspapers, but no one would hire him. The door to his profession was locked.
For seven years, he watched from the outside.
In 1998, the CIA’s own Inspector General released a classified report. It was quiet, dense, and difficult to find. But inside, it admitted that the agency had known about the drug trafficking connected to the Contras. It admitted they had protected the traffickers from legal investigations.
Webb had been right.
But the apology never came. The major papers ran short summaries of the report on their back pages. The narrative was already set. Webb was the man who got it wrong, even though facts showed he had found the truth.
He lost his career. His marriage ended. He sold his house to pay debts. By 2004, the man who had exposed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century was moving boxes for a moving company to make ends meet.
He had believed that the truth was a shield. He learned that without power, the truth is just a target.
On a Friday in December 2004, Gary Webb typed a note to his family. He placed his driver’s license on the bed so he could be identified. The system had taken his voice, his reputation, and his purpose.
He was 49 years old.
History eventually corrected the record. Today, the “Dark Alliance” series is taught in journalism schools. The documents are public. The connection between the drug war and foreign policy is accepted history.
But vindication is a cold comfort when you are not there to see it.
The question is not whether Gary Webb was perfect. No reporter is. The question is why the institutions designed to tell the truth worked so hard to destroy the man who actually did it.
Sources: Kill the Messenger by Nick Schou; Dark Alliance by Gary Webb; CIA Inspector General Report (1998); Columbia Journalism Review archives.
1984 George Orwell
