Shift Work Sleep Disorder
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Consensual Crimes on March 11th, 2010
The conditions that we, as a society, choose to medicalize, and the ones that we do not, reflect our collective values. Case in point: Shift Work Sleep Disorder. Also known as “being tired because your job hours are not consistent with your Circadian rhythm.”
This is significant because Provigil is approved by the FDA for treatment of SWSD, validating SWSD as a real, treatable, medical condition. What about, “Rave-Dancing Sleep Disorder,” which is the condition where you are too tired to dance to trance music until four in the morning? That condition doesn’t exist, of course.
This raises two questions: first, why is it that we need to medicalize something as simple as, “being tired because you work until five in the morning,” and second, why is it that we choose to medicalize THAT, but not other activities that also keep people up until early hours? Which adds more value to the world as a whole: working a factory job or dancing ecstatically at a rave?
I blame the Puritans.
And of course, more fundamentally, why is it that the state gets to decide which activities are worth taking medication to stay up for, instead of the individual?
Amphetamines For Children
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Consensual Crimes, Money and Marketing on March 10th, 2010
So, apparently it’s okay for children to take amphetamines in order to help them get through their homework. What the hell? I mean, I’m not a doctor, so I’m not qualified to say whether it’s safe to give amphetamines to children, but given how SUPER SCARY BAD BAD BAD amphetamines are supposed to be, I’m surprised they’re okay for kids to take.
See? This is what propaganda says that amphetamines do to perfectly healthy adults! I can only imagine what little Kevin is going to look like in 2.5 years.
“Oh, but that’s meth, and Kevin is getting Vyvanse! Vyvanse is a prescription drug, not a dirty dirty street drug.” Riiiight. Would you rather I called it Desoxyn, which is what they call meth when a doctor prescribes it?
Look, bottom line is that I don’t care what people put into their bodies, and I do realize that not all amphetamines are the same, and that taking a drug under a doctor’s supervision is different from self-medicating. All that being said, the idea that we’re simultaneously putting out the message that meth is the worst thing since sliced anthrax, while prescription amphetamines are TOTALLY FINE TO GIVE TO CHILDREN seems kind of hypocritical. Especially given that meth used to be a prescription amphetamine (technically still is, but nobody really prescribes it anymore).
Selective Outrage
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Uncategorized on March 8th, 2010
… In which I continue my spiral into the world of liberalism.
I’ve been thinking a lot about oppression and privilege lately. Fat-hate. Rape culture. Sexism. Racism. Able-ism. I don’t claim to be particularly well-versed in the topics, but I have started to notice a trend or two in the ways that people respond to an idea that challenges their position of privilege. One behavior that I’m noticing at this moment is what I’ll call selective outrage. Honestly, it’s a topic that I, myself, am only really starting to grasp, so I may have a hard time describing it, but I”ll give it a try. Selective outrage works something like this.
In 2007, A law was proposed in Australia which stated that intoxication does not imply sexual consent. Note: the law did not say that intoxicated people cannot give sexual consent, just that intoxication plus the lack of a “no” does not mean “yes.” Apparently, “She was drunk,” was being used successfully as a defense to rape charges, and this law was intended to change that. Put another way, the law requires drunk people to actually agree to fuck you. Seems pretty non-controversial, no?
Here are some of the comments made on a certain web forum regarding this law:
“So yeah, we had a few drinks, we went back to her place she threw me on the sofa, blew me for awhile and then rode we until she orgasmed and then the next day I get arrested for raping her”
This commenter appears to be concerned with the potential for misapplication of the justice system. He doesn’t want to see innocent people accused of a crime, and he is OUTRAGED.
When you drink and drive, it’s is YOUR responsibility in the fact that you should of known to say no to driving. Why is it then, that when women drink, our justice system thinks they are nothing but children, unable to control themselves at all, and thus exonerate them of ANY responsibility?
This commenter appears to be concerned with issues of personal responsibility. He also seems upset at a system that treats women like children, rather than autonomous adults. He is OUTRAGED!
Now, I can support the Sober Guy/Drunk Girl = Rape argument to some degree, but I have two issues with this. Foremost; Shouldn’t this girl be, in some respects, responsible for her own level of intoxication? Hate to tell you, but you don’t HAVE to get drunk, and then the consent issue stays clear. How can the guys be the only ones faulted when both parties are drunk?
Likewise, this commenter raises questions of personal responsibility and agency. OUTRAGED!
Do you want to deny a woman with a slumbersex fetish pleasure?
This commenter tackles the conjoined issues of sex-negativity and sexism, standing up for the right of people to consent to treatment of their bodies, even in non-mainstream ways. He is OUTRAGED!
Except it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Because these people are probably not outraged about misapplication of justice, treating women like children, taking away people’s personal responsibility, or, more to the point, rape, ANY OTHER TIME than when it might affect them. And that slumbersex person? The most eggregious example. Is that person actually kink-positive in real life, or is this just some semantic trick, used solely for the purpose of opposing the new law? Which, I will re-iterate, says simply that intoxicated people have to consent to sex just like everybody else.
