Sunday, August 07, 2005
Fruit will be the death of me
If you're a regular reader, you know that I'm a supertaster (someone with a VERY intense perception of bitterness), which means that I hate nearly all foods, particularly healthy, low-calorie and -fat ones (which are unfortunately full of undisguised bitter compounds); most of the few foods of that sort that I CAN eat are kinds of fruit, and since I'm increasingly desperate to keep my weight steady (as my metabolism is slowing down a little each year despite all the exercising I do) fruit makes up a substantial portion of what little I eat... and I'm at the point where if I never see a piece of fruit again as long as I live, it'll be too soon.
It's not that fruit tastes bad to me now, exactly, it's just that I'm so sick of it that my stomach clenches every time I look at it... proof that your body does NOT always tell you what's right for you to eat, or else that my body is just stubbornly stupid and self-destructive. Making this worse is that I become significantly more prone to heartburn as I get older, which means that the acid fruits that I like the best, such as kiwi and pineapple, are usually a bad idea for me to eat (they've even started making my mouth burn, how's that for adding insult to injury?); this has reduced my choices, and forced me to rely heavily on fruits that I generally don't like as well.
But that's just the half of it; my friend MuckDog, whose excellent blog is here
http://thelearningcurve.blogspot.com/
posted a link last week to an article
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=97&e=4&u=/hsn/20050729/hl_hsn/fructosesweetenerspursobesity
that talks about a study
"In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks."
that led to a horrifying result:
"By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only."
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!! And it's NOT because they took in more calories due to having high-calorie beverages, either:
"We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn't consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks"
They should NOT have been surprised, as animals tend to automatically consume the proper total # of calories, but... does anyone else get a sinking feeling from this revelation? Their conclusion:
"The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said."
is the LAST thing I ever wanted to hear about food, after I've been forcing myself to choke down fruit as part of my weight-control program year after year; it's just unbearable that the thing I was doing to prevent weight gain was in fact likely CAUSING it, making it necessary for me to eat less and less to compensate. :-(
The article makes a big issue of fructose being in some sodas, as part of what MuckDog rightly calls "a war on soda," and that's disingenuous of them, because the primary source of fructose is NOT soda, it's FRUIT (and that means fresh, dried and juice); that's why it's sometimes called "fruit sugar." I understand why they don't want to be scaring Americans away from fruit consumption, since we eat far too little produce as it is, but they really NEEDED to have pointed out the inescapable conclusion that, assuming that human studies will get similar results to the mouse studies, as they usually do, people like me who've been eating fruit as a way to eat fewer calories and less fat, and thus lose or maintain weight, need to re-think our diet plans.
sigh
I tried, as I always do with this sort of info, to figure out why our bodies might respond to fructose that way; my best guess is that, because fruit would NOT have been part of the regular diet of primitive humans (as it's not available most of the year in the absence of agriculture), it's perhaps not so astonishing that eating alot of it would cause an unusual reaction, and that since when fruit WOULD have been widely available would have been in the fall, when humans, like other animals, would be trying to fatten up for the lean times ahead when winter came, it'd make sense for the consumption of alot of fructose to trigger the body to go into "store fat for the winter" mode.
Regardless of how the mechanism works and why, I've clearly got to start substituting something else for fruit part of the time; I can eat a modest amount of plain rice or couscous, and, although they both have a high glycemic load (which means they shoot up blood sugar and can make you feel hungry even when you're full), and, despite the moronic increase in whole grains in the food pyramid, they're NOT meant to be more than a tiny part of the human diet (as even when they'd have been available they were labor-intensive to collect and consume), which makes me concerned that they're going to eventually discover something similar to the "fructose effect" that applies to them, I've GOT to eat something other than meat and cheese (and junk food), so I guess that's what I'm going to be stuck with.
At the risk of repeating myself; sigh.
Don't worry, I won't have long to brood about this; tomorrow is Sunday, and that means that the final episode of "Queer as Folk" is now just hours away... I'm going to be bouncing off the walls all day waiting for it, wondering if they've come up with a fitting way to end this wonderful series.
One final bit of news: I've re-done my sidebar, and if you check out the upper right you'll see a box for "Top 100 Bloggers," where I've signed up to be rated; if you enjoy your visits here, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd click the box every so often and cast a vote for me... it gives me a real boost to see that people care enough to take time to do that. :-)
It's not that fruit tastes bad to me now, exactly, it's just that I'm so sick of it that my stomach clenches every time I look at it... proof that your body does NOT always tell you what's right for you to eat, or else that my body is just stubbornly stupid and self-destructive. Making this worse is that I become significantly more prone to heartburn as I get older, which means that the acid fruits that I like the best, such as kiwi and pineapple, are usually a bad idea for me to eat (they've even started making my mouth burn, how's that for adding insult to injury?); this has reduced my choices, and forced me to rely heavily on fruits that I generally don't like as well.
But that's just the half of it; my friend MuckDog, whose excellent blog is here
http://thelearningcurve.blogspot.com/
posted a link last week to an article
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=97&e=4&u=/hsn/20050729/hl_hsn/fructosesweetenerspursobesity
that talks about a study
"In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks."
that led to a horrifying result:
"By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only."
