Tag Archives: medicine

Freakin’ Friday Follies

by Sherry

“To the moon, Alice, to the Moon!”

I just love Newt.

He gets in front of a bunch of ex-NASA employees, in a very depressed part of the state of FLOOREDA, and he garrrunteees that in his SECOND term of office as POTUS, he will ensure that we have a colony on da moon.

Now, you can call that Newtspah. And you would be right to do so.

But, he’s not our big winner this week.

No, our boy Mittens wins this week.

Why you ask?

Well, because he called out the Newtster on this promise, accusing him. . . .wait for it. . .  OF PANDERING to the audience.

He chided Newty for trying to promise his way to the White House by, in each state, finding some pet project that the residents were interested in, and then promising he would give them “it” if they were so kind as to vote for him.

Yes, he did.

And well, go ahead, yell it: THAT’S KINDA LIKE THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK oh Mitten-man, you who are known for your chameleon-like ability to change position based on the change of wind of public opinion. So ya win this week!

Ahab or dear friend turned us on to this great little link that actually proves to be a rather well done study on the convergence of IQ, conservative thinking, and bigotry. Wanna guess what it tends to show? Dumb people tend to not have the capacity to see the “big picture” and so tend to fall for the easy simplistic structured and ordered world that conservatism offers. Those who are least capable of abstract reasoning, are more likely to fall for racism and other bigoted ideas.

Was there ever any doubt?

Kevin Drum kinda proves the above study. Right now our boy Newt is the darling of the TeaNutz®, mostly because they have run through all the other possibilities and he’s what’s left. Well, tea bibbers are folks who believe in doing NOTHING about most things, and shrinking government. And at heart, Newt is a guy with grandiose ideas of being a world-wide mover and shaker. And that requires “DOING BIG THINGS”. But being light in the brain-case, said TeaNutz® have not yet puzzled that paradox out. And probably never will.

I wanna share a little secret with ya. When you retire, even years and years after you retire? You will still smile a bit bigger when it’s Friday. It’s true. I swear it is. And late Sunday afternoon will find you feeling a bit let down. You will sigh as you see the sun go down. It happens. It’s just the way it is. And you can’t know that until it happens to you.

Mittens has an ad in Florida wherein he goes after Newt for claiming that “Spanish is the language of the ghetto.” While not factually completely true, Mittens, when asked, inquired, “Is that one of my ads? I haven’t seen it. I doubt that’s my ad.” Of course the ad ends with the statement “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message.” Which means, I guess he doesn’t, or didn’t, or it’s all meaningless. But then, well I guess we knew all that anyway.

Newtie Patootie invoked the name of Saul Alinsky again last night. It is supposed to raise all kinds of dangerous visions of commie boogeymen comin’ around to take away our freedoms. At least Newt is hoping it will. He, in his snooty, lookin’ down my nose at all of you, way of viewing the world, is assuming you have no clue who Alinsky is, and are way too lazy to find out.

What is rich of course, is that Saul Alinsky did most of his community organizing in Chicago, among poor working stiffs. And he did it with the full help and approval of the Roman Catholic Church, who joined him in his efforts to improve the lives of working folks. Oh, and Alinsky’s heroes? They were Jefferson and Madison, you know, the FOUNDING FATHERS, who are nigh on to gods to the Crazy Right.

Alinsky received the Pacem en Terris Peace and Freedom Award from the Vatican in 1969. Past recipients have been  Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, Cesar Chavez, Daniel Berrigan, Jim Wallis, and Lech Walesa.

Oh Newt? That would be YOUR Catholic church no?

 Why we are right:

Caterpillar posted record profits this year. To the tune of 36% after taxes. Revenues increased by 2.65 BILLION.  Yet they have locked out workers at their Ontario plant in Canada, because the workers refused a cut in pay from $32/hr to $16.50/hr. Caterpillar CEO, John Oberhelman, made $10.5 million in 2010.

This is not class warfare. This is about fairness.

Okay, I’ll let you off easy today. It’s Friday, after all. No Football.

What’s on the Stove? Leftovers: Chick-Ling Spaghetti Parmesan or Wild and Wicked Taco Soup (your choice). The latter recipe will be posted today, the former already is.

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Can I Have an Extra Day Please, with Sugar?

by Sherry

Everybody has those kinda days. When you get up already behind. This is usually the result of “sleeping in”. I’m a 7 am kinda person. I find that a humane time to arise. Some days, I don’t quite make it. Thus, I’m behind.

