Read this.

Hi, internet. I'm just back again from another trip. This past Friday, G-Dog and Emmie and I drove up to Chicago for my family's annual powwow and then we drove back home yesterday. Usually we meet up in western New York, but every once in a while we like to shake things up, and this year we ended up at my brother's lovely home outside of Chi-town. We started our gathering with a Saturday morning family 5K -- our third annual race -- an followed it up with two days of fellowship, food and potations. It was wonderful. I have the most awesome family.

And as always, I promise to post photos at some point. I realize I have quite a backlog of similar promises, but I'm actually going to get to sit tight at home for a while, so maybe I'll actually manage to get some images up in July.

But in the meantime, please read Don Berwick's incredible Harvard medical school commencement speech, which is titled simply, To Isaiah (which I found via Yoni Freedhoff's Weighty Matters). I'll include the text below (after the jump), just in case the link stops working. This is important.

I, too, am a slut.

For much of my adult life, I took birth control pills. I even had to take them for a while after my husband's vasectomy, because my gynecologist hoped the hormones might help to control my fibroid tumors. The pills were not cheap. Big pharma is constantly tinkering with the hormone combinations in birth control pills, and many of the newer versions are quite expensive. Fortunately, my health insurance covered the cost of the pills.

My husband works for a division of the state of Tennessee and it is through his employer that we get our insurance, so one could argue that my birth control pills were subsidized by the taxpayer. According to Rush Limbaugh, this makes me a slut and a prostitute, and in exchange for my medication, I should have been compelled to provide him with videos of me having sex.

That is what he said.

And I'm not alone. A lot of women need birth control, not to prevent pregnancy, but because the hormones can serve lots of other therapeutic purposes, like treating painful ovarian cysts.

Limbaugh has since apologized, sort of, but in the meantime, some interesting things have come to light.

First of all, the ignorant men who are trying to force us to let them decide whether or not women should have access to birth control have no idea how birth control works -- or how the female body works, for that matter. Here's Rush Limbaugh once again exposing his shocking ignorance on his radio show (let the video load and then go to minute 13 if you want to head straight to his willful stupidity, and then keep watching if you're in the mood for a bit of Mitt Romney lunacy).

And secondly, if we look closely at what Rush said, we discover a few surprising things. Here's Limbaugh's "apology."

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone’s bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

From that statement, we can extrapolate these interesting tidbits:

• Rush believes that taxpayer subsidized insurance should not pay for viagra. Viagra makes it possible for flaccid men to have sex. Rush does not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities.
• Rush thinks Darrell Issa's activities in the House are absurd, because the committee he chairs held a hearing on contraceptives mandates, and Rush believes we should not be discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. (It's a funny thing, though, that instead of attacking the man who brought the issue before Congress, Rush instead chose to viciously assail a fairly minor player in the hearing -- a woman who tried to participate, but was turned away by Issa.)
• Rush thinks his show is absurd.
• Rush, appropriately, likes the word "absurd."

I'll tell you what is absurd. Letting celibate men -- not doctors, not scientists, not those who are at all familiar with the female body and how it works, not me, for christ's* sake -- decide whether or not I should have access to birth control.

*or should that be for Artemis's sake?


UPDATE: OK, so keep in mind, Rush kept this attack going for three days before he said "oops! Sorry, I didn't mean to say that!!" Perhaps he's on drugs again and has lost control. But I don't think so. A lot of people have wondered if the only reason he "apologized" is because he lost most of his sponsors and advertisers. And his behavior supports that possibility:

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The willful stupidity. It is so epic.

What do you say, ladies?

Will this get you to do regular self-exams?

Yes, yes, and yes.

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And as long as we're talking about this, please allow me a moment to drive this one point home:

Dear Fat, Old Men,

Until you bring even just a few of those of us who actually possess a vagina and a uterus to your meetings, we don't care what you decide. Fuck you.

Sincerely,

A Gyno-American

Stand Your Ground!

The only Ellen I ever see is in clips, and I'm trying not be as political as I used to be here on the blog, but a friend directed me to this impressive commentary and I'm compelled to share. It is yet another bit of good news in a week when Komen didn't get to weasel away from a poorly informed political decision and Prop 8 was properly struck down. Yay for rising above the haters and ignorance peddlers!

I have gotten great results from this...

Twenty twelve (or two thousand twelve) efforts

I'm sensing a lot of resolve in the air so far this year (which, for some reason has prompted a lot of discussion over the pronunciation of the year -- is it twenty twelve or two thousand and twelve?). On blogs and facebook and twitter, a lot of people are going on the record with their goals, which mostly have to do with getting healthier in one way or another.

