The Percussion of Life
I was sitting here eating a very soft cream cheese garlic dip with some very hard rice crackers and thinking about hiking in the woods.
When I go for walks I like to use some very old hiking boots that have Vibram soles that are hard rubber. I don't know if they make this kind of boot anymore.
Is anyone old enough to remember when you could hear people walking? When shoes made a "click clack" sound, and you could tell when someone was coming up behind you? It used to be something that could scare you in a movie...hearing the tapping of shoes coming up behind some unsuspecting character.
It is spooky to have lived long enough to remember sounds that don't exist anymore. It makes me wonder if anyone ever recorded them. Or noticed that they are gone. Like the "Ding Ding" sound in Boston Store when there was a call for an employee. I loved that sound. I rediscovered it when I was in a store that sold yoga style items and there was a single metal rod suspended by string above a solid piece of wood, and when you hit the bar -- there it was, that sound.
Sounds can bring back memories for me just like smells do. It doesn't have to be just words, or the sound of a voice, but simple sounds, like a telephone ringing, or static on the television. I recently bought an antique phone that had an analog bell ringer, (you know, an actual Bell, inside the phone.) I discovered that the bell was louder than I remembered it, and also, the phone works so much better than my cell phone in terms of quality of sound that I use this phone more than any of the other 8 phones we own. Except that dialing it is trouble, because it has the rotary dialer, and you can't "talk" to the automated voices without a push-button phone.
And then there is that rotary dial sound...I guess it could be copied and so that is why the phone companies stopped using it.
Anyway, back to the cream cheese and crackers. I have a dream... I wish for shoes that make a sound when you walk. That tap, tap, tap that everyone used to make.
Here is the quasi-science behind it that I like to spout about. I know that most people like to have some crunch in their snacks. And why is that? I wondered. I usually like softer things, but cream cheese is not as interesting by itself. Maybe it is the contrast of textures.
But I think that there is broader reason, beyond the sensory, and that is that our bones need to have percussion to grow. Our teeth are bones, our nails, our toenails, and our feet and wherever we interact with the world, it is much easier to navigate in space when we bump up against things physically. It tells us where we are. It tells us who we are when we bump up against people, and their differing ideas and feelings. Isolation is the most feared thing to people, so much so that it is our ultimate punishment of each other. Shunning, solitary confinement, ect. Sensory deprivation can cause lifelong damage to an infant's nervous system. In sensory deprivation states we can hallucinate.
I think that when we live in too soft a world, like the elderly do, when the floors have carpeting, the shoes have gel inserts, the soles of the shoes have soft rubber so that we can all walk silently, and all our furniture is padded and cushioned, our car seats are molded to fit us perfectly, and everything is smoothies and soup and nothing is hard.... then when we fall, we fail.
We fail to grow bone, we fail to grow emotionally, we remain immature in any area that we don't bump up against our environment and our community.
I was my Grandmother's Guardian until she died. Her worst health event was a fall, when she broke a hip. Why did her hip get so fragile? I am sure it was in part our SAD diet (Standard American Diet.) But it might also be partly our lifestyle.
My son has a disability where he has nerve damage below the waist. Traditionally, people with this disability have a very shortened stature from the waist down. Particularly if they cannot walk. But we worked very hard with therapists to help him learn to walk very early, with braces, walkers, crutches, and using theraputic electric stim. (very mild, it feels like a tickle) he began to walk and his lower body became longer and stronger and now he is taller than most everyone with his disability. He still needs braces and he uses a wheelchair for longer distances than a block, but he walks around the house and at work.
Medically, if he stopped walking, he could lose bone mass in his lower extremities. Many times a person who can't walk can easily break a bone because of bone loss in the limbs that are not used.
It is my opinion that to prevent bone loss as we age, we should all go back to shoes that have hard soles, (though not slippery soles, those can be reserved for dancing.) At least part of the time.
I remember when soft soled shoes became popular. They started with Keds. Then it was Sailing shoes. (I actually was a sailor, so I thought they were going to remain a specialty sport shoe, but I was wrong.) I wore them, but I remember liking the hiking boots better. I liked them for walking around campus. I liked the way they made my legs and feet feel.
Maybe it is something to do with Autism. Being mildly on the Autism spectrum, I might be like Temple Grandin when she invented her squeeze machine. It feels good to have pressure on your bones. I used to do something called Sensory Integration on my son when he was young, recommended by his OT. Part of it involved putting firm pressure on each joint by pushing the limbs into the joint (it doesn't hurt, but feels good to the child.)
