being gay – it’s nature before nurture

it starts at 6 weeks, when the flood of hormones from mom’s body cause the fetus to decide to be a boy or be a girl, physically. at 5 weeks every baby is a little girl. the flood of hormones comes, and suddenly slightly more than half are now little boys. their tiny clitorises get bigger, their ovaries drop out of their bodies, and their wombs shrivel up and become prostate glands.

this is just the physical part of who we are sexually.

the brain does the same thing. at some point in the fetal development, the brains of straight men and lesbian women start diverging from the even-hemisphere brained straight women and gay men. of course, science  knows nothing much at all at this time.

they’ve just found (yet more) evidence of physical differences between gay and straight people. the right hemisphere is larger than the left in straight men and lesbians. it’s the same size in women and gays.and there are more connections to the right side of the amygdala in straight men and lesbians.

many people, especially the gay-hating fundamentalists, argue that you are not born gay, that it’s a choice influenced by satan himself (a middle-aged white guy) for which you will never gain admittance to heaven.

you might look at being gay like this. you’re a gang of guys and this pretend guy comes up and wants to be accepted. or you’re a clot of women and this pretend woman oozes up and wants to bond. it’s kind of creepy.

but look at being gay this way. people are naturally attracted to men, or they’re naturally attracted to women, and it’s completely natural.

people sexually oriented toward women – straight men and lesbian women.

people sexually oriented toward men – straight women and gay men.

a researcher recently did a bunch of autopsies looking at the hypothalamus. it governs sexual behavior in the brain (at least it’s one of t places). lots of study has been done in monkeys. the hypothalamus of a straight man is twice as large as that of both women and gay men. (so it’s not just testosterone, there’s a gland in his brain as well. men are just full of sex hormones. that, and they’ve got an outie, poor things, it rubs up against things all the time and they just can’t help themselves, poor vulnerable men. )

i was lying in bed wondering about this early this morning. if being gay were something you were born with,  would the fundamentalists accept this?

no. would they now argue for selective abortion for gays since they’re an abomination if they can’t be cured?

no. surely they would want to castrate them instead, and apply correction thru the church. they could call them little angels. never going to heaven because they’re constitutionally gay, but can be made to serve the interests of the church.

they could make a law. mandatory fetus testing, and if you’re convicted of being gay they can put you away and do what they want with you. gay slaves. gay mass graves. we’ve been close enough there in the past, it could happen tomorrow.

I’m sick of being all pissy about free glutamates

i’m too tired to give much energy to being pissed off about the for-profit food industry’s poisoning of the food supply (their product) just so they can make a buck.

i eat too many free glutamates to have the energy to be pissed off. i’m too lethargic and have too little stamina to actually do anything about it, and i feel so depressed and hopeless that i don’t think my little self can do anything to solve the problem, except to just lay down and die. let them win.

after all, the great majority of humans seem to thrive on loads of free glutamate in their diet. let’s face it, even tho all these millions of many things are bad for you, humans, like dogs, seem to thrive on absolute, rotting, junk. like goats and plastic bags, we’ll eat anything. and the worse it is, the more we’ll consume.

so why do little i feel it is my duty to go up against absolutely everybody’s preference – people for junk food, corporations for market share – and try to force the food industry to stop giving us anything except good food grown in good soil with no pesticides, and to stop fucking with the food in various ways on its way from the dirt to our tables?

am i getting old? i remember thinking that old people always complain that the old days were better, the music these days is noise, and the old days were better. now i’m saying it, ipso facto.

why would i want to decry the poisoning of our food supply? how silly of me. nobody else cares. they prefer the junk in taste tests. dogs prefer the cheap dog food over the good stuff with actual meat in it. what am i thinking?

i have a new theory. it has to do with addiction. it’s a well known fact that with most substances people become dependent on, their tolerance for the substance increases over time. so you get a buzz off one beer at first, and then it takes two, and you slowly work your way up to four (it’s guinness i’m talking, and i’m only a little girl. 4 pints is a lot in one sitting. and i worked up to that over 2 years).

but with some substances, like marijuana, the tolerance decreases. the longer you smoke, the less it takes to get high. (not if you look at my friend gordon. after 30 years of smoking weed, he rolls them as thick as my thumb, and does it again an hour later. but perhaps that’s a different psychological indicator.)

this is how homeopathy works. the less of a substance you consume, the more it effects you.

a sensitivity to free glutamates (msg in all its forms) works in the same way . you react violently to even the hint of glutamates in your food and drink.

so you isolate. you stop going to restaurants, you prepare all your own food, you eat organic whenever possible, you have a very long list of must-never-haves.

but your food is sprayed in the field - dosed in the pen – with various kinds of chemicals, many of which break down strings of proteins into free glutamates. some on purpose. so it’s in all but the purest raw ingredients.