Nobody asked, but I'm going to offer you all a bit of advice. I'm not an expert, but I have, in the past few years, lost a bunch of weight (in 2009) and kept it off (since then). I've also become a regular exerciser after spending years struggling for the motivation to get up and moving.

I've got two helpful hints for you, one for exercise and one for food. In both cases, I've got good news and bad news. I'll give you the good news first: it's not as hard as it seems. You're probably psyching yourself out quite a bit. I spent most of my adult life fighting sloth and gluttony, but once I figured out a way of beating them back, it did eventually feel easy.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that there isn't a shortcut, a magic pill, or some new technology that will let you avoid the inevitable. You have to move more and consume less. And as my daughter retweeted today, "you will never change your life until you change something that you do daily." The only trick is to find a way to do it without it feeling like it's a sacrifice.

So here's how I did it. First, I tackled the exercise beast. After many years of failed resolutions, I finally conquered this one pretty simply: I attached it to something I like to do every day, which in my case is the shower. And all I did was make myself a simple rule: no sweat, no shower.

The two things are forever linked for me now. Working out is part of my toilette, as they say in France. If I want to take a shower, and I do, every day, I have to break a sweat first. It's been years, and I've only missed days when trapped by travels or injury. Seven days a week. If I don't do it, I miss it. And I'm not some sort of exercise freak -- really I'm not! I like to laze about in front of the computer as much as the next guy.

The activities vary -- walking, biking, running, weights, jumprope, treadmill, elliptical -- as does the duration of my workout (anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours if I take a particularly long hike). The amazing thing, though, is how addictive it all is. You know how some people claim that regular exercise can help with mental health problems like depression? Well, that's no bullshit. I spent years plagued with anxiety, and for quite a few years, regularly needed pharmaceuticals to get through the rough spots. But since I started doing 20 minutes or more of cardio a day, I've gone totally off all meds.

Perhaps a key to my success is that I work out at home. Having to go to the Y or the gym would be a deal breaker for me. Travel to and from takes way too much time. If I work out at home, I'm only out 20 or 30 minutes, but having to go somewhere to exercise would take as much as an hour or more, if you count time commuting, parking, etc. Also, I usually work out toward the end of the day, after finishing work. It's nice to wash the day away, get cleaned up and pour myself a small glass of wine while I start dinner. Ahhh... (hence TPOTDWTW, which is a family acronym for The Part of the Day with the Wine).

Which brings us to the food. Here's the thing. Michael Pollan summarized it well: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." There are a lot of food-like substances out there, but just because they exist does not mean that you should eat them. If you work at eating just real food, I guarantee, the weight will come off with little effort, no matter how much of it you eat.

This doesn't have to be an overnight transformation. Just keep your eye out for acceptable substitutions for the processed food you've become accustomed to eating. Microwave some popcorn in a paper bag instead of eating chips and dip. Fruit instead of a candy bar. Steel cut oats instead of a mcmuffin for breakfast. Beans instead of beef. A really yummy balsamic vinegar instead of ranch dressing.

I'll admit, I like to play with food, so making my own meals is not a big hardship for me. But in the few years I've been weaning myself off of processed food, I've been repeatedly surprised by how easy it is to prepare real food. I've had a weak spot for french fries for as long as I remember. Now I take a potato, chop it into wedges, splash them with a bit of olive oil and bake them for 20 or 30 minutes -- my version doesn't take any longer than the (expensive!) frozen fries with all the icky additives!

That's it, folks. Good luck with your resolutions. Let me know if I can help -- seriously. Email, call, contact me on facebook, and I'd love to talk food -- give me a chance to come up with an easy way to replace your favorite junk food!

Me, I'm going to work on eating seafood more regularly, and slowing down when I eat (I have an annoying tendency to behave as though meals were some sort of race!). I'm thinking about putting away the silverware and using only chopsticks for meals as a way of forcing the issue, at least until I get accustomed to lingering over my food.

Plus, maybe a little less time spent at the computer.

Here's to 2012 being even better than all that's come before it!  **tink!!**

*That's another thing: I did it all without ever giving up beer or wine. If you eat real food, you still get to drink adult beverages. Surely, that's worth giving up the frankenfood!!!  ;-)

World AIDS Day

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Fat Food is Back

Lately, it seems like there are only two things in the news: health care and obesity. Clearly, these are not unrelated (obesity costs this nation $147 billion a year in health care costs), but now that health care reform has passed (yay! and btw, there's surprising good news in that bill!), let's move on to the problem of obesity, a topic which is littering the media lately.

The problem of childhood obesity has become Michelle Obama's primary cause these days. Last week, she spoke to the Grocery Manufacturers Association (and the GMA responded), and she wrote a cover story for Newsweek, which was accompanied in the magazine by articles on the culture of corpulence, a discussion regarding how doctors might help patients control their weight, and photos highlighting the problem.