Some sounds can remain in history. I can hear a very wide range of sounds, this is not bragging, because it is very annoying many times because those extra-sensory sounds get in the way of normal range hearing, like hearing the human voice in conversations. I used to hear a sound that I was told came from the alarm system at Boston Store. It was very high-pitched, and very loud. It was so loud that after a few minutes I would get dizzy and nauseous and I would try to leave as soon as possible. My mother never understood and I thought she could hear this sound too, but I didn't understand why it didn't bother her as much as it bothered me.
There is also a sound that a television makes when it gets old... we had an old TV when I was married and it seemed that my ex was always watching TV. So it was on all the time. And it made this horrendous, high-pitched shriek that made it hard to hear what was on the program being broadcast. I think my ex thought I was making it up, but when we got a newer television I never complained about it again.
There are some sounds that are out in public that make me wonder how the wildlife, and pets must feel. For instance, I was pumping gas at a gas station and there was this very loud high-pitched sound coming out of the equipment. It took me some time to decide not to say anything to the attendant, because at first I thought it was an indication that something was wrong with it. But I looked around me and no one else that was there seemed to hear it, and then I realized that if the attendant couldn't hear it they might think I was crazy.
Street lights have this sound sometimes, and it can be very loud. If you have to have special listening devices to hear these sounds, then how would anyone know that they are there? I am sure that many types of animals can hear these sounds. I have another wish. And this is that we find out what sound range the local pets and wildlife can hear, and that these frequencies are monitored in every piece of equipment we create and put into this world. Because sometimes when we think that animals are acting strangely, maybe it is because they can hear things we cannot. And if they can't shut it off, or fix it, or get away from it, then that would drive anything crazy. This goes for smells, too.
So I am trying to find hiking boots with hard rubber soles. I want to hear the sound I make when I walk. I want to hear the rhythm of walking. I know I can put on music to keep my rhythm up, but there always was rhythm before there was music. The rhythm of life has a sound, and moving through life has rhythm.
I might go out and buy some taps for my shoes. It might sound a little too much, but better too much than too little rhythm for me.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Adult Fostering
I have been reading about the town of Geel.
This is from Wikipedia:
"A model of psychiatric care
Geel is well known for the early adoption of deinstitutionalization in psychiatric care. This practice is based on the positive effects that placement in a host family gives the patient, most importantly access to family life that would otherwise have been denied. The legendary 7th-century Saint Dymphna, who had moved to the Geel area from Ireland, is usually credited for this type of care. The earliest Geel infirmary and the model where patients go into town, interact with the community during the day, and return to the hospital at night to sleep, date from the 13th century.
Originally, this practice was religiously motivated and organized by a chapter of canons, attached to the church of Saint Dymphna. By the 18th century, however, the placement of patients was mostly done directly, without the intervention of the canons. The number of patients grew in proportion to the growing city’s reputation abroad and the economic benefits flowing to the city provided further motivation to the inhabitants. Attracted by the gentle care of patients, Vincent van Gogh’s father considered sending his famous son to Geel in 1879. The high point came in 1938, with a total of 3,736 placed patients, compared with only 700 a hundred years earlier.
This novel type of psychiatric care was evaluated by various other institutions around the world (see for instance Eastern State Hospital in Virginia), but often seen as too revolutionary to implement. It is only in the early 20th century that the idea of deinstitutionalization was adopted more widely elsewhere. Today, a modern psychiatric centre stands on the place of the old infirmary, and close to 500 patients are still placed with inhabitants."
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I have been investigating ideas regarding the homeless. Specifically, I have befriended the only homeless person in my city, a woman about my age. I think that this could have been my fate, but for the grace of God.
I have noticed certain blocks to helping someone. First of all, they don't all feel they need any help, even while asking for help in indirect and direct ways. Secondly, because of some kind of thought process, they have put many limitations on the kind of interactions they are willing to have with people, and these seem to limit the types of help they have access to.
Specifically, in a strange way it is like they are anorexic with regard to housing. The homeless person I met has many ideas about why it would be a bad thing to accept help or to live in any type of home other than with someone she knows. She would rather sleep outside in the cold than in a small apartment if it isn't on the ground floor with a door going directly outside. She is very afraid of being caught inside with a fire. She is also afraid of filling out any kind of paperwork, even though she can read and write.
