Why Do We Regulate Pain Killers But Not Antibiotics?

Two points: I just finished watching the PBS|Frontline documentary Chasing The Nightmare Bacteria; I also just read about a massive study showing that access to pain killers is poor. You can watch the documentary below.

The takeaway from the documentary is that we are charging headlong into a massive, global, health crisis the likes of which the post-war era has not seen. We are overusing antibiotics in our food supply, and even with that not taken into account, fifty-percent of antibiotics are unnecessary. We should be regulating antibiotics like crazy, and yet we aren't.

What are we regulating? Pain killers. The study to which I linked above says that the regulations applied to pain killers had good intentions, but now they are causing harm.

No. They never had good intentions, and the intentions that we actually had all but guaranteed the negative outcomes that we now face.

We regulated pain killing drugs because they are "fun" drugs. Any and all fun drugs are bad, because fun is bad. Semi-legal fun drugs are even worse, because we cannot call those who use them necessarily scum. We regulate it because doctors judge their patients and disregard their pain.

My father has diabetic neuropathy in his legs, a type of pain that is known to be resistant to opioid analgesics. He is also opioid-resistent, making the problem worse.. (I am also opioid-resistant, but I'm not in pain, so it doesn't much matter to me.) This means that very few pain killers work for him. He actually had a doctor tell him "this dose works for me, so it will work for you."

Along with that stunning, stunning, display of arrogance, my dad has had to face judgmental stares, questions, and disapproving tisks from nurses and doctors. It took months of pain before a doctor finally listened to him. Months of pain.

I have felt it, especially now that I have to present an ID to get simple pseudoephedrine: guilt. I have been trained by society to feel bad about using particular drugs. This mindset extends into the medical world, but the coin is flipped. Whereas I feel guilty about using the drugs, the person in a position of power, the doctor, feels judgmental about my using and asking for the drugs.

If I am in pain, then I must suffer nobly, otherwise I am a bad person. No fun drugs for me! Because having fun is bad.As I mentioned, semi-legal fun drugs are the worst for a judgmental society, because we cannot automatically label those who use them as deviant. As such, we must put those who do use them through a rubicon of pain, judgment, scorn, and red tape to ensure they feel correctly bad about using them. You may not be scum, but you are almost scum.

We regulate pain killers for the same reason we regulate marijuana, cocaine, and heroin — for the same reason we imprison huge numbers of people every year for victimless crimes. We do it out of sheer, unmitigated stupidity driven by a history of conservative, Christian judgment and racism. And as I said, the problems we now face of unaddressed pain in patients: almost inevitable.

When we base decisions on blind dogma, the outcomes are always going to be bad. Dogma is almost never right, because if it were right, then it wouldn't be dogma. It would simply be knowledge.

If I smoke marijuana (which I do not do, never have done, and never will do) I hurt no one. I barely hurt myself. But if I take an antibiotic, I could theoretically create the germ that kills us all.

So tell me again, why is marijuana the one that gets me thrown into jail?

Our Dental System Sucks. Let's Fix It.

Our dental system sucks. Frankly, though, I think the bigger issue is the whole of the medical system in this country being hosed. It is an interesting point, and one that is expandable to the whole of the medical industry, that dentists are doing very well for themselves and are actively averse to any changes that may make dental care cheaper and more accessible. I think that this sense of entitlement is something that we will have to address before we go forward with broader changes.

Watch Dollars and Dentists on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Homeopathy Is Nonsense

If You Do Not Vaccinate Your Children, You Are Stupid

ABC News, coming late to the party, I'm sure, has posted a video highlighting a recent surge in whooping cough cases in Washington state. They have had ten times as many cases this year so far as they had in all of 2012. Unless you've been living under a rock, you can probably guess as to why.

Yes, it's because idiot parents are deciding that vaccinations are the cause of all children's ills and choosing against them. Thus, we have massive spikes in all of the illnesses that the various Brontë sisters had at some point in their lives. Yes, it's like the 1800's all over again.

I'm going to simply add my voice to cacophony of well-supported screaming going on in the medical world, if for no other reason than one other voice, no matter how insignificant, is better than silence. If you do not  vaccinate your children, you are stupid. Indeed, you are so stupid, you should give serious consideration as to whether you want your genes being transferred to the next generation. Because while the gene for abject stupidity is recessive, your mate hypothetically agrees with you, so he or she may be a carrier as well.

I can only assume that this is a side-effect of living in our comparatively super-safe Western society. We seek out danger, because something in our hind-brain is telling us that there is danger out there, somewhere. And after being separated from the real danger for over three generations, the things that are actually protecting us may seem threatening.

First, this perspective is disgustingly Western-centric. There are millions of people all around the globe who live in daily fear of the diseases that we have "conquered." Polio, pertussis, measels, mumps, and every imagineable permutation of influenza kill with abandon in less-developed countries. To say that these diseases aren't real threats is idiotic, ignorant, and insulting.

I've posted all five parts of PBS' The American Experience: The Polio Crusade. Watch the videos of children suffering from polio, and then try saying that it's some conspiracy of the medical community to... to... I don't know. Make money? Rule babies? I don't care. Shut up, and vaccinate your children.

