Continually amazed and bemused....

So, after reading various blogs condemning MeMe Roth (and I'm sorry, why not spell your name Mimi, since that is how it is pronounced) I decided to go to the website and watch the whole uproar.

"Is it OK to be Fat?"

*sigh*

All I really got for my troubles was a headache. No, MeMe Roth doesn't really have any qualifications, and her compatriot is a woman who went on a diet successfully. And the opponents are a fat chick and a 'plus-size' model with an eating disorder. Neither side really had stellar qualifications. Yes, they had a dr stand up in the middle of the whole yelling mess... but both sides had points.

Yes, being fat isn't healthy. But some people have a harder time losing it than others. And Fat people should not be discriminated against. (My experience with being fat was that it made me invisible, seriously. Better than a superpower ever could).

Yes we, as a nation, are fat. But dieting is not the answer. And while the Fat Acceptance movement has some wonderful ideas, you should definitely love yourself, and love your body as it is, being overweight does put a tremendous strain on your body.

I am on a messageboard with a number of fat people. Its a food messageboard. There is one woman in particular who is fat, angry, and defensive. She says 'Yes I'm fat, but I'm healthy', at the same time, then in other posts, she lists numerous diseases she has, and claims that she can't exercise. Instead, she seems to spend all her time online. And, from what she's listed as her eating habits? BLEAH. A lot of the folks on the food board are FAT. Big-time. Pun intended. And they got angry when the host of the show to which the board is dedicated made a comment about the size of his viewership. The body size of his viewership. And expressed concern.

I'm also on another messageboard. A messageboard for 'healthy eating'. And this one seems to go the other direction. Measuring portions, weighing every week, exercising even when injured.

And I ask myself where the balance is. We used to be able, as a country, to be relatively fit, healthy, without counting calories, going on the Atkins diet, taking supplements avery second, drinking gallons of water.

Where did it go wrong? Did it go wrong when our food supply became loaded with corn syrup? Did it go wrong when we had less and less realistic images to measure against? When we stopped eating all parts of the animal? When we stopped doing outside things and got sucked into the depths of the Internet and cable tv?

And speaking of tv, look at some of your old shows...the ones that had a fat person in them. Fat Albert, Facts of Life, Railroad Junction (I think that's what it was called), even Gilligan's Island. The fat folks look normal now.

And that is odd. I'm not saying fat people aren't people. That they shouldn't be treated like people. But at the same time that we accept and love ourselves, at every size, we can still get back to a healthier size. And maybe we should look within ourselves and love the inner us.

Love yourself, for you are beautiful. And don't be angry. I heard so much anger on that show... anger from the woman who lost 200 lbs, anger from Meme, just so much anger. And maybe the first thing we have to do is stop the anger.

Last night I had the strangest dreams....

I usually don't remember my dreams, AT ALL. But last night I had two very, very strange dreams. One of them is self-explanatory, really...and yes, I can read the typing on the screen for that one. My computer became possessed. There was an odd 'home' address that suddenly showed up, at first, it didn't seem to do anything...then it started doing strange things and I couldn't get rid of it. I was showing someone, and then the computer came up with my image, inside the computer, yelling and gestulating. (And it was in color, yes I dream in color). I remember thinking that must be an image from the future...

And no, I have not read that creepy Hugo-Award winning story of Harlan Ellison's again.. 'I have no mouth but I must scream'.

Obviously SOMEONE needs to get off the computer and get a life...

My other dream was much more interesting, but I remember less of it, of course. Alligators. Two alligators, locked in the attic, which escaped. There was a pair of foxes too. One of which was trapped in the room with the alligators. The other one kept asking (yes in speech, it used its words) me to help get the other one out, but I couldn't because of the alligators, couldn't let them get free. I went out, came back, and the alligators were free...

I think I was preparing to go catch the alligators when I woke up. I have a memory of thinking 'alligators like pork, I'll have to get some chunks of pork'.

So I guess the moral of this story is for the next week or so, I should avoid computers and alligators. Although, really, one should always avoid alligators. Its just common sense.

Burqas and banning....

