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momtemplative · 5 years ago

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Watching My Diet.

Of Words and Images, That Is.

As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested.—Oscar Wilde, from The Picture of Dorian Gray.

When I was pregnant, I was astounded by the amount of shit-advice people felt entitled to force upon me, thanks to the visual whistle-blower of my growing belly.

I kept the book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin next to my bed like a sacred text. The second half of the book contains a collection of empowered women sharing inspiring stories of their natural birth experiences. I read at least one story every night to off-set the deflating stories that were pushed at me. (One, still clear as day in my mind over a decade later, came from a woman who had never had kids! She said, in low tones and with concern in her eyes, ��It’s the most painful thing you will ever experience. You WILL NEED DRUGS.”)

I would often fall asleep with Ina May’s book on my chest, thinking maybe the positive messages would cause seep into my being, like a topical treatment.

Now, during the era of COVID19, the news is an IV drip of mounting catastrophe into all of our collective veins. And the way we receive news during these current times is 24-7, on screens, visual, relentless and without limits. (PS: as said in Time, “media images can be so intense that they can cause symptoms of acute stress or even PTSD.”)

Like many, I find myself falling into the habit of using my few-far-between windows of space to either read updates from the Post and the Times, or to check social media. While informative at best, these word-venues are, nutrient-wise, anemic crumbs not suitable for a bottom-feeder.

So why the impulse to keep going back?

According to Time Magazine, “The human brain is wired to pay attention to information that scares or unsettles us—a concept known as “negativity bias“. Meaning, our brains are predisposed to go negative, and the news we consume reflects this.”

On a personal level, my intake of news is rising by the day—sometimes seemingly out of my control. I’ll just be grabbing my phone to check the weather and suddenly I’m well into an article on the pandemic, as if in a trance.

Without clear boundaries and a bit of mindfulness, the news and media we are ingesting can be far more toxic than beneficial. The effects of constant negative-news consumption are real and complex.

And I feel the wear-and-tear in my mental state, to be sure. I’ve been taking in the news every night, just before bed, via my tiny phone screen as if that makes it less potent and more manageable. Not the case. I can easily slip into helplessness, along with tasting the vinegar of potent rage in the back of my throat, even as I’m trying to settle in for sleep.

Anxiety and stress create cortisol, which can wreak havoc throughout the physical body and beyond. My neck and shoulders feel like they are clutching with white-knuckles for some unseen disaster, pretty much all the time. Yoga and breathing provides a world of help while doing it, but the muscle memory is so deep, that the bad patterns often return within moments of back-to-life.

This is not to say the solution is to bypass the news entirely. But if we are in this for the long haul, deliberate choices need to be made, for the stability of everyone.

Last week, my dear friend, Steph, mailed a box of crafting goodies to my girls. An eclectic mix of junk-drawer extractions and art things—things that have the potential to clutter up a house. But, when assembled in a package with intention and love, feel like vintage treasures from another world. Girl scout patches, circa the early 1990’s, ribbon in original packaging from the Carter administration, an untethered bouquet of white plastic glitter flowers. And in the midst of this treasure chest: a hardcover copy of the Oscar Wilde book, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

It was a fancy, old-timey edition that I had read through and written-in during college, using the same red ink from the same red pen the whole way through. My handwriting is young—an un-mastered version of my current script. But my brain is searching and inquisitive. I’m not sure why Steph wound up with the book, but there was a time when I passed out Oscar Wilde books like a communist would pass out propaganda and I likely forced it upon her.

Back then—over twenty years ago, more than half my current age—Oscar Wilde spoke to me in a way I was not accustomed to being spoken to, and brought about feelings that literature rarely provided. I indulged in Him, collected photos, quotes, and bought multiple used copies of his books. He became an unwitting spiritual guide of sorts. I carried the story of his tragic incarceration and subsequent death with me the way a god-fearing man would hold the image of Jesus’ crucifixion close to his heart. If they sold Oscar Wilde on a necklace, I’d have bought one, for sure.

Placing my hands on the cover of that book—while my girls squealed and unpacked the rest of the boxed treasures—was not far from the feeling of placing my hands on a body to massage. Flesh—living, breathing flesh. Cracking open the book brought with it not only the slight sigh that takes place in the inner ear during a good stretch, but also a swell of emotions. I flipped through the pages, feeling saved.

The article, What You Read Matters More Than You Might Think, in Psychology Today discusses the difference between “deep and light reading.” Deep reading is defined as reading that is slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity. It is distinctive from light reading, which is little more than the decoding of words. The author continues by saying deep reading is great exercise for the brain and has been shown to increase empathy, as well as inspiring reflection, analysis, and personal subtext to what is being read.

A passage from The Picture of Dorian Gray—”Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there is in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”

Another passage (how can I resist?): “In this country, it is enough for a man to have distinction and brains for every common tongue too wag against him. And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.”

How I missed that man. And what a time for him to pay a visit.

Last weekend, I was feeling particularly ill-at-ease. My speech had edges like so many sharp river rocks. Tears and sadness rotated through in unpredictable gusts.

On the particular day I refer to, a book called Ordinary Magic, Everyday Life As Spiritual Path all but did a swan dive from my bookshelf and landed at my feet. The cover-image was dated and sun-bleached. The font and spacing came directly from the early 90’s, which is when it was published. I have a vague memory of buying this book at Half-Priced Books in Columbus, just before I made my move out west, in 2002, eighteen years ago. It’s a collection of Buddhist essays that focus on sectioned-out, topics—creativity and community, for example. It did not take long to realize that the editor, John Welwood, steals the whole dang show. His intros to each chapter sparkle with the quiet wisdom of one who is not the headliner, but knows his own worthiness.

(As with Oscar Wilde, I could include countless quotable phrases, but a taste is all you need.) In his introduction to the creativity essays, Welwood said, “By being still and receptive, instead of busily trying to find solutions, we give our intelligence the time and space it needs to find an appropriate way to proceed.” I read that line and gently set the book on my lap to take pause and think to myself, Thank god.

Another account of being liberated by the right words.

The Unknowing. Yes, that is the landscape we all inhabit now. How do we work with such potent feelings of lack-of-control? A classic solution would be to distract the hell out of ourselves so the low hum of anxiety doesn’t seem as loud. Or, we could try to re-frame our reaction, teach the brain that there could be another approach.

Our lives are, in many ways, on hold as we await a vaccine to protect our collective physical health. But our mental health is not on hold. Our intellect is under non-stop media siege and our sanity begs to be nourished and protected now more than ever. An essential piece of that puzzle (the puzzle of avoiding going clinical insane, that is)—more so than what’s contained in a bottle or that can be purchased online with a credit card—may very well already live on our bookshelf.

John Welwood also said, “What is fresh and alive comes only from the unknown.” I’m pretty sure I’m going to have that phrase tattooed on my forearm in old-english script after this whole thing is over.

May 17, 2020

#momtemplative #mindfulparenting #COVIDwords #DietOfWords

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paulsen88lorentzen-blog · 6 years ago

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AHS Blog

Dr. Jeff W. started writing about his medical school journey before he had even taken the MCAT, and his blog is still going strong more than a decade later.

Often in our lives, the stressors of life just become overwhelming. Following food and fitness blogs can be very motivating—if you follow the right ones. Find it Sometimes all it takes is one post to motivate change within ourselves,” says Heather Mangieri , R.D.N., spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The key is to follow blogs that promote positive messages, she says. Overall, their posts should make you feel good about yourself. When health care corruption is discussed in English speaking developed countries, it is almost always in terms of a problem that affects some other places, mainly presumably benighted less developed countries. At best, the corruption in developed countries that gets discussed is at low levels. In the US, frequent examples are the "pill mills" and various cheating of government and private insurance programs by practitioners and patients. Lately these have gotten even more attention as they are decried as a cause of the narcotics (opioids) crisis (e.g., look here ). In contrast, the US government has been less inclined to address the activities of the leaders of the pharmaceutical companies who have pushed legal narcotics (e.g., see this post ). Sarah Wilson - Sarah has a range of sugar free recipe books, a healthy living blog, she shares her journey about anxiety and information on auto-immune disease. We're working hard to make it easy for you to keep your current Marketplace coverage when your health plan comes up for renewal.

It might seem kind of odd to find a How to Start a Healthy Lifestyle Blog” page on Organize Yourself Skinny. Most of you come to my blog to learn about meal prep, meal planning, exercise, and a whole host of other healthy weight loss habits. However, the most common 2 questions I get after How did you lose weight?” is how do I start my own blog?” followed by how do you make money from your blog?”. So instead of sending you all over the internet trying to point you in the right direction I decided to put together a page dedicated to helping my readers start their own blog. Medicine has come pretty far over the centuries, but at SGU we strongly believe medical research is the key to unlocking even better outcomes in the future. Since it can be hard to keep up with the latest studies by watching the news alone, try following these blogs to make sure you never miss a thing. Our first paper looked at how to use cost-effectiveness to allocate resources between regions and across health care services and research. Emma Frew and Katie Breheny look at how decisions are actually made in practice, but this time in a local authority in England. Another change of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act was to move public health responsibilities from the NHS to local authorities. Local authorities are now given a ring-fenced budget to implement cost-effective interventions that best match their needs. How do they make decisions? Thanks to this paper, we're about to find out. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, hearts seem to be everywhere you look this time of year. That's why it is especially fitting that February is American Heart Month, a time to raise awareness of heart disease and how we can help prevent it. It's also the perfect opportunity to remind ourselves to take good care of our hearts year-round. Making healthy eating a priority, and sticking with it, has a big impact on your health. And you can achieve that big impact with small manageable changes. Here are some ideas of gradual changes you can begin to help you reach your goals! Plus a roasted artichoke recipe to enjoy.

Starting today, you can apply for a 2016 health plan, renew your current plan, or pick a new plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace. Kimberley is a photographer from San Francisco who shares her own creative way of healthy cooking. She is mainly focused on seasonal fruits and vegetables in her tasty food creations. Most people have heard someone refer to food as medicine, but it's not usually very clear what they mean. Dr. Neal Barnard is the exception because, as a physician who specializes in nutrition and preventive medicine, he's able to clearly explain the role food plays in disease prevention. In addition to written stories, Dr. https://edi-nm.com/ms/ Barnard's Blog also uses infographics and other visuals to present information in a concise way. National Nutrition Month has arrived! This year's campaign, "Put Your Best Fork Forward," reminds us that each bite counts. Making small changes in how we eat can make a big difference in our health. Studies show time and time again that being thankful is healthy for your mind and body. This article explains some of the benefits to be gained by being thankful as well as tips on how to incorporate more gratitude into your life.

The US Department of Health & Human Services works to improve public health, and their blog highlights some of the ways it's happening.

Healthy food. Nutritional habits have a huge impact on human health. Food should be balanced, saturate the body with proteins, fats, carbohydrates, be moderately caloric. It is better to cook food for a couple, in the oven, boil, stew, but acute, sour, fried foods should be avoided. Wild Fermented Food. As you consume prebiotics, take fermented food which is a great source of probiotics. Fermented foods include sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, kombucha, pickles, and kombucha. If you recently had or adopted a baby, you may qualify for a Special Enrollment Period This means you can apply and enroll in or change Marketplace health plans outside Open Enrollment. The WATCHMAN Implant is a groundbreaking device that works to prevent clots in patients with Atrial Fibrillation. This alternative to blood thinning medication can greatly improve the quality of life for people who struggle with the common side effects of Warfarin and similar medicines. If you look at these two blogs, you'll see the difference - Ben Does Life is a journal of Ben's experience, while Roni had an idea to motivate and she thus owns a different website. This is why you need to decide on the concept of your blog before you start creating it. Dr Libby Weaver - One of Australasia's leading nutritional biochemists, author and speakers. Dr Libby shares her wealth of knowledge through her inspiring talks, books and blogs, her mission is to educate and inspire people, improving their health and happiness. When we look at people in other cultures who are healthier than we are, we often see that their diets consist of foods naturally found in their regions. So as often as you can, try to include foods that you can recognize as being grown in our part of the country. Local” is often defined as within 150-200 miles of where you are located. What if there were a set of blood tests that could give you a heads-up on potential health issues? Wouldn't it be helpful to have a way to gauge whether your health plan is working for you or not? How about focusing on acquiring health instead of avoiding illness? Progressive health care practitioners are helping clients reach their health potentials with the help of some simple, relatively inexpensive tests to predict who's at risk of unhealthy aging. Sleep hygiene. This method of therapy involves changing basic lifestyle habits that influence sleep, such as smoking or drinking too much caffeine late in the day, drinking too much alcohol, or not getting regular exercise. It also includes tips that help you sleep better, such as ways to wind down an hour or two before bedtime. more information Only a few days remain before the final December 15 deadline to enroll in 2018 Marketplace health insurance. If you miss the deadline, you may have to wait another year to sign up (unless you qualify for a Special Enrollment Period ). This website churns out health news and research reports consistently throughout the day, meaning there's a lot to read. The options to sort headlines by recency or popularity are nice for those who don't know exactly where to start. 3. Eat plants. All plants are cholesterol-free, and most are low in unhealthy saturated fats. In addition, many plant-based protein sources are high in important nutrients such as fiber, which helps keep you full, and potassium, which helps lower blood pressure. Swapping plant-based proteins for meat a few times a week can help improve blood sugar levels, too. It is possible to hit the daily value of 50 grams of protein from an all-plant diet. Here is a sample menu that will get you there. There's a lot of pushback from big industry on that, of course. If we have guidelines and laws helping us to live healthier, big companies aren't going to sell as much fast food, chips, and soda. And for companies hell-bent on making money at the cost of human life, well, that makes them very angry. Sometimes the personal comes through an author's reflections on their own experience with the health care system, and how it helped them see the system differently. Craig Roxborough's search for a long-term care home for his father is perfect example of this.

Including the personal can help your readers engage with what you have to say, by humanizing a policy or system issue that they might not otherwise care about.

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daniellesmithtv · 7 years ago

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Body Confidence – The Vulnerability of Change

My clothes don’t fit.

I’ve gained 15 pounds in the last 18 months.

I detest getting dressed in a way I never have.

I’m disappointed that I can’t seem to make the necessary changes.

I abhor that I no longer feel like the role model of body confidence and self love I have always wanted to be for my children – especially my daughter.

I’ve been doing everything I can to hide how I feel.

But, it seems I’ve hit a tipping point.

For the first time in more than four years, some of my beloved Stitch Fix clothes don’t fit when they arrive. (that’s on me, not them.)

I stand in my full closet and struggle to find something that fits. And find I prefer anything loose. Or pajamas – yesterday I stayed in those until 1pm. That’s not me.

This past week….I attended a formal event and ordered dresses from Rent the Runway….there was one I REALLY wanted to wear and ordered it in my size (or what I *thought* was my size) plus one size up. When I couldn’t get it zipped up…I was hoping it was because of the empire waist and ruched material….I asked a friend to try. No go. She gently informed me the zipper had zero chance of making it….it was maybe two or three inches apart.

That’s a bad feeling. There is vulnerability in that type of moment – embarrassment and self-realization: I’m not the same size I once was. I may never be that size again.

I wore a back up that arrived in the wrong color and with stains on the back.

Like so many dresses I have chosen for the past year – it worked because it hid so much of me from the ribs down.

