We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
If you feel like putting a non-lethal curse on somebody, curse them with a case of Plantar Fasciitis. It's like an epidemic these days.
It's a common affliction of the middle-aged (like Frozen Shoulder), and usually there is never an identifiable cause although weight gain seems to be one. It can be in one foot or both. Sometimes it can be easily fixed with ice and stretching but it can be a chronic problem which eventually will disappear as mysteriously and suddenly as it appeared.
The most common symptom is feeling like somebody put thumbtacks in the heel of your shoe. The problem is not your shoe (although arch supports sometimes help it). The problem is inflamed tendons.
Besides the pain of simple walking around, Plantar pain can lead to other joint or lower back problems because of altering one's gait to minimize the foot pain.
Prof. Peterson's stats are surely correct, same as Charles Murray's. Stats do not account for individuals very well, though. Obviously, low or average (100) IQ people with amiable personalities can do well in many fields including politics and sales. High IQ people can be easily found working in the "trades" because they like the freedom and hate cubicles.
These were not issues when 90% of people lived on family farms. In a complex post-industrial society, it's pretty clear that low IQ and character weaknesses can be limiting but there is still plenty of work to be done out there.
As I have mentioned many times, character traits can be more important in advancing one's life goals than IQ. Also mentioned many times, not everybody's life goal is wealth. Wealth is just a default goal for people without other more interesting goals. That said, money is darn useful and I like it.
He has good ideas about what America is all about. I find it difficult to see anything to object to in what he says, although his data do support the outrageous ideas that the cultural foundations of "the American project" remain keys to building a decent functional life which does not cause trouble or add burdens to others: Industriousness, Honesty, Marriage, and Religion.
Ultimately, though, he is talking about character traits and American civic culture. Worthy character traits support civic culture, and vice versa. Think Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Interesting quote: "The upper middle class is keeping its effective values to itself." Also, his point about "churn" seems important, because in the US lineages go up and down socioeconomically and socioculturally over time. No fixed classes as in most societies and it's not mainly about wealth either.
A little background on the medical studies you read about. Everybody knows now that most are misleading if not entirely in error: ACSH Explains Epidemiology
And few people are entirely satisfied with their souls and minds either. Often, we make reasonable efforts to work on all of those things, but at what point do our goals become crazy? If I need to look like Melania, I am crazy. If I need to look like a man, I am double-crazy and should want help separating fantasy from reality.
Fortunately in the USA it is rare that Psychiatric help can be forced, but it distresses me when people seem to endorse double-crazy as normal. But, as I say, in a free country you are free to be crazy, and free to get help with it if you want to. Lots of people are half-crazy, crazy, and double-crazy, but I see no need for the culture to pretend to deny that reality. Or any other reality.
It is interesting to me that the Psychiatric officialdom is expanding the list of "disorders" to the point that nobody can keep track of them anymore, at the same time that the elite culture is normalizing other ones. Something strange is going on on both sides.
Their findings are mainly gross-anatomical, but the connectome mapping goes further. Unsurprisingly, there is some male-female overlap in this effort to define structural sex differences. Anyway, it would be news if no differences were seen in male and female brains.
We post here frequently about the components of general fitness and physical training goals: strength, athleticism, power, endurance, etc. The variety of exercises that we recommend are stressing and training neuro-muscular and cardiac systems.
However, while we are stressing and challenging our bodies in all of the ways needed for balanced fitness, we are also training our metabolic energy systems for higher capactiy and efficiency. There is no need to know anything about it, but it is interesting.
It's basic high school biology. Animals (and plants) use ATP as an energy source for cellular functioning. ATP is generated and regenerated in the mitochondria.
However, our resting ATP batteries store very little reserve energy so 5- 20 seconds of high intensity, maximum anaerobic effort (eg 20-second sprints and HIIT sprints, or a set of heavy deadlifts) require instant regeneration of ATP. That's our "emergency" Phosphagen System. After depleted, it takes a couple of minutes to restore itself which is why you rest between deadlift sets or walk ("active recovery") between sprints. The Phosphagen system is trained by stressing it, but it has its limits.
After 10-20 seconds of high intensity, our cells turn to splitting sugar (mainly derived from carbs unless you have a Coke before exercise) - Glycolysis - to produce more ATP. This energy system, also requiring no oxygen, can keep us going for up to 2 minutes of intense effort. Like the Phosphagen system, Glycolysis is trained by short bursts of high intensity exertions of any sort.
