Sky

So this is my take on the Republican side of the shutdown shit. Disclaimer here that I don't actually agree with these views, but I felt it a good idea to try to articulate/get a good understanding of how the thinking goes.

( Stuffs )

Quick-grab summary:

1. Eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
2. Avoid saturated fat, free sugars, and salt.
3. Exercise for at least an hour a day.
4. Take fish oil, fiber, and folate supplements.

 Dietary Factor

	Goal (% of total energy, unless otherwise stated)
Total Fat	15-30%
Saturated fatty acids	<10% (<7% if at high risk for diabetes)
Polyunsaturated fatty acids	6-10%
n-6 Polyunsaturated fatty acids	5-8%
n-3 Polyunsaturated fatty acids	1-2%
Trans fatty acids	<1%
Oleic acid (a monounsaturated fatty acid)	Total fat – (saturated fatty acids + polyunsaturated fatty acids + trans fatty acids)
Total carbohydrate	55-75%
Free sugars (added sugars, honey, syrup, juice)	<10% (<55 g/day), <= 4x/day
Protein	10-15%
Cholesterol	<300 mg/day
Sodium chloride	<5 g/day (<2 g/day)
Fruits and vegetables	400-500 g/day
Total dietary fibre	Accomplished through recommended intake of fruits/veg and consumption of wholegrain foods
Non-starch polysaccharides	>= 20g/day. Accomplished through recommended intake of fruits/veg and consumption of wholegrain foods
Potassium	70-80 mmol/day. Accomplished through recommended intake of fruits/veg.
Fish	1-2 servings/week, average 40-60 g/day (200-500 mg eicosapentaenoic and docosahexanoic acid/serving)
Biological diversity of foods	20-30 biologically distinct foods/week, esp. plants

 

Decreased Risk	No Relationship	Increased Risk
Fruits	Vitamin E supplements	Sugars-sweetened soft drinks and fruit juices
Low to moderate alcohol intake	Stearic acid	Very hot (thermally) drinks (and food)
Voluntary weight loss in overweight and obese people	Starch intake (for starch foods without added sugars)	Unfiltered boiled coffee
Physical activity, regular		High alcohol intake
Good oral hygiene/absence of plaque		Aflatoxins
Hard cheese		Abdominal obesity
Home environments supporting healthy food choices		Overweight and obesity
High dietary intake of NSP (dietary fibre)		Low body weight
Linoleic acid		Physical inactivity/sedentary lifestyle
Fish and fish oils		High intake of energy-dense micronutrient-poor foods (often, processed foods high in fat and/or sugars; low energy-dense foods are high in dietary fibre and water and include fruit, legumes, vegetables, and whole grain cereals)
Potassium		Myristic and palmitic acids
Alpha-Linolenic acid		Trans fatty acids
Oleic acid		High sodium intake
Wholegrain cereals		Dietary cholesterol
Nuts (unsalted)		Chinese-style salted fish
Plant sterols/stanols		Preserved meat
Folate		Salt-preserved foods
Fluoride explosure		Free sugar (amount and frequency)
Vitamin D		Excess fluoride
Sugars-free chewing gum		Vitamin C deficiency
		Hypocalcaemia
		Undernutrition

Eat This	Not That
Fruits	Saturated Fat
Vegetables	Free Sugars
Whole Grains	Salt
Legumes	Dairy Fat
Fish	Meat
Vegetable Oils: Soybean, Sunflower, Flaxseed, Canola, Olive	Unfiltered Boiled Coffee
Nuts (unsalted)	Hydrogenated oils and fats
Tea	Preserved meats
Soy	Salt-preserved foods
	Scalding-hot drinks and food

 

(Written this past Saturday.)

Good morning, sunshines. It is currently 12:10 pm, and I am in a rather humorous state of twitchiness. Part of it’s the lack of sleep – my apartment has been invaded by fleas for the past few weeks, and last night I kept worrying they’d get in my bed and even half-dreamed about it, meaning I didn’t sleep a wink until sometime after 3. Then scumbag body, used to my 8 am wakeups for morning class, decided that 8:30 was a good time to wake. The other part, though, what I imagine is the major part, is my resolution of the day.

Okay, so we all know that Twitter is being stupid and has changed its policy on censorship, right? If not, plz to Google. They’re trying to do it in the best way possible, and I respect that, but doing a bad thing in the best way possible doesn’t make it good. So today some randomers on the intarwebs decided to hold a blackout protest, with random Twitterites like me pledging not to tweet today.
Twitter has kind of become my addiction, which is part of why I don’t blog as much – little point when most of what’d get said on this blog instead gets said on my feed. So I figured it might ease my resistance of microblogging’s allure – and provide an interesting experience – if today I just went entirely internet-free.