I did a bathing suit photo shoot with the most amazing, body-confidence inspiring company and was amazed that they succeeded in minimizing the things that make me self conscious (my waist/stomach) while accenting the good….but still confess to noticing the flaws first (my stomach, the texture of my skin). It’s clearly me, not them.

I know I haven’t made it seem as though I’m struggling with any of this and I get that this may seem trite, but I’m cringing as I type any of this. It took me a few hours to hit ‘publish’ as I continued to hesitate sharing.

Here’s the thing: I’m not ‘fat’. I get it. I know it. I’m still within the appropriate bounds for my height (though I have apparently lost an inch in this same time frame – what the actual hell?) So, yes….I was always on the thinner side of the spectrum and hated being told I ‘needed a cheeseburger’.

But now, I just hate how I feel. I don’t feel like ‘me’.

And I can’t figure out if that is just because my clothes don’t fit (I know it is a factor), because I’ve never been able to stick to an exercise regimen (I don’t fall in to the category of people who feel strong and energized by workouts – I’ve always felt exhuasted), that I can’t get past the number on the scale (silly, I know) or that I am struggling with the idea that I can’t reverse time and this is my new normal.

It is probably a combination of it all.

As I was typing this today, a friend messaged me some kind words – encouraging me to love myself at this stage…and recognize that how I feel should matter more than the numbers – the scale or clothing size.

She’s right. However, I admit it. I actually don’t feel healthy.

I don’t sleep well. I clearly don’t prioritize exercise. My stamina is suspect. I like cheese. Too much. I have failed at each and every new commitment to change (ie: exercise, eating adjustments).

But, as I shared on Instagram today (along with how I’ve been feeling)….I think I have found the motivation I need.

I’m failing my children. I’m failing to be the role model they need. Until recently, they had never heard me disparage my appearance or have to explain eating changes that fell in to the diet category. I want them to love themselves and focus on healthy living. My small girl is now moving deeply in to the teenage years – a time that body image can be a sensitive subject.

So, here’s my new committment to regain a healthy body image:

Yoga: With fibromyalgia, high impact activities can be hard on the body – but yoga is good for both physical and mental health. This will be a 5 times weekly practice – even if it is only for 20 minutes.

Meditation: I’m learning that my mental health is equally as important as my physical health. This is now a daily practice for peace, gratitude and focus.

Intermittent Fasting + Paleo: I’ve never been someone who loves breakfast, so the research I’ve done on this topic (plus my prior experience with Paleo) feels like the best fit for me – aiming to cycle between patterns of fasting (12-14 hours) and eating (meaning I would only eat, for example, between the hours of noon and 8pm). Additionally, I will predominantly avoid wheat, dairy and sugar. Because I know myself, I allow grace for the occasional addition of cheese to a meal. When I tried Paleo in the past, it was the healthiest I’ve felt – and at that time I did give myself a little bit of leeway.

Good people: If I’ve learned anything in the last few years, it is that surrounding myself by good people, good-hearted people – they make all the difference. I am grateful to all of my friends who model self-love and remind me that having a kind soul matters. I began this conversation on Instagram and have been brought to tears by the encouragement of friends who are lifting me up and reminding me to look inward as I figure this all out.

Focus on Feeling – I’m going to stop looking at the numbers – the scale, the size of the clothing I wear and focus entirely on what a ‘healthy me’ should feel like. It may sound silly, but this is going to be a challenge for me. I want to measure my progress in mental and physical health rather than by a 20-something barometer that used to be all I needed. This feeling includes choosing clothes that DO make me feel pretty….you’re going to see lots of loose dresses in my future.

It’s for the Kids: My small people deserve to have a healthy mother who can appreciate her growth of spirit and waist size. Comparing myself to the 25 year old version of me can be just as harmful as idealized body images in beauty magazines can be to my girl.

If you have additional suggestions, I’m open.

Thank you for being here.

The post Body Confidence – The Vulnerability of Change appeared first on Pretty Extraordinary.

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s3venpounds · 7 years ago

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jesus buddy, if you wanted to know more about me just friend me somewhere and talk to me facebook,discord,overwatch,psn, snapchat w.e! haha i dont bite!

also this is gonna be really feckin long

1: Talk about the first time you watched your favorite movie.

How to train your dragon (1 and 2 i can’t decide) I fucking LOVE dragons. the idea to fucking ride one in the sky?!?! fucking DOPE. the idea that theyre also SCALY DOGS?!?!? MOTHER.FUCKING.DOPE. i just associate the idea of freedom with flying through the sky and that feeling was conveyed really well in that movie so i really loved it!

2: Talk about your first kiss.

honestly? kinda dumb now that i look back on it. it was a peck, i wasn’t even like mentally prepared and it happened way faster than i thought. If i knew it was going to happen i would have really like milked that fucker. i woulda went romance movie on that shit with all the extra shit like groping and weird inhaling noises and kissing so hard your teeth almost clink together. but yknow coulda woulda shoulda

3: Talk about the person you’ve had the most intense romantic feelings for.

theyre not a part of my life anymore which admittedly fucking sucks but i think its for the better at least for them. do i wish it worked out and we were together? i mean yeah duh, the reasons i fell for them don’t fucking disintegrate/ i just have more information than i had when i first met that person. will i actually actively pursuit them in the chance to be with them again? hell no. i’m tired. and i’ve seen enough “ self confidence” posts on here to think “ hey if someone really wanted me in their life they would go out of their way to do so and seeing as they haven’t even messaged me in god knows how long then its safe to say theyre off being happy

4: Talk about the thing you regret most so far.

man i haven’t seen this person is literally almost 20 years. I need to apologize. or at the very fucking least, see how theyre been doing. its driving me mad just trying to picture how theyre living and just coming up with a giant question mark.

5: Talk about the best birthday you’ve had.

lets be real bro most of my birthdays have been shit so i gave up on tryna make them memorable or fun, ‘s just another day to me. i mean the best one would have to be this one time i got a gameboy advance but thats pretty much it

6: Talk about the worst birthday you’ve had.

yknow how everyone says “ OH MY GOD WE SHOULD KEEP IN TOUCH” once you move? yeah thats bullshit. honest to god bullshit. i kept tabs on everyone when i moved to a different city and when i came down to visit for my birthday inviting all those people who supposed “wanted to keep in touch with me” literally 1 person showed up. and i think they only showed up because our parents were friends too. so yeah. fuck people sometimes.

7: Talk about your biggest insecurity.

hygiene. breath, hair, clothes, eating habits, manners, anything that might make me come off as unclean to people im trying to impress drives me off the fucking wall. specially at formal events. if im wearing snazzy clothing at like a suite 16 or a debut or a wedding bet you $100 that im adjusting little aspects of my appearance every like 15 seconds. eating mints the second one is finished, trying not to be too close to someones face when talking, even when i fucking fart i always take note of which way the wind is blowing, or im sitting down on something that can absorb the stench, how much pressure is in my gut and how much of it can i let out in small bursts to avoid sound. that or asian dick syndrome. yknow. haha asians got a small dick? that kinda shit bugs me a bit. not a ton but more than i thought it would

8: Talk about the thing you are most proud of.(i am literally only 8 questions in and my fingers are a little sore from typing)

my singing and impressions? i once scared some friends when i imitated a party blower kazoo thingy since the ones they bought from the dollarstore didnt make any sound. same as my singing, i tend to get high scores and i impressed my cousins once with a perfect score on a backstreet boys song HEH

9: Talk about little things on your body that you like the most.

my biceps? theyre not like chris hemsworth level of meaty but like when i worked at this physically demanding job my coworkers are like “ woah dude ur arms are different from mine, if you worked out theyd look so ripped” that kinda stuck with me for a while specially knowing they were a football jock and they had their own special diet and fitness instructor or something. i also like my smile/ jaw shape? my hair can look pretty good too sometimes

10: Talk about the biggest fight you’ve ever had.

my family is very passive aggressive oh and racist

11: Talk about the best dream you’ve ever had.

i once had this dream where i had reallllly passionate sex and it felt real and i could feel like every little detail down to like hairs brushing my skin on my arms and shit. i swear to this day it was a modern day succubus or something

12: Talk about the worst dream you’ve ever had.

that dream where i was a bird and flying away from”something” just all my instincts telling me to RUN. or that dream where i got shot in the hand, chest then the head and before i blacked out i said “Ch*****” who incidentally i was going to see later that day which made things very awkward at least for me

13: Talk about the first time you had sex/how you imagine your first time.

it was pretty good. looking back i was probably shit in bed hahaha first time so of course theres shit to work out.

14: Talk about a vacation.

hit on by a cousin AND their gay friend. to which the cousin threatened me with self harm but the gay friend took the rejection very easily it was almost baffling in comparison (although the second the settled down they started to bash on me for rejecting their friend) also ate some REALLLLLY garlic covered crab the smell took 5 washes to get out… also got to ride in the back of a truck as its driving at like 120 mph and flying off all these little hills and tracking mud everywhere it was great

15: Talk about the time you were most content in life.

she was in my arms fast asleep and i took a photo. she didnt like that but let me keep the pic so that was nice.

16: Talk about the best party you’ve ever been to.

i can’t really remember any that stand out they were all equally fun. dont get me wrong some were super fun its just that it was also followed by a lot of bad choices that kinda take it down a notch. i will say this one party a friend hosted where i got to meet a BUNCH of new people. i also snorted some fundip powder as a dare. they refuse to let it go so i figure might as well own it. i also landed some sweet shots in beerpong

17: Talk about someone you want to be friends with.

ellen paige would be dope to be friends with. same with zendaya. and gal gadot just so i can like sit in her presence and be in awe for extended periods of time

18: Talk about something that happened in elementary school.

i was cheating on a test and my so called friend ratted me out never talked to him again that white privilege lookin hoe

19: Talk about something that happened in middle school.

i stopped talking to a friend that id thought i would be friends with for my whole life. i also became friends with my current best friend

20: Talk about something that happened in high school.

people are dumb. drama is dumb. people who seek out this kinda shit needa leave me the hell alone. and if youre going to challenge me to a fight, tell me about said fight so i can show up. dont march around telling people ur gonna fight me and not tell me so i dont show up and make it look like i pussied out. like for real?

21: Talk about a time you had to turn someone down.

oh yeah like the vacation one said : shit got really weird. and to have that sorta conversation on spotty wifi in an airport in south korea meaning jet lag is also disorienting af

22: Talk about your worst fear.

death. nuff said

23: Talk about a time someone turned you down.

it sucked but it happens so like.? lmao i dont really know waht to say but it sucked

24: Talk about something someone told you that meant a lot.

i have a horrible memory and on top of that my mind moves at like 32754895274 miles a second so i dont keep stuff in mind a lot in the first place. i can’t really think of anything that had so much impact that i’ve remembered it. well i mean there was this one song a friend told me about in a letter and to this day i’ve kept remembering the same verse “ maybe if we met each other under a different sky maybe things would be much better between you and i”

25: Talk about an ex-best friend.

we just….grew apart. and if we tried to be friends now im sure there would be tension and unease. hes just in a different friend circle. i dont hate him for it i just feel like hes living in a world of white and im living in a world of black like its just plain and simple

26: Talk about things you do when you’re sick.

on the computer. i can’t rest when im sick. i just keep trudging along. school, work, hangouts, i still go. i just take precautions to not spread it

27: Talk about your favorite part of someone else’s body.

neck? shoulder? hands? face? hair? idk dood i don’t really like specific places more of how WELL those parts can mesh together to make this beautiful being.

28: Talk about your fetishes.

y’all about to learn some shit because im gonna teach you a thing about me. pov’s, deepthroat/gagging, emo/goth, anal, massage, ropes and power trips, asians, tentacles if im feeling kinky, hentai /cartoon shit, glory holes, dirty talk and asmr (who woulda thought theres porn for that huh?), ahegao(being fucked silly or till your mind breaks into being nothing but a cumdump), swallowing, threesomes, double penetration, latex is pretty cool too, cosplays are nice if the characters are ones i recognize, tittyfucks, source film maker porn of like video game characters are getting pretty professional nowadays, lesbian, orgys, teenage girls and old ass guys, horse dicks and girls who try to take em, i got turned on by a girl fucking a dog once so i guess bestiality is a thing, oh i saw this scene in a movie im not sure if it was real it seems kinda hazy but it involved necrophilia but im not sure if it turned me on or it was so weird i’ve memorized it because of how weird it was. chicks with dicks fucking other chicks. and a plethora of other weird shit. i dont know what fetishes count and what doesn’t so i just listed whatever came to mind as i wrote have fun with that shit

29: Talk about what turns you on.

short hair, asian heritage, playful and lighthearted but can be lustful as all hell, shorter than me, big boobs is a plus, mid driffs, underboob, small frame or face, scent( god if you smell good thats instant brownie points with me), likes anime, high pitch voices are cute as hell, very physically intimate, loves PDA’s, yeah i can’t really think of much

30: Talk about what turns you off.

uhh smells bad?, when their personality is bland/boring, or just shit. over timidness i get being shy but like if you can’t trust that the person youre interested in then like what am i supposed to do. i literally dated a girl who was so sheepish all i could do was ask her yes or no questions. and honestly that got old really fucking fast. i get she was trying but like i can only finesse so much of a relationship man. bad hygiene holy fuck. if you got like ear wax showin our ur ears, or like a bleeding pimple in plain view and refuse to at least dab it with a wet cloth or tissue then pls its not gonna work out. dandruff oh my gOD. dandruff would drive me nuts. like if i get close enough to see individual fucking flakes im gonna tear my whole scalp off

31: Talk about what you think death is like.

i feel like our bodies stop responding but our “souls” are still present there trapped screaming and trying to move our body but can’t. and thats why burials and shit sound so terrifying

32: Talk about a place you remember from your childhood.

dont need to. im a couple blocks away i can visit it any time. (my elementary and middle school the neighbourhood surrounding it was also where i used to live so that was dope)

33: Talk about what you do when you are sad.

i force myself to get MORE sad so i can get it all out in one go and much faster. like how the human mind can only get so angry that the brain gives up and just tries to find another way to spend its time.

34: Talk about the worst physical pain you’ve endured.

when i was a kid me and bunch of other kids decided to clog a slide with just a shit ton of people and one of my friends who came after me kept pushing me to the point i was hanging on for dear life using only my knee down that was wedged between a fat kid and my friend who went after me. i fell off eventually knocking skulls with another kid near the end of the slide(this slide was shaped like a spring so that explains why there were kids under me) my arm bend backwards for a sec after hitting another kid’s legs, and then i fell chest and fast first on the asphalt winding myself. kids are rugged as all hell man they can really take a hit. i walked it off but god damn if i didnt get bruises and shit afterwards. or that time i got beaten so bad by father dearest because work was stressful and i ended up blacking out. wasn’t even allowed to go to the hospital. just kinda laid down in my room with bruises all over.

35: Talk about things you wish you could stop doing.

relying on people for happiness. distracting myself from sadness and responsibilities. procrastinating in general

36: Talk about your guilty pleasures.

i dont really feel guilt save for some specific circumstances. ask any of my friends. does that mean im a sociopath or whatever?

37: Talk about someone you thought you were in love with.

they just got out of a relationship with someone and was avoiding them profusely and i just started to get to know them. we got to the point that when she was ready we could date. little did i know that later, she would end up dating a friend of mine. to which i promptly had the appropriate reaction of crying myself to sleep, sending that friend a text message with all the things he should know to keep that girl happy and ultimately smashing a lot of things (some bottles actually because we were gonna build a sculpture or something together with em. man middle school was a fucking RIDE)

38: Talk about songs that remind you of certain people.

mmmmmm i would prefer to keep those underwraps.