and the way you cook your food breaks down proteins and frees glutamates. a good slow-simmered stew or spaghetti sauce is full of glutamates.

and even if you eat raw food and nothing but, you’re marinating things to break up proteins and thus release glutamates.

so you end up with an even longer list of can’ts. and this is a bit too much like the princess and the pea thing.

so here’s my new theory. those of us who are too sensitive to eat normal food are just a bunch of whiny victims and should just stop being too delicate for this tough world.

i think we should use the other addictive mechanism, desensitization, and accustom our bodies to larger and larger doses, until we’re walking around numb to all the neurons expiring in our bodies.

so begin today. go out and have a plate of sushi, with loads of soy sauce and wasabi and buckets of water. come home, take an aspirin, and stumble into bed for two hours. then get up, and immediately drink a diet coke. by keeping a constant blood level of free glutamates, your body adjusts, and you can start building up a tolerance to it.

of course, to those sensitive to free glutamates, this advice is like being told to take a pinch of lye with your tea every day and just never mind the tummyache. or the rape-victim advice to just lay back and enjoy it.

the only disuturbing part of laying back is how many times my sky-is-falling things have been right.

cellphones do cause cancer

fluoride is bad for you

msg is a neurotoxin

it’s just that i’m so tired these days i don’t feel like i can take on the world. and these rants are getting weaker. i may be right, but they may win anyway. isn’t that just the way this planet is organized?

Big Food Goodguys

Again, from the appendix of Appetite for Profit – How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, by Michele Simon. Nation Books, 2006.
National Organizations – Nutrition and Children’s Advocacy

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood

Center for Informed Food Choices

Center for Science in the Public Interest

CHOICE – Citizens for Healthy Options in Children’s Education

Commercial Alert

Community Food Security Coaliatioon

The Food Studies Institute

GRACE – Factory Farm Project

Health Care Without Harm

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Parents Against Junk Food

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Public Health Advocacy Institute

Organic Consumers Association

Small Planet Institute

State and Local Groups

California Center for Public Health Advocacy

California Food and Jusitice Coaliion

California Project LEAN

India Resource Center

International Food Policy Research Institute

Sustain – The alliance for Better Food and Farming

Tracking Legislation and Lobbying

Center for Media and Democracy

Center for Public Integrity

Center for Responsive Politics

Consumer Deception

Corporate Accountability Project

Freedom of Information Center

The Institute on Money in State Politics

National Conference of State Legislatures

National Restaurant Association

Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy

Reclaim Democracy

Big Food Badguys

This list comes from Appetite for Profit – How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, by Michele Simon. Nation Books, 2006.

Appendix 2 – Guide to Industry Groups and Spin Doctoring

Industry trade associations

• American Beverage Association
• Food Products Association
• Grocery Mnufacturers Association
• National Automatic Merchandising Association
• National Restaurant Association
• Snack Food Association

Industry Trade Associations – Advertising

• Alliance for American Advertising
• American Advertising Federation
• American Association of Advertising Agencies
• Association of National Advertisers
• Children’s Advertising Review Unit

Industry Trade Associations – Legal

• American Legislative Exchange Council
• American Tort Reform Association
• Washington Legal Foundation

Industry Front Groups

• American Council on Fitness ad Nutrition
• American Council on Science and Health
• Center for Consumer Freedom (restaurant industry)
  
• Council for Corporate and School Partnerships (Coke)
  
• International Food Infomation Council
• Whole Grains Council

Industry Science Institutes and Advisory Boards

• The Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition (General Mills)
• The Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness (Coke)
• Blue Ribbon Advisory Board (Pepsi)
• Campbell’s Center for Nutrition and Wellness (Campbell)
• Gatorade Sports Science Institute (Pepsi)
• Global Advisory Council on Balanced Lifestyles (McDonald’s)
• Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition (Hershey)
• International Life Sciences Institution (member corporations)
• Worldwide Health and Wellness Advisory Council (Kraft)

Corporate Educational Wellness Programs

• Balance First (Pepsi)
• Balanced for Life (Vending machines)
• Brand New You (General Mills)
• Get Active Stay Active (Pepsi)
• Girls on the Run (Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes and New Balance Shoes)
• Get Fit Challenge (Kellogg)
• Kidnetic.com (various corporations and industry groups)
• Live-It!, Step With It, and Fit It In (Coke)
• Passport to Play (McDonald’s)
• S.M.A.R.T. Living (Pepsi)
• Salsa, Sabor y Salud (Kraft)
• Weekly Reader MyPyramid (Grocery Manufacturers Association)

Public-Private Partnerships

• America on the Move (Pepsi and Cargill)
• Champions for Healthy Kids (General Mills and American Dietetic Association)
• Coalition for a Healthy and Active America (Coke)
• Coalition for Healthy Children (Ad Council and others)
• Get Kids in Action (Pepsi and UNC Chapel Hill)
• President’s Challenge (General Mills)
• Shaping America’s Youth (Cadbury Schweppes, Campbells, Splenda)