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!! And it's NOT because they took in more calories due to having high-calorie beverages, either:
"We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn't consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks"
They should NOT have been surprised, as animals tend to automatically consume the proper total # of calories, but... does anyone else get a sinking feeling from this revelation? Their conclusion:
"The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said."
is the LAST thing I ever wanted to hear about food, after I've been forcing myself to choke down fruit as part of my weight-control program year after year; it's just unbearable that the thing I was doing to prevent weight gain was in fact likely CAUSING it, making it necessary for me to eat less and less to compensate. :-(
The article makes a big issue of fructose being in some sodas, as part of what MuckDog rightly calls "a war on soda," and that's disingenuous of them, because the primary source of fructose is NOT soda, it's FRUIT (and that means fresh, dried and juice); that's why it's sometimes called "fruit sugar." I understand why they don't want to be scaring Americans away from fruit consumption, since we eat far too little produce as it is, but they really NEEDED to have pointed out the inescapable conclusion that, assuming that human studies will get similar results to the mouse studies, as they usually do, people like me who've been eating fruit as a way to eat fewer calories and less fat, and thus lose or maintain weight, need to re-think our diet plans.
sigh
I tried, as I always do with this sort of info, to figure out why our bodies might respond to fructose that way; my best guess is that, because fruit would NOT have been part of the regular diet of primitive humans (as it's not available most of the year in the absence of agriculture), it's perhaps not so astonishing that eating alot of it would cause an unusual reaction, and that since when fruit WOULD have been widely available would have been in the fall, when humans, like other animals, would be trying to fatten up for the lean times ahead when winter came, it'd make sense for the consumption of alot of fructose to trigger the body to go into "store fat for the winter" mode.
Regardless of how the mechanism works and why, I've clearly got to start substituting something else for fruit part of the time; I can eat a modest amount of plain rice or couscous, and, although they both have a high glycemic load (which means they shoot up blood sugar and can make you feel hungry even when you're full), and, despite the moronic increase in whole grains in the food pyramid, they're NOT meant to be more than a tiny part of the human diet (as even when they'd have been available they were labor-intensive to collect and consume), which makes me concerned that they're going to eventually discover something similar to the "fructose effect" that applies to them, I've GOT to eat something other than meat and cheese (and junk food), so I guess that's what I'm going to be stuck with.
At the risk of repeating myself; sigh.
Don't worry, I won't have long to brood about this; tomorrow is Sunday, and that means that the final episode of "Queer as Folk" is now just hours away... I'm going to be bouncing off the walls all day waiting for it, wondering if they've come up with a fitting way to end this wonderful series.
One final bit of news: I've re-done my sidebar, and if you check out the upper right you'll see a box for "Top 100 Bloggers," where I've signed up to be rated; if you enjoy your visits here, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd click the box every so often and cast a vote for me... it gives me a real boost to see that people care enough to take time to do that. :-)
Saturday, August 06, 2005
The karma of free will
This Dilbert cartoon
http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20050806.html
brings up a point that's the subject of much debate; whether the existence of powerful "beyond human" forces that can cause things to happen means that whatever we do is what we're "supposed to" be doing, rather than what we'd objectively choose to do. In the cartoon, Dogbert says, "I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." While I don't imagine anyone would go so far as to believe that, if they actually did what Dogbert refers to, all the potential victims would coincidentally be deserving of whatever they got, IS it possible that we could ever, even occasionally, become purely the tools of karma, in other words acting in such a way as to further karmic goals rather than our own, such that we're not acting out of free will?
That question is slipperier than it 1st appears, because there's more than 1 way to control people; I'll cover both possible "control scenarios" that I currently see, and if I think of more I'll edit them in later. The totally literal way of looking at the free will concept would be to ask if we ever become essentially programmed to act in the way karma (or God or another deity, if you prefer, as the idea is the same) "wants" or "needs" us to, without our own personalities being involved in the choice to act; since we don't hear stories about people inexplicably taking actions contrary to their preferences, I think it's safe to label this one a "no."
But here's the "gray area" way of looking at it; could karma put thoughts into our heads, stimulate our emotions, give us urges, that would impel us towards whatever course of action would best contribute to the achieving of its ends? I don't think there's any way to be sure about this, but I'd say yes; we send out thoughts and emotions into the tapestry of karma all the time, and it's no great stretch to imagine it sending some back. It gets even grayer; since we can CHOOSE whether or not to act on those thoughts, feelings and urges, since we'd HAVE to be choosing, or, again, we'd be hearing about people taking those inexplicable actions, CAN the influence of karma be seen as taking away our free will? And grayer still; since it's very rare for any of us to really think things through and objectively analyze them, particularly when there's any sort of feeling or even whim involved, and equally rare for any of us to succeed in taking action contrary to our urges, doesn't that suggest that, by imbuing us with what amounts to the desire to act a certain way, karma's essentially indirectly "programming" us to do what it wishes, contrary to what our will would have been if we'd been uninfluenced?
If you ARE making thorough objective analyses of the choices you make, you DO have free will by every definition; if you're acting on impulse, or in ways contrary to what you "should" be doing, would be doing if you were really using your head... you could very well be a pawn being moved about by karma to serve its "plans." As always, the choice is yours.
http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20050806.html
brings up a point that's the subject of much debate; whether the existence of powerful "beyond human" forces that can cause things to happen means that whatever we do is what we're "supposed to" be doing, rather than what we'd objectively choose to do. In the cartoon, Dogbert says, "I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." While I don't imagine anyone would go so far as to believe that, if they actually did what Dogbert refers to, all the potential victims would coincidentally be deserving of whatever they got, IS it possible that we could ever, even occasionally, become purely the tools of karma, in other words acting in such a way as to further karmic goals rather than our own, such that we're not acting out of free will?