39: Talk about things you wish you’d known earlier.

family will be there for you in the end. (not because they want to but because the world teaches them that they have to meaning they will help just in their own way and to their own ends.) friends come and go. they always have always will. anyone who says forever is a fuckin idiot. lovers come and go thats just a natural part of growing up. and lets be real all the people that said they would self harm ultimately never did so dont stress it so much god damn(but dont let it slide either)

40: Talk about the end of something in your life.

how about the end of my interest in anime and video games. nothing seems to really interest me anymore. everything is just kinda “meh”

#ask me shit #its fun to tell people way more shit than they wanted

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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An anxious nation finally votes. Some hope that will ease divisions. Others see a permanent state of ‘trench warfare.’

By Marc Fisher | Published February 02 at 2:57 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted February 2, 2020 |

Finally, after three years of a presidency like none other, after street protests and raucous rallies, after awkward Thanksgiving dinners and broken friendships, after predictions of fractured democracy and celebrations of disrupted government, Americans will begin voting Monday.

They will vote on whether to turn away from smash-mouth politics or double down on a presidency that serves as a national blowoff valve. They will vote on whether they prefer a restoration of quieter governing or a wholesale change of the economic system. Above all, they will vote on whether they have had enough of President Trump — and what to do about the direction of a country that all sides seem to agree faces significant trouble.

When Iowa voters assemble in caucuses Monday evening to begin selecting presidential nominees, they will lead off a tightly packed parade of opportunities for Americans to state their verdict, including potentially bitter Democratic primaries culminating with the ultimate decision day on Nov. 3.

This vote feels momentous, said Chris Buskirk, publisher of American Greatness, a conservative website, because Trump supporters “hope that his reelection would finally legitimize him as president” and because the president’s opponents see one last opportunity to get rid of the man they blame for exacerbating the country’s divisions.

“But actually, I’m not optimistic that this election will solve anything,” Buskirk said. “The divisions and stresses in the country may be worse than they were three years ago. It’s almost a World War I mind-set now — it’s trench warfare and you fight and scramble and you get nowhere.”

In Iowa, for almost half a century the place where Americans begin the selection of presidents, the vote follows more than a year of intense campaigning. Ben Mowat, a 19-year-old from Colorado, chose to attend Drake University in Des Moines because he wanted to participate in the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

“It feels weird,” the freshman said. “2020 was this idea, and now it’s here.”

Mowat, a volunteer for Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., said he has been driven by the prospect of ejecting Trump from the White House, but his excitement is tempered by a sense of responsibility and even, sometimes, the dread of a possible loss.

“I feel guilty when I’m not knocking doors,” he said.

Katie Cameron and Susan Tille, sisters who drove more than two hours from Livermore, Iowa, to attend Trump’s rally in Des Moines on Thursday night, can’t wait to vote to assure a second term for a president they say has given the economy a healthy boost.

“He’s made a lot of positive changes,” said Tille, citing the growth in her 401(k) retirement account. “He’s done a lot of good for the economy.”

The sisters, who own a swimming pool store, want to send a message to Trump’s opponents, telling them to stop fighting his every move. Cameron, whose 2016 vote for Trump was her first after a lifetime of steering clear of politics, said she has become more politically engaged in the past three years and considers herself a member of his base. She’s no fan of some of Trump’s tweets, but she said Americans have gotten used to “how he communicates.”

By now, Frank Luntz figured that emotionally exhausted Americans would be hungry for unity, eager to embrace moderate messages and candidates who promised to find and claim common ground.

But Luntz, a longtime Republican consultant who conducts focus groups for news organizations, has been taking the temperatures of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and other states, and he has found that “people are desperate to vote, but the center has collapsed.”

“They want the pitchfork message, not the unity message — on both sides,” he said.

“I wish I was wrong, but that fear of losing the country is deep and very emotional, on both sides,” Luntz added. “The Trump side believes the left is trying to overturn democracy, and they will fight like hell to prevent it. And the Democrats have a disdain for Donald Trump that I’ve never seen. This isn’t as bad as 1968, but it’s pretty damn bad.”

In the ’68 election, amid the Vietnam War, riots in American cities, political assassinations and a widespread sense that the country was spinning out of control, Richard Nixon won the presidency with chilling TV ads reflecting the fear of crime on dark city streets and a slogan that spoke to existential angst in the electorate: “This time, vote like your whole world depended on it.”

A similar root anxiety about the future of the country and the planet pervades many voters’ attitudes now.

Psychologists hear it from clients whether they are pro- or anti-Trump. “It is a collective anxiety and it is bipartisan,” said Washington therapist Elisabeth LaMotte. “This is not a trusting time.”

On the anti-Trump side, LaMotte sees people for whom politics is a significant driver of stress, “but it’s more complicated than that.”

“I hear much more concern about the environment and the future of the planet than I did two years ago.” she said.

In the pro-Trump camp, she said: “I hear people say they can’t talk to certain people anymore. They’re feeling isolated and frustrated, like there isn’t permission to say what you think and feel, even to close friends.”

Many people have found it necessary to step away from the political fray: They limit their news diet, avoid talking to certain friends and get involved in community activities. Others have become more politically active.

“I tell people with political anxiety to do something productive or proactive, like volunteering for a campaign,” said Jennifer Contarino Panning, a clinical psychologist in Evanston, Ill. “Voting is a crucial part of that; in 2018, I saw people find some relief in voting. It gave a sense of hope, and people are desperate for that.”

At a Buttigieg campaign event in Ankeny, Iowa, flight attendant Tamara Galeazzi, 52, could hardly wait for Monday’s caucuses.

“It’s almost like, ‘Thank God it’s almost over,’ ” she said. “Being in Iowa, we hear it from day one until the caucus. When the commercials start slowing down the day after, it’s like, ‘Thank goodness, normalcy.’ I’m nervous. Very nervous. This cannot go on for another four years. Just pick someone on our side and stick with it. It’s very nerve-racking.”

But for many people, the vote is neither a sufficient salve to the stress of the Trump era nor a big enough cudgel to break through to people on the other side of the divide.

“I work primarily with progressives and they looked to the Mueller report and the impeachment trial for some relief and then nothing changed,” Panning said. “They felt hopeless and fatigued. Now they’re really hesitant to believe in anything.”

LaMotte said her patients in Virginia, Maryland and the District have edged away from politics over the past few years, choosing instead to engage in their local communities, finding relief from the stress of national news in getting involved with a Girl Scouts group or volunteering at a neighborhood school. She sees hope in a growing resilience, even if it’s not necessarily associated with voting.

Luntz has heard little such hope. The voters he has been surveying “have weaponized grievances and are seeking revenge against the other side,” he said. “Whatever the result of the election, half the country will believe America has been saved and half will say it’s been destroyed. These two Americas do not eat together, do not play together. They say it’s too late for unity. They have simply lost trust."

Some voters who crave a unifying message fear that their fellow Americans are too frustrated or exhausted to bring about change. Austin Bayliss, 32, sees worrying signs that antipathy to Trump may not be enough to carry Democrats to victory. That recipe failed four years ago, he said, “and sometimes I feel like I’m right back there.

“What are the Democrats going to do to close the enthusiasm gap?” said Bayliss, who runs a professional wrestling company near Iowa City. “You’d think the chance to hit back at Trump would be enough, but I went to Joe Biden’s event yesterday in Muscatine, and there were 60 people there and 45 media. I was the youngest person there.”

The enthusiasm gap Bayliss worried about was palpable at Trump’s rally Thursday. Martha Ahrens, a retired court system worker who traveled to the event from Boone, Iowa, said the Democrats’ persistent attacks on Trump have bolstered her support of the president, who she said can be “arrogant” but has done well with the economy.

Like a number of others at the Trump rally, she said she’s more excited to vote this year than she was in 2016. “Everybody is so tired of everything. They’re tired of the Democrats constantly since he was elected going after him,” she said. “It’s just one thing after another, you know, instead of focusing on what they’re going to do as president.”

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who represents suburbs outside Richmond, unseated a conservative Republican in 2018 and spends many weekends meeting with constituents, making a particular effort to sit down with pro-Trump voters. She sees a divide so deep that one election cannot heal it.

“We used to debate ideas,” she said. “Now it’s just, ‘You think this, therefore you’re bad,’ a zero-sum game, us versus them. We’ve been moving to this place where our entertainment is disagreement.”

Nonetheless, the congresswoman believes many voters this year “want a restoration of, just, decency, just respecting people.” To get there, however, will take many one-on-one encounters, not just a political platform and a bunch of ads.

“I walked into a place and a woman started wagging her finger at me, saying, ‘I love Donald Trump,’ ” Spanberger recalled. “I said, ‘Ma’am, a lot of people do.’ She saw me and expected a fight. I don’t know that she wanted a fight, and that’s an important distinction. But I changed the tone and acknowledged what she said and she softened, and we had a really good conversation.”

The yearning for a return to a less combative politics is palpable among many Iowans who plan to attend the Democratic caucuses. Mary Amborn, 78, from Ottumwa contemplated traveling to Des Moines on Thursday to protest at the Trump rally there, but decided instead to stay closer to home and hear Biden speak at the local American Legion Hall.

Amborn, who is leaning toward voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) but was still considering Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), said she’s doing well but feels compelled to vote against Trump on behalf of her 26 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, including three who served in the military and one who is a homeless veteran “who can teach college calculus but he can’t keep a home.”

“I am very, very happy,” she said. “I have a great retirement. I have wonderful medical. I worked the factory for years and years at John Deere. Now, the folks who have my job, when they retire, they will not have medical. And so I am worried about those that follow me. If I get it wrong, my 26 grandkids — they will suffer.” She wiped away tears. “I can hardly talk about it. I’m voting for them.”

After a 2016 election in which the long-standing leadership in both parties seemed out of sync with voters’ frustrations and concerns, Luntz sees a similar disconnect developing this time: “The Trump campaign seems overconfident,” he said. “Trump energizes people at his rallies but not beyond that hardcore group. They don’t understand the fatigue that some Trump voters feel. People are tired of having to defend Trump’s language.”

Luntz doesn’t see Democratic candidates clicking with voters either. “The Democratic message is so over-caffeinated against Trump that it’s overwhelming people who are already suffering from insomnia,” he said. “I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

______

Toluse Olorunnipa and Isaac Stanley-Becker in Des Moines, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. in Ottumwa, Iowa, and Chelsea Janes in Ankeny, Iowa, contributed to this report.

*********

The Trailer: 'Beat Trump': The Democrats' closing arguments in Iowa

By David Weigel | Published February 02 at 5:42 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted February 2, 2020 |

In this edition: The closing messages in Iowa, the anti-Trump Republicans on the trail, and how 2004 made the modern caucuses.

The real Des Moines Register poll was the friends we made along the way, and this is The Trailer.

DES MOINES — Bernie Sanders has been selling “Bernie Beats Trump” swag for months. Joe Biden's final ads close with four words: “Vote Biden, Beat Trump.” Amy Klobuchar's caucus night T-shirts take a little longer to say it: “Amy Klobuchar will defeat Donald Trump.”

And Andrew Yang makes his closing pitch with math.

“I am the heaviest betting favorite to defeat Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup of anyone in the field,” Yang said at a Saturday night rally that packed more than a thousand voters and canvassers into the Des Moines Marriott. “I am at 3 to 2 as a head-to-head favorite against Donald Trump. The next-best candidate is even money. I'm not much of a gambler myself, despite the Asian-ness.”

In the final hours before caucus doors open, the seven Democrats actively campaigning in Iowa here have started to converge on one theme — electability — while putting together very different closing arguments.

Their advertising, which ignored the president for most of last year, now puts him or his voters front and center. Their rallies, where voters jostle for space with tourists and journalists, sketch out the reasons they could put together a coalition that unseats the president. Here's what it looks like inside the final campaign events before the caucuses, with the candidates listed by the irresistible (and sometimes deceiving) metric of crowd size.

Bernie Sanders. Visibly frustrated at how the impeachment trial grounded him in Washington, Sanders has filled his schedule with rallies before a few hundred people and with hours-long concert/teach-in events that have pulled out at least 5,000 people in total, easily the biggest crowds of the caucuses.

At a Friday night concert in Des Moines with Bon Iver, Sanders called in with a version of his stump speech; at a Saturday night concert in Cedar Rapids, he delivered it live. “The reason we are going to win the Democratic nomination is because we are a campaign of us, not me,” he said, starting in on the agenda he'd run on since 2015: “single-payer Medicare-for-all,” tuition-free public college, criminal justice reform, an end to the drug war, and the rest.

Sanders hardly mentions Trump at all, referring briefly to the president as a “pathological liar” who can be defeated with “high voter turnout.” The only reference to the issues around the impeachment is a quick condemnation of a president who “does not believe in the separation of powers.” Trump returns to the stump only when Sanders needs to make a point about how affordable a democratic socialist agenda would be.

“If Donald Trump and his friends can give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to large corporations and the top 1 percent, we can cancel all student debt in America,” he said in Cedar Rapids. The message: He can win the election in a walk so long as he gets the nomination.

Pete Buttigieg. The phenom from South Bend, Ind., has consistently portrayed the president as a “symptom” of America's problems; as a result, Trump gets only some cameo roles at Buttigieg events. Buttigieg still asks crowds to imagine the day when Trump is finally gone (an instant applause line) but spends more time arguing against the Democrats polling closest to him, with Joe Biden “trying to meet fundamentally new challenges with a familiar playbook” and Sanders promising “revolution” without a Plan B.

Buttigieg describes a country that is moving inexorably toward liberalism and progress and gets some of his loudest applause when he thanks Iowa for making it possible for him to wear a wedding ring, evoking the state Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage. Democrats win, he says, when they roll the dice and go for what they actually want.

“Every single time my party has won the White House in the last half-century, it's been with a candidate who was looking to the future, who was not associated with Washington, either didn't have an office there or hadn't had one for very long, and was opening a door to a new generation,” Buttigieg said on CBS on Sunday morning.

Elizabeth Warren. In November, Warren changed her stump speech, slicing it down and leaving more time for questions. In January, she changed her ad campaign, emphasizing her support from former Republicans and from Democrats who backed either Sanders or Hillary Clinton in 2016. Over the weekend, signs that read “Unite the Party” materialized at Warren's events, turning her subtext into … well, text.

But Warren speaks even less about Trump than Buttigieg or Sanders, spending most of her time using questions to accentuate the agenda she'd bring to the executive branch. There's an increased emphasis on how electing her could make history, the first female president, finishing the business Democrats thought they were finishing in November 2016.

“I will do everything a president can do — I love saying this! — all by herself on her very first day,” Warren said on Sunday in Cedar Rapids.

Warren does not mention specific polling unless pressed, when she will point out that the wealth tax, the idea that powered her rise, is popular with Republicans.

Andrew Yang. The candidate with the least political experience in this race has become one of its most consistent political speakers, with jokes that falter only if the crowd is too familiar with him. Yang used to be able to ask the crowd if they've ever “heard a politician talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” but at this point, they have. (The punchline was: “Just now, and I'm barely a politician.”)