As someone who grew up in a Muslim country, I'm disturbed by this talk of banning burqas. Because a burqa is not a clear-cut case of 'slavery', as so many people want to label it.
As in this article:




Its just not that simple, for Heavens sake! While growing up in Kuwait and Egypt, there were various levels of dress. There were women who went around with nicely coiffed hair, some makeup... there were women who wore a headscarf... and yes, there were a few women who did wear burqas. But it was as much a matter of choice then as anything. It was equivalent to wearing a coat, to a certain extent. You would look really glamorous at home, but you would put your headscarf on to go out. In some ways, it was like carrying Mace here, in the States.

Yes, there are places where it is used as a prison, of reducing a woman to an object, but sometimes it is just a cigar, to mix my metaphors. Burqas, chadors... you know, its not always a symbol of oppression.

I just always hate talk of banning, as well. Banning isn't going to change minds, change societies, change comfort levels. Banning, particularly in the Middle East, has led to the opposite effect. And if we are a free society, why are we banning this? Its a fine line. We don't ban the Orthodox Jewish men from dressing as their religion dictates. We don't ban the Hare krishnas from wearing their yellow robes in the airports. Why are we banning this? Just because it makes us uncomfortable? Why not talk about it instead?

I always found a mystery about a woman in a full veil...Or when you can see their eyes... you can still tell if someone has kind eyes.

And sometimes they find it freeing to wear those. And sometimes it can be a woman's own expression of religious devotion to want to wear a veil. Who are we, in the Western world, to decide if someone is being oppressed? Change has to happen from within. Not imposed from without.

Health and Eating and our Food Supply

The more I learn about food, our food supply, and our eating habits, the more amazed I am. We've really messed up our bodies, our health, and our food, in so many ways.

The most recent example of this is iodine deficiency. Iodine is blocked by soy flour (hello? this is in everything, including a lot of g-f stuff). We eat less iodine and iodide than we need, and a lot is blocked by other things. The foodie revolution, insisting on sea salt or kosher salt, has affected this, as well. But apparently a lot of folks have a lot less than they need, and instead of approaching it from a nutritional perspective, doctors approach it from a 'lets give it a pill' perspective.

I really, really wish there was more of a 'whole-body' approach. Even my GYN, who takes a natural approach, uses pills/capsules of 'natural' remedies and vitamins, instead of looking at the whole eating picture.

I do wonder if this is one of the reasons why I do better in summer when drinking the raw milk, though. Its fresher, and doesn't have supplemental things added to it. If I ever have kids, I think I'll heat it at home, do the low-slow pasteurization, and let them drink that.

But all our food comes through a pipeline. Even our water comes through pipes, pumped through miles of pipes, and how can THAT be better for us? The packaged salads have all kinds of bacteria... its just sad. I'm so tired of reading more stuff that scares me about our food supply, about more ways we are ingesting toxins. Everything is wrapped in plastic, or doused in chemicals. If its low-fat, the fats have been replaced with fillers.

Powdered milk (the stuff I grew up on) has been implicated in health issues. The lining of cans (since cans now have a nice plastic coating) releases BPA. Everything has pesticides. Nothing is actually ripe. We have monocultures of one crop, one type of mango, one type of banana...

All our food has crud in it. Its all highly processed, even the organic stuff.

And just trying to find things like organic beef liver, or organic chicken liver. *sigh*

Trying to figure out what seafood is sustainably harvested, what isn't going to kill our oceans.

And they are finding, more and more, that things like lard, suet, butter, are actually healthier for us than the other stuff, the substitutes. (granted, non-hydrogenated lard, suet, organic/grass-fed butter).

But we also have huge amounts of things. Its so hard to find stuff in reasonable quantities. Some things, like potatoes and onions, ok, buy in bulk. But why can't we get 'yogurt-size' cups of sour cream? I've thrown away more sour cream in my life because I only need three spoonfuls for a recipe.... this is when countries like France, who have their markets, make sense. You can buy enough creme fraiche for the recipe... you can buy cheese in the amount that you'll eat... you can buy stuff in the amount you need, that you'll use! Fruit, veg... and nothing has corn syrup in it. Its simpler, like food used to be.

Lets get our food supply simpler!

Teen CDs, and messages thereof...

So yesterday, at work, I tidied up the teen CDs. And I got to see some of what modern teens are listening to. (Unfortunately, a bunch of new CDs got stolen last week) I was horrified at some of the images of women shown on the covers. Its not just the CDs, though. So many of the teen books are these 'clique'-type books. Marshmallow for the mind, books that celebrate cliques, that are about sex, about popularity, just real real dreck. There are a few creative, intelligent teen books, but most of what I see saddens and horrifies me. So many vampire/undead teen books, and so many of these vapid teen books. There are very few strong, independent women in teen books, CDs, movies.

