Saturday, October 02, 2004
Forwarded emails, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
One of the great mysteries of life is why people think they're ever, EVER, making anyone happy by forwarding garbage emails... and virtually ALL sorts of emails that get mass-forwarded ARE garbage.
People get terribly offended when I say that; their usual retort is, "But, it's a way to show people I care, and that I want to keep in touch." First off, you do NOT show "caring" by sending out what is essentially spam to people, and secondly, it is NOT "keeping in touch" to pass someone else's email along. If you truly want to keep in touch with people, invest 30 more seconds and type "Hi, how have you been?" and send THAT instead (using BCC so they don't realize you've sent it to everyone), and if you actually CARE, write a real email, detailing what's going on in your life, and asking about theirs... and then send it to the 500 people you're convinced you care about.
For every category of garbage email, there's an excuse for sending it:
"Inspirational" emails ("The Rose of Friendship," "Beautiful Women Week," etc) get defended on the grounds that they brighten people's day... sorry, but no. If someone has sent that sort of tripe to YOU in the past, by all means retaliate, but otherwise you can safely assume that they do NOT enjoy it, so quit sending it to them. The very worst of these are the ones that insist you have to send it back to the nimrod who sent it to you, or you're not really their friend; frankly, I don't think there's EVER an excuse to send ANYONE a forwarded email that requires them to send anything back, so don't send this sort of thing to people that you aren't actively eager to tick off.
If your forwarded emails are outright religious in nature, it SHOULD go without saying that under no circumstances should you send them on to those you're not CERTAIN share your beliefs; it should, yes, but you'd be amazed at how many people are sure that it's always "right" to send an email if it has a reference to God in it. My response to this sort of attitude is to hit "Reply All" and send a message to the entire group that I find the email offensive because it contradicts my beliefs; not only does that stop the emails, it usually gets rid of the sender too (someone that disrespectful doesn't qualify to be my friend, so it's no loss).
Political emails are popular right now, for the obvious reason, and people feel virtuous about sending out "important information" about politics to their friends, but it's not a remotely "friendly" gesture to send political "stuff" meant for Democrats to a Republican, or vice versa... and adding on that "you should read this regardless of your chosen party," or, worse, "you'll like this regardless of who you're planning to vote for" does NOT make it any better, it's in fact an even bigger insult, to suggest that the recipient is so stupid that they can't tell that the material is TOTALLY partisan and thus NOT something people on both sides want to read. If you know that someone shares your political views, by all means share these sorts of things with them if you think they have nothing better to do with their time than read them, but do NOT send them out blindly... and if you keep sending this sort of thing to someone you KNOW isn't of your party, with the thought that you'll "educate" them, let's just say that with "friends" like you they don't need any enemies.
Chain letters have migrated to the internet, and they're just as moronic now as they ever were; it's embarrassing to have any association with people that think it necessary to propagate this nonsense. There's just no excuse to believe that you're going to bring magical benefits to someone if you pass a chain letter to them and persuade them to pass it to others, so there's no excuse whatsoever to forward these emails. To those who say "but, the poem is so pretty, I wanted to share it," I reply; then delete the rest of the email (you know, the part that threatens doom if you don't forward it), and just send the poem... but only to those who send that sort of thing to YOU, of course.
People like to believe that adding their name to something, and inducing others to do so, is an easy way to affect change, but "online petitions" are a contradiction in terms; nothing that goes around via email can actually be a petition in the true sense-you can't SIGN it. Any moron can type up a list of names into an email and pass it along (and they can add cities, states, and whatever other info you see with the names, too), so no one with the power to take any sort of action thinks that receiving a list of names via email means anything, and you're absolutely wasting your time participating... doubly so since most of the petitions are fakes anyways, and will never even GET to anyone in power. If you want to influence your elected officials, the heads of corporations, etc, you still need to write a REAL letter, sign a paper petition, or call them (not that that does much good either, most of the time, granted).
Then, there are the most aggravating emails of all; the hoaxes. People seem to think they're doing a good deed by sending these out, but as anyone with a triple-digit IQ knows: there's NO way to "track" email forwarding, so neither you nor anyone else will get anything if you forward emails, there's no sick kid or grieving family member anywhere who wants you to pass anything around, and there's no possible scenario under which news about health threats, criminal activities, or radical changes in how the internet works (email tax, lol) will show up FIRST in forwarded emails (if the stories were true, they'd be front-page news all across the country). These aggravate me so much that I take the time to go to a hoax site, such as
http://www.snopes2.com/
look up the hoax, do a "Reply All," and give everyone the URL to the proof that the email was a hoax... and I include a lecture about why it should be obvious when something is a hoax for good measure. You wouldn't believe how many emails I've gotten from total strangers thanking me for pointing out to the hoax-senders that all the drivel they forward is fake, and I've gotten many people to start looking things up before they hit "Forward"... and yes, I've gotten rid of a few obnoxious people who were offended that I didn't take their emails as gospel.
There are 2 possible exceptions to the "forwarded emails are garbage" rule: (1) A truly funny joke/story/image that has NOT been floating around the internet forever (200 sets of email addresses above the joke are a clue here) IS usually welcome... just be careful about sending sexual humor to people you don't know well, as you might inadvertently give offense. (2) Holiday greetings, as long as you're mindful of religious content and who it goes to.
Under the limited circumstances where it's ok to forward something, show a little common sense; don't send huge files, or bunches of files that add up to alot, to people with free email accounts, as NOT all of them have been upgraded to hold 50MB, delete all the email addresses of other people, as these can be used by strangers to contact them, and while you're at it delete all the notes from other people-just send the actual email.
