epidemic obesity is “natural”

there’s been a controversy over whether high fructose corn syrup can be labeled as “natural,” and the FDA has just sided with the Corn Refiners Association (and maybe with Disney, who doesn’t want to have wasted all that money updating the “It’s a Small World” ride so that overweight passengers no longer sink the boats) in allowing foods containing HFCS to be labeled “all natural.”  thanks FDA!

“This is very good news, and makes it clear once again that HFCS is at a parity with sugar,” said Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association.

except for how it’s not.

happy people dancing on planet earth

apparently NASA has a website where they post beautiful pictures of the cosmos every day, and today’s astronomy “picture” of the day is a video of this guy matt who films himself dancing all around the world.  i think he has been doing this all over youtube for 2 years (so says wikipedia) but i am putting it up here anyway b/c i have never seen it before and it made me smile today.

funny, the place he is dancing in new york is the exact spot in central park where we took my high school graduation class photo.   watch and smile.

oh, and i guess that after today, july 22, this won’t be “astronomy picture of the day” anymore, so here is matt’s website too.  i do like the caption about why it is astronomy picture of the day though:

Explanation: What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious — few people are able to watch the above video without smiling.

chimps get human rights *and* political correctness

probably the two go hand in hand these days.  from 2 recent editorials in the NY Times:

first, a resolution passed in Spain’s parliament granting legal rights to apes.  the main thrust being that living beings that differ from humans by a miniscule 2% of their genetic material should not be used in forced performances for our amusement, or harmed in research.

a second editorial notes that chimp performance in popular culture should be curtailed because the harm spreads further than just the featured chimpanzees…chimps in the media getting all dressed up and playing around like ridiculous humans gives actual humans the impression that while other ape populations are at risk due to their shrinking habitats, chimpanzees are doing just fine.  because obviously, chimps aren’t so dumb that they’d run around like happy idiots in tutus if their whole way of life was going to hell, right?  they do have that extra 2% on us .

PSA re tire safety

according to an ABC news report, tire age is just as important to your safety as how deep the treads are, but manufacturers/distributors obscure the age & sell old, dangerous tires as new.  this report tells you how to look out for this trick.

this kid rocks

this Canadian high schooler figured out how to accelerate the biodegradation of plastic bags for his high school science project.  awesome that he did this, kind of sad that no one else has yet since his project drips of common sense.  but yay for him .

the cynic and senator obama

really well-written piece in Esquire magazine, observing Obama from the point of view of the cynic.  the narrator is cynical not only about the Bush regime, but (rightly, imo) about the whole course of recent American history that made the Bush regime nearly inevitable.  no time to write more about the piece right now, but it’s an engaging read so i’m sharing it now anyway.

subpoena John Ashcroft!

So there are a bunch of organizations that I’m a member of – ACLU, Drug Policy Alliance, etc. – that send me action alerts from time to time that I always hold back from sending along to other friends so as not to be a big inbox-clogger, though I think about it because usually the issues are important. It just occurred to me to use my blog to share the info, since that it less intrusive. So here’s one from the ACLU about trying to get to the bottom (which of course we will never get to, but closer to the bottom at least) of this latest torture scandal.

The number one thing that makes me want to puke on John McCain is that he now thinks torture is okay after he was tortured himself and used to be such an advocate against torture.

So here’s a website where you can Citizen’s subpoena John Ashcroft, John Yoo, and others, which is almost as fun as puking on John McCain.

And here’s the text of the ACLU letter for more info:

Dear ACLU Supporter,

So far, John Conyers has no takers.

The powerful and persistent Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has invited a number of the leading figures in the Bush torture scandals — John Ashcroft, George Tenet, John Yoo, Douglas Feith and others — to appear at a crucial hearing on May 6th.

As of yet, not a single one of them has agreed to show up. In fact, John Yoo and John Ashcroft — central figures in the Bush strategy for defending torture — have already refused.

The recent revelations about the Bush administration confirm our worst fears about subversion of the Constitution and betrayals of the rule of law by top government officials — that they met regularly and approved the CIA’s use of “combined” “enhanced” interrogation techniques.

We must get to the bottom of these allegations, and now we need your help. We’re flooding Chairman Conyers and the whole House Judiciary Committee with “Citizens’ Subpoenas.”

