Now stay with me on this one...

What with the Beastie Boys Adam Yeuch and Donna summer both secumbing to cancer in the past week, you would think that nothing good could ever come of cancer.

50/50 is a light hearted look at the struggles of a man in his prime getting cancer. It was a fresh approach on such a heavy subject. Seth Rogan plays the tactless buddy of a man coming to terms with the fact that he may not live to see 30. The overall tone of the film leaves you thinking that cancer, although possibly the cruelest disease that exists, is actually quite funny. You might argue that it was the film and how the subject matter was handled that makes it funny but you'd be wrong, and I am not even going to qualify that assertion with evidence, because I don't have to, it is me that is writing this. So there.

If cancer is in fact a funny disease, then it might be that we have been misunderstanding it the whole time... are there any other characteristics about cancer which are endearing or positive? I asked the question on google... "how many russians died of cancer during stalin's reign?" and I yeilded About 29,700,000 results (0.52 seconds.) In spite of the speed which google retrieved a rather hefty amount of website hits, I found it very difficult to gage people who died of cancer, mainly because Stalin wasn't keeping record. This makes it very difficult to know whether Stalin killed more Russians during his time in charge of the USSR than cancer. One thing is for sure, Stalin, who murdered 20 million of his own people during his time running the totalitarian USSR, was not brought to justice by court, he was not hounded to suicide like Hitler was or dragged into the streets and hanged from a lamp post. He got away with it, but although he was killed by a stroke, he probably would have got cancer eventually.

Initially I thought that Josef Stalin did die of cancer, and that would have been a massive boost to my argument that cancer is actually alright and we should stop trying to eradicate it, but it turns out that his daughter died of it instead, and she didn't even like him, but I still have an ace up my sleeve.

Hitler was a complete and utter racist, he and his party tried to kill all the jews in europe, which is a bit harsh, you shouldn't be put to death just for being a jew. The whole apartheid movement was based on the fact that black people were second class citizens in South Africa. Slavery lasted for about 600 years and saw millions of people kidnapped from their homes and forced into labour on the other side of the world. These are all examples of extreme discrimination... and this is something cancer does not do.

It even says it on badges, T shirts and other publications. If people discriminate then that is a bad thing, so in a way, cancer is more enlightened than humanity.

If that argument isn't winning you over then imagine a world with 33% less food, 33% less space and 33% more people, it would be like the opposite of the film 'Castaway' with Tom Hanks and even shitter, if that is even possible to imagine. The world would be really overpopulated and everywhere would be like China, full of chinese people. Since what can only be described as a revolution in medicine, with knowledge advancing at a quicker rate than it ever has done in human existance, we are approaching a point where there is a problem brewing. Cancer is the one thing stopping the shit from really hitting the fan at the moment.

This of course sounds callous and heartless and as it is such a touchy subject I should say that I do want to see cancer cured in my lifetime. BUT I think that instead of throwing away billions on an industry which is searching for a cure, perhaps we should invest that money on finding 33% more safe space for people to live, in anticipation of finding a cure for cancer. Space exploration and preparing parts of space and the moon for population.



So what I am doing now is defending cancer and talking about moon bases, I couldn't see the remotest possibility of anyone taking this seriously, and even for the 1% of you that do, that 1% will think I am mad or would have stopped reading ages ago.

Cancer also provides inspirational stories, when the actor who played Dexter, Michael C. Hall, turned up to the Golden Globes last year, I did not know his name, I had probably heard it, but it didn't stick in my mind, when I found out he had cancer I was touched that he be awarded and I am happy he has recovered from cancer.

Similarly, Lance Armstrong is someone I never knew or cared about, until I found out about his inspirational battle against cancer. I mean, he's a cyclist, I cycle to and from work and I'm not famous, but like Mr Hall, I am touched by his bravery in defeating cancer. Cancer and the celebrities suffering from it work in tandem, because inevitably, the celebrity will use their status to raise awareness for cancer and in turn the cancer will raise their profile...

Cancer can really help people's careers if they survive it. So there, I think people should think hard before wishing to eradicate the one thing inside us that is preventing us from really fucking up. Cancer is humanities self destruct button. It is a fucking horrible disease, but what would be the worst thing about life if it didn't exist? I think its a case of better the devil you know. And it did kill Jade Goody.