Are you wishing that a few people you know could see all of this, and maybe get the hint? Fight fire with fire; send them an email with my URL. :-)
People get terribly offended when I say that; their usual retort is, "But, it's a way to show people I care, and that I want to keep in touch." First off, you do NOT show "caring" by sending out what is essentially spam to people, and secondly, it is NOT "keeping in touch" to pass someone else's email along. If you truly want to keep in touch with people, invest 30 more seconds and type "Hi, how have you been?" and send THAT instead (using BCC so they don't realize you've sent it to everyone), and if you actually CARE, write a real email, detailing what's going on in your life, and asking about theirs... and then send it to the 500 people you're convinced you care about.
For every category of garbage email, there's an excuse for sending it:
"Inspirational" emails ("The Rose of Friendship," "Beautiful Women Week," etc) get defended on the grounds that they brighten people's day... sorry, but no. If someone has sent that sort of tripe to YOU in the past, by all means retaliate, but otherwise you can safely assume that they do NOT enjoy it, so quit sending it to them. The very worst of these are the ones that insist you have to send it back to the nimrod who sent it to you, or you're not really their friend; frankly, I don't think there's EVER an excuse to send ANYONE a forwarded email that requires them to send anything back, so don't send this sort of thing to people that you aren't actively eager to tick off.
If your forwarded emails are outright religious in nature, it SHOULD go without saying that under no circumstances should you send them on to those you're not CERTAIN share your beliefs; it should, yes, but you'd be amazed at how many people are sure that it's always "right" to send an email if it has a reference to God in it. My response to this sort of attitude is to hit "Reply All" and send a message to the entire group that I find the email offensive because it contradicts my beliefs; not only does that stop the emails, it usually gets rid of the sender too (someone that disrespectful doesn't qualify to be my friend, so it's no loss).
Political emails are popular right now, for the obvious reason, and people feel virtuous about sending out "important information" about politics to their friends, but it's not a remotely "friendly" gesture to send political "stuff" meant for Democrats to a Republican, or vice versa... and adding on that "you should read this regardless of your chosen party," or, worse, "you'll like this regardless of who you're planning to vote for" does NOT make it any better, it's in fact an even bigger insult, to suggest that the recipient is so stupid that they can't tell that the material is TOTALLY partisan and thus NOT something people on both sides want to read. If you know that someone shares your political views, by all means share these sorts of things with them if you think they have nothing better to do with their time than read them, but do NOT send them out blindly... and if you keep sending this sort of thing to someone you KNOW isn't of your party, with the thought that you'll "educate" them, let's just say that with "friends" like you they don't need any enemies.
Chain letters have migrated to the internet, and they're just as moronic now as they ever were; it's embarrassing to have any association with people that think it necessary to propagate this nonsense. There's just no excuse to believe that you're going to bring magical benefits to someone if you pass a chain letter to them and persuade them to pass it to others, so there's no excuse whatsoever to forward these emails. To those who say "but, the poem is so pretty, I wanted to share it," I reply; then delete the rest of the email (you know, the part that threatens doom if you don't forward it), and just send the poem... but only to those who send that sort of thing to YOU, of course.
People like to believe that adding their name to something, and inducing others to do so, is an easy way to affect change, but "online petitions" are a contradiction in terms; nothing that goes around via email can actually be a petition in the true sense-you can't SIGN it. Any moron can type up a list of names into an email and pass it along (and they can add cities, states, and whatever other info you see with the names, too), so no one with the power to take any sort of action thinks that receiving a list of names via email means anything, and you're absolutely wasting your time participating... doubly so since most of the petitions are fakes anyways, and will never even GET to anyone in power. If you want to influence your elected officials, the heads of corporations, etc, you still need to write a REAL letter, sign a paper petition, or call them (not that that does much good either, most of the time, granted).
Then, there are the most aggravating emails of all; the hoaxes. People seem to think they're doing a good deed by sending these out, but as anyone with a triple-digit IQ knows: there's NO way to "track" email forwarding, so neither you nor anyone else will get anything if you forward emails, there's no sick kid or grieving family member anywhere who wants you to pass anything around, and there's no possible scenario under which news about health threats, criminal activities, or radical changes in how the internet works (email tax, lol) will show up FIRST in forwarded emails (if the stories were true, they'd be front-page news all across the country). These aggravate me so much that I take the time to go to a hoax site, such as
http://www.snopes2.com/
look up the hoax, do a "Reply All," and give everyone the URL to the proof that the email was a hoax... and I include a lecture about why it should be obvious when something is a hoax for good measure. You wouldn't believe how many emails I've gotten from total strangers thanking me for pointing out to the hoax-senders that all the drivel they forward is fake, and I've gotten many people to start looking things up before they hit "Forward"... and yes, I've gotten rid of a few obnoxious people who were offended that I didn't take their emails as gospel.
There are 2 possible exceptions to the "forwarded emails are garbage" rule: (1) A truly funny joke/story/image that has NOT been floating around the internet forever (200 sets of email addresses above the joke are a clue here) IS usually welcome... just be careful about sending sexual humor to people you don't know well, as you might inadvertently give offense. (2) Holiday greetings, as long as you're mindful of religious content and who it goes to.
Under the limited circumstances where it's ok to forward something, show a little common sense; don't send huge files, or bunches of files that add up to alot, to people with free email accounts, as NOT all of them have been upgraded to hold 50MB, delete all the email addresses of other people, as these can be used by strangers to contact them, and while you're at it delete all the notes from other people-just send the actual email.
Are you wishing that a few people you know could see all of this, and maybe get the hint? Fight fire with fire; send them an email with my URL. :-)
Friday, October 01, 2004
Isn't it romantic?
