Time for the D –Word

I think we're in a depression. Is that a straightforward enough a statement?  

Let’s stop with the economic recovery talk that has characterized the Bush and Obama administration. We are in a depressions. It's global! The Bush “economic miracle” only worked for the very rich and the super rich (and some of them were slightly hurt by the housing and stock crashes), and the same policies have been carried over through the Obama administration, which is really a moderate Republican administration devoted to the status quo of the plutocracy, despite some masking rhetoric and the attempts of the fanatical Republican right to paint Obama as a liberal ogre (simple racism there). 

For the middle class and the poor, there had been no hint of economic success for the past eight to ten years. Jobs have disappeared, income has stagnated, and retirements have disappeared in the collapse of the housing and stock markets and the assault of labor unions.  The minor growth of the economy over the Bush-Obama period has been the result of statistical tergiversation and the amassing of wealth by war profiteers related to the two major wars that have occupied the period (and now the third war that Obama has added).  A major mismanagement was throwing money at the banks and big companies that had the bad debts. This all started in the Bush administration and was continued by the Obama administration. There are two important issues with the depression that must be addressed: our military and our civilian economies.

Our military adventurism must end unless we pay for it as it occurs. Military actions must become part of the standard budget. Our occupation of foreign lands and nation building through force need to end and to be replaced with instant recognition and verbal and financial support for those who would overthrow the oppressive regimes in their countries. For instance, we must now remove our troops from Germany, Japan, and Korea, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. Our foreign and military policies need to be completely rethought to support organizations that build social democratic republics and stop any support of repressive regimes and fanaticism. Long-time allies who have military regimes should no receive are support in any way without making significant reforms. Military aid must be reduced to a minimum. Change is mandatory in both state department and defense department policies and attitudes. Pakistan, Iran, India, China, and North Korea will have to do without any threats of U. S. military intervention.

On the military economic side, we must stop subsidizing the economies of Germany, Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq. By stationing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and military support organizations in foreign countries, we are providing support in two ways: 1) our soldiers spend their income in local markets, creating support for local economies; and 2) the presence of U. S. soldiers provides enough security so that the country hosting them does not have to maintain as much military or police force.  In addition, we must also stop subsidizing the major corporations that have provided support for the military overseas. While I do not see a need to reinstitute the draft, I believe that all Americans should provide a period of service to the country, and one avenue for that service should be in the military for those who qualify.

As a temporary measure, the U. S. needs a Civilian Service Corporation (CSC) to invest in schools, infrastructure, cities, arts, national parks, and, in some cases, international projects. No one in the country should be unemployed or unemployable; there are too many things that need to be done. The CSC would have to be a quasi-military organization that provides skills and jobs to every person for a required period of three years for 17-25 year olds who do not qualify for the military or do not want to join the military and for those older unemployed who would normally draw unemployment checks. The jobs for the CSC would include those that are needed but not being covered by other governmental, private, and military organizations. The CSC would also build an officer cops skilled in training/retraining and deployment of CSC workers. Certainly some of the CSC workers would provide day-care (after appropriate training) for the children of those fully employed by the CSC and the military. Pay for work in the CSC would be low, but participants would be housed and fed, learning skills and a work ethic that would become necessary in their post-CSC careers.

Solutions for the civilian economy must include a restructuring of the nature of government work and legislation in the U. S.  We have gradually built governments that rely on huge numbers of employees at the federal, state, and local levels. Our part-time legislators spend their time arguing and posturing for re-election under the guidance of staff and lobbyists. Several priorities need to be considered to make this change comprehensive: 1) increase the number of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives to one representative per 1000 voters, to encourage states to get more citizens engaged in voting; 2) increase the number of Federal senators per state to 10; 3) do away with most of the Federal and state government departments and workers, so that our representatives will have to take up these positions, for instance, maintaining safety of food would require elected representatives to inspect food; 4) change the voting procedures on Federal and state laws to require a vote of three-fourths of the people using the internet and an automatic review of the supreme courts on the constitutionality of any law; 5) mandate the Senate and the House (on the Federal level) and outer legislatures to propose legislation (on which the people vote) and budgets (on which the people do not vote); 6) greatly expand the supreme court with justices elected based on specific qualifications for two terms of ten years; 7) build a temporary Civilian Service Corporation to invest in schools, infrastructure, cities, arts, national parks, and, in some cases, international projects; 8) repeal all laws that require more that five pages of text (12 point font); 9) simplify and streamline the tax and judicial code; 10) remove all legislation that targets moral issues between consenting adults, expect for taxes on such products and activities, for instance, all drugs should be decriminalized and taxed; 11) add a Constitutional amendment forbidding the regulation of sex acts between consenting adults and granting equal rights to all individuals regardless of gender and sexual preferences; 12) make voting on legislation contingent upon knowledge of the legislation and its consequences are evidenced by participation in online forums related to the legislation.