A body can't live long, though, without oxygen. Both of the above are anaerobic (oxygen-independent) systems and neither can be sustained for very long without rest and oxygen to restore them. Aerobic exertion (using oxygen to burn sugars and fats - the Aerobic System -) can slowly but almost endlessly produce enough energy to maintain us during less intense activity in which we maintain a pretty good oxygen balance (or at rest, for that matter). Aerobic energy systems are trained and stressed by, say, 1-hour endurance exercises which keep the heart rate continuously well-above a walking heart rate, eg continuous calisthenics, and non-sprinting exercises like swimming speedy but not sprinting laps, treadmill intervals but not HIIT intervals, jogging, and similar exercises when you can breathe uncomfortably but effectively-enough to keep going.
Can aerobic exercise count as "cardio" exercise? Sort-of, maybe. It depends on where you keep your heart rate. High-intensity, high heart-rate bursts are the best heart-stressors and if it doesn't kill you it will make it stronger. Endurance is a different matter. Is normal walking "exercise"? Basically, no. It's just basic functioning unless it's fast and over 5 miles. "Cardio" means heart rate significantly elevated above walking.
Aerobic metabolism is highly efficient, which is why it takes 3 hours on an elliptical to burn the calories (270) in one plain bagel. It is why you can not lose weight by exercising unless you are fast- hiking 8 hrs/day on minimal caloric intake for a week or two. The average sedentary person (meaning under 5-10,000 "steps" daily with no other stressful exercise) probably needs less than 2000 calories per day to maintain their status quo. Remarkably, in the USA, it is not unusual for one single cheap meal to provide that much energy.In all of human history, remarkable indeed. Caloric abundance has a downside, thus the "overweight crisis" especially among our American poor.
A balanced fitness program (resistance, calisthenics, cardio, and endurance) ends up stressing all 3 energy systems without your having to think about it at all. That is just one of the many reasons why we endorse balanced fitness exercise programs instead of a single path (such as all weights, or all aerobics).
Something similar has happened with education, I think.
So medical "insurance" is no longer true insurance except at the catastrophic end. If the old model was Major Medical insurance against catastrophe, the new model is more of a medical payment system. That has changed everything.
On a summer day in the month of May a burly bum came hiking Down a shady lane through the sugar cane, he was looking for his liking. As he roamed along he sang a song of the land of milk and honey Where a bum can stay for many a day, and he won't need any money
Refrain: Oh the buzzin' of the bees in the cigarette trees near the soda water fountain, At the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings on the Big Rock Candy Mountain
There's a lake of gin we can both jump in, and the handouts grow on bushes In the new-mown hay we can sleep all day, and the bars all have free lunches Where the mail train stops and there ain't no cops, and the folks are tender-hearted Where you never change your socks and you never throw rocks, And your hair is never parted
Oh, a farmer and his son, they were on the run, to the hay field they were bounding Said the bum to the son, "Why don't you come to the big rock candy mountains?" So the very next day they hiked away, the mileposts they were counting But they never arrived at the lemonade tide, on the Big Rock Candy Mountains
One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fires were burning, Down the track came a hobo hiking, and he said "Boys, I'm not turning." "I'm heading for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains;" "So come with me, we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains."
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there's a land that's fair and bright, The handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night Where the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees, The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay Oh I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you never change your socks And little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too, And you can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin, And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in There ain't no short-handled shovels, no axes, saws or picks, I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day Where they hung the jerk that invented work In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
This song was written and performed by Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock in the 1920s. The only other hobo/bum/homeless song that competes with this one is Roger Miller's country version of King of the Road - not as good as this song, though.
Legend and anthropology hold that some American Indian cultures believed that, if you rescued somebody, saved somebody's life, or prevented them from disaster, you were indebted to them forever. That is, the saver was beholden to the saved.
My fantasy is that the issue is that you postponed their arrival to the Happy Hunting Grounds.
In Western culture we tend to see it the other way around because of a Christian foundation, or because we want to see this life as heaven (?), but as an American physician who works for nobody - not government, not insurance, not a hospital - except my patients, I see it both ways. If I get you out of big trouble, you sort of own me as long as you want to.
The stuff is too much with us. You only need one of everything you need and, sometimes, less than one. Except for money, less is more.
Every two years, we do a deep Spring Cleaning. Step one is getting rid of things. Step 2 is deep cleaning with cleaning helpers and fresh painting afterwards, as needed. Some years it takes a dumpster, some years our yard guys with a truck, and some years it's just throwing trash bags full of clothing into the back of the Suburban to go to Good Will, Salvation Army or, if really good stuff, Thrift Shop.
We do have a "storage room" in the cottage. Four antique and beautiful andirons. A "brown", once thought elegant, dining room table. Spare brown dining chairs. Extra bookshelves. Spare beds and bedframes, etc. Why? Waiting for what? Death and the Final Dumpster, the Dumpster of Doom? Or the Garage Sale of Death?