Tomorrow, I’m shopping, so I’m not sure I’ll get to blogging.

The Contrarian, however, puts his time to good use. He’s a thinker. Remember his desire to hold a thinkathon? Much easier than having a walkathon he thought.

When he thinks too much, well, I usually get concerned. His latest “breakthrough” is a humdinger.

The Contrarian has long pondered the existence of the soul. That has led him to toil in the backyard of the differences between humans and other animals. That place, he contends is where one might locate the seat of our divine connection. With me so far?

The places tred by medical men and women, philosophers, and theologians. What of the soul?

And, as I said, he thinks he has had a breakthrough.

He asks this question:

Is there any other animal but humans who react with distaste to the fart?

I know, its blasphemous. It’s crazy. It’s absurd, illogical, and downright unpretty. It is the Contrarian. Don’t blame me. I’m just reporting the news.

♦

If’n you didn’t know, the right-wing religious are, as you know, against abortions. And they are very against Planned Parenthood, and they devise all manner of nasty things to “prove” that PPH should be shut down. One of their more ingenious methods is to claim that PPH is about the business of genocide of the African-American population. This because statistically more black women obtain abortions than white or Latino.

Now the fact that this has to do with poverty and lack of access to medical information and contraception at the same level as their more wealthy white counterparts is ignored. No, it’s so much easier to suggest that PPH has as an unstated goal, the destruction of an entire people.

I imagine that the NAACP and other African-American groups are so grateful to the white folk for being so concerned for them. Yes, I guess we can all be grateful to those benevolent white people.

♦

Roger Ebert talks about what he understands as the Universe and evolution. It’s a lovely piece. Makes ya feel all warm inside for reasons I cannot explain. Least it do for me.

♦

See, now we know that serendipity is real. I mean, after writing about the Contrarian and his “breakthrough” I come across this article: Natural History of the Soul. Nicholas Humphrey argues that spirituality is essential to consciousness. Read it in The New Humanist. Humphrey is an evolutionary psychologist, and he’s written a book called Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness. Looks like a very interesting read.

♦

If there were any question about the agenda of Mikey Huckster, read on. It seems Mikey attended one of those uber right-wing  conferences, one that featured pseudo-historian David Barton and his revisionist history of the founding of this country. Why Mikey was just adoring of said Barton and said the following:

 “I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it.”

Of course, in the “official” video of the event, the “joke” was scrubbed. And of course, Mikey meant every word, until he realized it wouldn’t play well outside his crazy base.

♦

Good news to report. I don’t have a link, but I’ve heard or read it in so many places that it is obviously true. The teabagger phenom is beginning to wane. Their unfavorables are now above their favorables. Which is all the more amusing since the Prez wannabes are all still dancing like marionettes to the teabagger tune, afraid to pirouette too far from the dark force. 

This is causing all sorts of problems with the budget. Word is that Boehner wants desperately to make a deal rather than shut down the government, but he dare not piss off the wonkettes, who are picketing in Washington, even as we speak. Well, we all knew this would happen didn’t we?

And who might you ask is riding to the rescue? None other than boy wonder Eric Cantor. Cantor has introduced a bill that will be voted on in the House on Friday, entitled, “Government Shutdown Prevention Act.” What it does it tell the Senate to act on the budget bill before the deadline and if it doesn’t the House passed bill will become the law of the land.

Yes, you heard that right. Cantor is simply tearing the Constitution up and making up his own new one. Yes, that’s some pretty strict construction there Mr. Cantor. Uh…do you dance too?

♦

What’s on the Stove? Fajitahs!

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It’s Hardly News Anymore

by Sherry

It occurred to me today. Well, it occurs to me often, but today I decided to mention it. Given the speed of information whirling around the globe as fast as light, it’s no wonder.

Given our attention spans being shorter than the nose on a gnat, it’s no wonder.

Today’s news is piled upon the trash pile, often to be utterly forgotten except by a very few.

Today, the news is dominated by the tragedy in Japan. Well it should be, for what has happened there is truly devastating to all of us. We sympathize with the pain and wreckage that consumes a nation.

We are slowly forgetting about Libya and the utterly inhuman slaughter than is beginning there as Qaddafi looses his mercenary forces with appalling determination to exterminate those who had the temerity to ask him to stop using them as his private empire of greed.

We are still sympathetic to Wisconsin, but after all, it’s got to take second place to the deaths of thousands, whether through natural disaster or human evil.