Let Chairman Conyers and the Judiciary Committee know you want them to go all the way by issuing real subpoenas, legally compelling Bush’s torture team to show up.

Stop the Stonewalling: Send your own “Citizens’ Subpoena” now.

The Committee’s May 6th hearing is the right forum for getting clear answers to questions such as what role high government officials played in authorizing torture and bullying through a policy that has disgraced our country. But, we won’t get those answers if the people with the information refuse to show up.

The House Judiciary Committee needs to get to the bottom of which officials were involved in ordering or authorizing torture — and what laws were broken. Did high government officials violate the War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, or federal criminal assault laws?

Take Action: Send your own “Citizens’ Subpoena” now and demand that Yoo, Ashcroft and others testify about their role in top-down torture.

Days after President Bush acknowledged that he knew about and approved of high-level White House torture talks, ACLU members generated over 100,000 letters to Congress urging that those who authorized and condoned torture be held accountable.

That’s exactly what John Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee are trying to do. In fact, John Conyers has already threatened to serve subpoenas on Chief of Staff to the Vice President David Addington, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, if they don’t agree to testify. But, standing up the White House isn’t easy. The more Citizens’ Subpoenas we can generate, the more we can strengthen the hand of Chariman Conyers and other defenders of freedom in Congress.

Sincerely,

Caroline Fredrickson, Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office

costumes

Art was cast into the world by superior beings, intending to clothe the truth and attract to it, by artifice, our spirits which had become incapable of loving it in the nude. – Vedic tradition

From my devotional chanting class…and also calls to mind this Hafiz:

You are the Sun in drag.
You are God hiding from yourself.
Remove all the “mine” – that is the veil.
Why ever worry about
Anything?
Listen to what your friend Hafiz
Knows for certain:
The appearance of this world
Is a Magi’s brilliant trick, though its affairs are
Nothing into nothing.
You are a divine elephant with amnesia
Trying to live in an ant
Hole.
Sweetheart, O sweetheart
You are God in
Drag!

well, you can’t expect us all to be Mother Teresa…

and really, she had some trouble with it too…

i had saved this link back in august, and then it got lost amongst my many notes since then, so here now is a link to a long piece in Time magazine on Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith – which in turn is about a new book on the same subject. the book and article bring to light Mother Teresa’s correspondence with her own spiritual advisers throughout her time in Calcutta, revealing that from a short time after beginning her work there she began to experience a “dark night of the soul,” and that she was unable to feel connected to Jesus from that time until her death.

i liked the piece for its glimpse into the inner life of such a revered and saintly person, and the way that it makes her much more accessibly human. the article is a little sensational, however, in that it poses several “explanations” for this crisis but omits what i thought was the most obvious one. atheists in the article comment that of course she was experiencing this crisis, because she was coming to her senses about the fact that Jesus is bogus. more spiritually inclined commenters take her crisis as being yet another source of inspiration for those struggling to have faith in the face of the many disappointments of this world. a psychoanalyst talks about the penchant that some overachieving people have for being unable to accept their own successes, creating their own internal mental handicaps to keep themselves down.

there was something to each of these claims, of course, but i was surprised that the author didn’t look and say, well, she’s doing really hard healing work in some of the most miserably impoverished conditions out there, which is probably a little bit challenging, no? this was the thought i had and note i made when i first saw this article in august, and after 7 months of clinical psych grad school i feel like this is an even more obvious conclusion given how every time we’re learning about doing difficult trauma work, it comes hand-in-hand with discussions about how to protect yourself from the effects of secondary traumatization (i.e. the process by which a therapist ends up experiencing some traumatic stress symptoms him/herself after being exposed to the traumatic stories and energies of patients).

so – interesting article, especially since yes, i actually do think it makes Mother Teresa even more inspiring, because when i am in the throes of existential crisis i am hiding in my bed and not taking care of dying people in Calcutta, and working through this struggle for decades, wow. but i think the piece could serve Mother Teresa’s memory better by using her crisis not as fodder for the atheism-versus-piety debate, but as an occasion to honor her and others who have attempted to carry the pain of thousands, by reminding us of the full extent of that sacrifice.

beautiful awesome

watch.