Yang is exuberant, describing a coming Iowa victory that no pollster sees as possible and reciting poll numbers about his crossover appeal to say that he can win more Trump voters than any Democratic rival. Yang is also perhaps the grimmest candidate, describing the economic problems that enabled a Trump win in the first place.

“We're being told how great things are all of the time,” Yang said in Des Moines on Saturday. “Record high GDP, record high stock market prices, record low unemployment. But we're looking around and thinking, I'm not sure things are actually that great. And we are right. We have record high corporate profits in this country, yes, but what else are at record highs in the United States of America right now? Suicides. Depression. Overdoses. Income inequality. Homelessness. Debt, student loan debt, medical debt. Anxiety.

Joe Biden. There are two types of Biden speeches: the ones that rely on a script, and the ones where he largely wings it. The closing days have relied on a more spontaneous Biden, who talks more and more about Trump's outrages and implies that if voters select another Democratic candidate, it would risk reelecting him.

“I don't think you've ever had a greater responsibility than you have this time, not because I'm on the ballot,” Biden said on Saturday in Cedar Rapids. “You owe it to the country to make sure that Donald Trump is not the next president of the United States.”

No Democrat spends more time on the stump warning about Trump as the only impediment to a Democratic Party agenda. There are mournful Trump references, as when Biden recalls the scenes from the 2017 “Unite the Right” march of white supremacists on Charlottesville. “Close your eyes and remember what you saw on television,” Biden says. There are fiery Trump references, such as when Biden refers to a card he carries, detailing the total of military casualties in Afghanistan (“Not roughly 6,000, but 6,095!"), a way of calling the president callow.

Amy Klobuchar. The senator from Minnesota is getting the biggest crowds of her year-long campaign, and she will say so, taking her time on the way to her microphone to work the audience, before being introduced as the Republican-slayer from up north.

“All she does is win,” said Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, one of the surrogates who had campaigned for Klobuchar during the bulk of the Senate trial, then rejoined her on the trail.

The Klobuchar stump is long, usually running to 35 minutes, and starts with a rundown of her many legislative endorsements and often ends by detailing just how she won her races.

“I am someone that has won every race, every place, every time,” she said Saturday in Cedar Falls. “I have won in the most rural districts, including the one bordering Iowa, by big margins. I have won the one bordering North and South Dakota in big margins. I have won in the north part of Minnesota, where there's currently a Republican congressman, and I have won in Michele Bachmann's district.”

Klobuchar makes no references to her rivals and only gently refers to how some of them have plans that might not ever get passed. Trump appears intermittently, and Klobuchar finishes talking about him by warning that the Democrats of 2016 “had a great message but chased him down every rabbit hole.” One year after declaring her candidacy during a snowstorm, she still recalls her Twitter comeback to Trump: “I'd like to see how your hair fares in a blizzard.”

Tom Steyer. An underappreciated irony of the caucuses is that Steyer, who spent years campaigning for Trump's impeachment, saw it unfold just in time to bury presidential campaigns — his included. He, too, has “Beat Trump” signs, leading the field in conciseness. He, too, has a campaign bus, which has crisscrossed the state even as polls show him doing much better in Nevada and South Carolina.

Steyer draws the smallest crowds of the candidates still in Iowa, but voters do show up and settle in for town halls that stretch to an hour long. On Sunday night, in Waterloo, he took questions about climate change (his “number one priority”), the electoral college, infrastructure and student loan debt. That last question led him into a story about lobbying in California for a bill to crack down on companies that exploit students with debt and finding that legislators viewed it cynically.

“I walked in for a meeting, and I said, I'm here for a Bill of Rights for students,” Steyer says. “And this senator goes: 'Do you care about this?'" Steyer recreated his dumbfounded look. “Do I care about giving my students far more money so that they can get an education and be more productive people and better citizens? Come on! Who doesn't care about that?”

Steyer's electability pitch is unique, an argument that only a candidate who has succeeded in business and never been tied to Washington can effectively compete with him. Iowa might not be the state where he proves that.

*********

Democratic presidential candidates make final push to rally a skittish, and largely undecided, Iowa electorate

By Matt Viser and Dan Balz | Published

Feb 01 at 11:02 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted February 2, 2020 |

DES MOINES — The Democratic presidential candidates returned to Iowa in full force Saturday, using a brief break from impeachment proceedings to rally supporters ahead of Monday's caucuses with renewed pitches to an electorate that remains highly skittish and deeply undecided.

Joe Biden used his closing argument to present himself as the safest choice for voters worried most about finding a nominee who can defeat President Trump. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who like other senators in the race had been stuck in Washington until this weekend for the impeachment trial, made an explicit appeal to women — and pitched herself as the one who can, as signs behind her read, “Unite the Party.”

Pete Buttigieg’s campaign tried to rally the party behind his call for generational change, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), using weekend concerts and rallies, sought to mobilize what many strategists here consider to be an army of dedicated supporters.

Several of the candidates played to overflow crowds, a contrast to earlier in the week when the absence of the senators damped the energy normally associated with the final days.

Virtually every campaign has come to predict privately that Sanders could turn out more people on Monday night than any other candidate. Due to the arcane rules of the Iowa caucus system, his rivals hope they can overcome that advantage when the final delegate counts are tallied.

“I think it’s going to be a cluster,” Biden said in an interview after an event late in the week. “It’ll be relatively close, you know, probably three of us that are fairly close.”

Biden and Sanders have been at the top of most polls in Iowa this month. But Democrats hoping for more clarity got a unwelcome surprise Saturday night when the Des Moines Register, CNN and Selzer & Co. pulled back from the much-anticipated release of the results from the final Iowa poll, long considered the most reliable pre-caucus snapshot.

The decision, which added to the chaos and uncertainty in the final days, came after the Buttigieg campaign alerted those overseeing the poll that his name was left off of the list of candidates read by one of the interviewers, according to a person familiar with the problem who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

With Sanders appearing to surge in recent weeks, all of his rivals were eagerly working to manage expectations. Some close to Warren said privately that the fight was now for a second-place finish. Those in Buttigieg’s camp say they believe finishing ahead of Biden would provide the springboard they need for future contests, both to build support and to reload their campaign war chest.

“It’s so tight that we just got to keep our heads down and maintain a kind of an underdog mentality all the way through,” the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., said in an interview. When pressed about what expectations he needed to exceed, he demurred, but did say, “We’re in it to win it.”

The hunger to defeat Trump — and the likelihood the Senate will vote to acquit him this week — has had the effect of leaving many voters immobilized, creating an unusually large undecided pool and injecting more than the usual uncertainty over how the coming days will play out.

Among the overriding questions still hovering at the start of what could be a long fight for the nomination is whether the continued indecision will dampen participation Monday. Earlier predictions for record turnout have been scaled back in the past weeks.

The caucuses Monday night will be the culmination of more than a year of campaigning and a steady churn of candidates entering and exiting. Collectively, the campaigns have spent $70 million on TV ads here. When they are done, Iowans will have played their traditional role of stress-testing — and winnowing — what had been a historically large and diverse field.

While the party over the past three years has struggled to answer a basic question — How do you beat Trump? — the results here will offer the first moment of clarity. It is a test of whether the party wants to move toward candidates preaching bold and unsettled change that would bring a Democratic revolution to counter Trump’s Republican one, or whether the party wants a more traditional, return-to-normalcy nominee who would run on more kitchen-table, uncontroversial issues.

In what is the starting gun for a sprint toward contests that will grow more and more costly — and with Mike Bloomberg pouring hundreds of millions of his own money into the race — several campaigns are in dire need of a win that could fuel donations into campaign accounts that have dwindled.

The contest has been largely free of the kind of negative campaigning that has marked other years, but that hasn’t eliminated sniping. Top advisers to Buttigieg on Saturday morning went after Biden, suggesting that his long career in Washington would be a detriment to the party’s ability to defeat Trump if the former vice president is the nominee.

“The idea that we are going to take on someone like Donald Trump with the old playbook by saying I understand the ways of Washington, I hung out with Strom Thurmond, you know, 20 years ago — that’s not going to happen,” Lis Smith, a senior Buttigieg adviser, told reporters during a breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News.

Mike Schmuhl, the campaign manager, later jumped in with another data point.

“Since World War II, our party has nominated three vice presidents. They’ve all lost,” he said. “Our party goes for youthful, visionary, next-generation leaders.”

Warren has had a prized organization in the state — along with several late, sought-after endorsements — but has also fallen in recent polls as others have cut into different parts of her base. She is competing with Buttigieg for college-educated voters, with Sanders for liberal voters and with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) for voters eager to see a woman as the nominee.

Ahead of Warren’s event Saturday in Iowa City, a group of elected officials tried to lead the crowd in a chant: “It’s time! It’s time! It’s time for a woman in the White House!”

Warren has generally avoided questions about how she might do in Iowa. But her campaign manager Roger Lau recently sent out a memo warning of the “breathless media narratives” likely to emerge from the early states and focusing on their 1,000-strong staff fanned out in 31 states.

Klobuchar has cast herself as a not-too-hot, not-too-cold candidate who can appeal to a wide swath of the party. But what is unknown is whether the fact that she, along with Warren and Sanders, had to be in Washington during the final week of campaigning had hindered her ability to capitalize on the fresh look many were giving her.

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and businessman Tom Steyer have each averaged around 4 percent in the polls, which would put them below the 15 percent viability threshold. But their supporters could play a significant role in determining the night’s final outcome if they switched to another candidate on the second tally.

With concern bubbling among establishment Democrats over whether Iowa could launch Sanders forward with momentum, the party was caught up Saturday in a replay of 2016 tensions between Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

After Clinton again criticized Sanders, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a top Sanders surrogate, playfully urged a crowd to boo Clinton during a rally on Friday night. But in yet another sign of the skittishness of most campaigns to get into a bitter brawl, Tlaib apologized Saturday and Sanders emphasized that he would support whoever the nominee is.

Sanders’s campaign advisers say they have identified as many supporters who are coming to caucus Monday, in a crowded field with at least five competitive candidates, as came to caucus for him in 2016, when it was essentially a two-person race. They are banking on a large turnout among young voters, and those who typically don’t participate in local politics.

“They have not engaged with the party structure,” said Kurt Meyer, chairman of the Democratic Party in three rural counties. “Maybe that is a great leap forward. Maybe they know something the rest of us don’t and they’ll get an additional 10 or 20 or 30 percent who have never caucused before to magically show up. But I honestly don’t know who my Sanders organizer is.”

Warren grew a bit nostalgic as she returned to Iowa, reminiscing about all of her previous trips. “You’ve whispered dreams into my ears, you’ve told me about your lives, about issues, about ideas, about how we could make things better,” she said in Cedar Rapids. “In this year you have made me a better candidate, and you will make me a better president. Thank you.”

Unlike past campaign stops, Warren did not stay around for a photo line, instead leaving her dog Bailey behind to appear in pictures with supporters.

The caucuses are the first major test of whether Biden’s claims of electability will draw voters to his candidacy. While his events can feel lethargic and with crowds smaller than for other candidates, his campaign advisers have been banking on the goodwill he has built up over nearly five decades in public life.

Asked in an interview about the seeming lack of enthusiasm at his events and whether that worries him, Biden said: “I don’t get a sense of that at all. . . . We spent a lot of time in a lot of small venues, deliberately going to make sure we cover rural Iowa.”

Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack said Biden is a known commodity and that Iowans who support him don’t feel the need to come to Biden’s rallies but will be there on caucus night. It is a mistake, he said, to assume that “there’s a direct parallel between enthusiastic rallies and turnout and results.”

His campaign organization has also been a frequent topic among Iowa operatives and county chairs, who say it has lacked the kind of vigor needed in a caucus system that rewards passion and organization more than it does widespread but thinner support.

The coalition Biden is trying to assemble includes voters over age 50, blue-collar households, veterans, African Americans, Latinos and Catholics. His campaign is running specific programs focusing each group, based on lists developed from voter files, property tax rolls and other sources.

Because many people no longer answer their telephones unless they recognize the caller’s number, the campaign has put extra emphasis on sending volunteers and paid canvassers to people’s homes.

The decision to hire paid canvassers — offering $20 per hour for the last two weeks — raised eyebrows among some of Biden’s rivals, who took it as a sign of weakness in the organization. But campaign officials say they believe the additional help has allowed them to get into as many neighborhoods as possible and during days of inclement weather.

Although Monday night’s weather is expected to be brisk with no snow in the forecast, it remains to be seen if turnout will be historically high.

While some still predict it could match or exceed the 240,000 who turned out in 2008, others say it is likely to fall between that number and the 171,000 who attended in 2016.

Just who would benefit from a low turnout is a matter of some debate.

Biden’s candidacy tends to attract traditional caucus-goers who might have the added incentive to participate this year because of their desire to defeat Trump in November.

But a lower turnout could give the advantage to candidates who have attracted newcomers, such as Sanders, or who are generating real enthusiasm at rallies.

The campaigns have been preparing for what could be a confusing night of potentially conflicting results, and multiple candidates seeking to shape a public impression that they scored a symbolic victory if not a numerical one.

The state party will report three numbers on caucus night. The first will be the number of people who show up for each candidate. The next two will reflect results after supporters of candidates who do not meet the 15 percent threshold in a precinct realign to support another candidate.

There will be two measures of that realignment, first the raw number of people in support of the remaining viable candidates and then how that translates into delegates — or, as they will be called Monday, state delegate equivalents. Those two numbers should track relatively closely but there could be a notable difference between the entrance percentages and the delegate percentages.

For several candidates — particularly Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Warren — a bad finish could be devastating. It could also begin to clarify the question of whether the campaign is headed toward a long, divisive primary or whether it could conclude more swiftly. The candidates will quickly head to New Hampshire, where there will be an eight-day sprint that includes a Friday debate.

Biden, amid growing concerns that he is having more difficulty raising money, has bought or reserved only $215,000 in New Hampshire, according to Advertising Analytics, which puts him at a fraction of his rivals. His allies are hoping a strong showing in Iowa could trigger a rush of donations, but even then there is some debate over how heavily he will focus on a state that Sanders carried handily four years ago and that neighbors Warren’s home state of Massachusetts.

There have been private deliberations among those leading Biden’s super PAC over how heavily to concentrate on New Hampshire and whether to instead pour resources into Nevada, the next state on the calendar.

But any decision is dependent on what happens in Iowa on Monday night.

______

Annie Linskey contributed to this report.

*********

#u.s. news #politics #president donald trump #politics and government #trump scandals #republican politics #trumpism #donald trump #us politics #Iowa #2020 candidates #2020 election #2020 presidential election #justice democrats #democratic party #democrats

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thisdaynews · 6 years ago

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Agriculture Department buries studies showing dangers of climate change

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/agriculture-department-buries-studies-showing-dangers-of-climate-change/

Agriculture Department buries studies showing dangers of climate change

President Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue have both expressed skepticism about climate change and appear to have suppressed research efforts on the topic. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

POLITICO Investigation

The Trump administration has stopped promoting government-funded research into how higher temperatures can damage crops and pose health risks.

The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department’s acclaimed in-house scientists.

The studies range from a groundbreaking discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment — a potentially serious health concern for the 600 million people world-wide whose diet consists mostly of rice — to a finding that climate change could exacerbate allergy seasons to a warning to farmers about the reduction in quality of grasses important for raising cattle.

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All of these studies were peer-reviewed by scientists and cleared through the non-partisan Agricultural Research Service, one of the world’s leading sources of scientific information for farmers and consumers.