Imagine a beautiful blonde at the prom with a friend, pining for the absent lover who's much older and didn't want to hang out with a bunch of kids, or do anything as "romantic" as going to the prom. Imagine the blonde dancing with the friend, and the friend suddenly stopping, pointing... and it's the lover, looking so handsome in his tux and white satin scarf. Imagine the 2 of them moving onto the dance floor, the lover wrapping his scarf around the blonde to bring them close together as "Save the Last Dance for Me" plays and they begin to move together, gracefully and in perfect synch as if they've danced together many times before. Everyone else stops dancing, and the promgoers stand and watch in amazement at this glamorous older man holding one of their own with such strength and tenderness. The couple becomes more confident together, and their moves become more elaborate and dramatic, but they hardly seem to be aware of what they're doing as they look into each other's eyes, lean forward to touch noses, smile, and laugh at nothing. The lover leads the blonde through a series of twirls, then down into a deep dip, then back up, around, and into a kiss that nearly melts the paint off the walls.
Can you imagine anything more lovely, more romantic? Does it change anything if I tell you that the beautiful blonde is a man? It shouldn't; love is love, no matter what the genders are of the people involved. As I watched the scene I just described (it's from an episode of "Queer as Folk"), I was smiling and misty-eyed, and it never even crossed my mind until later, when a classmate of the blonde's came after him with a baseball bat, that to some people, romance can only exist between a man and a woman, and 2 men showing affection, or any hint of couplehood, is somehow offensive and ugly. With all the violence and hate in the world, some people still find it necessary to object to love... how utterly pitiful.
Kudos to all those involved with QAF for making it easy for any reasonable person to see that relationships of ALL gender combinations can be wonderful... and for giving the viewers that dance.
Can you imagine anything more lovely, more romantic? Does it change anything if I tell you that the beautiful blonde is a man? It shouldn't; love is love, no matter what the genders are of the people involved. As I watched the scene I just described (it's from an episode of "Queer as Folk"), I was smiling and misty-eyed, and it never even crossed my mind until later, when a classmate of the blonde's came after him with a baseball bat, that to some people, romance can only exist between a man and a woman, and 2 men showing affection, or any hint of couplehood, is somehow offensive and ugly. With all the violence and hate in the world, some people still find it necessary to object to love... how utterly pitiful.
Kudos to all those involved with QAF for making it easy for any reasonable person to see that relationships of ALL gender combinations can be wonderful... and for giving the viewers that dance.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Shame, shame, SHAME
A friend of mine told me today about taking a trip to the emergency room with a friend who was in great pain and distress, only to be told by the doctor, "She's not in pain, she's CRAZY." Yes, the friend IS a mental health patient, but that's NOT the same as being crazy, as a doctor damn well knows, and even if she WAS crazy, that would hardly disqualify her from other health problems and the right to medical care... and for a doctor to make a disgusting comment like that to a patient's friend is a DISGRACE. Luckily, there's a little bit of justice here; they reported the evil S.O.B. and got him FIRED.
It's bad enough for regular people to be ignorant, but for a doctor to have that sort of attitude, and that sort of CONTEMPT for someone who has a serious PHYSICAL ailment, one that they should be getting sympathy for rather than disdain, is absolutely beyond belief; they need to start testing more than a would-be doctor's knowledge of the body... they need to test them to see if they have any humanity and compassion, too.
If you're not sure what the issue is here, and want to know the facts, as opposed to the mean-spirited nonsense that people pass around, here it is:
The term "mental health" creates the illusion that people who suffer from mental health issues are somehow in a different category than other people with health problems, and it just ain't so. Anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and all the rest are PHYSICAL ailments, caused mostly by improper levels of chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters, and sometimes due to abnormalities in the brain itself; the fact that the problem is in the most important and mysterious organ in the body means that these illnesses are quite serious and difficult to treat, but it does NOT mean that they're caused by stupidity, weakness, cowardice, laziness, lack of willpower, the desire to get attention, or any of the other nasty claims that people save for ONLY for the victims of these disorders. Many years ago, doctors didn't know that "mental illnesses" were just regular illnesses that happened to affect the brain, but now they DO know, and have even begun to identify the genes involved for the majority of cases that are genetic, and WE need to know too, so that we can give support rather than abuse to the afflicted.
A big stumbling block to laypeople grasping that mental illnesses are true physical illnesses is the dreadful mis-naming of the 2 biggies, depression and anxiety, to make it sound like they're emotional, eg psychological, problems instead of illnesses. To clarify: Depression the disorder is NOT the same as feeling depressed, and anxiety the disorder is NOT the same thing as feeling anxious; it was stupid of the medical profession to give diseases the names of the emotions that their symptoms resemble, and we need to make a conscious effort to not be fooled by that unfortunate choice... people with mental illnesses can NOT just "cheer up" or "calm down" as if all they had were stubborn bad moods rather than chemical imbalances. People are still being sent to shrinks for these illnesses, although talking doesn't treat them any more than it treats any other illness (you might feel better to be able to vent to someone, but that does NOT make you any less sick), and this adds more weight to the idea that it's "all in their heads," in other words that they're IMAGINING that they're sick, or are not really sick at all.
The word "crazy" shouldn't be in the vocabulary of any medical professional, as it is NOT a medical term. For someone to be considered actually insane, they have to have a catastrophic break with reality, which you do NOT see in the huge majority of mental health patients; even those who hear voices, for example, usually still know what's real and what's not, although obviously those who are the worst off can't make that distinction. If someone is truly insane, their behavior, and usually their appearance, is frightening to us, but that does NOT mean that it's ok for us to view them as somehow contemptible, any more than a cancer patient whose face and body are ravaged by the disease should be seen that way. As for those who are insane and violent, or "evil," they need to be locked away where they can't do harm, but they should also get whatever treatments are available to bring them as close to normal as they can come... they didn't ask to be sick, nor are they sick as some sort of divine punishment, and they shouldn't just be left to suffer as they too often are.