Cracking Your Genetic Code

Watch Cracking Your Genetic Code on PBS. See more from NOVA.

Medicine And Metaphysics

I have oft lamented the state of medicine in the United States. I find that when it comes to moralizing, the US is #1 in the world. There is so much moral baggage wrapped up in care in this country that Hippocrates must be spinning in his grave.

What do I mean by moralizing? There is a deep thread of what people "deserve" and what is "right" as opposed to what reduces suffering. For example, pain killers. Women complain less, but receive less medication when they do complain. That means that women are receiving fewer prescriptions for more pain. Why? Because women complain. And even if they are in pain, they deserve the pain because they need to "toughen up."

It is not just women. It is everyone. Doctors are fanatical about pain killers, even when a person is in obvious pain. Why? Because they don't want to give people "hits" of fun stuff. Compare pain killers to antibiotics. There are known, significant dangers to antibiotics. They can cause massive digestive problems, are breeding scary things like MRSA, and can trigger lethal allergic reactions in a significant percentage of the population. Do you see doctors withholding antibiotics? Nope. In fact, doctors are so free with them that their overuse is one of the issues causing the quick evolution of things like MRSA. There are fewer concerns because antibiotics are not fun.

Obviously, they all will couch their reticence in terms of avoiding addiction, and this does truly have a great deal to do with it, but the rest of it is a belief that having fun with drugs is "bad," and that whatever pain the patient is feeling cannot be real. This is one of the biggest issues with male doctors and female patients. Because remember, women are not actually in pain, they're just complaining.

The root is a disconnect between our knowledge of someone else and the reality. The reality is something we cannot know. I can never be in someone's mind. Our language encourages us to feel like we can, and we have mirror neurons that help us "feel" someone else's emotions. But mirror neurons can only mirror what they sense, which is behavior. So if someone happens to be stone-faced, there is nothing to mirror, and thus we cannot feel their pain as Clinton so famously said.

I have actually heard multiple doctors tell patients in regards to pain killers or other "fun" drugs like Valium, which is non-addictive, that a certain dose works for him, and as such must obviously work for the patient. Subtly saying that if the patient says otherwise, the patient is lying. This is not specific to men, but most of the people who I've seen display this hilarious bias have been men.

In an absence of information and behavior, our own biases and emotions fill the gaps. And frequently, even if we are seeing behavior, our extant biases will affect our interpretation of that behavior. I have not experienced pain of a magnitude to require twenty oxycodone, thus that pain does not exist.

I don't mean to harp on men, but their behavior is the worst. For example, a study came out showing that men more so than any other group, if they had never experienced sexual abuse, either believed that accusers were lying or that whatever happened didn't actually cause any harm. Only the men who had experienced sexual abuse believed it to be real.

I focus on men, there, but my point applies to everyone. We allow morals and a belief that I know what you are thinking! to infect our medical treatments. I know! I know your world! I know what you deserve! Because my world and your world are the same! That means that whatever ridiculous way I view the world is the right way and applies to you!

This is a wild disconnect between reality and this metaphysical world that these blithering idiots want to believe exists. Other minds do not exist. My mind does not exist to you, and your mind does not exist to me. To base beliefs on anything but behavior, on empirical evidence, is grasping at the nether. To base medical care, where other people's well being is dependent on you, on anything but rigid empiricism, is cruel and, I would argue, borderline criminal. A doctor who believes that he or she knows what another persons' world is like can be accurately described as evil. They give primacy to their worldview over the empirically verifiable care of another person.

I'm not entirely sure why, but this moral/metaphysical thread is woven more tightly through American medicine (I am obviously ignoring third-world countries, like Islamic countries where only men can be doctors, and men cannot directly look at a woman's vagina, thus necessitating exams through a mirror). Look at the jack-off pharmacists who will not provide Plan-B pills or even correct medical advice involving possible abortion or birth control. Doctors who will not discuss condoms. They don't give two shits about the actual care of the patient. They care about maintaining their worldview's consistency by forcing it on others.

It's so easy to moralize from a high horse. That is why it's always so immensely satisfying when they fall off. I'm looking at you, drug-addicted/gay/secretly-pregnant/infidelitous Republicans!

Men Are Retarded

Diary of a Cluster Headache Sufferer

I am, right now, suffering from a cluster headache. No need to explain, you can go the Wikipedia page and read up. Needless to say, it sucks. And unlike migraines, there is no behavior that seems to bring me relief.

I haven't had them in years. I got them in January/February-ish for three years in a row, then four years of nothing, and now they're back. I get them throughout the day, but they usually crop up when I'm sleeping. Pain levels are mild in comparison to others with cluster headaches. My worst pain registers only a 6-7 (if we assume that 10 is agonizing, I-want-to-die pain). It's always on my left temple, but I sometimes feel pressure on my right temple. I have no other symptoms other than stiffness in my neck. I think other symptoms like nausea are just associated with the stress response.