That question is slipperier than it 1st appears, because there's more than 1 way to control people; I'll cover both possible "control scenarios" that I currently see, and if I think of more I'll edit them in later. The totally literal way of looking at the free will concept would be to ask if we ever become essentially programmed to act in the way karma (or God or another deity, if you prefer, as the idea is the same) "wants" or "needs" us to, without our own personalities being involved in the choice to act; since we don't hear stories about people inexplicably taking actions contrary to their preferences, I think it's safe to label this one a "no."
But here's the "gray area" way of looking at it; could karma put thoughts into our heads, stimulate our emotions, give us urges, that would impel us towards whatever course of action would best contribute to the achieving of its ends? I don't think there's any way to be sure about this, but I'd say yes; we send out thoughts and emotions into the tapestry of karma all the time, and it's no great stretch to imagine it sending some back. It gets even grayer; since we can CHOOSE whether or not to act on those thoughts, feelings and urges, since we'd HAVE to be choosing, or, again, we'd be hearing about people taking those inexplicable actions, CAN the influence of karma be seen as taking away our free will? And grayer still; since it's very rare for any of us to really think things through and objectively analyze them, particularly when there's any sort of feeling or even whim involved, and equally rare for any of us to succeed in taking action contrary to our urges, doesn't that suggest that, by imbuing us with what amounts to the desire to act a certain way, karma's essentially indirectly "programming" us to do what it wishes, contrary to what our will would have been if we'd been uninfluenced?
If you ARE making thorough objective analyses of the choices you make, you DO have free will by every definition; if you're acting on impulse, or in ways contrary to what you "should" be doing, would be doing if you were really using your head... you could very well be a pawn being moved about by karma to serve its "plans." As always, the choice is yours.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Tech updates and the locker dream
Some of you may have noticed that over the past few days all of my webrings were showing up at the bottom of the page, making it load VERY slowly and distorting the layout such that the sidebar was pushed way over; the folks at Webring seem to have gotten that fixed now, WHEW!!
There's nothing else good to report on the tech front, sadly: Blogger is now declining to respond to my emails, even after I submitted new ones from scratch rather than replying to old ones; the inarguable fact that their latest tech innovation broke my sidebar in some browsers seems of no consequence to them... gee, thanks, guys. Feedster has still never replied to my emails, nor do they seem to have made my feed with them work, nor have they made any of my posts visible in any of the places you can find my new RSS feed in their system. Bloglines, which to their credit DID put some work in to get my subscription screen working again, still hasn't managed to make any of my posts earlier than June 24th visible, or figured out why it's displaying that way.
I had the locker dream last night; the locker itself represents my emotional state, as I learned when in one dream I took book after book out of it, all entitled "Rage" (and I was in fact enraged at the time, at my then-boyfriend), and the central issue of the dream is that other people know my locker combo and might at any time go into my locker, with the result that some or all of my stuff (including the lock) might be missing, and/or new and often odd stuff might have been put in... which probably symbolizes the people in my life who can bother me emotionally, taking away my good feelings and putting in bad ones, now that I think about it, hmmmmmmmm. Anyways, last night there were 2 new elements to this dream:
1) Words were scratched into the paint on the locker door; BIG words that objectively couldn't be put there quickly enough to be finished before the scratcher was spotted. The 1st word was my name, and the 2nd one... I can't remember, and that REALLY bums me out, because this could be something important. As I was pondering the dream and waking up more fully, I thought something like, "Was that an 's' or a 'c'?", but I don't know what word that could mean anything would still be a valid word if you replaced an "s" with a "c", or vice versa, which was the only thing I could come up with for that to refer to... I'll just have to hope I see those words on the locker again soon.
2) The other new thing, which came after I checked inside my locker and all seemed as it should be for a change, was that I looked down at my lock and thought, "If I just had a different lock, I wouldn't have to worry any more." I tried to recall if my family owned another lock, and if so if I knew the combination, then realized that, if I told my parents that someone had gotten my combination and was going into my locker, they'd spend the couple of bucks to get me a new one (not without haranguing me at length about the great trouble and expense I was putting them to because of the huge crime of being unable to prevent some evil little sneak from seeing me enter the combination, but still) to avoid possibly having to replace expensive schoolbooks... and with a new lock, and the understanding that I had to be fanatical about not letting anyone watch me open it, I'd be FREE of the endless stress and anxiety over the locker.
Endless stress and anxiety; yup, that's my life, lol. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the "new lock" translates to in real life, although naturally my 1st thought is that it's some spiritual thing... stay tuned.
There's nothing else good to report on the tech front, sadly: Blogger is now declining to respond to my emails, even after I submitted new ones from scratch rather than replying to old ones; the inarguable fact that their latest tech innovation broke my sidebar in some browsers seems of no consequence to them... gee, thanks, guys. Feedster has still never replied to my emails, nor do they seem to have made my feed with them work, nor have they made any of my posts visible in any of the places you can find my new RSS feed in their system. Bloglines, which to their credit DID put some work in to get my subscription screen working again, still hasn't managed to make any of my posts earlier than June 24th visible, or figured out why it's displaying that way.