If you're a regular reader here, you know that I take a hard and uncompromising position against wrongdoing and wrongdoers; I believe in kicking people's butts when they do deliberate evil, large or small, and NOT shrugging it off and letting them still reap the benefits of social acceptance... I do NOT make excuses for people, I am NOT a bleeding heart, and I am NOT a touchy-feely type, not by any stretch of the imagination. What I'm saying here is the medical and scientific truth, and I'm taking the time to say it because it absolutely infuriates me when seriously ill people, people who are in misery and agony every moment of every day, are made to feel like they're "bad" somehow because they didn't manage to have their physical abnormalities be somewhere OTHER than in their brains. It infuriates me when innocent people suffer because they're afraid of being labeled "crazy" if they seek help, and so don't get medical care; all too many of these people waste their entire lives being sick when there are meds that would help them... and some of them of course end up worse than sick. It infuriates me when doctors brush aside those that DO find the courage to ask for help, and refuse to treat them, or give them some med that is 30 years out of date with horrible side effects because they can't be bothered to do any research, and then write them off as lost causes. And most of all, it infuriates me when doctors add to the stigma against the "mentally ill" by showing ugly attitudes like my friend encountered.
If you yourself have inadvertently done wrong by treating a mental health patient as if they were anything other than an ill person deserving of compassion, you can make good by changing your tune now, and by educating others. If, however, you're unwilling to give up the easy target that a depressive (etc) presents, and would rather keep telling them to "snap out of it" or "cheer up" or "quit trying to get attention"... go back and read the title of this essay again.
It's bad enough for regular people to be ignorant, but for a doctor to have that sort of attitude, and that sort of CONTEMPT for someone who has a serious PHYSICAL ailment, one that they should be getting sympathy for rather than disdain, is absolutely beyond belief; they need to start testing more than a would-be doctor's knowledge of the body... they need to test them to see if they have any humanity and compassion, too.
If you're not sure what the issue is here, and want to know the facts, as opposed to the mean-spirited nonsense that people pass around, here it is:
The term "mental health" creates the illusion that people who suffer from mental health issues are somehow in a different category than other people with health problems, and it just ain't so. Anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and all the rest are PHYSICAL ailments, caused mostly by improper levels of chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters, and sometimes due to abnormalities in the brain itself; the fact that the problem is in the most important and mysterious organ in the body means that these illnesses are quite serious and difficult to treat, but it does NOT mean that they're caused by stupidity, weakness, cowardice, laziness, lack of willpower, the desire to get attention, or any of the other nasty claims that people save for ONLY for the victims of these disorders. Many years ago, doctors didn't know that "mental illnesses" were just regular illnesses that happened to affect the brain, but now they DO know, and have even begun to identify the genes involved for the majority of cases that are genetic, and WE need to know too, so that we can give support rather than abuse to the afflicted.
A big stumbling block to laypeople grasping that mental illnesses are true physical illnesses is the dreadful mis-naming of the 2 biggies, depression and anxiety, to make it sound like they're emotional, eg psychological, problems instead of illnesses. To clarify: Depression the disorder is NOT the same as feeling depressed, and anxiety the disorder is NOT the same thing as feeling anxious; it was stupid of the medical profession to give diseases the names of the emotions that their symptoms resemble, and we need to make a conscious effort to not be fooled by that unfortunate choice... people with mental illnesses can NOT just "cheer up" or "calm down" as if all they had were stubborn bad moods rather than chemical imbalances. People are still being sent to shrinks for these illnesses, although talking doesn't treat them any more than it treats any other illness (you might feel better to be able to vent to someone, but that does NOT make you any less sick), and this adds more weight to the idea that it's "all in their heads," in other words that they're IMAGINING that they're sick, or are not really sick at all.
The word "crazy" shouldn't be in the vocabulary of any medical professional, as it is NOT a medical term. For someone to be considered actually insane, they have to have a catastrophic break with reality, which you do NOT see in the huge majority of mental health patients; even those who hear voices, for example, usually still know what's real and what's not, although obviously those who are the worst off can't make that distinction. If someone is truly insane, their behavior, and usually their appearance, is frightening to us, but that does NOT mean that it's ok for us to view them as somehow contemptible, any more than a cancer patient whose face and body are ravaged by the disease should be seen that way. As for those who are insane and violent, or "evil," they need to be locked away where they can't do harm, but they should also get whatever treatments are available to bring them as close to normal as they can come... they didn't ask to be sick, nor are they sick as some sort of divine punishment, and they shouldn't just be left to suffer as they too often are.
If you're a regular reader here, you know that I take a hard and uncompromising position against wrongdoing and wrongdoers; I believe in kicking people's butts when they do deliberate evil, large or small, and NOT shrugging it off and letting them still reap the benefits of social acceptance... I do NOT make excuses for people, I am NOT a bleeding heart, and I am NOT a touchy-feely type, not by any stretch of the imagination. What I'm saying here is the medical and scientific truth, and I'm taking the time to say it because it absolutely infuriates me when seriously ill people, people who are in misery and agony every moment of every day, are made to feel like they're "bad" somehow because they didn't manage to have their physical abnormalities be somewhere OTHER than in their brains. It infuriates me when innocent people suffer because they're afraid of being labeled "crazy" if they seek help, and so don't get medical care; all too many of these people waste their entire lives being sick when there are meds that would help them... and some of them of course end up worse than sick. It infuriates me when doctors brush aside those that DO find the courage to ask for help, and refuse to treat them, or give them some med that is 30 years out of date with horrible side effects because they can't be bothered to do any research, and then write them off as lost causes. And most of all, it infuriates me when doctors add to the stigma against the "mentally ill" by showing ugly attitudes like my friend encountered.