Symptoms:

I've never noticed this in the online literature, but my urine has been affected by whatever this is. It's strongly odoriferous. I've found studies showing that people in bouts of cluster headaches show abnormal levels of various chemicals in their blood, indicating some other underlying issue of which the headaches are merely a symptom.

I eat a complex breakfast every day, take a vitamin cocktail with multi-vitamin, Omega-3 complex, flax oil, vitamin C, and vitamin B. I take huge amounts of protein, fiber, and a small dose of creatine daily. I drink one V8-Fusion every two days. My blood chemistry should be magnificent, but the stinky pee indicates a broadly physiological problem.

Since I've started taking the magnesium supplements, I haven't had any nighttime headaches. If I stay late in bed, I will still definitely get a morning headache, but it will come late. For example, today, I slept till noon and was awoken by a headache, but even now, it is very, very mild. A slight annoyance more than anything.

This is unique, as far as my memory goes, so I'm leaning towards attributing it to the magnesium. When I last had headaches, it was an off/on sort of thing. I either had the headaches, or I didn't. There were no real degrees of suffering of which to speak.

A further update on the Magnesium supplements. I feel confident that the Magnesium is having an effect. I have had one more full-blown headache, and three strange pseudo-headaches. The pseudo-headaches are in the right spot, and feel very similar to a headache, but they're marked primarily by a sense of pressure and discomfort, moreso than any pain. I've gotten three of these in the middle of the night. I seem to skip a morning or night headache, and have skipped both of them once. I have upped my bedtime dosage of magnesium to 800mg. That's 800mg at breakfast, and another 800mg at bedtime.

A couple of 4am headaches have also semi-confirmed that alcohol is a trigger. If I take NyQuil, or any drug dissolved in alcohol, I'm much more likely to have both a night and morning headache.

Melatonin: 12mg daily around 11pm-12am, just before bed. I'm on my eighth day with no sign of significant help at night. During the day might be affected. I'm not sure, and I'm continuing to take the melatonin, but throbs of pressure or sensitivity seem to have been lessened, but only during the day when I'm standing and doing things. Night time headaches still come in full force. NOT EFFECTIVE.

Capsaicin: I am NOT paying $14 for a squeezy bottle of overpriced, holistic nasal spray that's little more than spicy salsa. So I went to the store, bought some habanero hot sauce, smeared some in my nose and drank a quarter of the bottle. No difference whatsoever. NOT EFFECTIVE.

Breathing exercises: I tried Yoga-like breathing exercises. No effect. NOT EFFECTIVE.

Changes: Be it changes in temperature, pressure, what have you. Changes seem to at least alleviate the immediate pain. I once spent 45 minutes just getting into and out of the shower. SEMI-EFFECTIVE.

Caffeine: Caffeine used to have a positive effect on my headaches, but no longer. This bout appears to be immune, but previous years were positively effected by a latte or two. POSSIBLY EFFECTIVE.

Dietary Changes: I lived primarily on instant breakfast for two days. No difference. NOT EFFECTIVE.

Pain killers: I haven't tried prescription level drugs, yet. I have tried all OTC drugs and the only one that seems to have any effect is straight up ibuprofen. I'm 6', 210 pounds, so I take a hefty dose: 800mg, and that's usually enough for me to feel alright for a day, but even if I take 800mg right before bed, I could be up with severe pain one hour later. Preemptive Advil just before bed seems useless. The best use for the Advil is the post-headache neck stiffness and general aches. NOT EFFECTIVE.

Sex/Masturbation: If ONLY it were that easy. No difference. NOT EFFECTIVE.

Magnesium supplement: Magnesium appears to have had an effect. I take a double dose (800mg) in the morning with my nutrient slurry (shake mix, protein, fiber, creatine, flax oil) and vitamin cocktail. I then take another single dose (400mg) at around 11:30pm, before bed. I still had my morning headache, which would hit between 9-10am, but the 3am headache was skipped. I don't know if my headache cycle is merely ending, though. It's difficult to say if this is directly attributable to the mag pills. (Update below)

YET-TO-BE-TRIED CURES:

Oxygen: Apparently pure O2 provides relief for people. I'm going to try this, but I have no clue where to buy oxygen. Dammit. I think I'll have to go to a doctor.

Verapamil: Apparently very successful as a long-term treatment. I might try this.



CONTINUING WORK:

I'm going to switch to magnesium gluconate because of higher bioavailability, but the oxide variate appears to be helping. Apparently, magnesium absorption requires vitamin B, which is gotten from animal products. My diet has been near vegetarian for a couple of months, just because, and I'm wondering if this happens every year. Perhaps my patterns just drop animal product ingestion without my really noticing, which causes B levels to drop, which causes a drop in magnesium absorption.

This makes we wonder if cluster headaches are more common among vegetarians and vegans. That would be an interesting study.



UPDATE: 2/28/2013

I am beginning to believe that my cluster headaches are caused by a much wider underlying physiological state than first believed.

Basically, sunlight, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin B, melatonin, and testosterone are all linked. A more common symptom of this time of year is known as S.A.D., or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which essentially means Winter Sadness Disorder. This disorder is similarly affected by the listed variables, and much like migraines and cluster headaches, depressive symptoms and bipolarism are frequently comorbid with S.A.D.