It is no wonder that teens are wearing sweatpants with 'juicy' emblazoned on their derrieres! It is very sobering. When all you have in the stores for teens, as cute clothes, are bootylicious or boobilicious. When they are constantly bombarded with images of women as sex toys, of women as brainless bimbos, of women who have to be in a clique to be strong... how are we going to have strong girls who grown up to be strong women? How are we going to have girls who feel good about themselves and their bodies?

When its a constant message, a constant bombardment...

The Mythology of Women

There has become this grand mythology of women these days. According to the magazines and advertisers women are these impossibly perfect, almost alien beings. They cook, clean, take care of 30 kids, hold down a full-time job, read, are perfectly manicured and hairless in ALL the right places. They never have cramps, a messy house, or a bad period. The linens are always starched, curtains and decor are changed seasonally, they are always fragrant. Immaculate makeup and hair, of course. And a zit? God Forbid.

Even in my boarding school, 20 years ago, there was a mythology that your period really didn't affect you. I remember the teacher telling us that you used to get a 'sick' day automatically for the first day of your period, and I STILL remember thinking 'what a marvelous idea'. The teacher then went on to say that of course that was hogwash.... that no-one's period affected them that much.

(And yes, maybe you can tell, its that time for me...bleah). But I am continually surprised and disturbed at the amount of image manipulation there is in our lives. From photoshopping already skinny women into almost stick figures... or having the message blared at you that with the 'right' feminine products you too could have a 'Happy' period, to even the images of women on TV...

There are the women of 'Mad Men', glamorous, poised, coiffed, but powerless. There are the women of Wisteria Lane, who are supposedly friends, but also bitter enemies. There are the catty 'Real Housewives'. There are, in almost every sitcom, the skinny, gorgeous, intelligent woman, with some fat ignorant slob.

Where are the professors? The educated, literate, capable women who do exist? Where are the women who build things, or drive trucks? The historical women? (and NOT Messalina or Cleopatra, or the bitchy power-hungry women of Rome) Show me real women, women with curves, women with a little grey in their hair. Women who have cramps, or who have meltdowns.... and who have normal meltdowns, not boil-the-bunny meltdowns.

I miss tv characters like Claire Huxtable, or even Xena (the earlier shows). Heck, even Buffy's mom had some potential. But enough with the vapid helpless female images! Why not show us single mothers who have made it work, and how. Why not show us that women can be sweaty and beautiful? Or be gorgeous without having to shave their armpits and legs ten times a day...

(And while I'm dreaming, why not make comfortable, smart clothes that women can wear? I hate chinos and I hate jeans. And I don't want to dress like a teenager. But I want to look cute, not like a matron...(I may be old enough to be someone's mom, but at the moment its not likely that I ever will be).

If you are going to give us fantasy, make it a fantasy that is positive. Make it one about women who achieve, without backstabbing anyone. Make it about being a good parent, a loving parent. Make it about being happy and beautiful in your own skin.

That's what I'd like to see in the media.

The bias against religion in modern society...

I was just on Facebook. And someone posted a comment on one of my friend's status, basically denigrating religion. And its one of the few 'acceptable' biases to have, in this day and age. Yes, organised religion has its drawbacks, and there are fundamentals of every creed. But when did it become ok to mock someone's belief? Someone's moral code? The majority of people who follow an organised religion are not sheeple. (I sometimes think that the metaphor of Shepherd and Sheep can be taken too far, its supposed to be an image of protecting and guarding, the Shepherd image, not the sheep). It almost seems as if the more equal and aware we get, the more we need some kind of scapegoat...one last bastion to belittle. Usually, unfortunately, people equate Catholicism with the 'bad' organised religion. (Catholicism and Islam, because those terrorists are Islamic, and those nasty Muslims oppress women).

Yet, at the same time, religion gives people a moral code (and you can have a moral code without having a religion, of course you can. And you can be an amoral bastard with religion). Religion gives people comfort and support. But its not, as I used to think, a crutch. It is having inner strength, being able to rely on yourself, but also knowing that you always have help... it is having a sense of comfort when people die, its a support for so many people. And it can do great good in the world, as well...