We have pretty much forgotten Haiti, except to nod in sadness when some celebrity needs to shore up their public persona by making a trip there to “help out.”

To say nothing less than other notables for a day or a few. Who remembers the name of the latest Medal of Honor recipient from Iowa? Or the wrestler from Iowa who forfeited his match rather than wrestle a girl?

We know that parts of the East Coast are facing or living with flooding, but really, isn’t that just part of life in America every year some place?

We don’t know what is going on in Egypt today, even though a couple of weeks ago, we knew in a nuanced way, all the players.

Who knows what is happening in Iraq? We’ve officially ended that war, even though we are still there, doing something or other. Marches occurred there. Is there a government in place? I can’t remember. We crossed it off our list.

I wonder what it feels like to be the center of attention nationally or world-wide? And then, suddenly the phone no longer rings, there are no reporters at the door. No Hollywood promoter interested in doing a movie, no publicist interested in “talking about a book.”

I wonder what it feels like to return to obscurity. I know what it’s like to be obscure. Most of us do. Most of us have always been so, except to a few friends, coworkers, and family. But to be “somebody” for a minute, and then poof, back to obscure? That must be a tough thing to get through.

What’s it like to be recognized wherever you go? To the supermarket, “hey aren’t you the _________?” Until one day, someone says, “hey. . .” and you turn in expectation, smile ready, “yes I’m. . .” and then you hear “hey bud, you dropped your glove.” No sign on his face that he knows you from Adam.

Just wondering what that feels like.

♦

It appears that sentiments are growing for the institution of a “no fly zone” over Libya. The Arab League has voted in favor of it. I think perhaps all agree that Qaddafi is so insane that he will kill all the rebels. The atrocities are starting to mount up. Something must be done, but what? I surely have no answers.

♦

I’ve been hearing in various places that the union busting efforts in Wisconsin, may have unintended consequences for the extreme right-wing exemplified by Gov. Walker and his troupe of big business supporters. Unions may in fact have a resurgence across the land as people stand up in solidarity in favor of collective bargaining as the champion of workers rights and protector of Americans in labor.

A huge rally is scheduled for Madison today. We hope that it numbers in the hundreds of thousands. This will be rectified.Of that one can be quite certain.

Lest there be any doubt that the move in Wisconsin was solely to hurt the Democratic Party, here’s the Repuklican Senate Majority Leader in his own words:

If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.

We hope with all our being that these bastards are voted out, recalled, or impeached as the case may be. To use the law to effect political advantage and to do it so openly, callously, and against the welfare of the people of your state is stunningly reprehensible.

♦

Our good bloggy friend, Distributor Cap has a good post on nuclear energy in the wake of the Japanese earthquake. While they insist that there is no real danger, one reactor has blown up, and fears are that the Japanese may be downplaying the danger. This is to be expected of course, but gives every one of us pause. While nuclear power is seemingly necessary, its dangers cannot be lightly dismissed either.

♦ 

The wacko right who are not politicians, and thus not sucking off the teat of big business, has been well taught to mouth the mantra of “free market” economics and “trickle down” theories. They are taught to recite ad nauseam that if only business is happy then all of working stiffs will get our fair share. Shall we just mark this up as another example of corporate largess then?

KV Pharmaceuticals of St. Louis has been given FDA exclusive rights to sell a drug called Makena, a drug that prevents premature childbirth. The drug is cheap to manufacture and has been priced at $10 a shot. KV has raised the price to $1500 per dose. Their explanation? Women will be willing to pay the increased amount to avoid complications to their newborns, such as mental and physical disabilities.

Yes, that is their explanation. Because the results of not taking it could be catastrophic, women will pay the extra monies. No word yet as to what poor women are supposed to do.

Are you sick to your stomach now? Can’t wait to hear the spin the “kill Obamacare” crowd will put on this.

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You Must Be Malaysian!

by Sherry

I’m married to a Malaysian. I did not know this for eleven + years. What’s more, I never even had a suspicion that the Contrarian was not a full-blooded Iowa farm boy of pale-Euro descent.

How did we find out? The doctor told us. And doctors aren’t often wrong on these things.

‘Splain it to me Lucy, as Ricky used to say.

Yesterday, (you noticed my absence I hope), we spent some time at the VA in Cedar Rapids. The Contrarian has had increasingly limited mobility in his shoulders with severe pain. I put it down to bursitis. Anyway, (oh it probably is bursitis by-the-way) his new doctor, “Susan,” was going over some of his other recent tests.