This person had a bad outcome of a surgery, during which she was dead for about five minutes on the operating table. She was employed up until this time, but lost her job after the surgery. I am not sure, but she seems unable to learn anything new, or at least without great effort, since that time. She seems fine with doing things that she had already learned prior to the surgery, as far as I can tell. She has been homeless for about 13 years. And she lives almost a feral life, while trying very hard to dress like she is working at a job. I offered her a part time job I had available, but she turned it down, even as she was already doing some of the work.
It is like she still thinks she has a home and lives there, but somehow the actual home is missing. She claims to own part of a house and a broken down car, but has lost access to them, for various vague reasons.
I was able to help her quite a bit by just treating her the same as I would treat anyone else, and she did quite well as long as she was living with my family. She even helped a great deal with household chores. However, any time I tried to get her to get Food Stamps to help out with the food bill, she refused and got angry. Its like she cannot fathom needing anything like that, and cannot learn to use anything with regard to her "new" situation.
Eventually, we had to move and my new landlord won't allow her to stay with us. I could take her in again, if I could get her on public services. I looked into this on her behalf and she would qualify for many services immediately as a long-term homeless person. I could not afford to do this long term without the benefits she is turning down.
I tried to set up other kinds of informal help for her, but no one else has responded to my inquiries. For example, of 42 churches in my city, none returned my calls about her. Everyone seems to think that the existing services are where she should go, and there are no alternatives that I could think of that she would accept.
The calls alone were a lot of work, I called the mayor, an alderman and several agencies.
I have concluded that someone like this needs to have adult foster care, like the Town of Geel provides.
I would like to start this kind of service in my area. I am wondering what kind of form it would take. It would have to involve being able to take someone into their home and help them live as a member of a family. I think this kind of situation is easier for a homeless person to trust than to go to an agency and fill out tons of paperwork. I have a feeling that they don't have a clear "paper" identity and might even have a past that they want to hide.
However, homelessness is not a good option no mater what someone's past is. I wonder if we can, as a society, "forgive" a homeless person for "forgetting" their entire past, or for simply loosing track of it.
The key component for this situation would be to find a way to pay the family doing the foster care, and not have to make the homeless person consent to anything accept be willing to stay at the home freely, without restraint. Someone would have to monitor the situation regularly to make sure the money was being spent on the person's room and board, and not taken for other things. And if the person were to walk away again, the funds could be withheld until they settled elsewhere. In other words, the funds would stay with the person, not the place, but would go to whatever place the person ends up. As long as it is reasonably safe (not a drug house, or whatever.)
So the family could look after the person, finding them if they get lost for instance, but would not be able to rely on the homeless person's benefits over much, or they might feel they had to keep the person there for consistency of funds.
The family would have to have their own financial stability, with or without the homeless person there.
This would only work if the homeless person were not addicted to something. Addiction brings with it a host of other problems, like theft, lying, and manipulation.
There are many disabled people who seem interested in this type of living arrangement. It is one of many types of arrangements that could be available to them. Currently, there are "group homes" which are run by an agency with paid staff workers. I have heard some scary things about those. Not all are bad, though. And there is Supported Independent Living, but this doesn't always work out because there is no sense of "family." And some might say this is lonely.
I care for disabled people, and I mentor several adults with disabilities as a volunteer. More than once I have been asked if I could let someone live with me. I think that people could do this if there was an option for adult fostering.
I will write some more about this in the future as I gather more information. If anyone would like to help with this, I would love to hear what other people are doing.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Prevention of Contagion - A Simple Lifestyle Choice
Vaccines are in the news again lately.
In the State of Wisconsin, there is controversy regarding the legal validity of firing an employee who works in health care settings and educational settings who does not get the recommended flu shot each year.
I have a post on my views about the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of vaccines in protecting our health.
Prevention is Best
But are vaccines really prevention if you are giving every human infant exposure to the disease? This might be introducing a new type of health threat, that is independent of the disease it is trying to prevent. Maybe dead diseases, or weakened diseases, when injected into infants, increase the cases of auto-immunity, in which the immune system works against the health of the child instead of for it.
In that post I talk about how vaccines can make us complacent about learning how to prevent transmission of viruses and disease causing bacteria. If we rely too heavily on an infant's immune system to recognize, and eradicate all diseases it is presented with, we will not be pursuing funding for continuing to develop public health methods and technology to prevent widespread contagion.
In that spirit, I offer a tiny recommendation that I have been practicing that I think is about an often overlooked habit that people do in public that can transmit viruses.