If you yourself have inadvertently done wrong by treating a mental health patient as if they were anything other than an ill person deserving of compassion, you can make good by changing your tune now, and by educating others. If, however, you're unwilling to give up the easy target that a depressive (etc) presents, and would rather keep telling them to "snap out of it" or "cheer up" or "quit trying to get attention"... go back and read the title of this essay again.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Should we separate sex and love?
Let's start out by ignoring the effects of unplanned pregnancy and disease; it's reasonable to assume that science will eliminate these problems at some point, and we won't have to have our natural desires shrouded with fear any more. Imagine that, with no negative physical consequences to sex, we could agree that our decision to have sex should be based on... well, what SHOULD we base it on?
Some people believe that sex should just be about 2 horny people getting together for mutual enjoyment and then going their separate ways; most of these people are of course men. Most women, and the more "evolved" men, cringe at that attitude, but really, what's wrong with it? No one is lied to, fooled, or hurt, everyone gets what they wanted... where's the problem? I know, I know, women get sucked in emotionally far too easily, and so form expectations of phone calls and dates that they're disappointed if they don't get; can't we "train" women to stop setting themselves up for grief by changing the social conditioning girls get, though? Yes, there's a biological urge for a woman to latch onto a man that she had sex with so that he'll provide for her if he has impregnated her, but there's also a biological urge for a girl to start having babies as soon as she's physically able, and we've squashed THAT one pretty thoroughly, so we CAN work around biology to some extent. On the other hand, if you're so hot for someone that you had to run home and jump into bed with them, why wouldn't you WANT to see them again, and try for a relationship with them? Then again, you don't try for a relationship with everyone that you have a good time with, which your friends are undoubtedly grateful for; if there were no potential for harm, why NOT treat sex like a sport rather than ONLY as part of an emotional attachment? Is there any real need to treat sex as something in a different category once we take out our current reasons for doing so?
On the other side of this issue, there are those who want to only combine sex with love, to deepen the experience and create a safer atmosphere for them to let loose; naturally, most of these people are women. The love/sex combo DOES lead to a more intense, safer experience in some ways, but being with someone we'll never see again can bring a different kind of freedom, as we don't have to care what they'll think about us later, plus we get the excitement of the new and illicit. The sex/love combo also means that we're moving forward towards getting a lasting relationship built, as opposed to just flings... but, is that always a desirable thing, especially if you're young(ish) and/or don't plan on having kids? If you want to start a family, of course you wouldn't want to waste time sleeping around, you'd want to save your energy for finding the right person, but that doesn't apply to everyone, so... hmmmmmmm, without the warnings about getting diseases and pregnant, it's hard to make a case for saving sex for when it's joined with love, other than that "crushed expectations" thing that COULD be changed.
Ideally, then, for those not trying to form relationships soon, and under no biological pressure to procreate soon, sex would be based on consenting adults wanting to have a good time; imagine how radically our culture would change if things worked that way!! Don't get excited yet, though; when you look at the realities of the current day once again, when you add the risk of pregnancy and disease back into the picture, when you think that you could be creating a life, or catching something that could lead to death, it's still better to see sex as part of a relationship, with love involved, or at least on the horizon-sorry, guys. However, one CAN hope for the day when all of our twisted ideas about sex, and about nudity, gender, what love is really like, and everything else that muddies the waters, will fade away... imagine what sex, what LIFE, will be like then. :-)
Some people believe that sex should just be about 2 horny people getting together for mutual enjoyment and then going their separate ways; most of these people are of course men. Most women, and the more "evolved" men, cringe at that attitude, but really, what's wrong with it? No one is lied to, fooled, or hurt, everyone gets what they wanted... where's the problem? I know, I know, women get sucked in emotionally far too easily, and so form expectations of phone calls and dates that they're disappointed if they don't get; can't we "train" women to stop setting themselves up for grief by changing the social conditioning girls get, though? Yes, there's a biological urge for a woman to latch onto a man that she had sex with so that he'll provide for her if he has impregnated her, but there's also a biological urge for a girl to start having babies as soon as she's physically able, and we've squashed THAT one pretty thoroughly, so we CAN work around biology to some extent. On the other hand, if you're so hot for someone that you had to run home and jump into bed with them, why wouldn't you WANT to see them again, and try for a relationship with them? Then again, you don't try for a relationship with everyone that you have a good time with, which your friends are undoubtedly grateful for; if there were no potential for harm, why NOT treat sex like a sport rather than ONLY as part of an emotional attachment? Is there any real need to treat sex as something in a different category once we take out our current reasons for doing so?
On the other side of this issue, there are those who want to only combine sex with love, to deepen the experience and create a safer atmosphere for them to let loose; naturally, most of these people are women. The love/sex combo DOES lead to a more intense, safer experience in some ways, but being with someone we'll never see again can bring a different kind of freedom, as we don't have to care what they'll think about us later, plus we get the excitement of the new and illicit. The sex/love combo also means that we're moving forward towards getting a lasting relationship built, as opposed to just flings... but, is that always a desirable thing, especially if you're young(ish) and/or don't plan on having kids? If you want to start a family, of course you wouldn't want to waste time sleeping around, you'd want to save your energy for finding the right person, but that doesn't apply to everyone, so... hmmmmmmm, without the warnings about getting diseases and pregnant, it's hard to make a case for saving sex for when it's joined with love, other than that "crushed expectations" thing that COULD be changed.