Jamie Oliver is also making this issue into his life's work. He's taking on the obesity of the entire town of Huntington, WV in his new show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (I'm so excited about this program, I'm actually going to watch reality television this year!). (UPDATE: not everyone is a fan.)

This is all for good reason. Americans, and alarmingly, our children in particular, are fatter than ever (and, wow! even Jesus is supersizing his meal)! Something needs to happen -- and it needs to happen soon, or we are going to lose a whole generation of people to obesity-related illness.

If you know of anyone who is trying to fight the power -- via portion control or other means -- here are a few foods that will help stop the overeating (and, as always, try to shy away from the animal fats).

We're just getting started on this. Further updates as events warrant...

UPDATE: check this out!

Coming Up on 10K (plus some HCR!)...

I've been contemplating some changes to the blog lately -- everything from the large (hosting) to the small (template tweaks), but I just haven't had the time to translate many of my thoughts into action. Life has been busy, and it's been coming at me in big chunks so far this year. If there's been any routine to my days, it's been achieved in the kitchen, where I've been doing a good bit of cooking, rather than online, where I'm constantly struggling to even stay caught up. I'm restless, and that makes sitting at the computer a challenge.

I've even thought a bit about whether I even want to continue on this little blogging adventure. But since the beginning, me and my monkeys have been evolving all along the way, and I don't think we're done yet -- we just might have to shift gears (again).

There is some stuff coming up, like Emmie's graduation and our annual hop across the pond to visit the healthcare-mongering elitists (this year, we'll pop in on the dreaded Bismarckians who started the entire socialist nightmare!), so please forgive some moments of quiet later in the spring. But in the meantime, I've got some stuff in the queue.

First up, and already implemented, I'm giving up the random link lists in favor of twitter bits. I've added a twitter feed to the right column, and I've already been tweeting random interesting links I've found recently. You can check them when you visit the site -- or if visiting a site is a bit too much on the luddite side of things for you (or you just can't stand the thought of missing a single link!), you can always just follow me on twitter or add my feed to your rss reader.

[I'm still feeling my way to figuring out what goes on twitter, what merits a blog post, and what is good facebook fodder (btw, crossposting across all social media is becoming a pet peeve of mine -- if you're doing it... uh, why?!?). You already know how to find me on the first two, and if you want to be facebook buddies, just shoot me a note...]

Coming up, I'm hoping to finally get the archives, categories and tags in order. I'm planning to do a lot more food blogging. And continue the photo blogging. I'm pretty well burned out on politics, but I imagine that even if it appears nowhere else, my progressive view of the world will show up in my tweets. Plus, even though I'm giving up the random links lists, I do have some themed link lists in the queue.

So much to anticipate...

And now, the exception to prove that I have little left to say about politics, here are a few choice bits I've read on the intertubes since health care passed in the House last night (yay!!!!):

• "Tonight I am thankful that the ability of everyone to have health care is no longer being asked to take a back seat to the few lucky ones who are satisfied with their blessings" (that one is from Emmie -- the rest are unattributed...).

• "It took Dems to create Social Security, a basic social safety net to ensure all may live out their lives in dignity; it was Dems who led the Civil Rights Movement and said all men are created equal; now, Dems have led the fight to ensure that every man, woman, and child has the right to basic health insurance in the richest country in the world. No, it is not a perfect solution; but, it IS leadership. Yes. We. Can."

• "The Party of Hope, not the Party of Nope."

• "I think Nancy Pelosi should use that gavel on herself."

• "I'm heading down to the hospital to watch the government start killing people's grandmas. Who's in?"

• "I reassert Jon Stewart's line to the Republicans: 'I think you are confusing tyranny with losing.'"

• ... and one more...

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

...and on to reality: What's the bill mean? And what does it mean to me?

As always, please feel free to share your thoughts...

UPDATE: I'm not always a fan of KO's special comments, but the Republicans really deserve this one. Until they get their homophobes, racists and other spewers under control (or jettison them), they will continue to be the Party of Hate.

Snow Day Links

Wow! It's been a while since I've caught up on this blogging thing! But this evening it will be a relief to listen to some music (the end of the Olympics gives us permission, finally, to turn off the TV) and see what's been going on in the great tubes of the internets!

• I love TED, warts and all (check out this TED Talk from (autistic) Temple Grandin... and speaking of autism...).

• Mark your calendar/save the date! Friday, March 26, 2010, 9pm: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I can't wait!

• This is a great piece of flash fiction.

• Jon Stewart: CPAC, Ricky Gervais, Progressivism, Health Care, Bank of America!