On Public Use Pens and Pencils -
Use your own pen!
At almost every place where I can buy something using a credit card or a check there are public pens available to sign your name on the receipt. They have them at every clinic in the hospital we go to in little pots with flowers attached so you don't take them with you by accident.
I make sure to have my own pen in my checkbook, and another loose in my purse so that I never have to use the public pen.
Don't get me wrong, the public pen is a great convenience in helping me to spend my money. It might even be safer in terms of contagion than using paper money and coins which can get very soiled over time and use.
For those people who forget to carry a pen on them, or who are only wearing a swimsuit and don't carry a purse, I think that if we are going to have these available, they should come out of dispensers with UV lights in them to kill germs in-between uses. You can recycle them back into the container.
My New Invention Idea:
I imagine a dispenser similar to a toothpick dispenser, where you put them into a bin at the top at the beginning of the day, and they dispense with gravity at the bottom when they are sufficiently clean. If you have two of them, there will always be a pen ready (hopefully.) To begin, you simply need to estimate the number of customer transactions you will be having in a single day and load it each morning with enough pens.
I suppose the ideal way would be to have a metal pen casing that would be cleaned with alcohol and/or UV light and the ink part would get inserted into it at the point of dispensing. The cleaning would work against the dye or stain in the ink if you put the ink through the cleaning cycle.
Even easier would be eye scans, where nothing touches anything, but that is just too invasive. Fingerprint scanners would work, and be easy to clean, and the one where you just wave your card at the machine even better. But security seems lost in that way. I don't think you can convince enough people that they wouldn't be charged for just walking by a cash register.
And then there are those pen-like pointers that come attached to a wire to a screen that you sign. These are the worst because you can't really use your own pen, unless one end is a pointer itself, or you still have the cap on and it works for this application.
Anything that multiple people touch multiple times every single day increases the vector of possible distribution of contagions by magnitudes. This includes light switches, door knobs, door pull-bars, toilet seat handles, sink handles, telephones, headsets, hangars in clothing stores, benches, arm-rests, hand-holds on escalators, buttons on elevators, gasoline pump dispensers, lockset keypads.
Bring Back Cotton Gloves
I have a set of very thin jersey cloth gloves in a cornflower blue that I wore all winter. They were thin enough to keep on in the store, and fit tightly enough to touch and operate everything with good accuracy. They weren't so tight that they hurt my hands or limited my dexterity. I was wearing them throughout the day one time while running a number of errands, and realized I hadn't needed to take them off, except when I used the restroom. And then I remembered when I was a little girl of seven and my Sister, Mom and I were all wearing soft, white cotton cloth gloves for Easter to Church. What a great idea!
The white cotton made you very aware of what you were touching and how dirty it was. And at that age, I liked that if I wanted to rub my nose or eyes with the back of the glove, it worked like a handkerchief. Until my Mom reminded me to use a handkerchief.
So I bought some white cotton gloves from a costume shop. They are very pretty. I feel so Retro. I figure I need one for every day I don't wash my clothes, and so I am going to have seven pairs. Now, what to do for summer....
And back in the day, men actually used the pockets on their shirts to carry their own pen.
Now, we have the vestigial shirt pocket, which has no use whatsoever, and most people don't like the way the pocket feels on their t-shirts, so the pocket is left off.
I love the SteamPunk look. Its back in time with coal and steel, and no plastic. The men wear leather gloves. So hot!
So there is hope for a change in fashion.
I think that if we all put our minds to it, we can make the world a safer place to live in with regard to viruses and bacteria, without making it more dangerous in terms of toxins, radiation, sticking 48 strains of dead viruses into babies, and other ways. We just have to make up new rules for the competition...
Avoid contagion, without hurting the children or the environment the children grow up in.
In the State of Wisconsin, there is controversy regarding the legal validity of firing an employee who works in health care settings and educational settings who does not get the recommended flu shot each year.
I have a post on my views about the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of vaccines in protecting our health.
Prevention is Best
But are vaccines really prevention if you are giving every human infant exposure to the disease? This might be introducing a new type of health threat, that is independent of the disease it is trying to prevent. Maybe dead diseases, or weakened diseases, when injected into infants, increase the cases of auto-immunity, in which the immune system works against the health of the child instead of for it.
In that post I talk about how vaccines can make us complacent about learning how to prevent transmission of viruses and disease causing bacteria. If we rely too heavily on an infant's immune system to recognize, and eradicate all diseases it is presented with, we will not be pursuing funding for continuing to develop public health methods and technology to prevent widespread contagion.