Ideally, then, for those not trying to form relationships soon, and under no biological pressure to procreate soon, sex would be based on consenting adults wanting to have a good time; imagine how radically our culture would change if things worked that way!! Don't get excited yet, though; when you look at the realities of the current day once again, when you add the risk of pregnancy and disease back into the picture, when you think that you could be creating a life, or catching something that could lead to death, it's still better to see sex as part of a relationship, with love involved, or at least on the horizon-sorry, guys. However, one CAN hope for the day when all of our twisted ideas about sex, and about nudity, gender, what love is really like, and everything else that muddies the waters, will fade away... imagine what sex, what LIFE, will be like then. :-)
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Progress in figuring out nutrition
In the October issue of "Discover," there's a wonderful article called "The Inuit Paradox" that covers a fascinating topic; how scientists are just now STARTING to figure out how the people who used to be called "Eskimos" (it's not PC to call them that anymore, for reasons that escape me), the Inupiat and the Yupiks of Alaska, the Canadian Inuit and Inuvialuit, Inuit Greenlanders, and the Siberian Yupiks, were able to not only survive, but be healthy, on a diet that our so-called "wisdom" says should be very UNhealthy... well, more specifically, the article outlined what they've learned, but every new fact meant that there was something else that they should have figured out LONG ago-it just ticks me off no end how willing they've been to ignore what people with brown faces have been doing for centuries, or millennia, as if they had nothing to teach us.
The subtitle to the article is, "How can people who gorge on fat and rarely see a vegetable be healthier than we are?"; the supposed experts didn't know where these folks were getting the vitamins that we've been taught come from plant foods... primarily because they hadn't bothered to study what they WERE eating. And, despite the popularity of low-carb diets, there was confusion as to how they don't end up obese, and with massive heart disease, with half of their calories coming from fat; we're so programmed to fear fat that it blinds us to reality, the primary element of which is that for healthy weight and heart you just need to not stuff your face and sit on the couch... do you think any of these "primitive" people count calories or fat grams? It's no coincidence that in societies where everyone eats traditional, "primitive" foods, obesity is rare, even among the older folks who don't do as much physical labor; like all other animals, humans will eat the right foods in the right amounts if we live close to nature, and that's why we need to learn from those who have these sorts of diets.
What's the traditional Inuit diet? "... seal and walrus... moose, caribou, and reindeer.... ducks, geese... ptarmigan.... crab... salmon, whitefish, tomcod, pike, and char... cooked, dried, smoked, or frozen... whale meat... muktuk, which is whale skin with its underlying blubber" Sounds pretty gross, doesn't it? It's OUR diet that's gross, of course, and, our diet that's unhealthy; thanks to them adopting our foods, "type 2 diabetes, obesity, and other diseases of Western civilization are becoming causes for concern there." Isn't it bad enough that we have a dreadful diet without passing it along to every other culture?
Anyways: "These foods hardly make up the 'balanced' diet most of us grew up with, and they look nothing like the mix of grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy we're accustomed to seeing in conventional food pyramid diagrams... How did people get along on little else but fat and animal protein?... One might, for instance, imagine gross vitamin deficiencies arising from a diet with scarcely any fruits and vegetables." WE certainly get told that we'll have all sorts of deficiencies if we don't eat those things, right? It turns out, though, that: "vitamin A, which is oil soluble, is also plentiful in the oils of cold-water fishes and sea mammals, as well as in the animals' livers, where fat is processed."
What about vitamin C? "Raw caribou liver supplied almost 24 milligrams, seal brain close to 15 milligrams, and raw kelp more than 28 milligrams. Still higher levels were found in whale skin and muktuk... raw muktuk can serve up an impressive 36 milligrams in a 100-gram piece... Weight for weight, it's as good as orange juice." Kelp, which isn't meat, is cheating a little, but the point is that if you eat their diet you can get all your nutrients; our processed foods, and our plant-based foods (most of which, as I've pointed out before, couldn't possibly have been more than trivial parts of the diets of early tribes), are the exact opposite of what these people who lived off the land and sea ate and stayed healthy with.
As to the high % of fat in their diets, and the LACK of health problems caused by it; the fact that they only ate what they needed, and got plenty of exercise, if of course key, but the other part of it is that the fat of wild animals is healthier than that of domesticated animals: "Farm animals, cooped up and stuffed with agricultural grains (carbohydrates) typically have lots of solid, highly saturated fat.... Wild animals that range freely and eat what nature intended... have fat that is far more healthful. Less of their fat is saturated, and more of it is in the monounsaturated form (like olive oil). What's more, cold-water fishes and sea mammals are particularly rich in polyunsaturated fats called n-3 fatty acids or omega-3 fatty acids. These fats appear to benefit the heart and vascular system." Omega-3 fatty acids have been talked about for some time (although it bears repeating, especially for those who've convinced themselves that all meat is "unhealthy"), but the idea that a different diet gives an animal a different fat composition is a new one on me... and a REAL eye-opener. Can you believe they're just now finding this out, after all the years of frenzied study of fat?
We know far, FAR less about nutrition than we think we do... but we're learning, at LONG last. Sadly, there's not much from the traditional "Eskimo" diet that most of us can adopt, other than eating more fish if you can tolerate it and can find some without mercury and other poisons, but at least science is finally turning away from "food pyramids" and looking at diets that we have PROOF, as in centuries' worth, are healthy for us.
The subtitle to the article is, "How can people who gorge on fat and rarely see a vegetable be healthier than we are?"; the supposed experts didn't know where these folks were getting the vitamins that we've been taught come from plant foods... primarily because they hadn't bothered to study what they WERE eating. And, despite the popularity of low-carb diets, there was confusion as to how they don't end up obese, and with massive heart disease, with half of their calories coming from fat; we're so programmed to fear fat that it blinds us to reality, the primary element of which is that for healthy weight and heart you just need to not stuff your face and sit on the couch... do you think any of these "primitive" people count calories or fat grams? It's no coincidence that in societies where everyone eats traditional, "primitive" foods, obesity is rare, even among the older folks who don't do as much physical labor; like all other animals, humans will eat the right foods in the right amounts if we live close to nature, and that's why we need to learn from those who have these sorts of diets.