None of the studies were focused on the causes of global warming – an often politically charged issue. Rather, the research examined the wide-ranging effects of rising carbon dioxide, increasing temperatures and volatile weather.

The administration, researchers said, appears to be trying to limit the circulation of evidence of climate change and avoid press coverage that may raise questions about the administration’s stance on the issue.

“The intent is to try to suppress a message — in this case, the increasing danger of human-caused climate change,” said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. “Who loses out? The people, who are already suffering the impacts of sea level rise and unprecedented super storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves.”

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who has expressed skepticism about climate science in the past and allegedly retaliated against in-house economists whose findings contradicted administration policies, declined to comment. A spokesperson for USDA said there have been no directives within the department that discouraged the dissemination of climate-related science.

“Research continues on these subjects and we promote the research once researchers are ready to announce the findings, after going through the appropriate reviews and clearances,” the spokesperson said in an email.

“USDA has several thousand scientists and over 100,000 employees who work on myriad topics and issues; not every single finding or piece of work solicits a government press release,” the spokesperson added.

However, a POLITICO investigation revealed a persistent pattern in which the Trump administration refused to draw attention to findings that show the potential dangers and consequences of climate change, covering dozens of separate studies. The administration’s moves flout decades of department practice of promoting its research in the spirit of educating farmers and consumers around the world, according to an analysis of USDA communications under previous administrations.

The lack of promotion means research from scores of government scientists receives less public attention. Climate-related studies are still being published without fanfare in scientific journals, but they can be very difficult to find. The USDA doesn’t post all its studies in one place.

Since Trump took office in January 2017, the Agricultural Research Service has issued releases for just two climate-related studies, both of which had findings that were favorable to the politically powerful meat industry. One found that beef production makes a relatively small contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and another that removing animal products from the diet for environmental reasons would likely cause widespread nutritional problems. The agency issued a third press release about soy processing that briefly mentioned greenhouse gas emissions, noting that reducing fossil fuel use or emissions was “a personal consideration” for farmers.

By contrast, POLITICO found that in the case of the groundbreaking rice study USDA officials not only withheld their own prepared release, but actively sought to prevent dissemination of the findings by the agency’s research partners.

Researchers at the University of Washington had collaborated with scientists at USDA, as well as others in Japan, China and Australia, for more than two years to study how rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could affect rice — humanity’s most important crop. They found that it not only loses protein and minerals, but is also likely to lose key vitamins as plants adapt to a changing environment.

The study had undergone intensive review, addressing questions from academic peers and within USDA itself. But after having prepared an announcement of the findings, the department abruptly decided not to publicize the study and urged the University of Washington to hold back its own release on the findings, which two of their researchers had co-authored.

In an email to staffers dated May 7, 2018, an incredulous Jeff Hodson, a UW communications director, advised his colleagues that the USDA communications office was “adamant that there was not enough data to be able to say what the paper is saying, and that others may question the science.”

“It was so unusual to have an agency basically say: ‘Don’t do a press release,’ ” Hodson recalled in an interview. “We stand for spreading the word about the science we do, especially when it has a potential impact on millions and millions of people.”

Researchers say the failure to publicize their work damages the credibility of the Agriculture Department and represents an unwarranted political intrusion into science.

“Why the hell is the U.S., which is ostensibly the leader in science research, ignoring this?” said one USDA scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid the possibility of retaliation. “It’s not like we’re working on something that’s esoteric … we’re working on something that has dire consequences for the entire planet.”

“You can only postpone reality for so long,” the researcher added.

* * *

With a budget of just over $1 billion, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service — known as ARS — is often referred to as “one of the best kept secrets” in the sprawling the department because of its outsized impact on society. The agency has pioneered a variety of major breakthroughs, from figuring out how to mass produce penicillin so it could be widely used during World War II to coming up with creative ways to keep sliced apples from browning, and has for decades been at the forefront of understanding how a changing climate will affect agriculture.

The agency has stringent guidelines to prevent political meddling in research projects themselves. The Trump administration, researchers say, is not directly censoring scientific findings or black-balling researchon climate change. Instead, they say, officials are essentially choosing to ignore or downplay findings that don’t line up with the administration’s agenda.

Some scientists see the fact that the administration has targeted another research arm of USDA, the Economic Research Service, as a warning shot. Perdue is moving ERS out of Washington, which some economists see as retribution for issuing reports that countered the administration’s agenda, as POLITICO recently reported.

“There’s a sense that you should watch what you say,” said Ricardo Salvador, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s going to result in some pretty big gaps in practical knowledge. … it will take years to undo the damage.”

Among the ARS studies that did not receive publicity from the Agriculture Department are:

A 2017 finding that climate change was likely to increase agricultural pollution and nutrient runoff in the Lower Mississippi River Delta, but that certain conservation practices, including not tilling soil and planting cover crops, would help farmers more than compensate and bring down pollutant loads regardless of the impacts of climate change.

A January 2018 finding that the Southern Plains — the agriculture-rich region that stretches from Kansas to Texas — is increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, from the crops that rely on the waning Ogallala aquifer to the cattle that graze the grasslands.

An April 2018 finding that elevated CO2 levels lead to “substantial and persistent” declines in the quality of prairie certain grasses that are important for raising cattle. The protein content in the grass drops as photosynthesis kicks into high gear due to more carbon in the atmosphere — a trend that could pose health problems for the animals and cost ranchers money.

A July 2018 finding that coffee, which is already being affected by climate change, can potentially help scientists figure out how to evaluate and respond to the complex interactions between plants, pests and a changing environment. Rising CO2 in the atmosphere is projected to alter pest biology, such as by making weeds proliferate or temperatures more hospitable to damaging insects.

An October 2018 finding in conjunction with the USDA Forest Service that climate change would likely lead to more runoff in the Chesapeake Bay watershed during certain seasons.

A March 2019 finding that increased temperature swings might already be boosting pollen to the point that it’s contributing to longer and more intense allergy seasons across the northern hemisphere. “This study, done across multiple continents, highlights an important link between ongoing global warming and public health—one that could be exacerbated as temperatures continue to increase,” the researchers wrote.

Those were among at least 45 ARS studies related to climate change since the beginning of the Trump administration that did not receive any promotion, according to POLITICO’s review. The total number of studies that have published on climate-related issues is likely to be larger, because ARS studies appear across a broad range of narrowly focused journals and can be difficult to locate.

Five days after POLITICO presented its findings to the department and asked for a response, ARS issued a press release on wheat genetics that used the term “climate change.” It marked the third time the agency had used the term in a press release touting scientific findings in two and a half years.

While spokespeople say Perdue, the former Georgia governor who has been agriculture secretary since April 2017, has not interfered with ARS or the dissemination of its studies, the secretary has recently suggested that he’s at times been frustrated with USDA research.

“We know that research, some has been found in the past to not have been adequately peer-reviewed in a way that created wrong information, and we’re very serious when we say we’re fact-based, data-driven decision makers,” he said in April, responding to a question from POLITICO. “That relies on sound, replicable science rather than opinion. What I see unfortunately happening many times is that we tried to make policy decisions based on political science rather than on sound science.”

President Donald Trump, for his part, has been clear about his views on climate science and agricultural research generally: He doesn’t think much of either.

In each of his budgets, Trump has proposed deep cuts to agricultural research, requests that ignore a broad, bipartisan coalition urging more funding for such science as China and other competitors accelerate their spending. Congress has so far kept funding mostly flat.

The president has also repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus on climate change. After the government released its latest national climate assessment in November, a sweeping document based on science, Trump bluntly told reporters: “I don’t believe it.”

Officials at USDA apparently took the hint and the department did not promote the report, despite the fact that it was drafted in part by its own scientists and included serious warnings about how a changing climate poses a threat to farmers and ranchers across the country.

* * *

The USDA’s failure to publicize climate-related research does more than just quell media coverage: It can also prompt universities, fearful of antagonizing a potential source of funding, to reconsider their own plans to publicize studies.

The saga of the rice study last spring shows how a snub from USDA can create spillover effects throughout the academic world.

Emails obtained by POLITICO from one of the study’s co-authors show that ARS communications staff actually wrote a release on the study, but then decided not to send it out. The Agriculture Department and UW in Seattle had initially planned to coordinate their releases, which would both be included in a press packet prepared by the journal Science Advances, which published the study in May.

The journal had anticipated there would be significant media interest in the paper. Several earlier studies had already shown that rice loses protein, zinc and iron under the elevated CO2 levels that scientists predict for later this century, raising potentially serious concerns for hundreds of millions of people who are highly dependent on rice and already at risk of food insecurity. This latest study by ARS and its academic partners around the world had confirmed those previous findings and — for the first time — found that vitamins can also drop out of rice in these conditions.

Several days before the paper was slated to be published, Hodson, the UW communications official, sent ARS communications staff a draft of the press release the university was planning to send out. ARS officials returned the favor, sending UW their own draft press release. The headline on USDA’s draft was clear: “Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Can Reduce Vitamin Content in Rice,” though the body of the release did not mention the word “climate.”

All seemed to be on track for the rollout. A few days later, however, Hodson got a phone call from an ARS communications staffer. She told him that the agency had decided not to issue a press release after all and suggested UW reconsider its plans, noting that senior leaders at ARS now had serious concerns about the paper, according to the emails.

The staffer explained that officials were “adamant that there was not enough data to be able to say what the paper is saying, and that others may question the science,” Hodson wrote in his email to his colleagues shortly after the call.

Having the Agriculture Department question data just days before its publication struck many of the co-authors as inappropriate. The paper had already gone through a technical and policy review within ARS, both of which are standard procedure, and it had gone through a stringent peer-review process.

Kristie Ebi, one of the co-authors from UW, replied to Hodson: “Interesting — USDA is really trying to keep the press release from coming out.”

Nonetheless, senior leaders at UW took USDA’s concerns about the paper seriously, Hodson said. (It also wasn’t lost on anyone, he said, that other parts of the university receive substantial grant funding from the Agriculture Department.) The university conducted an internal review and determined that the science was sound. It went ahead with its press release.

The USDA’s attempt to quash the release had ripple effects as far as Nebraska. After catching wind of USDA’s call to the University of Washington, Bryan College of Health Sciences, in Lincoln, Neb., delayed and ultimately shortened its own release to avoid potentially offending the Agriculture Department.

“I’m disappointed,” said Irakli Loladze, a mathematical biologist at Bryan who co-authored the rice paper. “I do not even work at the USDA, but a potential call from the government agency was enough of a threat for my school to skip participating in the press-package arranged by the journal. Instead, our college issued a local and abbreviated release.”

A spokesperson for Bryan College said that the institution supports Loladze’s work and noted that the college ultimately issued its own press release and covered the study in its own publications.

“There was no omission or intentional delay based on what others were saying or doing,” the spokesperson said.

Despite the efforts of the Agriculture Department, the rice paper attracted substantial international press coverage, largely because many of the outside institutions that collaborated on the study, including the University of Tokyo, promoted it.

Kazuhiko Kobayashi, an agricultural scientist at the University of Tokyo and co-author on the paper, said he couldn’t understand why the U.S. government wouldn’t publicize such findings.

“It’s not necessarily bad for USDA,” he saidin an interview.“Actually, it’s kind of neutral.”

“In Japan we have an expression:sontaku,” he said, offering his own speculation about the political dynamic in the United States. “It means that you don’t want to stimulate your boss … you feel you cannot predict your boss’s reaction.”

A USDA spokesperson said the decision to spike the press release on the rice study was driven by a scientific disagreement, not by the fact that it was climate-related.

“The concern was about nutritional claims, not anything relating to climate change or C02 levels,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The nutrition program leaders at ARS disagreed with the implication in the paper that 600 million people are at risk of vitamin deficiency. They felt that the data do not support this.”

The spokesperson said no political appointees were involved in the decision.

Authors of the rice study strongly disagreed with the concerns USDA raised about their paper. In an email leading up to publication, Loladze, the Bryan College researcher, accused the department of essentially “cherry picking” data to raise issues that weren’t scientifically valid, according to the emails.

* * *

When the Agriculture Departmentchooses to promote a study, the impact can be significant, particularly for the agriculture-focused news outlets that are widely read by farmers and ranchers.

Earlier this year, when the agency decided to issue its release about the study finding that producing beef — often criticized for having an outsized carbon and water footprint — actually makes up a very small fraction of greenhouse gas emissions, the agricultural trade press cranked out several stories, much to the delight of the beef industry. The study had also been supported by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

The USDA’s efforts to hide climate work aren’t limited to ARS. A review of department press releases, blog posts and social media shows a clear pattern of avoiding the topic. These platforms largely eschew the term “climate change” and also steer clear of climate-related terms. Even the word “climate” itself appears to have now fallen out of favor, along with phrases like carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation and sequestration.

In April, for example, USDA sent out a press release noting that USDA officials had signed on to a communique on the sidelines of a G-20 agricultural scientists’ meeting that reaffirmed their commitment to “science-based decision making.” The release made no mention of the fact that most of the principles USDA had agreed to were actually related to “climate-smart” agriculture.

Scott Hutchins, USDA’s deputy undersecretary for research, education and economics, told POLITICO at the time that he emphasized science-based decision-making in the release — not climate — because that was the strength the participants brought to these international dialogues. He added that there was “no intent whatsoever” to avoid including the words “climate smart” in the release.

A spokesperson for USDA said that department leadership “has not discouraged ARS or any USDA agency from using terms such as climate change, climate, or carbon sequestration, or from highlighting work on these topics.”

But David Festa, senior vice president of ecosystems at the Environmental Defense Fund, which works with farmers and ranchers on climate mitigation, said tensions within the USDA over climate issues are preventing a more robust discussion of the effects of climate change on American agriculture.

“USDA really could and should be leading… and they’re not,” Festa said.

Aaron Lehman, an Iowa farmer whose operation is roughly half conventional, half organic grain, said farmers are simply not getting much information from USDA related to how to adapt to or mitigate climate change.

“My farmers tell me this is frustrating,” said Lehman, who serves as Iowa Farmers Union President.

The gap in the conversation is particularly pronounced right now, he said, as an unprecedented percentage of growers across the Midwest have had difficulty planting their crops because fields are either too wet or flooded— an extreme weather scenario that’s been disastrous for agriculture this year.

“Farmers have a sense that the volatility is getting worse,” he said.

“You get the sense that it’s very sensitive,” Lehman said of the current dynamic around climate science at USDA. “But if you can’t have an open conversation about it, if you feel like you’re being shunned, how are we going to make progress?”

* * *

Even during the George W. Bush administration, when climate change was first deemed a “sensitive” topic within ARS — a designation that means science and other documents related to it require an extra layer of managerial clearance — the department still routinely highlighted climate-related research for the public.

In the first three years of the Bush’s second term, for example, USDA promoted research on how farmers can change their tilling practices to reduce carbon being released into the atmosphere, a look at how various farm practices help capture carbon into soil, and a forecast on how rising CO2 levels would likely affect key crops. The communications office highlighted work showing that using switchgrass as a biofuel in lieu of ethanol could store more carbon in soil, which would not only mitigate greenhouse gas emissions but also boost soil health. There was also a release on a study simulating how climate change would pose challenges to groundwater.

Under Bush,the department publicly launched a five-year project on “Climate Friendly Farming” and touted a sweeping initiative aimed at better understanding and reducing agriculture’s greenhouse emissions.