In that spirit, I offer a tiny recommendation that I have been practicing that I think is about an often overlooked habit that people do in public that can transmit viruses.
On Public Use Pens and Pencils -
Use your own pen!
At almost every place where I can buy something using a credit card or a check there are public pens available to sign your name on the receipt. They have them at every clinic in the hospital we go to in little pots with flowers attached so you don't take them with you by accident.
I make sure to have my own pen in my checkbook, and another loose in my purse so that I never have to use the public pen.
Don't get me wrong, the public pen is a great convenience in helping me to spend my money. It might even be safer in terms of contagion than using paper money and coins which can get very soiled over time and use.
For those people who forget to carry a pen on them, or who are only wearing a swimsuit and don't carry a purse, I think that if we are going to have these available, they should come out of dispensers with UV lights in them to kill germs in-between uses. You can recycle them back into the container.
My New Invention Idea:
I imagine a dispenser similar to a toothpick dispenser, where you put them into a bin at the top at the beginning of the day, and they dispense with gravity at the bottom when they are sufficiently clean. If you have two of them, there will always be a pen ready (hopefully.) To begin, you simply need to estimate the number of customer transactions you will be having in a single day and load it each morning with enough pens.
I suppose the ideal way would be to have a metal pen casing that would be cleaned with alcohol and/or UV light and the ink part would get inserted into it at the point of dispensing. The cleaning would work against the dye or stain in the ink if you put the ink through the cleaning cycle.
Even easier would be eye scans, where nothing touches anything, but that is just too invasive. Fingerprint scanners would work, and be easy to clean, and the one where you just wave your card at the machine even better. But security seems lost in that way. I don't think you can convince enough people that they wouldn't be charged for just walking by a cash register.
And then there are those pen-like pointers that come attached to a wire to a screen that you sign. These are the worst because you can't really use your own pen, unless one end is a pointer itself, or you still have the cap on and it works for this application.
Anything that multiple people touch multiple times every single day increases the vector of possible distribution of contagions by magnitudes. This includes light switches, door knobs, door pull-bars, toilet seat handles, sink handles, telephones, headsets, hangars in clothing stores, benches, arm-rests, hand-holds on escalators, buttons on elevators, gasoline pump dispensers, lockset keypads.
Bring Back Cotton Gloves
I have a set of very thin jersey cloth gloves in a cornflower blue that I wore all winter. They were thin enough to keep on in the store, and fit tightly enough to touch and operate everything with good accuracy. They weren't so tight that they hurt my hands or limited my dexterity. I was wearing them throughout the day one time while running a number of errands, and realized I hadn't needed to take them off, except when I used the restroom. And then I remembered when I was a little girl of seven and my Sister, Mom and I were all wearing soft, white cotton cloth gloves for Easter to Church. What a great idea!
The white cotton made you very aware of what you were touching and how dirty it was. And at that age, I liked that if I wanted to rub my nose or eyes with the back of the glove, it worked like a handkerchief. Until my Mom reminded me to use a handkerchief.
So I bought some white cotton gloves from a costume shop. They are very pretty. I feel so Retro. I figure I need one for every day I don't wash my clothes, and so I am going to have seven pairs. Now, what to do for summer....
And back in the day, men actually used the pockets on their shirts to carry their own pen.
Now, we have the vestigial shirt pocket, which has no use whatsoever, and most people don't like the way the pocket feels on their t-shirts, so the pocket is left off.
I love the SteamPunk look. Its back in time with coal and steel, and no plastic. The men wear leather gloves. So hot!
So there is hope for a change in fashion.
I think that if we all put our minds to it, we can make the world a safer place to live in with regard to viruses and bacteria, without making it more dangerous in terms of toxins, radiation, sticking 48 strains of dead viruses into babies, and other ways. We just have to make up new rules for the competition...
Avoid contagion, without hurting the children or the environment the children grow up in.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Use Your Own Pen!
Vaccines are in the news again lately.
In the State of Wisconsin, there is controversy regarding the legal validity of firing an employee who works in health care settings and educational settings who does not get the recommended flu shot each year.
I have a post on my views about the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of vaccines in protecting our health.
Prevention is Best
But are vaccines really prevention if you are giving every human infant exposure to the disease? This might be introducing a new type of health threat, that is independent of the disease it is trying to prevent. Maybe dead diseases, or weakened diseases, when injected into infants, increase the cases of auto-immunity, in which the immune system works against the health of the child instead of for it.