I am not depressed or bipolar, but I do feel a lack of vim and vigor, a lack of get up and go, if you will. My exercise level drops off, I have a harder time working, and on and on.

My nightly dose of Magnesium Gluconate seems to keep the headaches at bay, with the only symptom being an occasional sensation of pressure on one of my temples combined with minor neck stiffness. I have started also taking Vitamin D and taking every chance to expose my skin to sunlight in an attempt to boost testosterone levels.

I appear to have my cluster headaches under control, but for many who get them all year, my results may not be valid. I know as far beyond doubt as is possible -- with what amounts to a complex anecdote -- that magnesium helped alleviate my headaches. Unfortunately, because I have hit the point where something works, further experiments will provide no data without me actually doing blood tests.

If you also suffer from cluster headaches in the winter, try magnesium first, then the other listed ideas. If you suffer from cluster headaches all the time, I would recommend as your first step looking into your overall physiology, starting with testosterone levels. I do not think that there is a single "cause" of cluster headaches, and in all likelihood migraines as well, and they are instead a single symptom of broader problems.

UPDATE:
I was just made aware of a website called www.clusterheadaches.com. They have a forum that you should check out if you haven't already done so.


UPDATE: 11/14/2014

I can provide you all with some inside info about this post. Cluster headaches and the change of the seasons into shorter, colder days is undoubtedly linked with cluster headaches. During the summer, the traffic to this page drops off significantly and is rarely among my top pages. Around October, traffic begins to pick up, and by January, this is always my most popular page. Get outside. Wake up early. See the sun as much as you can. It's a depressing time of year. Make the best of it.

UPDATE: 5/31/2018

Quite some time has passed since my last update, and that is because I just had the first occurrence of my cluster headaches outside of my usual January-February window. They hit first about two weeks ago and quite severely. Again, I have not had bad ones for many years, so I have grown lax in my administering of magnesium. But as before, if I remember to take magnesium throughout the day (specifically the gluconate), I am not awoken by them. If I forget, I wake up at 3am with a roaring headache. Still, the important point is that magnesium works.

Soap and Water

Compliments of some posts on major blogs likes Gawker and BoingBoing, there's new found attention being paid to those who go "soap-free." Basically, they never use soap. In their morning shower, they scrub, rinse, and everything else, but they skip the soap. I made fun of them, but then I realized that I rarely use soap. I use a minuscule amount of shampoo, lather up the crotch and butt, and that's about it. Still, most people who adopt an explicitly soap-free lifestyle frame it in such a way as to be bucking the man, or otherwise rejecting the terribly destructive trappings of a modern life that is not aligned with the natural human.

It's in this sense that I classify going soap-free as Shit That White People Do. Much like veganism, 24-hour emergency hamster care, and spending a lot of money to look like you shop at thrift stores. This is the shit that happens when you live a life of extreme privilege, are unaware of that, and still feel the need to get self-important about stuff.

Think about it. Humans have made soap for hundreds of years, and soap-like products for thousands. They didn't give a shit about marketing campaigns and social expectations. If they smelled fine, why did we ever feel the need to invent soap so long ago? Because, we did stink, back then, contrary to the opinions of many no-soapers. Soap-free people can be soap-free because they live a life of ease. Anyone who has ever worked on an engine, done serious gardening, or works with animals knows full-fucking-well that hot water just doesn't cut it.

Why is that? Because of the nature of water and what soap does. I'm assuming that all the no-soapers forgot the experiments with surface tension from seventh-grade science class, or they'd realize that the point of soap is to make water "wetter." By breaking the surface tension, the water is better able to grasp particles and wash them away. Hot water will not get grease off of your hands, no matter how hot it is or how hard you scrub.

Again, this is the side effect of a life of extreme ease and pleasure; People who sit in front of their computer all day and never need to exert themselves. Now, I'm not attacking that. I am that. What I'm saying is, don't forget where you sit and immediately assume that things that don't apply to you are inherently unnecessary, silly, or part of some grand conspiracy. Go watch Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, then tell me that we don't need soap.

Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer?

The cell phone cancer debate strongly smacks of the power line cancer debate from over a decade ago. As in everyone is all hyped up about it now, lawsuits will undoubtedly flow for awhile, then everyone will forget about it. The meta-study of research showing that industry-funded studies were much more likely to show no connection, while non-industry-funded research was the opposite should indicate that the answer lies in the middle, i.e. LIFE causes cancer. If there was a connection, and the industry was trying to hide it, nearly 100% of non-industry studies would show a connection.

For example, smoking and cancer. We have studies showing that there is a connection between smoking and cancer and they are more or less in agreement. There is very little deviation from the accepted theory. When test results are all over the map, it doesn't indicate hidden truths, it means that there's nothing there.

Debate Continues: Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer? (LiveScience)

Health or Education

I saw an interesting post in regards to Afghanistan asking whether it was more important for us to push for education or health. You can easily see the issue. People can't learn if they're sick, and people have a hard time not being sick when stupid.

