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My friend Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine has worked hard to persuade me of the virtues of going public about personal health issues. In our case, we have both undergone prostate surgery for cancer. He argues against the inhibitions of Too Much Information and against the risks of self-indulgent emotional exhibitionism in favor of publicness--an open discussion of our penises and their failings, their incontinence and their impotence. Jarvis argues that the converse of publicness is often not privacy but shame--especially where the penis is concerned.
So I hope I am not being presumptuous when I offer a comment, in solidarity, to David Petraeus, a fellow prostate cancer sufferer. When the general fainted during his testimony to a Senate panel, ABC's Martha Raddatz covered the collapse decorously, with the advice that "you have to stay hydrated." CBS' David Martin went into a little more detail, telling us that "the famously fit Petraeus had avoided liquids so he could make it through the hearing without a bathroom break."
Neither reporter mentioned the general's prostate gland, which he apparently has had treated with radiation. If Petraeus' secret fear was of an incontinent leak while testifying, then this would be a vivid vindication of Jarvis' point (here is his entire prostate thread). In the context of publicness, instead of privacy, a leak would be nothing to be ashamed of. After all, it is only urine.
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