In that post I talk about how vaccines can make us complacent about learning how to prevent transmission of viruses and disease causing bacteria. If we rely too heavily on an infant's immune system to recognize, and eradicate all diseases it is presented with, we will not be pursuing funding for continuing to develop public health methods and technology to prevent widespread contagion.
In that spirit, I offer a tiny recommendation that I have been practicing that I think is about an often overlooked habit that people do in public that can transmit viruses.
On Public Use Pens and Pencils -
Use your own pen!
At almost every place where I can buy something using a credit card or a check there are public pens available to sign your name on the receipt. They have them at every clinic in the hospital we go to in little pots with flowers attached so you don't take them with you by accident.
I make sure to have my own pen in my checkbook, and another loose in my purse so that I never have to use the public pen.
Don't get me wrong, the public pen is a great convenience in helping me to spend my money. It might even be safer in terms of contagion than using paper money and coins which can get very soiled over time and use.
For those people who forget to carry a pen on them, or who are only wearing a swimsuit and don't carry a purse, I think that if we are going to have these available, they should come out of dispensers with UV lights in them to kill germs in-between uses. You can recycle them back into the container.
My New Invention Idea:
I imagine a dispenser similar to a toothpick dispenser, where you put them into a bin at the top at the beginning of the day, and they dispense with gravity at the bottom when they are sufficiently clean. If you have two of them, there will always be a pen ready (hopefully.) To begin, you simply need to estimate the number of customer transactions you will be having in a single day and load it each morning with enough pens.
I suppose the ideal way would be to have a metal pen casing that would be cleaned with alcohol and/or UV light and the ink part would get inserted into it at the point of dispensing. The cleaning would work against the dye or stain in the ink if you put the ink through the cleaning cycle.
Even easier would be eye scans, where nothing touches anything, but that is just too invasive. Fingerprint scanners would work, and be easy to clean, and the one where you just wave your card at the machine even better. But security seems lost in that way. I don't think you can convince enough people that they wouldn't be charged for just walking by a cash register.
And then there are those pen-like pointers that come attached to a wire to a screen that you sign. These are the worst because you can't really use your own pen, unless one end is a pointer itself, or you still have the cap on and it works for this application.
Anything that multiple people touch multiple times every single day increases the vector of possible distribution of contagions by magnitudes. This includes light switches, door knobs, door pull-bars, toilet seat handles, sink handles, telephones, headsets, hangars in clothing stores, benches, arm-rests, hand-holds on escalators, buttons on elevators, gasoline pump dispensers, lockset keypads.
Bring Back Cotton Gloves
I have a set of very thin jersey cloth gloves in a cornflower blue that I wore all winter. They were thin enough to keep on in the store, and fit tightly enough to touch and operate everything with good accuracy. They weren't so tight that they hurt my hands or limited my dexterity. I was wearing them throughout the day one time while running a number of errands, and realized I hadn't needed to take them off, except when I used the restroom. And then I remembered when I was a little girl of seven and my Sister, Mom and I were all wearing soft, white cotton cloth gloves for Easter to Church. What a great idea!
The white cotton made you very aware of what you were touching and how dirty it was. And at that age, I liked that if I wanted to rub my nose or eyes with the back of the glove, it worked like a handkerchief. Until my Mom reminded me to use a handkerchief.
So I bought some white cotton gloves from a costume shop. They are very pretty. I feel so Retro. I figure I need one for every day I don't wash my clothes, and so I am going to have seven pairs. Now, what to do for summer....
And back in the day, men actually used the pockets on their shirts to carry their own pen.
Now, we have the vestigial pocket, which has no use whatsoever, and most people don't like the way the pocket feels on their t-shirts, so the pocket is left off.
I love the SteamPunk look. Its back in time with coal and steel, and no plastic. The men wear leather gloves. So hot!
So there is hope for a change in fashion.
I think that if we all put our minds to it, we can make the world a safer place to live in with regard to viruses and bacteria, without making it more dangerous in terms of toxins, radiation, sticking 48 strains of dead viruses into babies, and other ways. We just have to make up new rules for the competition...
Avoid contagion, without hurting the children or the environment the children grow up in.
In the State of Wisconsin, there is controversy regarding the legal validity of firing an employee who works in health care settings and educational settings who does not get the recommended flu shot each year.
I have a post on my views about the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of vaccines in protecting our health.