From a foreign policy perspective, it's certainly a sticky issue. The organic growth of increasing health, education, and social stability that the west went through is something that would take multiple generations. We could wait that long, but we might not need to.

I think that it's a false dichotomy. Obviously, health must be covered first, but only for the students. If we can create an island of health in an otherwise destitute area, as long as violence doesn't take that away, we can then focus on the education of the healthy. A very small degree of health must be ensured before education becomes paramount, but after that point, education is without doubt the most important element in society building.

Suck On It

I'm not one to hate on someone else's lifestyle, but vegans piss me off. Veganism can be necessary for health reasons, for example, I had a friend who developed a build-up in his joints of animal proteins, but it usually is a moral decision. Vegetarians are off the hook, mostly, since that can just be a really healthy diet.

The overcharged moralizing of vegans results in nonsense like the organic movement and PETA who make explicit, public statements that I am evil because I eat animals and animal products. As you can imagine, being called a bad person doesn't sit well.

We are animals. We eat animals. It's the only damned reason that our brains are so large. At one time, a moral drive was critical for the survival of our species. Understanding right and wrong made sure that we never fell out of the good graces of society to die in the woods. Now, that moral drive is still there, but even if we're amoral assholes hated by everyone, we can still survive just fine. Without a serious need on which to focus the moral drive, it runs amok trying to find something about which to moralize.

There Is No Escape From Cows (Gizmodo.com)

No Fatties

A club up in Montreal, one of my favorite planes on Earth, is receiving some flak for posting, and I quote, "NO FAT GIRLS ALLOWED!!!!!!!!!!", on their Facebook page. Obviously, the club is backpedaling, and they say that it was some planner's idea of a joke. I actually buy that excuse, it probably was intended as a joke. It was just intended as a joke at the expense of fat girls.

Lots of people are up in arms over this, and apparently night clubs have been sued for racial discrimination in the past, which is, somehow, a bigger problem. I just can't get too up-in-arms over this. Clubs? Only allowing hot people inside? No!

For Pete's sake, duh! Of course the clubs are discriminating. That is was clubs do. Clubs exist for almost entirely superficial reasons. A book store, or perhaps cafe doing the same thing sounds wrong, but a club? That's SOP. If you're fat, you know that you're fat, and you're going to a place that's a temple to shallow, alcohol-fueled physical contact. You're an idiot for getting insulted.

In much the same way that I have no problems at all with high-end designers not making plus-sizes, clubs simply work this way. These companies are selling an image as much as a product. If a club was widely known for being filled with fat and/or ugly people, no one would go! Look at club websites. See anyone who's ugly in the photos section?

Make no mistake, this is discrimination. But if you have an image to maintain, and that image is material in the continued success of your brand, you need to regulate how that image is broadcast. Remember Burberry's brand taking a hammering in the UK after the chavs picked it up? Or Coach in the US after it started going after lower SES brackets? We have direct evidence showing that a poorly managed brand suffers damage when undesirable clients are seen attached to that brand.

So get over it or lose some weight.

Club Prohibits "Fat Girls," Claims It's An "Inside Joke" (Jezebel.com)

Inelastic Joints.

The New York Times has recently discovered the concept of inelasticity in the artificial joint industry.

I can only assume that they know this and simply assume that their readership is retarded, because, duh. Of course artificial joints are a total rip-job. In economics, the elasticity of a good is how widely its price can vary with no effect on its market value (price). For example, if bicycles suddenly all cost $5,000, almost no one would buy bicycles anymore. But if insulin suddenly cost $5,000, its sales would only drop a small amount because it's literally a matter of life and death for those who buy it. So it is said that insulin is inelastic.

As such, any good that is highly inelastic is going to foster corruption. If I'm the only maker of bread, and people need bread, even if I don't act like an asshole and charge $500 per loaf, my successor may discover that, regardless of what she does, people always come back. A relationship of such imbalance is never good. The buyer and the seller must both need each other.

So here we are with artificial joints. People who need them NEED them. The market is very difficult to get in to. So, we have a limited, inelastic good that because of its nature limits competition. And we are surprised that the companies suck? Seriously?

Inelasticity is merely one detail in the economic web that, in anything other than medicine, is fine. It's only once it becomes part of medicine that we have, dare I say it, a moral issue. If insulin is a necessity for life, can a society that supposedly cares about its members truly allow free-market principles keep its price high? I don't think so.

Health System Bears Cost of Implants With No Warranties (NYTimes.com)

I'm Aware, Alright! I'm Aware!

What, praytell, does this video have to do with anything? Oh, right. Silly me. Breast cancer awareness. Of course it does. It's taking something that's predominantly male, involving boobies, and wrapping it up in breast cancer awareness.



Fuck you. It has nothing to do with that. It's an excuse for men to stare at boobs and pretend like it's something noble. And FUCK YOU about breast cancer awareness.

We're all aware! We ARE AWARE. Trust me. We all know how bad it is. You want to help? Stop spending money on awareness and start donating to research clinics. America, stop buying little pink stickers down at the fucking Piggly Wiggly and acting like you've done something.