I had the locker dream last night; the locker itself represents my emotional state, as I learned when in one dream I took book after book out of it, all entitled "Rage" (and I was in fact enraged at the time, at my then-boyfriend), and the central issue of the dream is that other people know my locker combo and might at any time go into my locker, with the result that some or all of my stuff (including the lock) might be missing, and/or new and often odd stuff might have been put in... which probably symbolizes the people in my life who can bother me emotionally, taking away my good feelings and putting in bad ones, now that I think about it, hmmmmmmmm. Anyways, last night there were 2 new elements to this dream:
1) Words were scratched into the paint on the locker door; BIG words that objectively couldn't be put there quickly enough to be finished before the scratcher was spotted. The 1st word was my name, and the 2nd one... I can't remember, and that REALLY bums me out, because this could be something important. As I was pondering the dream and waking up more fully, I thought something like, "Was that an 's' or a 'c'?", but I don't know what word that could mean anything would still be a valid word if you replaced an "s" with a "c", or vice versa, which was the only thing I could come up with for that to refer to... I'll just have to hope I see those words on the locker again soon.
2) The other new thing, which came after I checked inside my locker and all seemed as it should be for a change, was that I looked down at my lock and thought, "If I just had a different lock, I wouldn't have to worry any more." I tried to recall if my family owned another lock, and if so if I knew the combination, then realized that, if I told my parents that someone had gotten my combination and was going into my locker, they'd spend the couple of bucks to get me a new one (not without haranguing me at length about the great trouble and expense I was putting them to because of the huge crime of being unable to prevent some evil little sneak from seeing me enter the combination, but still) to avoid possibly having to replace expensive schoolbooks... and with a new lock, and the understanding that I had to be fanatical about not letting anyone watch me open it, I'd be FREE of the endless stress and anxiety over the locker.
Endless stress and anxiety; yup, that's my life, lol. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the "new lock" translates to in real life, although naturally my 1st thought is that it's some spiritual thing... stay tuned.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
An important women's health issue
Men, don't get scared off by the title; you have women that you care about, and, although I know that discussion of "female issues" can make you uncomfortable, please try to absorb the ideas in this post, and use them to help the women you love make better decisions about their health care.
Ladies, it's no secret that the medical industry still holds biases against us; women continue to be given tranquilizers and a pat on the head when they seek medical attention because of symptoms that would instantly be seen as suggestive of everything from heart attacks to brain tumors if MEN complained of them... so it's VERY important that we inform our doctors and loved ones (who may be called upon to make medical decisions for us) of our wishes, and that those wishes be based on ALL the facts, including those you'll rarely hear in the doctor's office.
Today, I saw this article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8785447/
the main point of which is
"Most women getting a hysterectomy should keep their ovaries because the common extra step of removing them seems to do no good and might decrease their long-term survival, researchers report."
and brace yourself for this one
"the work promises to raise questions from women and their doctors about a procedure long accepted despite little evidence to back it."
In other words, the medical establishment, which until very recently was almost entirely male, and is still mostly male, especially in surgical disciplines, has always looked upon female reproductive organs as disposable (with the exception being with younger women who've had no kids or an expressed desire to have more), and has followed the rule of "if it's got a problem, yank it out," and, worse, "if it's got a problem, clean it ALL out," with the rationale always being that it's to the woman's benefit... but with NO studies having been done to PROVE that this radical, wholesale organ removal is in fact valuable to women's health, much less valuable enough to make it a viable option. (Can you imagine the comparable thing being done to MEN, that if a man had a problem in his reproductive system they'd remove his penis, testicles, prostate and other associated glands?)
If you don't believe that surgeons are doing these procedures without evidence to back up their worth, read my post of 6-14-05, which is about an article in Discover magazine in which a doctor reveals that "very little data back up the value of modern treatments like bypass surgery and angioplasty"; unlike medication, for which rigorous testing must PROVE the value (which must be greater than that of a placebo) for it to be approved for use, surgery is just what some doctor thought to do that seemed to work, and then other doctors copied it, with no actual studies being required to verify that these expensive and risk-filled procedures are doing what they're supposed to do ... scary, isn't it?
What we need to keep in mind is that, even after menopause, or after a woman has had all the children she wants, ovaries are NOT a waste product, because they produce hormones that women NEED for their bodies to function normally; furthermore, they've discovered that the uterus produces some hormones, too, and thus is also NOT a superfluous lump of flesh that can be cut out at a whim. Because the standard procedure at most hospitals is to remove female reproductive organs of other than very young women at the slightest provocation, and most doctors buy into that, it's up to every woman to think this issue through and make VERY clear to her doctors and loved ones what her wishes are, to be prepared for an emergency, such as a car wreck, when she might be unable to make her own medical decisions; I've given my own wishes below, in the hopes that they'll inspire other women to make their own lists, and inspire male readers to ask the women they love to do so.
1) My female organs are NOT disposable, and should not be treated as such any more than my heart or lungs would be.
2) Unless my life is in immediate and unquestioned danger (eg from bleeding to death from internal injuries), surgery should NOT be rushed into... and the surgeon would need to make a VERY strong case for the situation being an emergency, because they're infamous for stampeding family members into agreeing to surgeries that are NOT true emergencies.
3) In the likelihood that surgery does NOT have to be done instantly, a 2nd opinion must be sought from a doctor NOT associated in any way with the doctor recommending the surgery (as the sad reality is that doctors will lie to back each other up if they know each other), preferably female and/or young enough to not have fully absorbed the traditional view of "take it all out."
4) Should the necessity of surgery be agreed to, it has to be with the condition that every effort will be made to repair the damage first, rather than going right to removal in the name of expediency (the surgeon can just re-schedule his frigging golf game if necessary), that only those organs inarguably causing the problem should be removed, rather than taking them all "just to be sure," and that, in the case of the ovaries, every attempt MUST be made to leave at least a piece of each one still attached (as they've found that even little pieces of the ovaries can often manage to produce the full levels of hormones).