Thus the twitchiness. I am completely aware that I have a behavioral addiction to the internet. Not internet’ing is like spending an entire day without speaking or listening to anyone speak. It feels closed-off and bizarre. Like my entire wide world has been torn away, and all I’m left with is little Gainesville and a messy apartment and fleas.
Okay. So it’s not that bad. Mostly because I know that when I wake up tomorrow, I will let myself Internet once again. If I thought it were going to be a long parting, I’d probably be in mourning.

A great chunk of my twitchy is the lack of Twitter. I kind of live immersed in this mess of blurbs about other’s lives, connecting and sometimes not-connecting with people I’ve never met in person, almost but not quite as if I were living side-by-side with them. I tell them things and they tell me things and it feels beautifully connected, like being constantly in the presence of friends, even when I’m in the presence of naught but my beloved iPhone Kei-kun.

The other great chunk of my twitchy is the lack of information. No morning browse of the day’s news (granted, I’d have it if my Wall Street Journal subscription weren’t malfunctioning), other than my already-downloaded edition of this week’s Economist. Today I heard a hilarious but unbelievable story and wasn’t able to find out if it were true. And there are a million tiny things that I’ve just wanted to know that I haven’t been able to learn.

Okay. Maybe not a million. Still.

This has been an interesting experience. And one thing that it has taught me, in the whole four hours that have passed since I woke up, is that to love the internet is not a bad thing, not at all.
People idealize being offline. They poo-poo the mess of distractions, the social networks, the living glued to the screen. They treat it as an isolating creation, as if it personally punched human interaction in the face and stole its wallet. “We no longer know our neighbors!” they cry.

Yeah, fuck that. Sure, I’m a bit less distracted than normal… sort of. I didn’t spend an hour on Cracked today. I did spend an unknown period of time on a book. And no, one is not superior to the other.* In fact, Cracked is probably more educational than Locke Lamora, much as I love them both.

And being cut off from people, while perfectly tolerable for today, isn’t really tolerable in the long run. Very nearly my entire social sphere – both online-only and face-to-face – are people I’ve met because of the Internet. I have three close friends I regularly talk to that I met through non-internet things. Three. And for all three of them (even my roommate, which, okay, that doesn’t help my argument), most of our communication is online. Hell, if I went offline entirely, I wouldn’t be able to speak to Kuri again for years.

There’s nothing wrong with meeting people because of common interests instead of geographical location. And, really, that’s all there is to it.

So I shall survive my cut-off day today. Probably put myself through another cut-off day sometime in the future, just out of self-directed schadenfreude (no, seriously, you have no idea how hilarious I’m finding my own twitchy reaction to net dep). But this experience hasn’t Freed me, or taught me how I Don’t Need the Internet. If anything, it’s taught me how much the Internet provides for me, and what an incredible source of knowledge it is.

*On books: While I fucking adore books, treat them as my life obsession, and can’t really imagine even pulling off a conversation with someone who didn’t regularly read, I do not understand why people idealize books. Reading books isn’t actually superior to television or comics or anything. There’s just as high a percentage of mainstream trash books as there are mainstream trash TV shows and comics, and there’s just as low a percentage of utterly brilliant works of prose that will entirely change your lifeview as there are for TV and comics. Moreover, bound volumes of fiction are also not inherently superior to magazine articles, internet articles, fanfiction, weblit, etc. etc. and so forth. (They are, however, inherently superior to the crap people stick in the middle of comic books under the bizarre assumption that you picked up a comic so you could read prose.)


(So, how'd I do? I gave up on the no-internet by evening. It seemed pointless. I also then accidentally started posting to Twitter - no, seriously, I didn't even realize until 20 minutes in that I'd been posting because it's such a habit. Faaaaaail.)

Warm, Happy

Hey, guys. I feel warm and happy and relaxed. It's pretty awesome.

Went to the Woodshed's Halloween Party last night. At first I felt kind of awkward and out-of-place - most of the people I usually play with weren't around, etc. But, as usual, I settled into things eventually. I suspended myself! It was the first suspension I've ever conducted. It was distinctly uncomfortable because of how I distributed the weight, and I didn't stay up long, and afterwards I found out I should /not/ have put wraps over my floating ribs because I could have broken them, but I didn't injure myself and I succeeded in my endeavour.

Also went up again later, but with someone else far more experienced conducting the suspension. Whee! Fucking love that shit. It's like flying. It matters not if you are kinky or vanilla, all should try being suspended. It's not a kink thing, it's an "ohgod I'm flying" thing. Like an adult swingset that can go in all directions.