One of our projects this year is to convert a college kid's room into a lovely guest room. This means the kid's books into boxes to the attic, the kid's childhood desk and furniture to charity, a new Queen bed, and painting/redecorating.
Projects:
- Any book in the house never to be re-read by us or wanted by kids: Recycling or donated
- Any old surplus furniture not tagged by kids (esp old "brown" furniture): Dumpster if yard guys don't want it Can't give that stuff away.
- Carpets: We have enough antigue oriental carpets to furnish a palace. Mostly in a closet with mothballs. Some won't fit in there. Entirely out of fashion and unwanted but we love them and they once had value. We will not buy another house just to use carpets and paintings. Maybe consign them? Probably not worth the trouble.
- Closets of clothing: If not used in one year, it's gone. If ugly, gone. How many sweaters do you need? It is a liberating experience.
- Boxes of old photos and photo albums: Dumpster if nobody in the family wants them. Seems like a shame, but past is past.
- Knick-knacks, goo-gaws, and misc. decorative items and things kids made in grammar school out of clay - dumpster. It's not immortal art. Getting rid of stuff is painful, but the good, cleansing pain like having a wart removed.
- Excess kitchen and serving items: Unload on your kids, donate, or dumpster.
Medicine has a long history of unproven and dubious treatments, but it is discouraging to see it approached deliberately. A quote: “[Hospital executives] talk of patients as customers. Customers have demands. Your job is to sell them what they want.”"
No it's not. It's to give them your best opinion on what is best for them, with maybe some choices or maybe not.
Young doctors are not "exploited". Young doctors do not complain about 80-hour work weeks, because it's a high privilege to work long and hard taking care of people in trouble.
Only the weak would complain. They need the clinical experience as fast as they can get it. Furthermore, they need to learn how to function under stress and without adequate sleep. Physical and mental endurance need to be learned. When a multi-car crash results in 10 victims in your ER at 3 am and you're on duty, there is no choice but to rise to the occasion. That takes practice, and it is why older doctors are wiser. They have put in the hours. They can find their second wind because they have done it many times.
Nobody in America wants a doctor who would say "I've worked my 8 hours" or "I'm too tired." Maybe they are thinking of socialized medicine or unionized medicine, because those authors seem to feel that working long and hard is something terrible instead of something wonderful. Some people are not aware than some surgical procedures can take over 10 hours to complete, and, just then, an emergency comes into the OR.
" On Old Olympus’ Towering Top A Fin, A German, Viewed A Hop." That's how medical students memorize the cranial nerves.
Some lucky people just have velcro memories, photographic memory. A sticky brain is an admirable talent. On the other hand, ordinary brains can be trained for feats of memory: Hack your brain to remember almost anything
As we've said in the past, it depends on how one wishers to define "disease." The term is highly fluid, constantly expanding to include normal variations and things one might term "conditions" (mainly for insurance purposes), and lacks any natural definition.
My view is that substance abuse derives from one simple effect: Some people like it a lot and it makes them feel better than they otherwise feel. Any physiological dependence part is secondary to that. Also, I am not too keen on the criminalization of drugs. The "War on Drugs" has accomplished little good and has many unintended and unfortunate consequences.
This is a downer for Mardi Gras and Carnival season, the modern Saturnalias where no rules apply and reckless hedonism is in the air, but I'll post it anyway like a fuddy-duddy:
I am not sure how to define "natural" for human beings when humans are the ultimate culture-building and society-building animal. For humans, relationship-building and relationship-maintenance are complex, demanding, and sometimes seem almost impossible. Perhaps "natural," though.
Being an acceptable member of a bourgeois society and culture requires hundreds of external restraints (laws, rules, conventions, and expectations) and self-restraints (mostly against temptations and impulses and for reputation-protection). Bourgeois Westerners do not do many very "natural" things like pooping in the park, clubbing people who piss us off, grabbing genitalia when the impulse hits us, stealing people's purses, shooting a neighbor's dog to roast on the backyard grill.
As in ancient times when aristocrats and overlords lived without the constraints of the common folk and the stolid gentry, the Western world still has subcultures which are "above" - or you could call it "below" - the respectable bourgeois Judeo-Christian norms. I am thinking of the special subcultures of Hollywood, Washington, and the like where celebrity, money, and power can exist with separate rules. I am also thinking of some Fishtown subcultures, Tattooland, where there are different standards and expectations.