5) If there's any chance whatsoever that the remaining organs won't produce all the hormones I need for optimum health, tests of my hormone levels should be done as soon as feasible, and, if necessary, hormone replacement started immediately to prevent my body from crashing headlong into premature menopause or other problematic conditions.
Remember; don't ever, EVER place blind faith in doctors, because even the best of them can be behind the times, misinformed, confused, mislead, or have an off day. Gather the facts, educate your loved ones, and FIGHT to get the medical care that's best for you.
Ladies, it's no secret that the medical industry still holds biases against us; women continue to be given tranquilizers and a pat on the head when they seek medical attention because of symptoms that would instantly be seen as suggestive of everything from heart attacks to brain tumors if MEN complained of them... so it's VERY important that we inform our doctors and loved ones (who may be called upon to make medical decisions for us) of our wishes, and that those wishes be based on ALL the facts, including those you'll rarely hear in the doctor's office.
Today, I saw this article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8785447/
the main point of which is
"Most women getting a hysterectomy should keep their ovaries because the common extra step of removing them seems to do no good and might decrease their long-term survival, researchers report."
and brace yourself for this one
"the work promises to raise questions from women and their doctors about a procedure long accepted despite little evidence to back it."
In other words, the medical establishment, which until very recently was almost entirely male, and is still mostly male, especially in surgical disciplines, has always looked upon female reproductive organs as disposable (with the exception being with younger women who've had no kids or an expressed desire to have more), and has followed the rule of "if it's got a problem, yank it out," and, worse, "if it's got a problem, clean it ALL out," with the rationale always being that it's to the woman's benefit... but with NO studies having been done to PROVE that this radical, wholesale organ removal is in fact valuable to women's health, much less valuable enough to make it a viable option. (Can you imagine the comparable thing being done to MEN, that if a man had a problem in his reproductive system they'd remove his penis, testicles, prostate and other associated glands?)
If you don't believe that surgeons are doing these procedures without evidence to back up their worth, read my post of 6-14-05, which is about an article in Discover magazine in which a doctor reveals that "very little data back up the value of modern treatments like bypass surgery and angioplasty"; unlike medication, for which rigorous testing must PROVE the value (which must be greater than that of a placebo) for it to be approved for use, surgery is just what some doctor thought to do that seemed to work, and then other doctors copied it, with no actual studies being required to verify that these expensive and risk-filled procedures are doing what they're supposed to do ... scary, isn't it?
What we need to keep in mind is that, even after menopause, or after a woman has had all the children she wants, ovaries are NOT a waste product, because they produce hormones that women NEED for their bodies to function normally; furthermore, they've discovered that the uterus produces some hormones, too, and thus is also NOT a superfluous lump of flesh that can be cut out at a whim. Because the standard procedure at most hospitals is to remove female reproductive organs of other than very young women at the slightest provocation, and most doctors buy into that, it's up to every woman to think this issue through and make VERY clear to her doctors and loved ones what her wishes are, to be prepared for an emergency, such as a car wreck, when she might be unable to make her own medical decisions; I've given my own wishes below, in the hopes that they'll inspire other women to make their own lists, and inspire male readers to ask the women they love to do so.
1) My female organs are NOT disposable, and should not be treated as such any more than my heart or lungs would be.
2) Unless my life is in immediate and unquestioned danger (eg from bleeding to death from internal injuries), surgery should NOT be rushed into... and the surgeon would need to make a VERY strong case for the situation being an emergency, because they're infamous for stampeding family members into agreeing to surgeries that are NOT true emergencies.
3) In the likelihood that surgery does NOT have to be done instantly, a 2nd opinion must be sought from a doctor NOT associated in any way with the doctor recommending the surgery (as the sad reality is that doctors will lie to back each other up if they know each other), preferably female and/or young enough to not have fully absorbed the traditional view of "take it all out."
4) Should the necessity of surgery be agreed to, it has to be with the condition that every effort will be made to repair the damage first, rather than going right to removal in the name of expediency (the surgeon can just re-schedule his frigging golf game if necessary), that only those organs inarguably causing the problem should be removed, rather than taking them all "just to be sure," and that, in the case of the ovaries, every attempt MUST be made to leave at least a piece of each one still attached (as they've found that even little pieces of the ovaries can often manage to produce the full levels of hormones).
5) If there's any chance whatsoever that the remaining organs won't produce all the hormones I need for optimum health, tests of my hormone levels should be done as soon as feasible, and, if necessary, hormone replacement started immediately to prevent my body from crashing headlong into premature menopause or other problematic conditions.
Remember; don't ever, EVER place blind faith in doctors, because even the best of them can be behind the times, misinformed, confused, mislead, or have an off day. Gather the facts, educate your loved ones, and FIGHT to get the medical care that's best for you.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
What goes through an evil person's head?
I've posted many times that evil is at its base stupid, and that's why it usually fails; I just saw an example of that from an acquaintance who, not satisfied with getting away with a low level of misbehavior, inexplicably felt driven to wildly escalate their wrongdoing (although that included no possibility of further gains for them), to the point where the requisite authority couldn't help but notice and take disciplinary action... thus losing the evil person all they'd gained through what they'd been doing, that they could probably have kept forever if they'd just shown a little common sense. There's an even more astonishing aspect to the evil person's thought process, though; the way they seem to truly believe that their endless bad behavior is beyond reproach, but that any slightest ill done to them, even by their victims in self-defense, is indicative of hideous wrongdoing and deserving of an abusive or even violent response.