Industry Newsletters

• The Food Institute Daily Update
• Smart Brief

From Appetite for Profit

“The idea is for healthy eating to be the default instead of constantly being the more challenging way to live.” p.43

“Today’s generation of children may be the first to have shorter lives than their parents. According to one prediction, nearly half the children in North and South America will be overweight by 2010. Especially troubling are the rising obestity trends in developing countries as Western foods are increasingly marketed overseas.” p.xiv

“Center for Consumer Freedom. Despite its populist name, this organization does not represent consumers at all. Rather, it’s a lobbying front for the restaurant, food, beverage, and alcohol industries. Employing attack dog-style tactics, CCF consistently portrays nutrition-policy advocates as ‘food cops’ and radicals.” p.xxi

“Big Food is facing a public relations nightmare. The United States is in the midst of a growing epidemic of diet-related health problems, including obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Experts have written extensively about our ‘toxic food evironment,’ caused in large part by overzealous corporate marketing strategies.” p.1

“Over the last century, the human diet has been radically altered. The foods we eat now bear little resemblance to those that sustained our ancestors for millennia. In their ceaseless pursuit of profits and new markets, a small number of multinational corporations are running roughshod across the globe in flagrant disregard for public health, the environment, and the welfare of workers and farm animals. We have to stop dancing around the issue and admit this simple truth. In recent years, the privatization of water has spurred global activists to mount passionate and inspiring campaigns againts the takeover of another substane essential to human survival. Why aren’t those of us concerned with food raising similar demands? Like water (and unlike most other commodities, such as toys or electonics), food is indispensable and a basic human right. Why have we turned its production over to private interests? Shouldn’t at least some aspects of society remain off-limits to corporate control?” p.318

Quotes taken from Appetite for Profit – How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, by Michele Simon. Nation Books, 2006

Character notes – mother/daughter dynamic

daughter has the optimism of youth and pregnancy; mother is full of cynicism and the wisdom of having made mistakes.

daughter has the intolerance of youth and inexperience and complains about everything mother does; mother is well-ingrained in her ways and feels put upon and unappreciated.

daughter has tried the outside world and finds it overrated, wants to come home and let mom take care of her; mother was looking forward to independance and now finds herself at daughter’s beck and call.

daughter criticizes mom’s cooking, cleanliness, dress, way of expressing herself, what she finds funny; mom alternatively feels guilty, responsible, unreasonably expected to change, not loved for who she is.

daughter tries to establish independance by criticism and scorn, ignoring extreme dependance of living at home  and relying on parents for food, shelter, gas money, razor blades and shampoo, always complaining when parents want her to spend less money. “i can’t use chap razor blades, i’ll cut myself.” but everyone else gets by with the cheap stuff. and $16 a bottle for shampoo? why can’t you use suave? “i’d die if i had to go around using fucking dog shampoo on my head. aren’t i worth more?” you could get a job? “this is so unfair.”

there’s more.

What’s so funny about mothers and daughters fighting?

Funny? What’s the difference between funny and pathetic? Or funny and stupid?

The fact that the daughter thinks she’s right in every argument, and the mother finds to her chagrin that she was just as insufferable when she was that age?

The fact that they’re both saying the same things from a different perspective?

Is the dynamic itself funny, the way the daughter can’t hear anything from the mom without thinking she’s being put down, and how the mom can’t listen to the daughter’s unspoken insecurities and fears?

Is their exasperation with each other funny?

Is it the razor-sharp dialogue?

Is it the situation – they’re both alike except for their attitudes, like looking into a mirror and finding nothing but criticism?

Is it funny like the Battling Bickersons was funny?

Or like Abbot and Costello?

Beginnings of another idea for a novel

A variation of Chick Lit — the Hen story. An empty-nester with a full house.Mom and Pop, finally alone after baby girl Star grows up and leaves home. Pop fiddles in his basement and goes after neighborhood cat-killing dogs in an old-age vigilante fantasy. Mom turns Star’s old room into an office, and starts a blog. She is concerned that she’s developed a dread disease, and explores this on her blog. As a sideline, she’s also studying the non-primate origins of humans, including giants, elves, squirrels and other creatures. They have lots of sex.

Star, out in the world, gets in over her head. Too much sex, drugs, and rock and roll (well, rap and hip-hop), and she comes crawling home under indictment (okay, they have to bail her out). So suddenly the empty nest has a captive teenager, and the house is filled with scenes of resentful, nagging scuffles.

Mom is unhappy, suddenly slapped back into the caregiving game she’s tired of. Star is unhappy, yanked out of her wild, dangerous lifestyle. Pop is concerned, and tries to help the girls cope, which only makes it worse. Star ends up in rehab.