What's the traditional Inuit diet? "... seal and walrus... moose, caribou, and reindeer.... ducks, geese... ptarmigan.... crab... salmon, whitefish, tomcod, pike, and char... cooked, dried, smoked, or frozen... whale meat... muktuk, which is whale skin with its underlying blubber" Sounds pretty gross, doesn't it? It's OUR diet that's gross, of course, and, our diet that's unhealthy; thanks to them adopting our foods, "type 2 diabetes, obesity, and other diseases of Western civilization are becoming causes for concern there." Isn't it bad enough that we have a dreadful diet without passing it along to every other culture?
Anyways: "These foods hardly make up the 'balanced' diet most of us grew up with, and they look nothing like the mix of grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy we're accustomed to seeing in conventional food pyramid diagrams... How did people get along on little else but fat and animal protein?... One might, for instance, imagine gross vitamin deficiencies arising from a diet with scarcely any fruits and vegetables." WE certainly get told that we'll have all sorts of deficiencies if we don't eat those things, right? It turns out, though, that: "vitamin A, which is oil soluble, is also plentiful in the oils of cold-water fishes and sea mammals, as well as in the animals' livers, where fat is processed."
What about vitamin C? "Raw caribou liver supplied almost 24 milligrams, seal brain close to 15 milligrams, and raw kelp more than 28 milligrams. Still higher levels were found in whale skin and muktuk... raw muktuk can serve up an impressive 36 milligrams in a 100-gram piece... Weight for weight, it's as good as orange juice." Kelp, which isn't meat, is cheating a little, but the point is that if you eat their diet you can get all your nutrients; our processed foods, and our plant-based foods (most of which, as I've pointed out before, couldn't possibly have been more than trivial parts of the diets of early tribes), are the exact opposite of what these people who lived off the land and sea ate and stayed healthy with.
As to the high % of fat in their diets, and the LACK of health problems caused by it; the fact that they only ate what they needed, and got plenty of exercise, if of course key, but the other part of it is that the fat of wild animals is healthier than that of domesticated animals: "Farm animals, cooped up and stuffed with agricultural grains (carbohydrates) typically have lots of solid, highly saturated fat.... Wild animals that range freely and eat what nature intended... have fat that is far more healthful. Less of their fat is saturated, and more of it is in the monounsaturated form (like olive oil). What's more, cold-water fishes and sea mammals are particularly rich in polyunsaturated fats called n-3 fatty acids or omega-3 fatty acids. These fats appear to benefit the heart and vascular system." Omega-3 fatty acids have been talked about for some time (although it bears repeating, especially for those who've convinced themselves that all meat is "unhealthy"), but the idea that a different diet gives an animal a different fat composition is a new one on me... and a REAL eye-opener. Can you believe they're just now finding this out, after all the years of frenzied study of fat?
We know far, FAR less about nutrition than we think we do... but we're learning, at LONG last. Sadly, there's not much from the traditional "Eskimo" diet that most of us can adopt, other than eating more fish if you can tolerate it and can find some without mercury and other poisons, but at least science is finally turning away from "food pyramids" and looking at diets that we have PROOF, as in centuries' worth, are healthy for us.
Monday, September 27, 2004
There really IS windchime karma!! :-O
In my post of August 6, I detailed the ridiculous amount of trouble I had to go to to replace the windchime a friend had given me, and that some lowlife had stolen, before the friend could see that it was gone and be upset by it; I said at the time, half-facetiously, that making this sort of effort to protect someone's feelings over a $5 doodad would earn me some good "windchime karma"... and it turns out that there IS such a thing.
There was a windchime that my husband and I used to "visit" at a store that sold pricey artsy stuff; it was quite elaborate, about a yard long, and going for $250-way, WAY more than I was willing to pay for such a thing. It finally sold, or was sent back to the supplier, and I didn't see it for about 5 years... until it showed up on eBay (mind you, I was NOT doing any searches for windchimes-it showed up in a search I was doing for something else). After I got over the shock of seeing it, I almost didn't bother adding it to my watch list, because I don't waste space on things that are out of my price range, but the starting price wasn't bad, and I had the urge to see what happened, so I put it on my list.
And yes, I WON it, for about a TENTH of what it had been selling for all those years ago; I couldn't believe my eyes. I could still hardly believe it when the box came, and I took it out and held it up... for about 2 seconds, as it's literally too heavy for me to support the weight. The windchime that I'd drooled over, that I'd never expected to see again much less own, was MINE.
I invested alot of time and emotional energy over a windchime, and in return karma sent me the windchime of my dreams. Windchime karma; I asked for it, and I got it. :-)
There was a windchime that my husband and I used to "visit" at a store that sold pricey artsy stuff; it was quite elaborate, about a yard long, and going for $250-way, WAY more than I was willing to pay for such a thing. It finally sold, or was sent back to the supplier, and I didn't see it for about 5 years... until it showed up on eBay (mind you, I was NOT doing any searches for windchimes-it showed up in a search I was doing for something else). After I got over the shock of seeing it, I almost didn't bother adding it to my watch list, because I don't waste space on things that are out of my price range, but the starting price wasn't bad, and I had the urge to see what happened, so I put it on my list.
And yes, I WON it, for about a TENTH of what it had been selling for all those years ago; I couldn't believe my eyes. I could still hardly believe it when the box came, and I took it out and held it up... for about 2 seconds, as it's literally too heavy for me to support the weight. The windchime that I'd drooled over, that I'd never expected to see again much less own, was MINE.
I invested alot of time and emotional energy over a windchime, and in return karma sent me the windchime of my dreams. Windchime karma; I asked for it, and I got it. :-)
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Magical beings
Most kids growing up in America are told by their parents that certain magical beings exist:
1) Santa, who knows everything you're doing, is passing judgment that will control how many toys you'll get for Christmas, has a flying sleigh that can somehow get to every child's home in the world in one night and can carry all of their gifts (or is the sack supposed to be magically bottomless?), and can get silently into and out of every home to deliver presents, even homes with no chimney.