Prevention is Best
But are vaccines really prevention if you are giving every human infant exposure to the disease? This might be introducing a new type of health threat, that is independent of the disease it is trying to prevent. Maybe dead diseases, or weakened diseases, when injected into infants, increase the cases of auto-immunity, in which the immune system works against the health of the child instead of for it.
In that post I talk about how vaccines can make us complacent about learning how to prevent transmission of viruses and disease causing bacteria. If we rely too heavily on an infant's immune system to recognize, and eradicate all diseases it is presented with, we will not be pursuing funding for continuing to develop public health methods and technology to prevent widespread contagion.
In that spirit, I offer a tiny recommendation that I have been practicing that I think is about an often overlooked habit that people do in public that can transmit viruses.
On Public Use Pens and Pencils -
Use your own pen!
At almost every place where I can buy something using a credit card or a check there are public pens available to sign your name on the receipt. They have them at every clinic in the hospital we go to in little pots with flowers attached so you don't take them with you by accident.
I make sure to have my own pen in my checkbook, and another loose in my purse so that I never have to use the public pen.
Don't get me wrong, the public pen is a great convenience in helping me to spend my money. It might even be safer in terms of contagion than using paper money and coins which can get very soiled over time and use.
For those people who forget to carry a pen on them, or who are only wearing a swimsuit and don't carry a purse, I think that if we are going to have these available, they should come out of dispensers with UV lights in them to kill germs in-between uses. You can recycle them back into the container.
My New Invention Idea:
I imagine a dispenser similar to a toothpick dispenser, where you put them into a bin at the top at the beginning of the day, and they dispense with gravity at the bottom when they are sufficiently clean. If you have two of them, there will always be a pen ready (hopefully.) To begin, you simply need to estimate the number of customer transactions you will be having in a single day and load it each morning with enough pens.
I suppose the ideal way would be to have a metal pen casing that would be cleaned with alcohol and/or UV light and the ink part would get inserted into it at the point of dispensing. The cleaning would work against the dye or stain in the ink if you put the ink through the cleaning cycle.
Even easier would be eye scans, where nothing touches anything, but that is just too invasive. Fingerprint scanners would work, and be easy to clean, and the one where you just wave your card at the machine even better. But security seems lost in that way. I don't think you can convince enough people that they wouldn't be charged for just walking by a cash register.
And then there are those pen-like pointers that come attached to a wire to a screen that you sign. These are the worst because you can't really use your own pen, unless one end is a pointer itself, or you still have the cap on and it works for this application.
Anything that multiple people touch multiple times every single day increases the vector of possible distribution of contagions by magnitudes. This includes light switches, door knobs, door pull-bars, toilet seat handles, sink handles, telephones, headsets, hangars in clothing stores, benches, arm-rests, hand-holds on escalators, buttons on elevators, gasoline pump dispensers, lockset keypads.
Bring Back Cotton Gloves
I have a set of very thin jersey cloth gloves in a cornflower blue that I wore all winter. They were thin enough to keep on in the store, and fit tightly enough to touch and operate everything with good accuracy. They weren't so tight that they hurt my hands or limited my dexterity. I was wearing them throughout the day one time while running a number of errands, and realized I hadn't needed to take them off, except when I used the restroom. And then I remembered when I was a little girl of seven and my Sister, Mom and I were all wearing soft, white cotton cloth gloves for Easter to Church. What a great idea!
The white cotton made you very aware of what you were touching and how dirty it was. And at that age, I liked that if I wanted to rub my nose or eyes with the back of the glove, it worked like a handkerchief. Until my Mom reminded me to use a handkerchief.
So I bought some white cotton gloves from a costume shop. They are very pretty. I feel so Retro. I figure I need one for every day I don't wash my clothes, and so I am going to have seven pairs. Now, what to do for summer....
And back in the day, men actually used the pockets on their shirts to carry their own pen.
Now, we have the vestigial pocket, which has no use whatsoever, and most people don't like the way the pocket feels on their t-shirts, so the pocket is left off.
I love the SteamPunk look. Its back in time with coal and steel, and no plastic. The men wear leather gloves. So hot!
So there is hope for a change in fashion.
I think that if we all put our minds to it, we can make the world a safer place to live in with regard to viruses and bacteria, without making it more dangerous in terms of toxins, radiation, sticking 48 strains of dead viruses into babies, and other ways. We just have to make up new rules for the competition...