These reforms are designed to put more of the power back in the hands of the people and to make legislators much more accountable for their actions. In addition, only those knowledgeable on issues should be allowed to vote on them, rather than the current automatic ability to vote on everything enjoyed by elected representatives.

We need to get out of this depression. The economic policies of the Bush-Obama administrations have failed to get us back to work. We need something very different. So let’s work towards restructuring our whole government.

Weiner Gate

Okay, I’m tired of hearing from the media and politicians make pronouncements in aghast tones about Anthony Weiner’s crotch shots, cock, chest, and sexting. The real reason is that you don’t have the balls to do what he’s been doing for casual fun. Maybe he should move it from a hobby to a side business.

Get over it already. He has something to show, so let him show it. He should tell the world that he’s proud of his body and little Tony, and they should all get over it. He should start a hot blog and publish more shots and conversations about his latest sexcapades. He should get well known photographers to shoot his assets and build Little Tony into a star. He should tell the old prudes in congress that he has a side job and that they should just get over that, too. They’re mostly envious hypocrites on so many levels, so let them come clean about their hidden little secrets, too. Maybe they could generate more funds to help wipe out the deficit by donating some of their profits. I’m sure that old saggy bodies have a market somewhere on the Internet.

The gay lobby should jump in with huge support for Weiner’s cock. He may not know it, but there are plenty of guys who like a good crotch shot. He could hang with them and invite his wife to be in on the virtual party. At his fund raising events, Weiner should pop out of the cake wearing only his birthday suit. Shock those little old me and women with money to donate to their very cores. They’ll love it.

Obesity

How to Understand Obesity

I used to worry about obesity and my constant desire to eat, thinking it was unnatural. I wished that scientists would find a disease for which obesity was the only cure.  But, after thinking some more, I realized that fatness was an important survival trait, rather than a cure for a disease. Think about it this way, all my ancestors (and yours, too, of course) were fat enough to survive any famines and to reproduce. When there was extra food, they ate it all, at least, until they figured out ways to preserve it. Preserved food was dry and salty. Except for the needed salt (remember, you die if you don’t have some salt in your diet), it wasn’t at tasty as the fresh until sugar refining came along. But here’s the weird part: I like being fat! I like fat people. Many people may like being fat but won’t admit it. So let’s hear it for liking those rolls of fat.

Hunter-gatherer societies flourished in regions that had dense food resources. In their packs, they hunted the herds of deer, elk, antelopes, bison, moose, wild sheep and goats, wild cattle, and even mammoths; solitary animals were hunted and eaten sometimes, too. They gathered fruits, tubers, and cereals in season. They had to be near water, so they fished and harvested various mollusks, amphibians, water birds, and some reptiles. They figured out oral communication and sharing very early in this process, and developed a simple social hierarch with alpha males and alpha females and everybody else in a simple pecking order. Hunters, alpha males, and alpha females ate their fill first, then the pregnant women did; those pregnant women had to get enough fat for the pregnancy to be successful. Since women lived longer than men, even with the risks of death from pregnancy, they were probably the first ones to get fat, and the early carvings of fertility goddesses are always very fat women (I guess calling them “ample” would be more polite, but big breasts and butts were in, the hunters loved them).

If there was still extra food, probably some adolescent male challenged some of his peers to eat another pile of food in competition with him; undoubtedly some of those adolescents ended up liking that feeling of being stuffed with food and sought it out. They were the first fat boys. If the season was plentiful, these guys were the second ones to get fat. In these rich areas, the food was plentiful and sometimes the whole tribe would become fat and produce lots of babies. If it wasn’t a good harvest, the skinniest ones starved, leaving more genes of people who liked to eat and get fat.  

Dogs were smart enough to realize that after a good hunt, human packs had extra food that would be available for them, and so they joined the human packs for that and the warmth of sleeping with humans on a cold night. They turned out to have all sorts of useful talents for the human pack because their senses of smell and hearing were frankly much better than human senses; of course, humans have better color vision. So, with the help of dogs, the hunts were more successful, and there was more food to eat than ever before.

Most of these hunter-gatherers wandered around in astoundingly productive garden areas with lots of food. It’s only today that hunter-gatherers are in marginal areas like on the edges of deserts. They spent a couple of hours a week feeding the pack and had the rest of the time to play with things, find or make interesting things out of what they had, talk, tell stories, do religion, eat more, have sex, or just sleep. They started making and using more tools from stone and bone, collecting and preserving skins and furs, making things out of mud and clay (goddesses and bowls come to mind), controlling fire (roasted buffalo meat was good!), collecting the extra grease from cooking (dry skin? slap on some of that bear fat), collecting fibers of various kinds, weaving baskets and cloth, making clothes and beads, making weapons (sharp things like arrows could be very useful on the hunt), painting on cave walls, painting each other (makeup?), making fancier clothes, playing with pretty, soft metals like gold and copper, etcetera. They figured out how to make packs and carry stuff with them or to bury it with secret markers, so they could find it again when they came back to the same area (secret signposts).