The plague of stickers showing our support for Breast Cancer research or "our troops," is driving me up a wall. You know what having one of those stickers tells me? It tells me that you're an asshole. You're an asshole who acts self-righteous about things instead of doing something.

You know what you should support? Breast cancer research awareness. Support awareness that cancer research in this country is a mess of slapdash clinics working in secret, ignoring each other, and failing to communicate and collaborate. Support that shit. Support systems whereby groups and companies work together and draw from a centralized pool of donations. I don't know, have a fucking March of Dimes, just cure that shit.

If you have a pink sticker on your car, or have EVER said "breast cancer awareness" seriously and in context, I fucking hate you.

Continued Stratification

I wrote a review of Chipotle for my Watery Gourmet blog where I referred to the restaurant as the new fast food. As America's palate grew, be it caused by just greater interconnectedness or the Food Network, traditional fast food would fade and be supplanted to a degree by higher-quality food.

This is definitely happening. Burger King, Arby's, and Wendy's are all facing difficult times. McDonald's has managed growth, but is that at the expense of Chipotle or other fast food joints? I suspect it's the latter.

I also suspect that McDonald's has been aware of this market shift for a long time, going all the way back into the early 1990's when they created the Arch Deluxe. We're seeing it to an increasing degree, with McDonald's selling lattes, Dunkin' Donuts selling panini sandwiches and deli meat, and Subway overhauling their entire menu a number of years back.

Again, if you watch documentaries like Food Inc. or Super Size Me, you'll hear all of the arguments against fast food and the government subsidized cheapness of it. Cows are treated poorly, meat is of low quality, and as long as the food won't kill you, they'll sell it.

Ok, I exaggerate a bit on that last one, but it's obvious that the price point is of greatest interest to the fast food companies. The introduction of the dollar menu by Wendy's has pushed the entire industry to, effectively, a race to the bottom. The primary goal is to lower prices, but that will inevitably mean lower-quality foods. And, what with McDonald's and Dunkin' pushing out higher quality stuff, that none of them want to be part of that race.

For evidence of this, just look to the recent lawsuits between Burger King franchisees and BK corporate. The $1 double cheeseburger was actually losing money in an attempt to grab customers from the other dirt-cheap competitors. A race to the bottom means a race to zero profits.

But in much the same way as there is growing stratification in the economic and educational worlds, will we actually see increased delineation between classes in the world of food? Where the only people going to the cheap places are those to whom price is the primary determinant? Because there's certainly a market segment for whom price is more important than quality. How far will that market separate from the market where they'll pay for extra quality like Chipotle or Panera Bread? Will we get to a point where people go to McDonald's to have slop shoveled into their mouths while anyone who can afford to do so goes elsewhere, thus perpetuating a fat, ignorant, and poor lower class?

That just sounds horrible. That's Time Machine/Soilent Green level shit. But is it also inevitable? Is the necessary end result of classic capitalism social stratification perpetuated by the levels themselves because of economic forces? The lower class wants cheap food, for obvious reasons, but that only serves to send them ever-lower on the SES ladder.

That's the classic conservative model, where those that deserve a good life rise to the top. The classic liberal model would be free, good food to all. Obviously, the classic liberal model is too expensive and pie-in-the-sky to work, but is the conservative model, while feasible, what we want? Do we want to live in a world where the lower class are all but fated to stay fat, dumb, and poor?

I know that I don't. I'm a free-market capitalist like the day is long, but if that world is the end result of capitalist forces, I don't want it. I want stops and measures in place to stop that slide. We got out of that shit in the 1800's and I don't want to go back.

I'm not making a moral statement about that, mind you. I don't think that it is amoral for poor people to die in the streets. Nor is it amoral for other people to not care. But that's a nasty world in which I wouldn't want to live.

I remain hopeful. I love capitalism and democracy because both systems have pressure release valves, as I call them, built into the nature of the system. Democracy can get unbelievably broken, like it is now, but once the pressure gets bad enough, we throw all the bums out... Unlike old political systems which generally required violent revolution. Capitalism is based on the money. If the social system underlying the economics gets so out of whack that huge chunks of the populace can barely live, it collapses and we start again. At what point the system is broken enough for that to happen is a matter for the academics, but that is the backstop for the entire mess.

Weight Training for Health

If you are an older woman and, actually, even if you are not an older woman, weight train. Study after study after study have come out showing the significant, and at times incredible, health benefits of strenuous exercise. Exercise that pushes your body a bit and leaves you somewhat sore.

If you're lifting weights, don't just do what's easy. If fifteen pounds is comfortable, move up to twenty. If abdominal curls are easy, hold two five pound weights while you do them. Only a little work each day makes a difference.

I've been trying to get my mom to weight train for years. She won't, of course. So don't be like my mom.

Exercise: In Women, Training for a Sharper Mind (NYTimes.com)

Population Bomb.