As usual, they all gush and rush to share with all the other doctors his phenomenal and frankly weird cholesterol numbers. He has amazingly low bad cholesterol and freakin’ high “good” cholesterol.

Well, it turns out that there are only three reasons for such a result:

  1. A super great low-fat, salt, sugar diet. This one is laughable in regards the Contrarian. He thinks that bacon/peanut butter sandwiches are breakfast food, followed only by his second favorite: bologna/peanut butter. Gravy is something that is drinkable, and a meal is not a meal without red meat, or pork chops. So this is not the source of his medical miracle.
  2. An exercise routine that borders on world-class athleticism. We are talking triathlon here. To know the Contrarian is to know why couches were invented and lazy boy (soooo aptly named) chairs. Plenty of times the dear man lumbers from the bed to his chair where he remains with the ubiquitous remote all day until he lumbers back to bed. He does, however, lumber to the kitchen table for one of his meals, because I insist.
  3. You are Malaysian. No, before you ask, I have no freakin’ idea why this is the case.

So you see, he must be Malaysian, since it is not remotely possible that he qualifies in the other two categories. The things you learn in marriage. I’m not sure how I feel about all this. I don’t know anything about Malaysia, except that the Google Images suggests there are lots of nice beaches there, so it could be okay with me. I’m keeping an open mind.

Personally, I think there is another answer. My husband, after all, spent a year in that general area fighting a war. And I think some monkey bit him and mutated a gene. I’m not quite sure of the medical how-to’s about all this, but I’m pretty sure that explains it.

If that doesn’t answer it, then I figure his father, who also fought a war in the South Pacific, got bit by the monkey and he genetically infected his offspring with this stupidly-super-healthy cholesterol thingie.

There must be an answer, or I’m forced to question whether God has been hitting the sauce again, or was, during the conception of one of his children. I mean, you cannot imagine the ribbing and all-around crap I have to take because of this.

The twinkling eyes, the nodding head, the “I should write a diet book” talk. I get it all. The sanctimony is dripping.  I mean it’s simply not fair that he can sit there doing exactly the opposite of what every decent doctor in the land would tell a person. It’s not fair.

Oh and get this. He is pre-pre-diabetic. This means nothing much, except that it means he can eat sugar like crazy and not put on weight. Yeah, and the doctor said, he might have been that way from birth too. How nutzy is that? How deeply unfair? God, what is this?

The rest of us struggle and gain three pounds just looking at a dove chocolate, let alone eat it. And he waves his candy bars (yes I said, bars) in my face and chortles with delight.

I nag and cajole all the day long on better diet, exercise, and all around good health, and this man not only refuses to engage in anything remotely resembling sane eating and exercise, and then to boot, gets his doctor to back him up.

I spent a number of hours last night, discussing this all with God, and he just says, “trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

I’m not sure I can swallow that any more. I’m not sure I can take it any longer either. I mean he’s being merciless in teasing me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was some bribery involved and a payoff. Yeah, that’s probably it.

About the only good this has done me is that dinner planning has been simplified. Just make that a plate of lard with a dessert of butter.

And I’m packing to visit the homeland. Those beaches look mighty inviting.

Just Another Day at the Races

by Sherry

Morning!

There is a new post over at Walking in the Shadows should you be interested. I’m keeping more of the religious stuff there rather than here, unless I think that the posting is of interest to all. This latest one, is I guess, but I posted it there anyway.

I’m back to using Foxfire Mozilla again, and finding it works fantastic. The issues I had with it and my blog are gone, as well as my reader issues. On top of that, it solved problems that were so bad on FB and Twitter, that they were getting virtually unusable for me. So hurrah!

Don’t know how much time you had to devote to the OneNation Rally this weekend. I had precious little, but I gleaned a few things: Fox gave it a lot of notice, figuring I assume that they could spin it in either direction. A big crowd = tons of progressives unhappy with Obama, or a small crowd = the progressive movement is puny.

So far, I can get no reliable numbers, but most seem to think that the crowd was smaller than the teabagger picnic. In any case, the pictures are dramatically different. Teabagger rally = old and white, while OneNation = all ages and diverse ethnicity.

***

New definitions of “ugly American” are emerging as we find out how actual military doctors from the US of A, conducted human experiments on Nicaraguans during the 40’s. All that talk about Hitler mind you was going on at the time. I just can’t think of why so many folks in other countries hate us, can you?

***

Head over to MotherJones in general and peruse. They have article after article on who gives the money, what groups give the money, what candidates are spending the most, where they get their money, who they defend on Congress and so forth. There are probably 8-10 articles in all. Worth your time to take a look.