Legally, Star and her boyfriend are charged with several counts of drugs and weapons, and it looks pretty bad for them at first. Both families try to keep them away from each other, but they’re young, idealistic, and in love, and search for a way to be together always. So they get pregnant.

Mom discovers after many medical tests that she has food allergies, which downgrades her concerns from the fatal to the merely intensely annoying. She gets no sympathy from Star, who continues to insist on eating food that Mom can no longer stand.

Slowly Star’s attitude improves. As she gets larger and more pregnant, she changes from the rebellious teenager into a dependant child again, and Mom finds herself waiting on her hand and foot, especially after the restaurant Star was working at fires her for not being able to fit between tables. Under pressure from the courts, she finishes her GED, goes to DUI school, and works to pay all her own fines.

Nothing continues to happen with Star’s legal troubles, and nothing happens to the plan to get married and move in with her boyfriend. Star gets bigger and bigger, and maddenly has none of the pregnancy problems that Mom had. She is blissfully happy being pregnant.

Having looked forward to getitng rid of her nesting youngling, again, Mom and Pop realize that there’s every posibility that Star will remain with them even after th baby. She talks of going to college, and keeps mentioning things like going back to the restaurant job around the corner. After some panic Mom and Pop realize that they don’t really hate the idea of having an extended family. Especially as they get to know the boyfriend and his family and realize that they’ve been blaming Star for the trouble their son got himself into.

This needs some plot structure. Much of the elements are here, but I’m having trouble putting it together.

Recovering from MSG poisoning

Someone hit my blog while searching for ideas about detoxing from MSG. Wow, I thought, what a great idea. A cure. So let’s see what I can come up with.

Personally, I go to bed, drink lots of water, swallow an aspirin, and wait until it wears off. Like a hangover. But there’s got to be something that counteracts it, right?

Well, first off, MSG is a poison, not an allergen, so strictly speaking, nobody is allergic to it, they’re reacting to it as a toxin. It gets in the bloodstream and causes many toxic reactions that your body only slowly heals from. Its effects are cumulative, like mercury poisoning. Its effects may also be triggered; that is, once you get a reaction to MSG in your food, you will forever after experience a reaction to it.

The only sure way I know to avoid MSG is to cook all your own food, and cook it as little as possible to prevent forming free glutamates. The reason to cook your own food is that MSG is hidden in practically all processed and packaged foods. But this method isn’t foolproof, because there are now crop sprays consisting of MSG, and  some of the ingredients in vaccines and flu shots contain MSG. Et ecetera.

As an antidote, some physicians recommend cafergot, which is a blend of ergotamine and caffeine, and acts to prevent headaches by vasoconstriction. Its side effects include coldness of the extremities and angina pectoris. Ergotamine – from the nasty fngus that grows on rye, one of the precursors of LSD. Perhaps they should rethink. It’s kind of like curing morning sickness with thalidomide.

Some sources, including Dr. Weil, advises that people who have severe reactions to MSG are deficient in vitamin B6, so you can try supplements. But that’s not the same as detoxifying.
There is a homeopathic MSG detox on the market, but I can’t vouch for its efficacy, because I have never tried it.

There are glutamate-blocking drugs out there, but since glutamate is an enzyme that acts in the brain, to block glutamate is to stop your ability to think. And other things. So that’s not good.

You might try taking Benadryl and Ibuprofin, and going to bed. That’s similar to what I do, but I wash it out with plenty of water and skip the Benadryl. Whatever works for you. But, keep in mind, nothing will work, because MSG is a poison, with no antidote, and you’re wearing your body out fighting it.

Hope this helps.

A scientific study ‘proving’ hog farming is clean

Yep, the scientists at Guelph University in Canada have done a study examining hog farms in the field, and simulated real-life conditions in the laboratory, and they’ve decided that we could increase the levels of antibiotics many times before there would be a problem with antibiotics running off into our water supply.

Only at the bottom of the article, it reveals that the study was financed by the food industry, specifically the Canadian Pork Council and the Canadian Cattleman’s Association.

This report will be used as an argument for less oversight and fewer laws, even tho it’s as flawed a piece of research as money can buy.

Here’s how it really works:

Antibiotics in animal feed, used as growth enhancers rather than to treat existing medical conditions, are causing increased antibiotic resistance in the humans who eat them. This is a big problem, and you can find more information here.

Antibiotics fed to animals, especially in factory farms, do re-emerge into the environment in the pee and shit these overcrowded animals excrete. These nasty fluids are collected in huge ponds and allowed to evaporate, which is a much ‘better’ solution than letting them simply run off into our streams and rivers.

Why are we exposed at all? But of course, the laws favor the producers, and don’t give a shit about the consumers.