Some heard from neighboring packs that there were good places to feed their packs farther away, and those exploring packs wandered farther and farther. Some of these travelers starved, but the fat ones got somewhere and found more and more food. They exchanged good ideas like cooking with fire and using stones to break up the hard grain kernels, grinding them into a rough powder, adding water and fat, then cooking the mixture on hot stones, and the tortilla (or pita) was invented!

Pastoralists learned how to produce rich foods nearby. Sheep and goats were kept around, and someone figured out how to milk them, giving milk, cream, yogurt, and eventually cheese. Later cows and horses came into the pastoralist herd. They could send a couple of annoying adolescents off for weeks with a whole herd of domesticated sheep or goats to richer pastures a little farther away, and the whole group would come back wiser and fatter. The guys carried food with them, hunted, or would just roast a young goat or lamb when they got hungry. Of course, some of the adolescents found out about sex with each other and with sheep or goats, but we don’t have to go there. The hunters would sometimes go with the herds, but they were generally up to other thing because the amount of food was really great. They might take their weapons and try stealing more sheep and goats from nearby human packs. If the human packs resisted, they’d have a great fight, expressing their testosterone and hunting prowess. Some of these human packs were nomadic, but others began to settle down in comfortable locations where there was plenty of water flowing around them, especially on rivers (think about the Nile, the Tiger, the Euphrates, the Indus, the Yellow, and the Yangtze).

Agriculturalists also developed from hunter-gatherer societies. Someone realized that if you offered the gods some of the seeds of the plants you were eating, more of those plants would be around the next year. It was handy to have a good pointy stick around and make a hole in the ground with it, drop in the offering, and come back next year for the treat of easy harvest. All those tools were great, but what someone really needed was a good ax to use to open up forested areas with good rainfall and rich soil (of course, the alternative was flooding rivers, but that’s coming up). The hunters would go out for meat, but more and more calories came from the plants that were growing in more regular rows near the caves or skin shelters that were being used. Years of experimenting produced big stone axes, but they didn’t stay sharp and would crack. In their free time, some of the humans were working with soft metals. They figured out how to melt and shape them, copper would hold an edge for a while. There was plenty of food for some of the pack to specialize. Metallurgy was one specialty that emerged; copper tools and weapons gave way to bronze and then iron and then steel; if you didn’t have enough, you sent trading missions (or just thieves) to get what you needed.

Agriculturalists along rivers had an advantage. The river floods put great nutrients back into the soil so harvests would increase. Surpluses became a standard way of living, and usually there was more than enough for everyone to eat. Barley, oats, wheat, rice and maize were stored and eaten in great proportions in different parts of the world. Somebody started crushing the grain, grinding it into powder and mixing it with various substances (i.e., fat, yeast, water, flavorings) and voilá bread. Somebody, probably with plenty of free time and extra grain all over, figured out about fermenting grains and voilá beer, another wonderful use of that extra supply of grain and another source of calories, especially for frat parties from ancient times to the present (the ancient Greeks called a drunken frat party a symposium). Someone was growing lots grapes, they are good to eat fresh, but hard to keep around; then the fermentation idea hit again, and voilá wine. Put the wine in jars with stoppers and you could even ship it all over to trade for other things you needed. Fermenting potatoes, rice, corn and sugar syrups lead to more alcoholic drinks. Someone with time on his hands figured out distillation, and voilá whiskeys, brandies, liqueurs, moonshine, rum, and vodka. Someone with olive trees all around started squeezing them and voilá olive oil; you could put it in big jars with stoppers, and it would keep. People started frying with it (everything tastes better with that rich flavor from olive oil), they used it on their skin and hair (the extra luster adds sex appeal and suppleness to the skin), they used it for lighting (burning it in lamps), and some people added it to raw vegetables to make salads much better (think of Greek Salad: tomatoes, cucumber, feta, green pepper, purple onion, vinegar or lemon juice, herbs, olives, and olive oil).  Someone else figured out how to prepare the olives to eat and voilá a new food source for the world. More and more calories for the people of the world.

Of course, eventually the agriculturalists and pastoralists were together and a food explosion took place. Most of the people in the rapidly developing towns had plenty to eat. They stored extra dried grain in granaries and temples. The food was so good and plentiful they offered it to the gods. The priests started keeping track of this and grew fatter as writing developed. They had big feasts at important dates from their calendars and for all sorts of celebrations. Things like houses and defensive walls were being built, and the social hierarchy became more complex. How do you know whether a priest is higher up on the pecking order that a guy with twenty hunter-soldiers in his pack? The size of his muscles and his belly was part of being more important. Somebody had to set up the rules; it was the big guys who did it.