The sneaky thing about selective outrage is that the points raised are, on the face, valid. At least they would be if they occurred in a vacuum. But they don’t. They occur in a context in which, for example, WOMEN ARE ACTUALLY BEING RAPED and the people who raped them are not being convicted at stunningly high numbers. The commenters often have absolutely nothing to say about that. Being outspokenly angry about rape is reserved for Feminists Who Are Probably Also Lesbians. Oh, if you asked them, they’d probably say, “Rape is bad, yo,” but the only time they can be bothered to actually type a comment on the Internet is when a law might be passed to actually DO SOMETHING about the raping, and when they do, it’s to poke holes and point out potential problems with the law.
This is the essence of selective outrage. If the only time you express your outrage is to oppose ideas that seek to change conditions, then you support the conditions, no matter what you might intend. And in this case, that means you support the status quo as it pertains to rape, which is a little shocking given the state of rape in America today. If you are anti-rape, I don’t insist that you actually speak out about it. Hey, there are a lot of issues in the world for people to care about, and rape may just not make your list. That’s actually fine with me. But at the very least, maintain your position of silence on the issue when those who care enough to speak up do so.
McDonalds’ “Secret”
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Food, Money and Marketing on March 6th, 2010
If I were asked why McDonald’s food tastes so good, I’d say a meticulously-perfected balance of fat, salt, and sugar. Little did I know that the actual answer is far more obvious.
We make it the way you would.
Well, that’s good. I suppose. Although, arguably, the whole reason I’m going out to eat is because you’ll make it better than I would. Or, perhaps you’ll make it worse, but the convenience of having someone else do it will offset that. But okay, bold idea: make it the way I would. I like it.
With 100% beef.
Ok, now here I was surprised, because it hadn’t occurred to me that anything except beef really could go into a hamburger. I mean, I’ve heard about the trace amounts of rat droppings and cockroach parts, but that hardly counts. No McDonalds’ bag has ever said, “Hamburger: Now With Roach Carcass.” Then Issa told me that McDonalds’ hamburger patties actually didn’t used to be 100% beef. They had soy, or something, in them.
So, shocker. The big marketing push for how awesome McDonalds’ burgers are is that they… drum roll… are made from cow. Can you hear the dripping sarcasm? I mean, isn’t that the least we can expect? This is kind of like a dry-cleaner saying, “I did not put any new stains on your clothes. AREN’T I AWESOME!”
Especially since pink slime (ammonia-treated slaughter-house-floor-scrapings) counts as 100% beef. And pink slime is in McDonalds’ hamburgers! Yeah. I have to tell you, every time I make a hamburger, I scrape up some fatty bits from my slaughter house, grind them up, treat them with ammonia, and mix them in with the chuck. Way to “make it the way I would,” McDonalds.
Making Firewood
Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Homesteading, Uncategorized on March 4th, 2010
This is the first two truck-loads of firewood that I brought home. The stuff sitting on the ground, not the stacked stuff. Well, it ain’t firewood in the picture, but it is by now.
Notice the difference in the height of the right-hand stack? That’s what used to be that wood. I estimate it’s about a rick, which is about $65 in the bank by my math, or about $50 if you take into account that I picked it up vs. having it delivered. I focus on the money, because it’s obvious, but there’s no price I would put on the idea that I’m providing for myself a fundamental and life-sustaining need (heat, during the winter).
Splitting wood is fun, which is an odd thing to say given how much work it is. My hands and arms have been very tired from swinging the maul, and my back and legs are tired from moving the big hunks of stump after I cut them off the log with the chainsaw. Still, hitting a solid chunk of wood with a12-lb piece of metal and having the wood split into two pieces and go flying has a certain visceral pleasure. KA-POW! It’s kind of like working a heavy punching bag, but with a fire at the end.
The neighbor has offered to let me borrow his gas-powered splitter, but I’m not interested. I have enough things in my life that a gasoline engine turns into nothing harder than a button push. I’m happy to have something so valuable come out of nothing more than a stick, a piece of heavy metal, and my body. That’s not to say that I’m not also happy to have a riding mower for the field, or a gas tiller (that thing was a damn life-saver; I can’t imagine doing all that work by hand), just that here’s one thing I can do by hand, and I like doing it, and there’s no need to turn it over to Almighty Petroleum just because I can.
Currently, we have at least 3 cords stored up, but some of that is going to be burned on what’s left of this winter. I estimate we may need about 5 cords to get through a year, so I’ve got a lot more work to do before I’m “done.” The truth is that I may never be “done,” because it’d be fantastic to have at least two years’ worth saved up. One year is the absolute minimum for seasoning hard-wood, but two years is usually better.
And, even if I had two years saved up, seeing good wood rotting on the ground just looks like a waste to me now. But of course, that’s not true either. Bugs live in the wood and eat it. The wood itself rots and turns into soil. I suppose if I gathered up enough firewood, eventually the soil in the woods would be less fertile, but I doubt that little-ol’-me is making that much of a difference. If everyone in Knox county heated their homes with wood, then we might have to worry about how many trees were getting cut, but as-is, I can pretty much heat my entire house for a year on what other people would just leave lying on the ground. It’s nice to be in a situation where I can be reasonably confident that my ecological impact is low. Hopefully I can increase the number of those as this homesteading adventure, also know as My Life, continues.
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