• Bill Maher: Atheism, Health Care (with Chris Rock).

It's a Trap!

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I never run out of links!

This post comes to you from the fourth happiest state in the US!

• Famous photos recreated with legos.

• Time's Year in Photos. The Boston.com version comes in three parts! And then there's the decade!

• ooop -- one more photo bullet: Photos that changed the world!

• The odds of a white Christmas.

• 10 New Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know About.

• Incredible snowflake photography!

• Fat Nation.

• Oh, this is so cool. You know how frustrating it is not to know how to pronounce unfamiliar words? At Forvo.com, you can hear those words uttered by native speakers of whatever language is challenging you at the moment! (You can also help out by adding spoken words to the site.)

• The Known Universe.

• Check the weather, Star Wars style!

update: • Main Street, not C Street.

Wow. December, already!

December 1st is World AIDS Day. This year's theme is "Universal Access and Human Rights." More info is available at World AIDS Day and World AIDS Campaign.

This could be the issue that determines whether or not I campaign in 2012...

I'm not sure what the president is thinking, but thankfully, others are on the case (for good reason).

Sunday Links & a Song

This is a short list, especially considering the fact that it's been a while since I've done links, but I'm tired of the politics that are filling our headlines. The best course of action here is to hide in the great music of geniuses like Elvis Costello (while reading a bit about the other stuff):

• Two can play that game (and some other protest signs -- some of my favorites: "My two moms can beat up your 14 wives," and "They're the ones that keep having gay babies!").

• Sigh. Back to health care. Let's just go ahead and cover everybody already -- even the constituents who manage to survive Boehner. One way or another we're going to pay for their health care anyway.

• I just started trying out google sidewiki this weekend. As one contributor pointed out, the implications here are numerous -- and not all positive -- but the potential is exciting.

• A Chattanooga suburb (East Ridge) made Boston.com's Big Picture last week. Seriously, we got a LOT of rain.

• And finally... the Origin of Stupidty

Your links for the past week or so...

First, the Ted Kennedy stuff: The play-by-play, Obama's eulogy, Ted, Jr.'s eulogy, the Big Picture, and Eugene Robinson's "A Prince's Fate" (and one more: What Teddy would do).

Then there's health care (the Huckabee plan is already in place!):

Where's the efficiency in this system?!?

And the rest...

Oh, the fakery. The faces of coal are fake. The anti-marriage Mainers are fake. Which is all very sad and pathetic. But this fake Ronald McDonald is pretty much hilarious.

Big Egg.

The Man Who Walked Around the World.

Ta-Da! The gays save marriage!!!

And finally, this is a jam-packed "New Rules" from Bill Maher, including these choice tidbits:

But, what did Obama actually say to make Karl Rove's head explode and the popcorn fly out? Well, cover your children's ears. When he was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he said he did the same way the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism. Yes, "President John F. Kenya" actually said that people in other countries might like their countries better.

Well, I was so shocked, I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.

Sarah Palin, in her farewell speech kept telling us how she's wired. You know, I'm not a doctor--or an electrician--but, I suspect this is faulty wiring, this world view that, in her words, we should never apologize for our country. Really? Never? Not for slavery? Or Japanese internment camps? Or if we tortured the wrong guy at Guantanamo Bay? The Indians?! Nothin', Sarah? "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," maybe?

I mean, shouldn't John McCain apologize for…you?

Mitt Romney's new book is called No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. You can find it at Borders in the "Suck Up" section. It's such a perfect title for today's conservative, combining paranoia with arrogance. "No one has yet asked me to apologize, but if someone ever does, f*ck them."

Midweek links ('cause it's been a while!)

• Oh, August, why have you retreated from your former glory to become just a suburb of September?

• Duh!

• Take back the beep!

• Your "religion" for the week: The Story of Suzie

• The top ten notorious American biker gangs

• On food and being fat... America's food crisis and how to fix it... will exercise make you thin? And finally, ewwww.

• GOP attacks Obama for not being bipartisan enough

• Quote of the week: "Giving up on the public option might be expedient. But we didn't elect Obama to be an expedient president. We elected him to be a great one." -- Eugene Robinson

• And the inevitable more on health care: Oh, no! Not those healthy Canadians again!! ... How American Health Care Killed My Father... Heal or No Heal... David Sedaris weighs in (France vs. the US)... Do the Democrats lack passion?... and Barrel Fever (the slippery slope: "It's about tyrrany. If Obama and Congress can pass health care reform, what's to stop them from coming in to my home, killing my family and taking all my guns?!?")

Oh, thank goodness!

Finally, someone is standing up to this wingnut piffle and calling it what it is: vile, contemptible nonsense!

I can't get off this subject!