“Even a small increase in the amount of carbon stored per acre of farmland would have a large effect on offsetting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions,” an ARS release noted in 2005.

Jim Connaughton, who served as chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and director of the White House Office of Environmental Policy during the Bush administration, said he was encouraged that USDA and other agencies have so far been able to continue conducting climate science even as the issue has become more politically sensitive within the current administration. However, he noted it was “really unusual” for research agencies to systematically hold back scientific communication.

During the Bush era, he said, “The agencies were unfettered in their own decisions about publicizing their own science.”

“The tone from the top matters,” he added. “The political appointees are taking signals about their own communication products.”

During the Obama years, USDA became increasingly outspoken about climate change and the need to involve agriculture, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation.

The department came up with sweeping action plans on climate change and climate science and highlighted its work on a number of different platforms, including press releases, blog posts and social media blasts. In 2014, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also launched Climate Hubs in 10 regions across the country aimed at helping farmers and ranchers cope with an increasingly unpredictable climate.

“We were trying to take science and make it real and actionable for farmers,” said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary for natural resources and the environment at USDA during the Obama administration. “If you’re taking a certain block of research and not communicating it, it defeats the purpose of why USDA does the research in the first place.”

#climate #dangers #Foreign #Politics

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years ago

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WORK ETHIC AND PEAKS

You can't let how much you want an investor influence your estimate of how much they get paid for it. A couple weeks later, Dropbox raised a series A, keep taking smaller investments till they actually give you a set of rules here that will get you through this process if anything will. So you won't attract good hackers in linear proportion to how much experience they have. If you know you're on the right side of impossible. So when you're not in fundraising mode. At YC we're always warning founders about this danger, and investors are down on advertising at the moment, but it will also take less time. This one wouldn't. When McCarthy designed Lisp in the late 1950s. So the way to do it automatically: to write a paper for school, if that will restrict you or make it seem like work.

People who do great things look at the options available now, and that means it has to be is a promising experiment that's worth funding to see how it turns out. I've noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect. Series A rounds still work that way, but things now work differently for most fundraising prior to the series A, there's obviously an exception if you end up raising more than they originally intended. If you're worried that your current job is rotting your brain, it probably doesn't work to stick to the truth. Hollywood has been slow to embrace the Internet. So a company that can attract great hackers will have a huge advantage. But that test is not as hard as it seems, because some offset their schedules to prevent this.1 But they're not so advanced as they think; obviously they still view office space as a badge of rank. So don't assume a subject is really about. As it turns out. Introducing an investor to commit, it becomes increasingly easy to get more to.

For better or worse that's never going to be Make something people want in the same email hell we do now.2 Like a contrarian investment fund, someone following this strategy will almost always be doing things that seem completely unrelated, like social networking apps. If you work on overlooked problems, you're more likely to find them using Perl and Linux.3 For example, a friend of mine used to grumble because he had to wait till his arteries were over 90% blocked and 3 days later he had a quadruple bypass. It probably extends to any kind of creative work. And that is how startups should approach fundraising in phases 2 and later. I was thinking recently how inconvenient it was not to have any teeth, and the greedy algorithm tells you what to do.

Or maybe the movie business will dry up, and the huge scale of the successes means we can afford to take more risk you should. The biggest factor in most investors' opinions of you is the opinion of other investors. Everyone there spoke so fast. It's dangerous to design your life around getting into college, because the people you have, the harder it is to raise money, the best thing you can do is get yourself to the point where you see results. After a few seconds it struck me how familiar they seemed. For the 1000x variation in outcomes that one finds in startup investing. You're also safe that way from refutation. No; he's just doing a kind of work in which problems are put before them and they have different views of reality, whether the source of the discrepancy is their sketchiness or your wishful thinking, the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out. It's arguably an instance of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It also reminds you that there is an intersection—that there are good ideas that seem bad.4 I've found myself nostalgic for the old days, you could fund everyone who seemed likely to succeed, just that you're a sufficiently good bet?

So were the print media are in the way Confucius or Socrates wanted people to be.5 But I know the real reason we're so conservative is that we may have to choose between several alternatives, there's an upper bound on your performance: choosing the best every time. In fact, a high average outcome depends mostly on experience, but that dramatic peaks can only be achieved by people with certain rare, innate qualities; nearly anyone can learn to make things go your way except in a few months in. They were invented by McCarthy in the course of developing Lisp. But ITA made it interesting by redefining the problem in a more ambitious way. I think the same thing; if you win an Olympic gold medal, you can be fairly content, even if you only talk to one investor at a time till they feel they have enough discipline to get themselves to their desks to start working. Fundraising is not what will happen to movies. It was like having a new mother. If you have a ten page paper due, then ten pages you must write, even if you are in fundraising mode. So for the next couple years, a good rule of thumb is not to try to identify a precise point in the future.

Trolls are like children many are children in that they're capable of a wide range of behavior depending on what they think will be tolerated. Smart people tend to be concentrated around fundraising. But it seems more dangerous to put stuff in that you've never needed because it's thought to be a promising experiment that's worth funding to see how he'd qualify it.6 The most ambitious is to try to make it interesting. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. A in phase 2 at a post-money valuation of your next round, if you had a graph in which the x axis represented situations and the y axis the outcome, the graph of the wise person would be high even if the chance of succeeding was low. Many investors will ask how much you depend on water.7 It means these ideas are invisible to most people who try to think of intelligence as inborn is that people trying to measure it have concentrated on the aspects of it that are most successful at it, and then when you do. It doesn't make a very good job. One of my tricks for generating startup ideas is to imagine the ways in which it's wrong.

That worked as long as they can, because there's no limit to what they could do. You have two choices: give it away and make money from it indirectly, or find ways to embody it in things people will pay for. There's no way around it: you can't manage a process intended to produce beautiful things without knowing what you're looking for. Do they want me to do something audacious. Lisp was the first thing we thought of; we were ambivalent about being in business at all; and we deliberately chose an impoverished market to avoid competition.8 Whereas when they don't like you, you'll see them reaching for ideas: they'll be saying yes, and you may need to. I've wondered about for 25 years: the relationship between intelligence and wisdom drift apart, is that they are compulsive negotiators who will suck up a lot of what looks like work.

There is a danger in designing a language based on one's own experience of programming. You also can't tell from his portfolio.9 Fouls happen. Many people in this country think of taste as something elusive, or even frivolous.10 It's the same with people who do great things. The only real difference between adults and high school kids don't. Or they could return to their roots and make going to the theater a treat. When I was in New York trying to be a startup.

Notes

There is one of them.

There were several other reasons, the last they ever need.

But no planes crash if your goal is to trick a pointy-haired boss into letting you write has a word meaning how one feels when that partner re-tells it to the traditional peasant's diet: they hoped they were.

99 to—and probably especially valuable. And in World War II had become so common that their prices stabilize.

Even though we made a Knight of the work that seems formidable from the 1940s or 50s instead of themselves.

Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The CRM114 Discriminator. But they also commit to you; who knows who you start fundraising, but when that partner re-tells it to the way up into the intellectual sounding theory behind it. His critical invention was a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as if the public conversation about women consists of fighting, their voices will be just as you start fundraising, because she liked the outdoors, was no great risk in doing a small proportion of the lies we tell.

Stiglitz, Joseph. You can relent a little more fat, and no one thinks of calling that unfair. Emmett Shear writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would have gone into the shape of the words we use have a group to consider behaving the opposite.

It's hard to compete directly with open source project, but those are usually about things you waste your time on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end investor meetings too closely, you'll be well on your cap table, and domino effects among investors.

Unfortunately the constraint probably has a power law dropoff, but I realize starting a startup. Though in a in the construction industry. The problem is not an associate.

Wittgenstein asserted a sort of pious crap you were still employed in your own compass.

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heironymous-smash · 7 years ago

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Polyphasic Sleep

(This info used to be on the front page; moving it over here to clean up a bit and make room for more stuff! :))

I've been polyphasic for many years now, and back in 2001, I was one of the first people (ok, to the best of my knowledge, actually THE first, which is weird) to write online about sleeping on a polyphasic schedule long-term.

I've been experimenting with it since, talking with everyone I can about it, helping people through adapting / switching sleep schedules, and have collected a ton of information over the years on my experiences (see the huge list of articles below), as well as organizing it all into a handy and inexpensive book that's still, in its second edition, the first real manual for switching to and living on polyphasic schedules. Pretty neat, if I do say so myself!

I've helped a lot of people with choosing and adapting to a polyphasic sleep-schedule (it's not easy, especially with the very strict ones — those are rather like switching to a strict diet, only with sleep). I continue to offer my help as much as I can, through the Slack channel, and by offering private consultations to those who want extra help. (EDIT: I take breaks from this when my other work is busy, including right now. If you really need help, reach out and I'll probably help, but I've taken down these links for now because *swizamped*)

But I'm not interested in building a cult of personality on it. I also find that I disagree with a lot of what other people — most of whom have not actually slept polyphasically for any length of time — want to conclude about it, especially when they're specifically aiming to sell it or put their name on it.

(NOTE THO: When it comes to taking credit for polyphasic sleep…*Most* humans were polyphasic for ages, and much of the world still is — sleeping less at night and napping regularly is "news" to, like, the industrialized modern world and nobody else, lol. And if anybody gets credit for experimenting with being polyphasic as a modern lifestyle choice, it's the scientist Buckminster Fuller, who died in the 80's and was on Uberman/Dymaxion for at least two consecutive years, documented and seen by doctors, so everybody can just sit / calm down now. You're not the prophet of this, and neither am I. :))

THE MAJOR LINKS

The Puredoxyk.com blog archives (or just the polyphasic category) – tons of short articles; use the search function to narrow in on a specific question

How to research polyphasic sleep! Tips for finding good information

The Book I wrote (Ubersleep: Nap-Based Sleep Schedules and the Polyphasic Lifestyle – use this link to go straight to it (and its five stars, woo!) on Amazon). It has a ton of info on polyphasic sleep — just like the blog, but organized :) — as well as a complete how-to for planning and adapting to a different sleep schedule.

The Slack Channel (click the link to sign up) where you can chat with, get advice from, make friends with, and help other adapters and long-term polphasic sleepers. Come on in!

A way to pay me for personalized help if you need it (but do look at the book first, it's cheaper and has most of the information you probably want :))

WHY IS IT SO GREAT? WILL IT WORK FOR ME? (A brief explanation)

Polyphasic (multi-times-per-day) sleep is the one of the top-three best things I've ever stumbled on to improve my life. (Hacking self-esteem is a close second.) I've been polyphasic for most of the last decade, and I'll never willingly go back to sleeping in one chunk at night. (I might be forced to, since being polyphasic requires being able to nap during the day, and there are certainly jobs and circumstances that make that impossible. I hate those and avoid them at all costs now, though — being well-rested is so important.)

I'm *much* more rested on my nap-based schedules, and I need half as much sleep as I did before. Half or less, actually.

Which may sound wild or impossible, but keep in mind two things:

A) Everybody is different, and different things work for different people (at different times in their lives, even). Some of us love being vegan; others can't abide it. It's important to recognize that you and everybody else need a sleep schedule and sleep habits that work for you, individually.

B) Polyphasic sleep is common among animals, including almost all primates! Monophasic sleep became normal for humans in recent centuries. So it's not even a LITTLE true that monophasic sleep is the "only" healthy way to go for everybody, especially as people's lives change drastically yet again, in post-Internet times.

It's possible to learn new ways to sleep. We teach babies to be monophasic, remember, and it doesn't kill them. Switching schedules can make you cranky and tired while you adjust, but at long as you're consistent about it, and the schedule works for you, you *will* adjust to it. (That part is backed up by some science.)

What isn't possible, I think, is for one schedule to work for everyone. We each have different sleep needs, but I think we can all agree that whatever they are, it's SO important for each of us to get enough rest! I DO NOT ADVOCATE NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP — which includes being "technically on" an 8-hour-per-night schedule and then not sleeping enough — I'm looking at you, modern person. The key, the key to *so much* life-improvement, is to be and feel rested. I am more rested now, on a total of 4 hours' sleep per day, than I ever was trying (and usually failing) to sleep 8 hours per night. It takes some work, but it's absolutely possible — and if you're intersted in learning more, I can probably help you out.

This website contains a huge amount of info on polyphasic sleep, collected over my years (wow, decades actually) of experimentation with different schedules, and of helping people find and adapt to schedules that work for them. I've tried to organize it, and been, I think, moderately successful. :P

I AM NOT TRYING TO SELL YOU (anyone) ON A SLEEP SCHEDULE. The only thing I believe in strongly enough to sell it is that everyone has the right to find and sleep on a schedule that works and makes them rested, just like everyone has the right to decide to be vegetarian if they want to and that works for them. That's important to me.

ARTICLES TO START WITH

There's a lot on this site, so here's a list I've been keeping of main/major/useful-for-beginners things I've written about polyphasic sleep. Some of them are pretty old! But do feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a message anytime, if you have questions.

Here's my Overview on polyphasic sleep, what it is and my history with it.

Charts of Types of Polyphasic Schedules will teach you the difference between the different known-to-work schedules, as well as some theoretical schedules that seem like they ought to work.

If you're under 18 (or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction), then please read Polyphasic Sleep & The Age of Majority before deciding whether to try it yet.

The most updated description of my current schedule, and my goals for the ongoing experiment, is here (though I'm not great about updating this often, and you should read the latest posts for the most current information).

Polyphasic Sleep and Sex – because you know you were wondering. ;)

If you're thinking about becoming polyphasic, definitely read the 10 reasons you should NOT be polyphasic, and Am I Too [X] to Try Polyphasic Sleep too.

Here's an answer to the popular question "Does adapting to polyphasic sleep hurt your performance?"

Read the Six Month & One Year on Everyman posts here — the Six Month one has a really good breakdown of what's different between polyphasic & monophasic lifestyles, as well as the differences from when I did Uberman for the same length of time.

Hibernation: The Agony & The Ecstasy is a post about what it's like to sleep "all night" from a polyphasic perspective; there's also My Week of Monophasic Hell, which is the report of my attempt to "switch back" to regular sleeping. I went monophasic one more time recently (September 2011) and decided that YOU ALL MUST NEVER LET ME DO THAT AGAIN — see the post titled POLYPHASIC UBER ALLES for that.

If you're adjusting to a polyphasic schedule, you definitely want to read Things you can do to Avoid Oversleeping and Tricks to Avoid Oversleeping. Also my PSA: These Are NOT Good Ideas While Sleep-Deprived!; and if you're having trouble, read Fantastic Advice for Troubled Polyphasers.

There was, early on, a pretty serious attempt to attack the viability of polyphasic sleep — read about it, and my response to it, in "an attack on polyphasic sleep". There have been many follow-ups, but this discussion is one of the best, IMO. (There has been speculation that "a reader" who started this discussion may have actually been Dr. Wozniak, but as there's no proof either way you'll have to judge for yourself.)

The unbearable lightness of falling asleep is a post about napping, which involves a learning curve for most people — if you're in that curve, this post may help you as well: Can’t Fall Asleep for a nap? Try This.

Some more miscellaneous posts of interest: Some new Polyphasic Questions, answered; The How and the When (good stuff for polyphasers); Schedule Hacks – The Five-Hour Swap; Sleep Drugs?; Is “Crazyphasic” the same as “Free-Running Sleep”?