Modern societies provide more calories than ever before for humans to enjoy. The ancient genes are still there, and we love the tastes of nutrient dense (i.e., fat-laden) foods. Frying things in fat seems to be a universal cooking method because it tastes so good to our genetically tailored taste buds. Those marvelous fat cells are extremely good at storing the calories away inside themselves in case there’s a famine. We’ve been developing all sorts of labor-saving devices, so that we don’t have to do much physical labor. Most of our time in offices is spent sitting around in meetings or around coffee tables (with abundant fried dough). Most people can have food in their offices and homes all the time. Those few who have careers built on physical labor or slender-is-beautiful mentalities (models, athletes) are exceptions waiting to get fat. We all want to see them with a nice belly rolling over their pants. They really don’t live longer than the fat people.  

So I don’t worry about my obesity. I suggest that everyone should enjoy those wonderful fat cells; they’re an important gift from your ancestors. Go have that extra large bowl of ice cream with fudge sauce, nuts, whipped cream and a cherry because all your generations of ancestors worked hard so that you could eat it. Don’t apologize for that pot belly, those love handles or that roll of flab on your buttocks (or where ever it is); your ancestors worked and survived so that you could enjoy it! You’re a fat sex person, and you should let the world know it. Finally, if you have children (or plan to have children), you’ll pass on these wonderful genes to future generations.

Guidelines for Enjoying Your Fat

Play with it some; it deserves attention. If you have a partner, get him/her to play with it, too. You can play with your partner’s if you’re nice about it.

 Have a second breakfast when you can. Call it a coffee break or whatever, but eat something substantial with that second cup of something.

It isn’t food that makes you fat; it’s the volume of food, so go for big meals and snacks as often as you can. If you have a dozen doughnuts around, eat the dozen doughnuts. Don’t be shy about it. Stuff yourself silly when there’s excess food around because you never know when the next famine is coming.

If you can have an early lunch do, then fit in a late lunch and a substantial snack before you have tea. If you can’t have an early lunch, just have a big one.

Snack whenever and where ever you can.

For tea, dump the tea, and have pastries, sandwiches, pizza and sugary sodas or creamy milkshakes.  

If your tummy hurts because you ate too much, eat some more and belch. Then massage that swollen gut (or have a friend massage it), so you’ll be ready for the next meal sooner.

The wine and beer are good for you.

Dieting will make you fatter the next time, so starve yourself every once in a while.

You have a good digestion system; use it.

If you’re really hugely fat, enjoy it, and find someone who likes it so much that he/she will just keep feeding you more. If possible pass on those genes, so the next generation will get fatter. If you’re not passing on the genes, help fatten those who are.

Have big meals with many courses whenever possible. These help increase you ability to stuff more in.

Get rid of the low-fat foods.

Get rid of diet sodas.

Eat plenty of vegetables along with more of everything else. They help increase your capacity.

If you were a fat kid, give in to your genes and enjoy the food you want. If you weren’t a fat kid, try harder to become a fat adult.

The beer bong is a divine invention for filling bellies to their maximum distention, especially if all you’ve got is cheap beer; everyone in college should use one at least once a month to help with gaining weight.

That pasta with cream sauce is wonderful, help everyone by eating more of it, but let the calories from endangered species stay outside you food chain; the next generations will need them, too. Besides, you ARE contributing to the economic recover by consuming as much as possible.

Living longer and being unhappy is worse that living life full and happy with who you are. Be especially big and happy.

If you’re a male with a big belly, love handles, and/or a big butt, enjoy these status symbols of your masculinity. If you're a female with big breasts, belly bulge, and big hips and/or butt, enjoy these status symbols of your fertility. If you’re not big, just work on being bigger; it raises your status in the pack.

If there’s a bully at your school or office, get everyone to bring him/her much more of high-calorie favorite foods and encourage his/her extra consumption, so that the fat accumulates massively. Keep food coming all the time and find ways to get the bully to eat more (a few eating competitors can help). A major increase in weight will at least slow the bully down so you can get away.

Join an eating club and compete with others to eat more. If you can get down more than fifty hot dogs in ten minutes, go join the professional eating competitions.

That late night snack is great, so eat it!

Aren’t those curves delightful?

Ideas

Sometimes my ideas run completely counter with what the media say. This includes the conservative media, the (supposedly) balanced media, and the liberal media. They're all confined by conventions and political agendas. I get angry at all of them. They don't seem to understand that we're already in a socialist democratic republic controlled by the plutocracy. They hid behind labels and agendas. They are all biased, and so am I. They are all subjective, and so am I. They kowtow to sacred cows! I'll try to avoid bowing to the revered sacred cows, but I make no claims of objectivity. I'm here for the rush of weird ideas that I can share.