Maggie's Farm

Calisthenics are 1/3 of our General Fitness triad.

As I have not really discussed in the past, there are plenty of gray zones between the three, and few exertions are purely in one category (excepting sprints which are real cardio). 

Burpees might be the ultimate calisthenic. SEALS do a lot of them. The more you can do, the better overall shape you are probably in. My personal trainer/Boss wants us to do Birthday Burpees, meaning our age in burpee reps. As they say in New York, fugettaboutit. 

I do sets of ten (with the pushups) in between weights sets on weights days. Might not be ideal to do that, but it is my routine, and I like routine.

As our readers know, we view what most people term "cardio" as about 1/3 of the general fitness triad (resistance, calisthenics, and cardio).

Among the machine options, the rower and the stair machines are most designed to help build some strength along with the heart stress. The advantage of the rower is that it is pretty much total body, and when you up the resistance, it's some strength along with the cardio.

To beat a dead horse, cardio is meant to be about heart fitness, so if your heart rate is not where you want it then all it is about is physical endurance (which is not a bad thing in itself). 

The Maggie's protocol advises sprints for cardiac fitness, not long-slow. Long-slow, like walking or swimming laps, is fine for ordinary endurance and maintenance. It all depends on one's goals.

I like mixing up my cardio days with variety to avoid boredom. Treadmill sprints, rower, stair machine, ski machine. Usually only 30 minutes, then I finish my hour with accessory weights. 

Reminder for January fitness people: unless you are a unicorn, do not use exercise to lose weight. That's not what it is for, and it only works for the rare unicorn. Exercise can be good for muscle weight gain, though, especially weight training. Losing fat is about nutrition.

The last vestiges of humanity are being slowly but effectively drained from the practice of medicine.

I have long wanted to write a brief piece on the idea of "failure to launch", a term which has been in use for almost a generation now. I will try to keep it brief, but with not entirely-formed thoughts.

My main point is that many are not equipped to launch out into the big world to become world-beaters, or even to become well-adapted to current economic-psycho-social expectations. In my view, it is remarkable that so many are equipped and willing. It is a social expectation now but not a useful one.

Humans are tribal, family- and extended-family-oriented creatures. Every human has some gifts, and many shortcomings. Luck matters in life of course, but I do believe that "we make our own luck" if we have the temperament to do so. In my career, I have seen many flawed but talented flounder on the rocks because wealth, privilege, and family enablement made it possible. 

A bit more than a century ago, and forever before that, most people worked on farms. Family farms. Life was hard before machines, but there was work for everybody in the family for generations.  Occasionally, an ambitious kid would leave for the city for work or further education. With the industrial revolution, there was work for all (including kids) off the farm, at whatever level one sought to achieve. Not pleasant work in the mills until skills were achieved, but still work, contributing to the family...

Here's why

It's more fun too, and you can make pals there. 

No. But people like the idea of it.

Dorothy Parker supposedly named her bird Onan because he spilled his seed. She was a witty lady.

This from Althouse is about Jeffret Toobin, and the Old Testament. 

The kerfuffle about the soon-to-be First Lady's (where did that obnoxious term come from? From some Third World dictatorship?) honorific has been amusing. 

Tucker Carlson attributes it to "status anxiety." Is that a thing? Perhaps it is, for some more insecure people, whether about attractiveness, wealth, profession, education, or other. Of course, in the US physicians are given the honorific Dr. in formal settings. It is pleasant. In the UK, physicians are given the honorific "Mr." or whatever their pronoun preference is nowadays.

Jill Biden Wants Us to Call Her 'Dr.' So Here's a Look at Her Ed.D 'Position Paper' to Receive That Doctorate

It is interesting that the COVID-19 epidemic has not moved the needle on the overall US death rate.

Statistically-inclined readers may offer their explanations for this data, if valid.

Add: I doubt this was retracted for narrative reasons. 

For peace of mind, this is a remarkable deal:  Lifeline Screening. No prescription needed. No reason not to do it. It's a great service.

Cardiovascular disease (heart attack, stroke, aneurysms, and the like) is the #1 killer in the US (about 1 million deaths/yr) and in much of the world too. 