Scientists love talking about metaphorical bombs. They use the term to describe any state of affairs that may not seem too bad now, but will become noticeably bad in the future. Environmentalism is one of those bombs, but another, less frequently discussed bomb is the population bomb. I can only imagine that it doesn't get as much play as the climate because massive population problems aren't going to have a direct effect on the Western world. We are not overpopulated. Well, Los Angeles is, but the rest of us are fine.

I also take a slightly less humanist perspective on this whole thing. While the interconnectedness of the world vis-à-vis climate makes ignoring some aspects of human damage a world away hard to ignore, such as the rain forest, it's still their country. They can do whatever the hell they want to fuck up their area of the planet. I'm worried about my area of the planet.

Further from a humanist perspective is that I don't care how many poor farmers die in Brazil or Ethiopia. It's their problem. Not only should they just take care of it themselves, trying to force our help on them doesn't do anyone any good. They need to solve their own problems.

And we live in America! Most of our problems are comparatively so easy to solve it's a wonder we haven't done so already. Want to increase population density and stop urban sprawl? Subsidize large, urban, multi-unit complexes. Give tax breaks to eletrical firms willing to install solar and wind in urban areas. Give tax breaks to building owners who install solar, wind, or farms on roofs of buildings. Start growing locally in large, multi-story farm buildings.

For the next calculations, I'm going to rely on The Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy by Masanobu Fukuoka.

That's actually one of my favorite ideas. Large farm buildings, with a foot print of just half an acre, and 30 floors, that's 15 acres, or enough to feed between 100-500 people on vegetables alone. With the efficiencies allowed by constant illumination, robotic harvest, and nutrients flowing from floor to floor, that number could reasonably be doubled or tripled.

Now think even further. One floor is nothing but fish, and the water from the giant tanks is filtered up through the plants to feed them, back down into the fish tanks. These are not new ideas, but the wherewithal to get it done has not yet been found.

Many areas of the world are fucked. Let's face it, they are. There's nothing we can do unless we want to kill everyone there and just start over. They're fucked, their land is fucked, their cities are fucked. The best course of action for us is to pull inward as much as we can. I'm not talking isolationist nonsense, but a focus on our own abilities. We want to produce as much as we can, be as self-sufficient as possible.

They're going to fuck themselves, so we must actively try to to fuck ourselves as little as possible. Our only problem with our population is that it continues to grow outward in urban sprawl. If we can reduce that, and mate it with large scale development in renewable resources, be it food, energy, and materials, we can only better our position.

Norman Borlaug, who recently died, was famous for discussing population problems. His solution back in the 60's was to increase food production.

That's what Norman Borlaug and his colleagues achieved in the 1960s and 1970s with the Green Revolution that staved off famine for millions. Yet, "there can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort," Borlaug said in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. "[Man] is using his powers for increasing the rate and amount of food production. But he is not yet using adequately his potential for decreasing the rate of human reproduction. The result is that the rate of population increase exceeds the rate of increase in food production in some areas.

Again, this is only a problem if we feel the need to force our help on other countries. The fact that India is choking under the weight of one billion people wallowing in ghettos is not our problem. It cannot be. There is no solution. I'm not heartless, I'm a realist. Trying to solve the massive problem is Sisyphean, and the endless aid to Africa all but proves that. Let them die. Our only concern is the possibility of a super-germ incubating in the population and making the trek over here. Other than that, we should not only not worry, but actively ignore. If they ask for help, do not give it to them. Their sinking boat has the potential to bring us down, too.

Another Inconvenient Truth: The World's Growing Population Poses a Malthusian Dilemma (ScientificAmerican.com)

Health Insurance.

I must admit to a degree of confusion over those people who argue against healthcare reform because it would likely end private health insurance. What I don't understand is how, in any stretch of the imagination, that would be bad.

Government run hospitals and clinics, yes, that would be bad, but not insurance. Competition as a benefit is associated with a two-party system. The seller and the buyer. Removing the middle-man between them makes no difference. Insurance works by spreading risk, which means the larger the pool, the better distributed the risk. In a sense, this is what Social Security is. As long as the pool remains a certain size, SS works well.

The loss of private insurance would be a good thing. I have yet to hear a cogent argument for private health insurance, and as a student of economics, I'd love to hear one. The best I've heard is that it's a persons choice to expose themselves to danger, in the same way it's a person's right to not wear a motorcycle helmet.

That's a fine argument, but I think that it entails the elimination of Medicare and Medicaid. And if you're against those, then your position is tenable, but such vast parts of the country heavily rely on those two organizations, that I doubt you'd ever get the bill pushed through.

And this is my own perspective on government, but I think government's ONLY goal is the stewardship of freedom. Any and all actions taken by the government must increase freedom. I pay taxes for the roadways. I lose the freedom to spend the money as I chose, but I gain the freedom of being able to drive damn-near anywhere. A net gain, I think.

I see health care similarly. I lose the ability to choose how to spend my money, but I gain the ability to not worry about my insurance running out or a debilitating injury inhibiting my ability to live. And for me, right now, I'm already spending $160 per month on insurance with a $3,000 deductible. If the government can guarantee that I won't be left for dead for $160 per month in taxes, that's a good deal.