#TranscendentalLogic #Public Blathering

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hraveau-blog · 7 years ago

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Why It’s Time To Start Thinking Differently About Our Mental Health Care

I became aware of the stigma surrounding mental illness in the Iranian culture when I was only a child, and it made me want to choose a career path so that I could do something to change it. Then in 2001 my family moved to America, and I quickly learned that the same stigma is alive in the American culture.

Have you watched the news lately?

It is filled with various ways showing us how deprived our society is of mental health care. From prevention to treatment, we are lacking proper education and care. We continue to not prioritize our mental health, or the mental health of others. We continue to wait until we are in crisis to see a specialist. We continue to feel ashamed for seeking treatment, or worse, hide it from others.

“I felt relieved when I found out another child from my son’s school is seeking treatment”, a father shared with me recently. He said “I feel relieved knowing my son isn’t the only child seeing a therapist”.

And meanwhile, decades of bio-psycho-social and epigenetic research findings supporting the relationship between quality of our mental health and EVERY aspect of our individual, community’s, and larger society’s well-being continues to pile on. Sadly, very few of us have become aware of this.

We cannot shake off this feeling of shame.

We continue to not value mental health care the way we value physical health care. We get shamed by the society if we neglect to see our family physician, dentist, and optometrist for an annual check-up. Hell, we get shamed by the society if we don’t floss our teeth or take our daily vitamin. But what messages are we getting regarding the importance of preventive care for our mental health? Do we even know how we can engage in preventive care for our mental health?

Most people I know in my personal and professional life are overworked, overstressed, sleep deprived, under nourished, and lack some type of coping skill regarding a certain issue in their lives. And we all wait until we are too depressed to get out bed, too anxious to manage our responsibilities, too emotionally dysregulated at home, or until we are numbing our pain and escaping our emotions with prescription or illegal drugs, alcohol, shopping, or excessive screen time.

Consequences Of Lack Of Treatment in America (Stats listed on NAMI)

Serious mental illness costs us $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year.

Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in teens and young adults and 3rd cause of death in children 10-14, even though it’s 100% preventable.

Mood disorders are the 3rd most common cause of hospitalization for both youth and adults.

Individuals living with serious mental illness face an increased risk of having chronic medical conditions. These adults die on average 25 years earlier than others, largely due to treatable medical conditions.

Over one-third of students with a mental health condition age 14–21 and older who are served by special education drop out—the highest dropout rate of any disability group.

Each day an estimated 22 veterans die by suicide.

Depression is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15 to 44.

It is time we view mental health care differently.

We do not have to wait until all hell has broken loose with ourselves, our children, or our loved ones until we take action. We can start by prioritizing our own and our children’s mental health every single day, when we feel both well and not so well, in small and big ways. Just the same way that we value getting physical activity, enough sleep, and good nutrition.

START.....HERE!

Understand that your mind and body are CONNECTED. When you do not get enough sleep, eat healthy foods, or move your body, your mind will not be able to manage stress properly, especially if your diet is high on inflammatory foods. And stress is part of life, so you can’t avoid it if you want to be a healthy individual, so we might as well be in the best physical shape so we can manage it. But this works the other way around: excessive amount of stress and mental health difficulties take a major toll on our quality of sleep, how WELL food is digested, and put us at major risk for all sorts of medical conditions. If there is nothing else you take away from this post, PLEASE understand this point that I’m trying to make.

Learn how you can self-care, aka fill up your mental and emotional “cup”. Everyone’s soul, body, and mind gets recharged differently. But most of us need a good combination of proper physical care, calming alone time, positive and meaningful social interactions, and some sort of purpose in life. One person might need 8 hours of sleep, another person might need 10. One person might feel better after listening to music, another through a hike or painting a picture. One person needs one-on-one social time, or physical touch, another might need to be frequently around their whole extended family and close friends. Invest time and energy figuring out what works for you, and then do it as much as possible.

Educate yourself. Nowadays, you have access to information at the tip of your fingers. From podcasts, to audiobooks, YouTube videos, blog posts, books, magazines, online and in person support groups, and educational websites, we have access to SO much information. Educate yourself on how to foster children’s social and emotional development if you are about to become a parent. Learn how you can support your teen as they transition to college. Find out what skills you need to have a successful marriage. Any life transition is an essential time for you to engage in preventive care. Don’t wait until your child is having behavioral issues, or your child is struggling in college, or your marriage is falling apart.

Find yourself a good therapist, give it a try, and value the time and money you are putting into it. You will learn and grow so much. It doesn’t have to be a long process. It can be once a month, or once every few months, just to discuss major points, learn new tools, and ensure that you are managing things properly. There are also a TON of self-help books that you can buy online, or online live groups that you can enroll in for a low price. Find an expert on a topic and subscribe to their newsletters or follow them on social media. You’ll be surprised how much you’ll learn.

Seek services if you are going through something challenging. Engage early on in your challenge. And be honest and open with others about the fact that you are in therapy. Don’t have shame that you are seeing a therapist (supposedly in New York and LA, all the cool people are in therapy). If you don't know where to find a therapist, ask around, get help from your insurance, or go on Psychology Today. Some examples of major life events during which it’s important that you seek mental health care are loss of a loved one, experiencing a traumatic event, being diagnosed with a chronic or terminal condition, going through divorce, changing or losing a job.

Encourage loved ones who are struggling mentally or going through something challenging to seek metal health care. Remind them of the benefits of preventive care, and ask them what you can do to help them make that first appointment.

The effort we put into ourselves trickles down to our children and our society. Our children benefit by watching and learning from us and by having us be healthier and more stable adult in their lives. This helps them grow into healthy adults who will manage their mental health well and be better members of the society. We all owe it to ourselves and the next generations to come to progress in this area of functioning. Sadly, we are currently mostly going backwards. But as you can see, it does not take much to get ourselves on the path to wellness.

Hasti Raveau, MA

Hasti Raveau is a child and family psychologist serving the greater Plymouth and Northville area of Michigan. Much of her work is focused on helping children improve their emotional well-being, supporting parents on their parenting journeys, and empowering families so they can repair, grow, and thrive.

#mental health #psychology #depression #suicide #anxiety #therapy #clinicalpsychology #selfcare #meditation #mindbodyconnection #mentalhealthcare #raveaupsychology

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rantdressing · 7 years ago

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My Fucking High School Crush

Well guess who still has a fucking crush on a girl he knew in high school????????? Me. It really sucks ass on a whole new level. She lives around the corner from where I work, which sucks even bigger ass. It mostly sucks ass because for one, her older brother who was my friend in high school hates my fucking guts. I don’t even know what I done that was so wrong to him. We haven’t spoken since high school but in my defense, in high school he didn’t really think of me as being one of his main friends, I was sort of his filler friend and I was pretty much everyone’s filler friend. The other reason that still having a crush on this girl sucks is that I don’t think she likes me. She’s 2 years younger than me and she already has a kid, a baby girl. Normally, I avoid women with kids but in this case, I would treat this kid like one of the 2 most precious jewels in existence, alongside her beautiful mother. I am pretty sure my crush on this girl borders in to the L.O.V.E side of things right now.

We first met in high school, I was in grade 10 and I had just started to become friends with her brother. I can’t actually remember how me and her became friends. My first memory of her is when she walked up to me while I was standing behind all my friends because their wasn’t space in their stupid friendship circle for the loser who stood in the tuckshop line for 30 minutes getting them the food they asked me to buy for them. I was just chilling, getting my earphones out so that I could listen to music like I always did when this girl walks up to me out of nowhere and asks, “Why are you so chatty when we text but at school you ignore me?” I look at her and with my awkward and soft voice(my voice is actually not soft, I just speak softly), I respond, “I d-don’t know.” I then immediately put my head down and stare at the floor. She then said something like, “Well you need to speak more often.” Something like that. At the time, I developed strong feelings for her, real fucking quick because she was pretty damn awesome. I had a problem though, I didn’t want to get too close to my friends sister, because I didn’t want him to be mad at me. Yes, that’s right. I was too scared of a guy who didn’t even think that much of me so I decided against spending more time with this girl. Additionally, other girls who were in my grade caught my eye. For the rest of high school, I only had a small crush on her(it seemed small because I always tried to ignore it).

When I finished high school, the first time I saw her post-high school was at this shop around the corner from my old high school, the one she still went to. I was with my brother and he was buying cigarettes while I waited in his car. I looked especially stupid that day because I shaved the hair on my top lip because the hair on my top lip was super thin and I wanted to thicken it up so it could match up with the thickness of the rest of my beard. The thing is, I didn’t shave my whole beard, just the top lip. I looked like I was getting ready for an audition for Breaking Amish. Even worse, I was growing my hair so I looked like an Amish bear, a fucking Amish bear. To my “luck” the car to my immediate left had 2 people in it, a fairly good looking guy, and the girl of my dreams. She noticed me the minute I looked at the car, which on one hand was flattering because I looked horrible and on the other hand it made me question exactly how ugly I looked in high school. She came over to my brothers car and as always, I was lost for words. Not because it was her who I was talking to, no, at the time and for about 2-3 years after high school, I had no idea how to talk to anyone. My conversational skills were shitty. I don’t even remember what she said to me but I remember that she eventually walked away because she wasn’t getting much out of me. That was the last time I’d see Shernay for a while.

Fast forward a few years, I end up getting a job around the corner from where she still lives. At this point in time, I am fully aware that she is the greatest person I’ve ever known. The last time I saw her in person was a few months ago, I decided to shoot my shot and try to reconnect with her. Thanks to modern day advances in social networking, all I had to do was re-activate my Facebook account and go to my friends list to find her. I found her and to my pure joy, Shernay still had Facebook. I messaged her to see what’s up and she was doing fine. My office was celebrating someone’s birthday so we had cake but the people in my office are all about that diet life so they didn’t want to finish the cake, which was great for me because now I had a reason to visit her: I would be bringing the gift of chocolate caramel cake! Oddly though, she told me not to tell her brother or anyone that she spoke to me. I was a little baffled by that but I let it go, I was about to speak to her again after all these years...I was fucking excited! I get to her house, and I’m immediately greeted by her brother. I don’t even get a smile from this guy and from the get go his vibe is weird, he’s not the same dude I remember from high school. I try to speak to him but his very blunt and his smile is forced and obviously fake. I don’t really care much because I came her for one person, his sister. I get to his front door and I’m still not greeted by the sister, this time I’m greeted by their grandmother. I’m sort of disappointed at this point but not too disappointed because boy oh boy, I know who should be here and it’s sending shockwaves to my heart and my penis. After I greet the grandmother, literally appearing around the corner like the fucking blessing she is, Shernay appears! I don’t think words can express how badly I wanted to fucking hold this girl and also stare at her. I didn’t want to speak, I just wanted to hold her and stare at her, maybe I also kind of wanted to confess my undying love for her too but I didn’t want her to think I was still a batshit weirdo. We hugged for a few seconds and we said hi and I gave her the cake. As soon as we was about to start talking, her brother who was standing behind us says, “Let’s go outside and talk.” I’m like, “Yeah sure, let’s go.” I went from being the happiest I’d been in a while to being filled with pure dread. I didn’t even know what was eating at him. Was it that I hadn’t bothered to speak to him in years? That’s it really, that’s the only thing I could think of. I was expecting him to absolutely hammer me but nah, we sit outside his front door by a set of table and chairs and this motherfucker sits there dead quiet and staring at me with a faint smile on his face as if to say, “What do you have to say about after all these years?” Fucking hell, I done most of the talking and this guy barely even said anything, he mostly just acknowledged what I was saying with simple “okays” and head noddings. In all honesty, I was trying to get the convo with him over and done with so I could hang out with Shernay but the vibe I was getting from this guy was so fucking dull and awkward that I decided to not waste this guys time anymore and decided to say bye bye. What was meant to be a sick ass reunion turned in to a lame fest that sucked. I went in to his house to say my bye bye’s and Shernay was chilling inside with her baby. I said bye to them as well as their grandmother and their grandmother told me that I should come over again because it was nice having me there. I really wanted to know what she meant since I didn’t even speak to her or Shernay but I wanted to get the fuck out of there so I simply smiled and lied by telling her I would definitely comeback. I told them they were also free to visit me at my office and they lied back by saying they’d come see me in action. I left and when I got back to the office, I messaged Shernay on Facebook and asked her what her brothers problem was with me. I assume she was covering up for him because she gave me this whole story about how her brother has been acting weird since he hung out with another friend of his a week prior to our reunion. I told her that it sucked having to end the reunion like that because I really wanted to speak to her and I gave her my number and asked her to WhatsApp me. She didn’t reply, and it sort of broke my heart, not completely because for all I knew, maybe she simply ran out of data or Facebook stopped working in her house. She never did reply but she once sent out one of those WhatsApp messages where you send the same message to all of your contacts. This made me real fucking happy because it meant that she saved my number. I didn’t text her though. I simply didn’t think she liked me so I didn’t see the point.

Fast forward to the present. Shernay messaged me on Instagram asking me if I still worked in real estate. Thank God I still do but sadly, I’m still not sure if she likes me or not so I didn’t reply with any type of vigour or enthusiasm. I replied to her like she’s just another fucking client and it’s pisses me the fuck off. It makes me mad that she still doesn’t know I really fucking like her. If she were to ask me to marry her, there’s a good chance I’d probably say yes. I have also just learned that I need to get a fucking grip on my emotions and I need to learn when to say dramatic shit like that. She is looking for a 2 bedroom unit in the area I work in but I’m not allowed to work the area she was looking at because my colleague works this area. How fucking convenient-_-. Luckily, when I told Shernay this, she said she didn’t mind and would be willing to look in the areas I work in. Unfortunately the only 2 bedroom unit I have for her is being cleaned and fixed up because it’s previous tenants were fucking psycho’s! All my other units are 1 bedroom apartments in this dope ass golf estate. Shernay said she would let me if she would like to take a look at them as she was already leaning towards another place she has already seen. Now I can take this in one of two ways. The first way is that she simply wanted to hangout with me and needed to find a viable excuse, this is the option I am hoping for. The second one if that she simply doesn’t really like the place she might be choosing and she wanted to see what else was available and she only contacted me because she trusts me, which is nice but not the option I’m going with. I have decided that if she does take the place she told me about, I will ask her out. Just knowing that she will be moving a fair distance away from my offices and the place I stay has given me a new level of confidence. Yes I know I could simply just text her now and shoot my shot but I’m sorry, she lives too close and I’m not confident enough in the fact that she may even have ever had a crush on me and she may not even like me now. So yes, if she moves the fuck away from me I will ask her out so that if she does turn me down, I will not have to worry about bumping in to her on the streets. This shit is really getting me going.

So there, this will either be how I finally ask my soulmate out or it will be the first time I ever truly confess my feelings for a girl and she rejects me and spits on my face.

#love story #my crush #love blogs #dating #being in love #asking a girl out #having a crush #asking a crush out #my writing #say yes #love sux

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massthetics-blog · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on Alexander Mullan

New Post has been published on https://alexandermullan.com/slapping-fear/

Slapping Fear In The Face: What, Why, And How

I challenge you to find a more powerful, overwhelming, and polarizing human emotion than fear. Fear is what keeps us rooted in one spot; unable to let our branches unfurl, forever searching for peace of mind, and fear is the rod rammed through the bicycle spoke of our lives. Fear is what ties us to the expectations of others, holding us in the Little Leagues, never feeling “ready” or “good enough” to step up to bat, and swing at what comes your way. Fear is the fuel you must use to rise up to where you want to be, yet it’s the very thing that will keep you in it’s clutches, yanking at the hem of your shirt in effort to keep you stagnant. These words before you are borne from fear.