You see extreme versions of this in the movies all the time (as you might have guessed, I saw one such movie tonight); the bad guy is in the process of knocking a woman around preparatory to raping her, killing her or both, and, when she finally manages to get a blow in, he howls, "You f**king bitch!!" and goes into an attack frenzy, as if by making even one tiny effort to thwart his evil intentions she's become the monster and he's become the mistreated victim.
Few of us encounter anything that bad in real life, but most of us have seen the concept in action; the co-worker who steals your ideas at every opportunity and reacts like a rabid dog if you make even the politest protest, the unwelcome individual in your social circle who's always sniffing after everyone's romantic partners but screams accusations at anyone who so much as glances at THEIR partner, the family member who delights in showing up unannounced at everyone's homes at horribly inconvenient times and then demanding to be entertained who acts as if they'd been stabbed through the heart if any of those people show up at THEIR house or expect anything from them.
The sneakiest version of this behavior comes during discussions, arguments and debates, both online and off (well, not sneaky per se, as they do it openly, but sneaky in the sense that the evil one knows that no one notices the process or understands what's going on); the evil, or at the very least sociopathic (there's little difference), person will start using thinly veiled insults and personal remarks, and then, when the victim responds, will point to the self-defense comment and make an issue of how the victim is attacking THEM, picking a fight with them, or whatever, as if no observer's going to have any memory of their, EARLIER, comments... and the truly pitiful and bizarre thing is that usually people DO fail to remember who started it, and even seem unable to re-read earlier forum or message board posts to find out, which is of course what the evil one counts on. If the victim tries to reason with them (which is always a waste of time), and point out what the attacker said previously that was insulting, the attacker will twist it around to look like the victim was overly-sensitive and paranoid, and getting upset over nothing; if the victim tries to suggest that the attacker was making a mountain out of a molehill over what was said to THEM, though, then the idea of over-sensitivity suddenly ceases to exist.
I'm reasonably sure that a little bit of this kind of thing is done in a cold-blooded, planned, manipulative way, as some of the more successful sociopaths treat human interaction like a chess game, but most of the time the evil ones truly do seem convinced that everything they say, however viciously intended, is saintly and pure, and anything aimed against them is a horrible injustice that requires fierce retribution. Where do they GET that sort of warped thinking? It must be a psychological trait, because they all apparently have it; the only thing a good person can do is remember that, while evil types can dish it out, they can't take it... so be ready for their predictably extreme responses, and be prepared to deflect them before they get the better of you.
You see extreme versions of this in the movies all the time (as you might have guessed, I saw one such movie tonight); the bad guy is in the process of knocking a woman around preparatory to raping her, killing her or both, and, when she finally manages to get a blow in, he howls, "You f**king bitch!!" and goes into an attack frenzy, as if by making even one tiny effort to thwart his evil intentions she's become the monster and he's become the mistreated victim.
Few of us encounter anything that bad in real life, but most of us have seen the concept in action; the co-worker who steals your ideas at every opportunity and reacts like a rabid dog if you make even the politest protest, the unwelcome individual in your social circle who's always sniffing after everyone's romantic partners but screams accusations at anyone who so much as glances at THEIR partner, the family member who delights in showing up unannounced at everyone's homes at horribly inconvenient times and then demanding to be entertained who acts as if they'd been stabbed through the heart if any of those people show up at THEIR house or expect anything from them.
The sneakiest version of this behavior comes during discussions, arguments and debates, both online and off (well, not sneaky per se, as they do it openly, but sneaky in the sense that the evil one knows that no one notices the process or understands what's going on); the evil, or at the very least sociopathic (there's little difference), person will start using thinly veiled insults and personal remarks, and then, when the victim responds, will point to the self-defense comment and make an issue of how the victim is attacking THEM, picking a fight with them, or whatever, as if no observer's going to have any memory of their, EARLIER, comments... and the truly pitiful and bizarre thing is that usually people DO fail to remember who started it, and even seem unable to re-read earlier forum or message board posts to find out, which is of course what the evil one counts on. If the victim tries to reason with them (which is always a waste of time), and point out what the attacker said previously that was insulting, the attacker will twist it around to look like the victim was overly-sensitive and paranoid, and getting upset over nothing; if the victim tries to suggest that the attacker was making a mountain out of a molehill over what was said to THEM, though, then the idea of over-sensitivity suddenly ceases to exist.
I'm reasonably sure that a little bit of this kind of thing is done in a cold-blooded, planned, manipulative way, as some of the more successful sociopaths treat human interaction like a chess game, but most of the time the evil ones truly do seem convinced that everything they say, however viciously intended, is saintly and pure, and anything aimed against them is a horrible injustice that requires fierce retribution. Where do they GET that sort of warped thinking? It must be a psychological trait, because they all apparently have it; the only thing a good person can do is remember that, while evil types can dish it out, they can't take it... so be ready for their predictably extreme responses, and be prepared to deflect them before they get the better of you.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Kudos to Dove
Nearly every product marketed to the public in this country uses a narrow, unforgiving standard of female beauty in its advertisements, and that goes double for the ones for products that are meant to help create that beauty; at long, long last, however, a company has dared to create ads using real women rather than the genetic freaks that populate the modeling agencies... not a new, cutting-edge company, but that old standby, Dove.
When I saw the 1st of their new ads, I did a BIG double-take; I'm so used to seeing stick-thin models in every ad that includes full-body shots that my initial reaction was "What're they advertising with the plus-size ladies?", when in fact these lovely women are NOT plus-sized, they're NORMAL... somewhat fitter than average, yes, there's not a tubby tummy or droopy bottom among them, but REAL women with human weight and proportions proudly displayed in white bikinis. Once my viewpoint readjusted, I saw that these gals were the most attractive bunch I'd seen in an ad in ages, maybe ever; I also saw that Dove is probably going to get a serious spike in sales in the near future.