2) The Easter bunny, who carries enough candy for all the children in his (bottomless?) basket, HOPS all around the world in one night (gee, that sounds familiar, lol), and sneaks unheard into kids' homes to leave them sweets.
3) The tooth fairy, who somehow knows when a child loses a tooth, and, if and only if that child puts the tooth under their pillow (isn't that sorta gross?), will sneak unheard into their home (!!!), take the tooth (and do WHAT with it?), and leave $ in its place.
Kids are effortlessly convinced that these beings are real, because they believe whatever they're told; kids under the age of 7 can't tell reality from fantasy, so, no matter how ridiculous the details of the myth of the magical person are (flying reindeer?), or how similar the basics are, it never occurs to kids that anything we tell them exists might NOT exist, even though they've never seen any proof that... whoops, I forgot one:
4) God.
For those of you who want to protest that last entry, be honest; did you or did you not believe in God from early childhood because your parents TOLD you He existed, just like all the other magical beings? I can remember all the way back in grammar school when I, having already rejected the idea of there being a God, was telling the other kids that they were only whichever religion they were because their parents were that religion; when they insisted that they'd still be Methodists, Baptists, whatever, even if their parents weren't, because it was "right," I'd laugh in their faces and ask them to point out one single kid that had defied their parents and picked a different religion... which of course they couldn't do, as there's no such thing. I'd follow up by adding that they wouldn't even believe in God if their parents hadn't told them to, and, when they denied that, I'd remind them that they'd believed in Santa, the Easter bunny, and the tooth fairy (which by then we knew didn't exist) just because their parents had told them they were real, and that they'd believe ANYTHING their parents told them to... which was absolutely true, but even at that age people do NOT want to hear that sort of truth, so you can imagine the outraged sputterings. The kicker of course came when I gave them the inevitable conclusion, that since all the other magical beings our parents had told us about didn't really exist, it was logical to assume that God didn't either... I don't think I've managed to cause greater shock in all of the years since, hehehehehe.
I've become more intellectually consistent in my old age, and thus have realized that since I can't DISprove the existence of God, I can't be sure He doesn't exist; still, it's useful to look at WHY people believe what they do, because to find the truth we need to be able to separate centuries-old hearsay from what we have actually experienced ourselves... and yes, some people DO claim to have had personal experiences with God, including people I respect, which is why I keep my mind open on the subject.
Do YOU believe in what you yourself have seen and experienced... or do you believe what people have TOLD you is true? I don't just mean your belief in God, or any other deity, I mean ghosts, ESP, angels, or any other beings or energies you believe in as well; how many unprovable things do you believe in based solely on the claims of others? If you didn't say "zero"... wouldn't it be a good idea to ask yourself "why"?
1) Santa, who knows everything you're doing, is passing judgment that will control how many toys you'll get for Christmas, has a flying sleigh that can somehow get to every child's home in the world in one night and can carry all of their gifts (or is the sack supposed to be magically bottomless?), and can get silently into and out of every home to deliver presents, even homes with no chimney.
2) The Easter bunny, who carries enough candy for all the children in his (bottomless?) basket, HOPS all around the world in one night (gee, that sounds familiar, lol), and sneaks unheard into kids' homes to leave them sweets.
3) The tooth fairy, who somehow knows when a child loses a tooth, and, if and only if that child puts the tooth under their pillow (isn't that sorta gross?), will sneak unheard into their home (!!!), take the tooth (and do WHAT with it?), and leave $ in its place.
Kids are effortlessly convinced that these beings are real, because they believe whatever they're told; kids under the age of 7 can't tell reality from fantasy, so, no matter how ridiculous the details of the myth of the magical person are (flying reindeer?), or how similar the basics are, it never occurs to kids that anything we tell them exists might NOT exist, even though they've never seen any proof that... whoops, I forgot one:
4) God.
For those of you who want to protest that last entry, be honest; did you or did you not believe in God from early childhood because your parents TOLD you He existed, just like all the other magical beings? I can remember all the way back in grammar school when I, having already rejected the idea of there being a God, was telling the other kids that they were only whichever religion they were because their parents were that religion; when they insisted that they'd still be Methodists, Baptists, whatever, even if their parents weren't, because it was "right," I'd laugh in their faces and ask them to point out one single kid that had defied their parents and picked a different religion... which of course they couldn't do, as there's no such thing. I'd follow up by adding that they wouldn't even believe in God if their parents hadn't told them to, and, when they denied that, I'd remind them that they'd believed in Santa, the Easter bunny, and the tooth fairy (which by then we knew didn't exist) just because their parents had told them they were real, and that they'd believe ANYTHING their parents told them to... which was absolutely true, but even at that age people do NOT want to hear that sort of truth, so you can imagine the outraged sputterings. The kicker of course came when I gave them the inevitable conclusion, that since all the other magical beings our parents had told us about didn't really exist, it was logical to assume that God didn't either... I don't think I've managed to cause greater shock in all of the years since, hehehehehe.
I've become more intellectually consistent in my old age, and thus have realized that since I can't DISprove the existence of God, I can't be sure He doesn't exist; still, it's useful to look at WHY people believe what they do, because to find the truth we need to be able to separate centuries-old hearsay from what we have actually experienced ourselves... and yes, some people DO claim to have had personal experiences with God, including people I respect, which is why I keep my mind open on the subject.
Do YOU believe in what you yourself have seen and experienced... or do you believe what people have TOLD you is true? I don't just mean your belief in God, or any other deity, I mean ghosts, ESP, angels, or any other beings or energies you believe in as well; how many unprovable things do you believe in based solely on the claims of others? If you didn't say "zero"... wouldn't it be a good idea to ask yourself "why"?