***

A really not-to-be-missed post by Paul Krugman on the insidious and blatant take-over of the GOP by a very few ultra-rich families, including our own favorite Foxy Noise. No pretence here, just power grabbing. And the ones who are being duped? The poor teabaggers of course.

***
Sharron Angle is one of those alleged humans who just amaze you that they can walk upright. I mean the woman has the brain of a slug. Sad to say, Harry is so despised, that she still manages to hang on in the race. But really, just how much ineptitude can Nevadans tolerate before they bite the big ugly and vote for Reid? She’s caught on tape trying to talk fellow teabagger candidate Scott Ashijian to back out.  Nothing terribly wrong here, just amusing, as she touts O’Donnell and Scott from Alaska as people she thinks are “real.”
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There’s a new book about Beck, by Dana Milbank. It might well be worth the purchase. Milbank documents how Beck uses his favorite boy Hitler to attack everyone. This time it’s Gore and the UN. Oh, I’m gonna try to get this gem! Read more from Milbank here.
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Chris Guillebeau is a blogger and self-styled non-conformist. Read about his take on life and whatever in this 3quarksdaily interview. You can visit his blog here. He has visited 151 countries in his quest to visit them all. Lots of strategies to living your life your way.
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Why do we like art? No, not like. Why does our heart soar, our breathing change, our pupils enlarge, why do we lose track of time? All this when something hits us deeply? Why are we captivated by a story? A song? Why did we and do we spend time, energy and money on that which is fiction? We wouldn’t do it unless there was some evolutionary benefit you know.
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What’s Up? 06/18/10

by Sherry

I awoke to day two of sunshine! Well, it was a shock of course, and I don’t want you to get too excited, for the forecast (I know, why bother?) is not good.

Decidedly not good. The heavens are scheduled to spew! later today, and perhaps dangerously so.

I’m trying to be stoic and not spew here.

So, hopefully there is a thing or two out there that we can find that will enlighten our souls and raise us all to a higher plane of contemplation. Yep.

Science takes a look at figuring out why we like what we like. It’s a long, but thoughtful review in part of Paul Bloom’s book, How Pleasure Works.

Emory University studies chimpanzees to help learn when and how humans developed the valued empathy behavior. These nearest cousins of ours regularly sympathize and comfort members who have been victimized by aggression from others.  

Ever since South Carolina was placed on the terminally stupid state list, well we expect about anything. Senator DeMint, (the one running against the fake Democrat Greene, who barely knows that he lives in South Carolina), is helping out pal Sharron Angle ( the uber nut case running as an uber teabagger in Utah against Harry Reid), by getting the uber crazy right wing American Vision (who wants Merika governed by the bible as they interpret it), to help raise funds for said Angle’s campaign. Crazy is as crazy does.

Everybody knows that education in this country is pure crap. D-Cap via BMT makes a good case that it went off the trolley with the Reagan administration (you know the ONLY freakin’ Rethug administration in modern history that they can cling to [and they do] as something to tout?). He makes a good argument. Read Bob Bennett is a jackass.

Idiocy rules in Rethunglian land as we know. Butthead Joe Barton, (R-TX) saw fit to apologize to BP for the terrible treatment they had received at the hands of the Obama administration. Guess Joe figures the oil won’t come to Texas and that his constituency are unlike the rest of the Gulf residents who patently dispise the company. Par for the course since so many Rethuglicans are back to drill baby drill rhetoric. No shame and no brains. I simply cannot wait to see what kinds of money Barton gets from oil interests. Oops, gee. what a surprise. Turns out Barton gets more money from the oil industry THAN ANY OTHER HOUSE MEMBER. Read it!

Andrew Sullivan wrote a good piece on Obama and what he has done. Blame the media for focusing usually on the wrong stuff, and the progressives wanting too much, and the right just crying non-stop, Sullivan argues that Obama has and is taking the right tone and tack. See what you think.

For the first time, a significant Jewish history site, centering on Eastern Europe,  has been created. It is supposed to be friendly to both the casual reader and the reseacher and student alike. Take a look.

A commentor left a lovely link to a great article on Chance, Choice and God. A thoughtful post.

For chuckles, read Liberals Hate Palin Because She’s  Beautiful. The writer seriously claims that this is behind the media’s and general populations dislike of  the Palinator (that woman is an idiot). It’s kinda sad to think that conservative thinking is so shallow, and if you don’t believe me, read to the end and see that the author just wants to paint as “ugly” all liberal women. Dude you are so superficial it’s pathetic.