They're calling it the "Campaign for Real Beauty," for which the website is here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/
You can see the ladies from the ads here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=2287
They want to collect a million photos of regular women in our lives that we think are beautiful; you can see some here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=2091
and enter a photo here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/nb/login.cfm
They had a contest to challenge girls aged 11-17 to submit photos of women in their lives and write essays about what makes them truly beautiful; the winning entries are here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/essay/photo_essay_winners.asp?essayID=10
They've got alot of other stuff too: information, links to click to donate $, polls, discussion forums... and an easy way for every one of us to do our part to help girls of all shapes and sizes feel better about themselves. Go here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=3039
and "sign the pledge book," and they'll donate $1 to "uniquely ME! a self-esteem program for young girls." How easy is THAT?
We need to tell our kids and teens of BOTH genders that lots of different kinds of people are beautiful, that THEY are beautiful even if they don't live up to ridiculous standards of perfection, and we need them to hear us praising the attractiveness of regular folks rather than actors and models, and meaning it... AND, we need to be gentler on ourselves and stop sending the message that we're not good enough because we don't look like the folks on the TV screen.
It also wouldn't hurt to buy some Dove products while this campaign is going on, to send the message that you approve of real women being used in advertising rather than size 0 models; the more $ Dove makes right now, the more eager other companies will be to follow their lead.
Bravo to Dove for striking a blow for real women!!
When I saw the 1st of their new ads, I did a BIG double-take; I'm so used to seeing stick-thin models in every ad that includes full-body shots that my initial reaction was "What're they advertising with the plus-size ladies?", when in fact these lovely women are NOT plus-sized, they're NORMAL... somewhat fitter than average, yes, there's not a tubby tummy or droopy bottom among them, but REAL women with human weight and proportions proudly displayed in white bikinis. Once my viewpoint readjusted, I saw that these gals were the most attractive bunch I'd seen in an ad in ages, maybe ever; I also saw that Dove is probably going to get a serious spike in sales in the near future.
They're calling it the "Campaign for Real Beauty," for which the website is here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/
You can see the ladies from the ads here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=2287
They want to collect a million photos of regular women in our lives that we think are beautiful; you can see some here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=2091
and enter a photo here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/nb/login.cfm
They had a contest to challenge girls aged 11-17 to submit photos of women in their lives and write essays about what makes them truly beautiful; the winning entries are here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/essay/photo_essay_winners.asp?essayID=10
They've got alot of other stuff too: information, links to click to donate $, polls, discussion forums... and an easy way for every one of us to do our part to help girls of all shapes and sizes feel better about themselves. Go here
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=3039
and "sign the pledge book," and they'll donate $1 to "uniquely ME! a self-esteem program for young girls." How easy is THAT?
We need to tell our kids and teens of BOTH genders that lots of different kinds of people are beautiful, that THEY are beautiful even if they don't live up to ridiculous standards of perfection, and we need them to hear us praising the attractiveness of regular folks rather than actors and models, and meaning it... AND, we need to be gentler on ourselves and stop sending the message that we're not good enough because we don't look like the folks on the TV screen.
It also wouldn't hurt to buy some Dove products while this campaign is going on, to send the message that you approve of real women being used in advertising rather than size 0 models; the more $ Dove makes right now, the more eager other companies will be to follow their lead.
Bravo to Dove for striking a blow for real women!!
Monday, August 01, 2005
QAF: only 1 episode left
I came very late to "Queer as Folk" fandom (I didn't even see my 1st episode until about a year ago, when my husband brought me the DVD with the 1st 4 episodes from season 1 from Blockbuster), but I'm as passionate about the series as anyone, and I've been REALLY bummed that the current season will be the last... and this dismay has been steadily growing as the last episode has gotten closer. If you've been watching QAF, you understand how I feel; if not, picture it as a brilliant drama series spiked with comedy and hot sex that just happens to be about gay people... yes, there's social commentary about gay issues, and rightly so, but the central concept is people that you can't help but care about. (It doesn't hurt that there are hunky naked guys in every episode, but that's not really part of why I watch it. Really. No, really.)
You can count the # of TV series that I've seen from beginning to end on the fingers of one hand... I know, it's un-American isn't it, lol? The final episode of QAF, which airs on the 7th, will be the 1st time in my life that I'll be watching a series that I've seen all of end in real time (as opposed to seeing the last episode when the series is in syndication years later, usually totally out of order and not having seen most of the preceding episodes yet, or of course the series just being cancelled with no resolution), and the 1st time I've become really emotionally involved with the characters; I'm eager to see how they've ended it, of course, but truly dreading it BEING the end (yes, I know they might make a movie at some point, but it won't be the same).
I started writing this over an hour ago, and look how little I've written; it's like I've got brain freeze over this, as if maybe if I don't accept that they're ending it it will somehow not be over. My head's all a-buzz trying to figure out how they'll round it up, so maybe I'll just post my best guesses and call it good:
I can't imagine they're going to kill anyone or do any out-of-the-blue breakups of established relationships in the final episode, so Debbie and Carl should be ok, and Michael and Ben (and Hunter), and Jennifer and Tucker... well, she's twice his age, and he's only recently been shown to us even though they've been together 6 months, so I guess they might break up, but I doubt they'll waste any of the final hour on that, so they're probably ok too.