Scattered Thoughts

I've spent most of this weekend putting off a paper. In fact, I'm still sitting here, putting it off. I'll do it at the last minute, as per usual. Bah. *shrugs* I'm a senior for the third time in my life. I don't caaaaaaaare.

It's nearly November, and even though I'm not doing NaNo, writing urges are eating me up. I'll have to make sure to work extra hard on my editing. Maybe I'll try to EdMo it? Sure. Why not.

Being off diet for Halloween weekend has been fun! Though I look forward to not going "omg wait I must pig out on this I won't be able to soon." I've been eating hooooooorrribly. lol.

Coming home last night was bittersweet, because I so badly wanted to crawl into bed with Niko and feel him there, but we're kinda sorta not in the same city, so. Seems he had a good night last night, tho. He hit up Guavaween down in Ybor with a friend.


I love everything right now. Nnnnng post-Shed happy whee.

 Candied grapefruit peel: http://www.candysnob.com/archives/2008/10/candied_grapefruit_peel.php

Made some this evening. I need to save more of my citrus rinds.

Omnomnomnom.

"Suteki da ne" - my own translation

( Lyrics )

 In the Dresden Files, which I've just spent a month rereading most of, there's a thing called a soulgaze where, if Dresden meets someone's eyes too long, he can look into their soul (and they can look into his). It basically turns into a symbolic representation of a person and the symbolism can get rather complicated. It's really fascinating.

So, as a writing exercise, I decided to try and write my own soul. Here's what I've got. If any of you do a soul write-up, link me?

( Soultiemz )

 Anyone who wants postcards from Japan, comment with your address. Comments are screened.

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16219402&fsrc=scn/tw/te/rss/pe

There are a lot of factors named in there. What I'm going to talk about only gets passing mention.

I have heard it mentioned before and read it in the article now that evangelical "Christians" are going over to Africa and stirring up some of the hate against homosexuals and bisexuals we've been seeing recently. That not all of it comes from African cultural traditions. That some of it is being brought in by these evangelists, brought to a fury.

So this is what I have to say:

I'm sick of this shit.

I am sick and fucking tired of all this shit.

I know what is in the Old Testament. Truth to tell, there's not much - a prohibition against anal sex, buried in the midst of hundreds of other laws. But let's pretend for the moment that it has strong words against all homosexuality or some kind of shit.

I know what is in Paul's writings in the New Testament. Paul speaks against homosexuality, vaguely-defined sexual immorality, and blood drinking.

Truth be told, I don't know what to make of all that. I mean, sure, it's specific enough, but it's also included with other things I'd never think to follow, like restrictions on beard-trimming (Old Testament) and head covers for women (New Testament). Moreover, Paul's stuff is included with things that directly contradict Jesus's word in the Gospels. Furthermore, Jesus's stuff is meant to be "this is what you do with the Old Testament" and is considered to be its ultimate interpretation.

So. You know what Jesus said?

"Love your neighbor as yourself." "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind." "Love your enemies." "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone."

He said that in the end of days, people would be divided - and he didn't say it would be divided between the gays and the straights, or the heathens and the Christians. He said it would be divided between those who helped the helpless and those who didn't. Between those who were kind and honored his words of love, and those who didn't.

That is the Word I follow. That is the Word I believe in. That Word is why I'm a Christian, no matter what doubts enter my heart, no matter how much the other books in the Bible confuse and sometimes anger me.

These people claim to follow my Lord. These people claim to follow the same Word I am following. And in the name of that Lord, that Word, they spread fear and hatred. They promote killing and rape.

In doing so, they deface the most sacred thing in my entire world.

I can deal with people being surprised that I'm a Christian because I'm not an asshole. I can deal with people saying horrible things about what I love and what I stand for. I can deal with people thinking that just by believing in what I do, I'm somehow judging them or looking down on them or thinking myself holier-than-thou. That's fine. Fact is, all I have to do about that is prove them wrong.

This isn't fine. This can never be fine. This isn't something I know how to stop. This fills me with so much sick horror, so much anger and sadness, that despite the number of words I can throw at it, there really are no words that are adequate.

To call my religion ugly names, to say horrible things of my Lord, to speak for Satan's glory or to deface every sacred symbol on the planet, all of these things are not what I call blasphemy.

Because this? This thing that these people are doing in the name of the Word I love so dearly? This is blasphemy.

I do occasionally post fanfiction on this blog, right? I don't remember. Who cares? Fanfic. Have it. Like it. T'is first-person fic (from ...'s POV) for Hanna is not a Boy's name, an awesome (albeit crazy fast-paced) webcomic that you should go read now.

http://hanna.aftertorque.com/

Go along. I'll be patient. The fic will be waiting for you after you're done.

( Hanna is not a psychologist, but he forms a support group, anyway. )