I must agree with Scarlett Johanssen that monogamy is not "natural" for humans although there is much variation in how libidinally- or id-driven people are. It is definitely not natural for me if some of my X-rated fantasies are evidence but, by behaving myself in many "unnatural" ways, I have managed to build a solid happy life without harming very many people, without blowing up my life, and without too much burden of guilt.
Bill Clinton and Scarlett Johanssen and all the others are free to live as they choose. Tabloid fodder is necessary to drive eyeballs. Perhaps that is why Miss Scarlett made her honest statement about her libidinal intentions. As some guy said on some site, "So I still have a chance to get it on with Scarlett?" Yes, maybe you do if you act charming and catch her in the right mood. Buy her a cocktail and act soulful and deep, wounded but brave. It might work on her and, despite talent, she is not overly bright. Seduction is natural and women like love and sex.
Women are far better at that game than men, however. Women have the power.
Many medical treatments do not work, or do not provide the benefits desired. This is not because of deliberate quackery. It is more because of convention and the slowness of medical practice to change. Furthermore, marginal study results frequently have validity, but so marginally that there is no important clinical use. Try explaining that in court.
One example might be the treatment of borderline hypertension, which is dubious but in the US if a doc doesn't address it he'd be looked at askance because the current consensus is to treat. Next year, it might be the opposite. Another example is coronary artery stents.
It's a discussion about reductionism. Things are usually more than the sum of their parts. Dimensions of the soul do not lend themselves to measurement. No cosmic chemist could have predicted that a combination of hydrogen and oxygen would give me a hot after-tennis shower.
It depends on how obsessionally one wants to categorize mental states and attitudes, or whether one wants to categorize such words at all. I would certainly consider "desire" to be an emotion, as I would the crazy condition of being "in love." Those are wonderful kinds of insanity, but, however intense, tend to be fleeting when reality intrudes.
I think of "love" not as passion but as an enduring attitude of positive appreciation and attachment, with varying degrees of emotional dependency. Anyway, words are crude tools to apply to all of the ambiguities and ambivalences that relationships consist of. I just feel fortunate that there are so many people in my life who I want to hug when I see them.
From the standpoint of the State, if you are not producing tax dollars on their tax farm then you are a liability and a burden. In my view, government involvement with, and control over, important personal things like education and medical care is a dangerous road.
I occasionally write about food superstitions and various peoples' clinging to their various notions of "healthy food." It is all cultural, of course. In America, we have the food obsessionals and the indifferent gourmands, but most are overweight and all will die. Contra most religions (including the Christian Mass), there is no food magic or magic food. Exceptions to that statement might be foie gras and ice cream.
The act of ingestion is embroidered with so much cultural meaning that, for most people, its roots in spare, brutal survival are entirely hidden. Even for people in extreme poverty, for whom survival is a more immediate concern, the cultural meanings of food remain critical. Wealthy or poor, we eat to celebrate, we eat to mourn, we eat because it’s mealtime, we eat as a way to bond with others, we eat for entertainment and pleasure. It is not a coincidence that the survival function of food is buried beneath all of this—who wants to think about staving off death each time they tuck into a bowl of cereal? Forgetting about death is the entire point of food culture.
When it comes to food, Becker said that humans “quickly saw beyond mere physical nourishment,” and that the desire for more life—not just delaying death today, but clearing the bar of mortality entirely—grew into an obsession with transforming the self into a perfected object that might achieve a sort of immorality. Diet culture and its variations, such as clean eating, are cultural structures we have built to attempt to transcend our animality.
Jane Austen was a rebel against the chick lit of her time. From a review:
This collection reveals a Jane who even as a fourteen-year-old—a little sister publishing within the family—is already compassionate, and also already something of a meanie, already artful in her depictions of the Demolition Derby that was an eighteenth-century drawing room. Moreover—and this is an odd thrill—this collection shows glimpses of a bawdy Jane...
I have posted in the past about my ideas about how Reality Therapy can help people be their best. Hiding from discomfort gets us nowhere. Bumping against reality teaches us our limits and weaknesses, and invites us to either accept them or to try to figure out how to overcome them.
I have advised people, over the years, to seek rejection as a way to help them deal with their rejection fears. Rejection fears are not neurotic really, just human because we all know that nobody can love or appreciate us as much as Mom did when we were little. Also, because we know our flaws and, as adults, we know we are not precious snowflakes but just ordinary people who are fortunate if we are liked, much less loved.
I once urged a shy, awkward young man to approach the girl he most admired in his class to engage his courage and to face rejection gracefully. Experiment failed: She liked him.
It's basic high school biology. Animals (and plants) use ATP as an energy source for cellular functioning. ATP is generated and regenerated in the 
On a summer day in the month of May a burly bum came hiking