Mel and Linz just reunited, so they'll be together; it looks like Linz convinced Brian to let her take Gus to Canada, so the ladies and the kids will almost certainly be about to move by the end.
Ted's going to realize that his "perfect" new boyfriend is a manipulative jerk, break up with him, and end the series single again but ok with it because he knows he can get other guys now; they just CAN'T end the series with him still with this rotten guy that he barely met, right?
Emmett's going to finish the series single, since he told Drew to go sow his wild oats; I don't see what else they could do with him other than maybe give him a happier ending by getting him his job back at the news station, or some similar sort of job, so he doesn't end the series with nothing.
What matters the most, of course, is what happens with Brian and Justin, and that'll be the focus of the final episode; I think they're NOT going to be riding off together into the sunset as a devoted pair of newlyweds, but instead will be doing more of a "Gift of the Magi" thing... if you don't get that reference, read the classic O. Henry story here
http://www.night.net/christmas/Gift-Magi.html
What they value most is each other, but to be together each of them has to sacrifice who he is; Justin has to give up his big shot at being an artist, and Brian has to give up his debauched lifestyle. Based on what they've already shown, and what little preview they've given, I'd say that, heartbreaking as it is to contemplate, Brian's going to decide that he has to make Justin go to New York to be a big-time artist, and Justin's going to tell Brian to re-build Babylon (which tellingly has NOT been announced as sold yet, nor has Brian's loft/sex den), and go back to doing what he does best.
There's a possible twist to that, though; Brian might decide to move his ad agency to NY, or start a NY branch, give up all shreds of his old life and move there with Justin (although probably not married to him, as marriage just isn't what he's about), so that he and Justin can be together, but still be doing the club thing and hooking up with other guys.
OR, they could go for a really emotional ending, have Justin insist on giving it all up for Brian, and Brian decide to accidentally on purpose get caught in bed with another guy to drive Justin away and make sure he goes to NY... after which he'd go back to his old ways.
Whatever the final score ends up being, I hope they manage to tie everything up in a way that loyal viewers can accept if not love; not a happy ending, but a satisfying one. Check back in a week for my reaction to the end of an era.
You can count the # of TV series that I've seen from beginning to end on the fingers of one hand... I know, it's un-American isn't it, lol? The final episode of QAF, which airs on the 7th, will be the 1st time in my life that I'll be watching a series that I've seen all of end in real time (as opposed to seeing the last episode when the series is in syndication years later, usually totally out of order and not having seen most of the preceding episodes yet, or of course the series just being cancelled with no resolution), and the 1st time I've become really emotionally involved with the characters; I'm eager to see how they've ended it, of course, but truly dreading it BEING the end (yes, I know they might make a movie at some point, but it won't be the same).
I started writing this over an hour ago, and look how little I've written; it's like I've got brain freeze over this, as if maybe if I don't accept that they're ending it it will somehow not be over. My head's all a-buzz trying to figure out how they'll round it up, so maybe I'll just post my best guesses and call it good:
I can't imagine they're going to kill anyone or do any out-of-the-blue breakups of established relationships in the final episode, so Debbie and Carl should be ok, and Michael and Ben (and Hunter), and Jennifer and Tucker... well, she's twice his age, and he's only recently been shown to us even though they've been together 6 months, so I guess they might break up, but I doubt they'll waste any of the final hour on that, so they're probably ok too.
Mel and Linz just reunited, so they'll be together; it looks like Linz convinced Brian to let her take Gus to Canada, so the ladies and the kids will almost certainly be about to move by the end.
Ted's going to realize that his "perfect" new boyfriend is a manipulative jerk, break up with him, and end the series single again but ok with it because he knows he can get other guys now; they just CAN'T end the series with him still with this rotten guy that he barely met, right?
Emmett's going to finish the series single, since he told Drew to go sow his wild oats; I don't see what else they could do with him other than maybe give him a happier ending by getting him his job back at the news station, or some similar sort of job, so he doesn't end the series with nothing.
What matters the most, of course, is what happens with Brian and Justin, and that'll be the focus of the final episode; I think they're NOT going to be riding off together into the sunset as a devoted pair of newlyweds, but instead will be doing more of a "Gift of the Magi" thing... if you don't get that reference, read the classic O. Henry story here
http://www.night.net/christmas/Gift-Magi.html
What they value most is each other, but to be together each of them has to sacrifice who he is; Justin has to give up his big shot at being an artist, and Brian has to give up his debauched lifestyle. Based on what they've already shown, and what little preview they've given, I'd say that, heartbreaking as it is to contemplate, Brian's going to decide that he has to make Justin go to New York to be a big-time artist, and Justin's going to tell Brian to re-build Babylon (which tellingly has NOT been announced as sold yet, nor has Brian's loft/sex den), and go back to doing what he does best.
There's a possible twist to that, though; Brian might decide to move his ad agency to NY, or start a NY branch, give up all shreds of his old life and move there with Justin (although probably not married to him, as marriage just isn't what he's about), so that he and Justin can be together, but still be doing the club thing and hooking up with other guys.
OR, they could go for a really emotional ending, have Justin insist on giving it all up for Brian, and Brian decide to accidentally on purpose get caught in bed with another guy to drive Justin away and make sure he goes to NY... after which he'd go back to his old ways.
Whatever the final score ends up being, I hope they manage to tie everything up in a way that loyal viewers can accept if not love; not a happy ending, but a satisfying one. Check back in a week for my reaction to the end of an era.