If screening raises any issues, they can be pursued by your doctor. 

Where Have All The Hospital Patients Gone?

The lady reviewer found the book arousing. It's about sex, surrender (or sacrifice), and individuality or lack thereof in acts of surrender or sacrifice.

The author of the piece at Quillette says the book is not about sexual fantasies (male and female), but it is. 

 If one must always search out one’s own desires in order to correct them, then we are suddenly no longer in Aury’s tender world of flesh and fantasy, but rather in Orwell’s world of surveillance and paranoia. Once we moralize the inner landscapes of our own erotic imaginations, even our explicitly pornographic fantasies, what pleasures are left to us that aren’t merely ruthlessly self-serving? And what is left private? It was, after all, a moment of privacy and warmth within myself that I enjoyed while reading O on an airplane. It was a privacy that opened up my erotic imaginings, that deepened me and, ideally, planted the seeds of private fantasies to be shared and discovered with a lover. For sometimes even privacy is best shared with a co-conspirator in laughter, and imagination, and sensuality, and in secret touches and all things forbidden. Things wicked and sweet and brutal and tender. My own private Chateau.

Lots of people have a bit of oddball in them. I like them. I also like hearty, wholesome, uncomplicated  people too.

This Stanford undergrad is a good writer and has a fine future. I do not view her as autistic in the usual sense, but she does have "issues" as she discusses.  She has been through the entire Psychiatric gauntlet without much apparent result. Nevertheless, she is at Stanford, is obviously talented and perceptive: My Brief Spell as an (autism) Activist.

Without trying to diagnose somebody I have ever met, I think this young lady could use some basic life counseling, or life coaching if you want to call it that. There is plenty of room in the world for "outsiders." 

Pandemic deaths in history

Older people have become younger: physical and cognitive function have improved meaningfully in 30 years

 The functional ability of older people is nowadays better when it is compared to that of people at the same age three decades ago. This was observed in a study conducted at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The study compared the physical and cognitive performance of people nowadays between the ages of 75 and 80 with that of the same-aged people in the 1990s.

From Dalrymple:

 While I feel guilt for my own bad actions or omissions, the kinds of things that are under my direct control, I do not feel guilt that my own life has been a comparatively fortunate one, probably more fortunate than that of the majority of mankind. On the contrary, I feel gratitude, or perhaps, more accurately, I should say gladness. I feel sorrow for the unfortunate, but not guilt toward them since I am not responsible for their sorrows. True, I did nothing to deserve having the opportunities that I have had, but I did nothing not to deserve them, either. I took the world as I found it and for me to feel guilty about my comparative good fortune would be a sign not of moral sensitivity or virtue, but of moral grandiosity. Moral grandiosity has probably done more harm in the world than indifference, inasmuch as it recognizes no limits to its power to bring about a supposedly better world.

Actually, this may be more about Vit D and respiratory viruses in general. It appears that Vit D deficiency might be a risk factor.

I get plenty of sunshine but take 1-2000 iu of D regularly but not daily. 

By the way, excess Vit D can be toxic. 

Abductor inflammation or injury is typically due to overuse. "Overuse" is, of course, relative to age, condition, activity involved, etc.

Young women tend to have little problem with sexual delights as long as their partner is not a dud or a selfish jerk.

Middle-aged women (40-65) tend to be more readily orgasmic. It is hormonal, in part. Women in good health remain capable of sexual delight and orgasm until death, but the climaxes are not the same.  Still satisfying, but not the screaming or moaning ones of a 35 year-old.

Healthy men over 60 tend to have a decline in sex drive and performance, but not in sexual/romantic interest. It's complicated.  It is age, hormonal issues, and other things. Men are, biologically, more excited by fertile females of course, but bonding with the wife is important. She's right there, and willing. With age (say, over 70 or 75) things are not what they were at 40 but men are still capable of, and needful of, romantic and sexual pleasure.

It is a component of life happiness. 

Yes, you can have better sex in midlife and in the years beyond. If sustaining intimacy is becoming more difficult, there are many approaches that can help.