MASSthetics is 6 feet under, and the coffin is nailed shut.

After avoiding what I’ve known to be true for months, I dragged MASSthetics out into the back alley, amidst a torrential downpour I slapped a bag over his head, whipped out my pistol, and flashed the trigger, killing the business that carried me through adventures across the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and supported 18 months of my life.

Over the past few months it’s become clear that my lane has narrowed, and much of what I truly want to write, share, and talk would be woefully out of place had they been published under MASSthetics. While this website may look near-identical, and I’ve carried over much of the content, the winds of change are blowing, and bigger, better things are coming.

Mullan’s Meatheads is growing, the monthly training programs are evolving, and dudes are getting JACKED.

The 10-Week Female Fat Loss Blitz is off to the races, and the girls are crushing it.

And I’m launching the Anti-Meathead Method as we flip the calendar over to November.

Here’s the truth…

I haven’t been this excited about how I serve the world in a long, long time.

The MASSthetics branding has slipped away, except for the logo which I love too dearly to ever let go.

You see, fitness may be my “thing”, but it’s not everything.

The bulk of my business, and experience may be rooted in the fitness industry. But, I also do freelance copywriting & consulting. I help manage and run Facebook ad campaigns for a number of heavy hitters in the fitness industry. I’m at the helm of a group of writers who all want one thing; to become better wordsmiths. I’ve lived throughout Canada, driven down the West Coast of the United States, soaked up the magic of New York City, been lulled back to the Dominican Republic, smoked weed while wandering the canals and winding streets of Amsterdam, dieted to sub-zero body fat and competed in 3 bodybuilding shows, sweated my balls off in Mexico – twice, somehow ended up in Austin, Texas on multiple occasions, and have bounced in and out of my hometown more times than I care to count – all of this in past 5 years. I don’t mean this to brag, and I sure as shit haven’t seen everything.

But I have seen some things – nor have these been empty experiences.

Each has connected me with new people, given me a new tale to tell, shifted my perspective, and provided experiences I’ll never forget. Each trip, each adventure, all grew from slapping fear in the face, throwing caution to the wind, and as I like to say, “doing the damn thing.”

As I walked amongst trees older than I’ll ever live to be, with sticks and leaves crunching beneath my feet, lost in the solitude of the forest, allowing my thoughts to unfurl, I’ve realized that I, Alexander Mullan, am a writer above all else.

After countless walks in the woods, I’ve gained clarity on what I want to write about, the direction I want to take this “thing” I’ve built, and after months of fruitless mental masturbation, I’ve hashed out more impactful, higher-level coaching services to better serve you (The soon-to-launch Anti-Meathead Method). On top of shifting the focus of this website from MASSthetics, and placing it squarely onto “my” shoulders, I’m laying down a year-long writing gauntlet for myself. Because at the end of the day, whether it’s a sales letter, client training program, fitness article, or piece of ad copy, it’s all writing…and writers write. And so it is that I’m going to continue writing every single day, and begin publishing, every Wednesday for the next year. As for the topics you’ll find scrawled upon these walls?

While fitness will remain a mainstay, I will make no promises about what else is going to appear. Because writers write. But we don’t always know what’s going to come out until fingers strike key.

What does this mean for what’s no longer MASSthetics, but alexandermullan.com?

To quote the world’s greatest comedian, Jerry Seinfeld:

“You don’t have to buy it. You could say, that’s stupid. This is stupid.”

If you think this new approach I’m taking is stupid, moves away from what you signed up for, or you think I’m a quack, that’s fine.

To echo Jerry, you don’t have to read (or buy) it, you don’t have to like it. You don’t have to be here.

If you choose to leave, I wish you well.

If you choose to stay, I appreciate you being here, and I’ll be damn sure to make it worth your while.

Marrying yourself to an idea, no matter how much you love it, and being able to shift gears if what you’re doing isn’t serving you.

What began as my little corner of the internet to help men and women build muscle, melt fat, and transform their physique has grown into a different beast over the past year and a half. MASSthetics was no longer serving the point I’ve arrived at in my life, the overarching missions that drive my actions, thoughts, and decisions, or vibing with the value I want to bring into the world.

The image that I spent over a year honing, no longer felt like “me.”

Which is one thing I’ve learned from being in business for myself over that time. When something no longer serves you, no matter how scary it may be to do so, you must cut it loose.

I felt handcuffed in my writing.

My message was muddled.

Nor could I say with confidence that MASSthetics was a “thing” I could see standing the test of time, and still being around years down the road.

I recognized that if I wanted this to work again, and account for what I enjoy most (writing & coaching), something had to give.

Despite holding onto the rotting scraps of MASSthetics for far too many months, regardless of the fear surging through my veins, and I press “publish,” and step onward with fearful, bated excitement.

Change is frightening.

But change is necessary for growth (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and professional) to occur.

Consider this tale before you as the first of a rebirth.

The mark of new beginnings.

The torrential downpour in a romantic comedy, where the main characters realize they must be together, no matter what. Together, let us put fear in it’s place, and leave no stone in our lives unturned.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

==========

Wondering what’s next?

Here’re a few options for you:

1. If you know of anyone else who might benefit from the words of wisdom you just read, why not share it with them?

2. Looking for more articles like this one? You’ll find a whack just like this one linked about one-and-a-half scrolls below.

3. Frustrated to all hell with trying to build muscle and burn fat on your own? I can help with that.

4. If you’re not on the email list, you’re missing out on daily doses of fitness advice, stories, and pearls of wisdom that don’t suck. Click here to rectify that sorry state of affairs, and grab your free guide to staying lean during your winter bulk.

5. Should the Women Only Fat Loss Club strike your fancy, click here to get on the waiting list (launching mid-January).

Ta.

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theripertoire · 8 years ago

Photo

Trolls: Not the Movie

Disclaimer: I guess you could consider this a rant. And I guess I say the word “bitch” at least 10 times in this post. So, If you’re among the faint-hearted and self-righteous, I guess you would enjoy reading a billboard or box of cornflakes instead. Thank you.

Ever since I became active on social media, I’ve been so blessed to receive a loyal following from some incredibly amazing women – some of which I’ve become friends with too. I make sure to keep my channels of discussion open with them so that we are able to communicate on a daily basis. I receive tons of praise, advice and tips, which I’m so lucky to be getting, but I also get the occasional trolls who feel entitled to express their rubbish opinions because they have bitter lives and feel safe behind their phones, laptops or computers. In the past seven years, I’ve been asked a plethora of ridiculous questions and given countless uneducated remarks that I have maturely ignored. But, today, I have decided to share some of them with you and respond to them, one by one. Yes, I’m stooping all the way down to their level because it’s fun to be immature every once in a while.

You see, the more “known” you become, the more you have to filter your life, words and reactions. You need to think twice before saying or doing anything to avoid sending out the wrong message, and you have to be mindful of whose feelings you may accidentally hurt. It takes a lot of effort to be this mature and responsible the whole time – to be the bigger person and not care – but in fact, sometimes, it’s draining.

This is certainly a major downside of being active on social media. Stupid people are unavoidable. In fact, there’s an overabundance of stupidity in this world – now more than ever – and an idiot never realizes just how idiotic they are and sound.

If I were to state one thing I miss the most, it’s me saying whatever the hell I want to say without worrying about the repercussions. I used to get away with anything. I have a very dark sense of humor and wicked sarcasm that I have to control on a daily basis. It’s painful.

But, I’m going to go all out today and let my inner bitch shine.

Here are some of the smartest questions and remarks I’ve ever received ... and my “would have been” responses:

You look so skinny. Go eat a burger.

Well, how would you like it if I called you a whale and advised you to dive back into the ocean and diet on water and only water?

Your boyfriend will never marry you because you look like a girl that’s only for fun.

Oh looky here. He married me, and I bet you’re still as single and bitter AF.

Can I ask you something?

No.

Your lips are disgusting.

You follow and worship Arab celebrities who look like blowup dolls. You seem to love their over inflated lips and plastic surgery abuse. What are you picking on me for? Would you like me to express how ugly that thread-like line you call a mouth is? No? So shut up.

You are so ugly.

Do you own a mirror, sasquatch?

You are so rude.

Thank you.

I sent you a THOUSAND messages and asked you a THOUSAND times, where is your shirt from?

1. I don’t work for you. 2. It’s tagged in the photo, where you only had to look ONCE. 3. You need to buy reading glasses or learn how to read a caption.

Why do you look so ugly on Snapchat?

It’s my special fuck you – from me to you.

You call yourself a fashion blogger?!?!?!?!?!

No bitch, I don’t. But that’s the only label sheep seem to know these days.

What is so stylish about you? You’re always in jeans!

I post my daily personal style, bitch. Do you want me to wear ball gowns every day so you don’t pop a vein in your neck?

Where is the “anaka”?

You and this word are vulgar.

He doesn’t love you.

Thank you Nostradamus. I shall break up with him now.

Who wears a cape on their wedding dress? You’re not superman. Yuck! I’m so disappointed!

Sorry Anna Wintour. You clearly know all about fashion. And while I was planning my wedding, my sole aim was to not disappoint you. I’m immensely disappointed in myself. I should die now.

Why did he marry you? He’s so much better looking than you!

I’m sure you received an excellent education both at school and at home.

I used to like you, but not anymore! I’m going to unfollow you!

While I wipe my tears, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Why did you block me on Snapchat?

Cause you were either a rude bitch, a delusional bitch, or a stupid bitch. Pick one.

Why do you keep wearing the same clothes?

Do you wear each item once then throw it? No? Then shut your face.

Can you please do a contouring tutorial?

Why are you following me? Lost? And: No.

How dare you?!?!?!

OH, I AM SO SORRY. PLEASE DON’T STOP PAYING MY BILLS BITCH.

Who do you think you are?

Beyonce.

Do you think you’re funny?!?!?

Yes actually, very much.

I followed you because your husband is so handsome.

No. You followed me cause you’s a thirsty hoe.

I find you very offensive!

Please, stop finding me.

DID YOU DO YOUR LIPS?

Will my answer change anything in your life? No? Go away now.

WEIN EL ANAKAAAAAAAA

Why am I attracting people like you? Die.

Your knees are black. You have hair on your arms. You are not “aneeka”.

1. It’s called sharpening and adding contrast to a photo. 2. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’re a fucking dolphin with no hair from the forehead down. 3. You are so goddamn creepy for even focusing on these things. Creepy ass dolphin.

YOU ARE A BITCH!

Thank you!

How dare you show your followers there is traffic in Lebanon? You are ruining the image of our country!!!

Do you watch the news, bitch? There are bigger fish to fry.

Why are you always speaking English? Are you trying to look western?

1. English is my first language. 2. You watch too many movies and have become a cliché. 3. You are a goat.

I’m going to block you.

Honey, who are you?

How can you post videos without makeup and brushed hair?!?!

Because you are all that is wrong in the world. And because I love myself, no matter how I look. And because you clearly hate yourself so much, you probably go to sleep wearing makeup so that your cat doesn’t see how ugly you are in the morning and run away.

You are so judgmental and aggressive.

Oh bestie, you know me so well!

I can’t believe you answered me this way!

I can’t believe I answered you at all. Go away.

You owe it to us to…

No honey, I don’t owe anyone anything.

Stop complaining about haters. You’re the one that decided to make your life public.

And you’re the one that decided to follow me. If you don’t like me, unfollow me.

You call that fashion?!?

(Seven months later) Well it’s a trend now, isn’t it sheep? Get back to following your herd.

Get off Snapchat and go enjoy your day!

I’ve snapped 10 minutes of my 24-hour day. I can assure you, I’m enjoying my ass off. How about you get off my Snapchat, enjoy YOUR day, and spare me your stupid comments.

You complain too much. Stop nagging.

It’s called exaggeration, sarcasm, and fuck you.

You are Arab and dress like that?!?!?

No. I’m human and dress however I please. Now go judge someone else, you decent, lovely person.

Does your husband follow you on Snapchat? Does he see how you act? Stop pretending to be so cool and western. You’re a Middle Eastern, married woman!

And you’re a cow. I know because I found you on Facebook and saw your photos. What I didn’t know is that I’m not allowed to have a sense of humor If I’m Middle Eastern. What I would like to know is if your husband realizes he’s married to a creepy ass cow who harasses strangers on social media.

I’m so sick of fake people!

{**calls me fake, yet continues to follow and worship every fake person on Instagram**}

It’s one thing when someone insults, attacks and says the most hurtful things and gets away with it, but it’s another ball game when the receiver answers back and puts turds in their place. I speak on behalf of many when I say this: WE ARE HUMANS JUST LIKE YOU! WE CAN READ, UNDERSTAND AND FEEL THE SHIT YOU ARE WRITING!

My social media accounts portray exactly who I am. Yes, I filter my words and actions, but I’m sharing who I am, how I think and what I do with you. Growing up, I never had an older sister to advise me on what to do. I wish I had someone that told me that it’s OKAY to gain weight, have stretch marks, cellulite, hips, bad hair days and acne. I wish there was someone who had told me that breakups, two-faced friends, and disappointments are only a passing phase and inevitable part of growing up. I wish I had known from early on that the secret to happiness is loving yourself and what makes you different. I wish I had someone that explained the most trivial things to me, such as how to wear new trends or what hair style suited my face; and the most fundamental things, like not having to pressure yourself into getting married to the wrong person by 25...or how to dress for a night out without looking like a two-dollar hooker. So, this is why I’m here. I’m here to be that honest, true, real, whatever person that you can virtually depend on. You can come to me when you’re down. My blog posts, captions and daily encounters will make you feel better or give you guidance; whether it’s through empowerment or a comic relief. One thing I will not be though, is someone that will just sit here and let bitter nobodies insult me or tell me how to live my life - simply because I’m exposed. I will always welcome constructive criticism and opposing opinions. I also accept and understand that many don’t like me for whatever reason, and I honestly won’t ever try to change that. This isn’t a popularity contest for me, and I’m not here to compete for love, acceptance or followers. I’m here to connect with those who can relate to me and see the good in me without me even trying.

On a final note, here’s an interesting fact for online trolls and rude people: your words will never change me. I will always be this way. I will always be happy. I will always read your comments and laugh at you with my friends. I will always try to be more and do more, regardless of how many people try to stand in my way. You may be very bothered by my existence, but I don’t even know you exist. Five minutes after seeing your insulting comment, I wont remember your name, where you’re from or what you look like. But you know what, one of these days, when I’m very, very bored and someone gives me a smart remark, I may decide to stalk their very existence online (same way they do), know all I need to know about them, figure out their insecurities, and punch back right where it hurts. Let’s see how it feels like to be given stupid, unasked for opinions from a complete stranger. Sounds psychotic, right?

At times, I may be rude, sarcastic, politically incorrect, loud, and brutally honest, but I am always kind. Kindness is becoming a rare trait these days. These days, WOMEN are the ones trying to put other women down. And when I come across “women” like that, yes, I do enjoy giving them a harsh taste of their own medicine. Stay posted, cause I ain’t goin’ nowhere :-)

XX -R

#Riflections #socialsatire #fuckyou #instagram #internettrolls #trolls #haters #bloggers #featured

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