Let the Kid Die!

There's a story on Yahoo! about a woman and 13-year-old son who have apparently gone on the lamb to avoid court-ordered cancer therapy for the son.

They belong to one of those wack-job religious groups that believe in faith-healing, and the son himself has testified that he believes that chemotherapy will kill him. I guess he thinks the cancer won't.

First off, I believe firmly in the primacy of parental responsibility. The government cannot and should not take on the job of parents in cases like this. I even go so far as to say that kids should be left with drug-addict parents, just so long as the parents actually want them. It is the right and the responsibility of parents to care for their children, even if I think they're doing a shitty job.

But even then, the government has enough problems with children that no one wants. I think that as an enlightened society, we should care for these unwanted children because we can and because the possibility of a bright future, however weak, is there. But why take on more?! The foster system is already broken. The DCYF is maxed out. Social workers burn out in three minutes. Let's focus on these aspects.

I also think that in a free society, a government has no right to step on the toes of free parents teaching and raising their children however they see fit. Drugs, alcohol and orgies, not my place to judge. Daily beatings? Well, we might want to step in.

And finally, people of this sort of religious creed are the bottom of the intellectual barrel. This kid has NO hope for a bright, productive future. The more of these people that die, the better. Do not save him! We don't want him! The boy himself has said he will fight anyone who tries to treat him. His death is a good thing, trust me on this one.

Article copies below.

By AMY FORLITI, Associated Press Writer Amy Forliti, Associated Press Writer – 19 mins ago

NEW ULM, Minn. – Authorities nationwide were on the lookout Wednesday for a mother and her 13-year-old cancer-stricken son who fled after refusing the chemotherapy that doctors say could save the boy's life.

Colleen Hauser and her son, Daniel, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, apparently left their southern Minnesota home sometime after a doctor's appointment and court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed his tumor had grown.

Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg, who had ruled last week that Daniel's parents were medically neglecting him, issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for Colleen Hauser and ruled her in contempt of court. Rodenberg also ordered that Daniel be placed in foster care and immediately evaluated by a cancer specialist for treatment.

The family belongs to a religious group that believes in "natural" healing methods. Daniel has testified he believed chemotherapy would kill him and told the judge that if anyone tried to force him to take it, "I'd fight it. I'd punch them and I'd kick them."

The boy's father, Anthony Hauser, testified he didn't know where his wife and son were but had made no attempt to find them. He testified he last saw his son Monday morning, and he saw his wife only briefly that evening when she said she was leaving "for a time."

As of Wednesday morning, the mother and son still had not been found, said Carl Rolloff, a sheriff's dispatcher.

Officials distributed the arrest warrant nationwide. Brown County Sheriff Rich Hoffman said Tuesday that investigators were following some leads locally, but declined to elaborate.

"It's absolutely crazy. It's very disappointing," James Olson, the attorney representing Brown County Family Services. "We're trying to do what's right for this young man."

A message left at the Hauser home in Sleepy Eye early Wednesday wasn't immediately returned. But in an interview in Wednesday's editions of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Anthony Hauser said he knew places where his wife might have gone though he did not know where she was.

He said he and his wife had a plan for Tuesday's hearing and he was a "bit disappointed" she didn't follow it. "We were going to present a treatment plan to the court. If they didn't go with it, we would appeal it," he told the newspaper.

"I know many people around here who have had cancer, they did the chemo, it would come back," Hauser told the newspaper. "They did the chemo again and again and they are all in the grave. Chemo isn't foolproof."

Olson, the family services lawyer, had considered asking the judge to hold Anthony Hauser in contempt as well, but he said Wednesday he decided against that.

"I'm thinking that he probably doesn't know where his wife and child are," Olson said.

Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma, diagnosed in January, is considered highly curable with chemotherapy and radiation, but the boy quit chemo after a single treatment.

The judge has said Daniel, who has a learning disability and cannot read, did not understand the risks and benefits of chemotherapy and didn't believe he was ill.

The Hausers are Roman Catholic and also believe in the "do no harm" philosophy of the Nemenhah Band, a Missouri-based religious group that believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians. Colleen Hauser testified earlier that she had been treating his cancer with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and other natural alternatives.

The founder of Nemenhah, Philip Cloudpiler Landis, said it was a bad idea for Colleen Hauser to flee with her son. "You don't solve anything by disregarding the order of the judge," Landis said.

The family's doctor, James Joyce, testified by telephone that he examined Daniel on Monday, and that an X-ray showed his tumor had grown to the size it was when he was first diagnosed.

"He had basically gotten back all the trouble he had in January," the doctor said.

Joyce testified that he offered to make appointments for Daniel with oncologists, but the Hausers declined, then left in a rush with lawyer Susan Daya.

"Under Susan Daya's urging, they indicated they had other places to go," Joyce said.

Daya did not immediately respond to a call Tuesday from The Associated Press. The court also tried to reach her during the hearing, but got no answer.

Minnesota statutes require parents to provide necessary medical care for a child, Rodenberg wrote. The statutes say alternative and complementary health care methods aren't enough.