Best not to miss D-Caps great parody of our Sarah (that woman is an idiot) gettin’ in touch with the Prez with advice on how to handle the oil spill. Pricelessly hilarious as always.

hope you find sumpin’ to read here! lol…

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The Food Wars

by Sherry

We are living in the WRONG century insofar as food is concerned. That’s obvious, and needs no explanation, but I’ll give you one just in case.

We are smart enough to manufacture the stuff that tastes and looks edible, but are just beginning to have the tools to determine whether we are in fact genetically destroying the human race as a result.

You know what I mean. I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and thus was in on the ground floor of manufactured edibles. Bisquick, tubed biscuits, mashed taters in a box, and some horrifying thing called “Helper” preceded by things life “beef” and “tuna.”

We were stabilized in all this by things called “preservatives” which basically meant that the shelf life of said faux food could be centuries. We are dripping in a thing called “high fructose corn syrup” cuz somehow it works better than plain old cane sugar.

Now, most of the crap we grew up eating was declared “safe” by an FDA which we thought was actually looking out for us, but we now know is just a shill for the food manufacturing industry, so all these decades later, some of us feel rightly SCREWED.

Americans spend a ton of dough on over the counter digestive aids. Look at Walmart’s my lovelies and see a whole section devoted to stuff designed to make it all go down and through and out without too much pain. We belch and gag and well, do other unmentionable things in an effort to extract some nutritional value out of soy-lent green masked as ding dongs.

Somewhere in the 70’s or so, people started to do actual studies which got everyone worrying. So we ingested tons of bran muffins, cut down on coffee, stopped drinking soda with real sugar, and a myriad of other rules of the road designed to improve our health, or at least stop the damage we had already done.

We are just beginning to have the capability to determine the long term genetic effects of all those chemicals. Who knows, it may already be too late. We may have introduced the genetic oops into the mix (sorry all you silly creationists, but evolution continues ya know even if you pretend it doesn’t) already for all we know.

Every few months we are admonished to stop eating so much of this, and add more that into our diet. If in fact we tried to follow all this goodly advice, I dare say we would spend the better part of every day just working out the schedule.

And, then there is that thing called exercise! It went from 15 minutes three times a week, to 4 times a week, then 2o minutes, then 5 days a week, then 6, and now its 30 minutes 7 days a week. It’s walking, and then it’s strength training too, and then, well it makes a body take to their bed in self defense and exhaustion, I tell ya.

And then, exercise the brain. Fend off Alzheimer’s–do math, puzzles, read, or don’t, since there is plenty of literature that say it won’t make a difference. Or eat broccoli, since it seems to be good for much that ails us.

I cannot imagine the young mother these days faced with trying to give her kids a decent chance at a long and healthy life. Where to begin? I have no clue, and frankly, I’ve given up.

What I do mostly and I say mostly most seriously, because my addictions to crap are well, addictions after all, and I’m a firm believer that we can only address about 2/3 of all addictions without going mad, so choose which 1/3 you intend to relish until you die an unnatural and earlier death than you should.

So I mostly stay away from processed food. I long ago tossed the Bisquick and tubes of dough. I don’t by frozen meals or canned gravies and all that jazz. I mostly stay away from a lot of processed meat and pretend side dishes with suspiciously weird looking “flavor” packets. Amazingly, most of this stuff can be cooked from scratch in a few minutes of time, and taste wildly better than their counterparts of ground up cardboard flavored with grape-like taste nuggets.

I have no idea whether I’m healthier or not. But it’s a measure of control, and it’s hugely cheaper as well, which is a bonus. We grow a big garden and I actually like making salsa and tomato sauce for my spaghetti from real tomatoes and garlic and onions and all that. Sure, it won’t last until Christmas like the jars I can get in the local assembly line “food” dispenser, called Piggly Wiggly or Walmart or HyVee or any number of silly names.

Course we eat meat, and I KNOW that is probably cancer on a plate, as well as plenty of other genetic mutating sludge, but there is, as I say, only so much one can do about addictions. And fish is no bargain either, since more and more it comes from polluted waters and is probably not fit for consumption.

We are out there alone my friends, in the big world of food. No one to protect or guide us much. In a couple more centuries, we should probably have this all down pat. No doubt we will be able to discern  the properties of every food with our new third eye. But oh, just think of the added expense of all that mascara!

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