Avoid contagion, without hurting the children or the environment the children grow up in.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Andrew Wakefield - Autism/MMR Doctor, found guilty of misconduct
Posted today on another forum:
I am very sad that this has happened.
I read about Dr. Wakefield's research when it first came out and it was accepted then. That was back when Autism was considered quite rare. My son had been diagnosed about two years previously with Autism and there was hardly any information about it anywhere that I could find. I had to travel to another city to find anyone who knew anything about it, and I ended up enrolling my son in a research study to pay for his treatment because our insurance refused to cover Autism at all. At that time Autism was considered completely incurable and the only options offered to us were to keep him comfortable and try to last as long as we could before putting him into an institution.
Things have come a long way since then, and mostly because of parents, not Doctors. I got involved with parent groups who were trying to find some answers and these parents raised the money themselves to pay to have their Doctor flown to where research was being done and to bring back information that would possibly help their children.
I think that when Autism was thought of as some kind of orphan disease nobody seemed to care whether vaccinations had anything to do with it or not. Now that Autism is more prevalent, there are huge interests and lots more at stake and so the dialogue has become quite heated. Its scary to think that now Doctors are going to be afraid to question anything with regard to vaccination for fear that everything they do will be scoured for problems and their livelihoods will be at stake.
I am concerned that one of the largest groups that is raising money for Autism research is primarily focusing on the genetics. I am all for finding the genetic markers -- if it leads to successful treatments. However, this area is scary to me because I am thinking that then people will get their child tested before birth for Autism and use this evidence to abort the child, and if that is the main way of dealing with Autism, there will be little incentive to look for post-birth solutions. And this will mean that the true cause of Autism will remain hidden from us.
I am concerned that people will think that Autism is a type of genetic birth defect. Because even if there is a genetic predisposition to Autism, that doesn't mean that all children with the genetic markers will be certain to develop Autism. The reason I say this is that pre-1990, there were far fewer children with Autism. The genetic make-up of our children didn't suddenly become weaker in the 1990's. These children, born even one decade sooner, might have been normal, or maybe even a bit nerdy or shy or something, but not Autistic. They might have been the Steve Job's of their generation. But somehow this potential was stolen from them and I think that however this happened, we will never know unless brave people continue to look for causes outside of our genes as well as inside them.
For the complete discussion of this topic from the original forum, go to:
POF Forums, Science/philosophy Forum
http://forums.plentyoffish.com/datingPosts14040929.aspx
I am very sad that this has happened.
I read about Dr. Wakefield's research when it first came out and it was accepted then. That was back when Autism was considered quite rare. My son had been diagnosed about two years previously with Autism and there was hardly any information about it anywhere that I could find. I had to travel to another city to find anyone who knew anything about it, and I ended up enrolling my son in a research study to pay for his treatment because our insurance refused to cover Autism at all. At that time Autism was considered completely incurable and the only options offered to us were to keep him comfortable and try to last as long as we could before putting him into an institution.
Things have come a long way since then, and mostly because of parents, not Doctors. I got involved with parent groups who were trying to find some answers and these parents raised the money themselves to pay to have their Doctor flown to where research was being done and to bring back information that would possibly help their children.
I think that when Autism was thought of as some kind of orphan disease nobody seemed to care whether vaccinations had anything to do with it or not. Now that Autism is more prevalent, there are huge interests and lots more at stake and so the dialogue has become quite heated. Its scary to think that now Doctors are going to be afraid to question anything with regard to vaccination for fear that everything they do will be scoured for problems and their livelihoods will be at stake.
I am concerned that one of the largest groups that is raising money for Autism research is primarily focusing on the genetics. I am all for finding the genetic markers -- if it leads to successful treatments. However, this area is scary to me because I am thinking that then people will get their child tested before birth for Autism and use this evidence to abort the child, and if that is the main way of dealing with Autism, there will be little incentive to look for post-birth solutions. And this will mean that the true cause of Autism will remain hidden from us.
I am concerned that people will think that Autism is a type of genetic birth defect. Because even if there is a genetic predisposition to Autism, that doesn't mean that all children with the genetic markers will be certain to develop Autism. The reason I say this is that pre-1990, there were far fewer children with Autism. The genetic make-up of our children didn't suddenly become weaker in the 1990's. These children, born even one decade sooner, might have been normal, or maybe even a bit nerdy or shy or something, but not Autistic. They might have been the Steve Job's of their generation. But somehow this potential was stolen from them and I think that however this happened, we will never know unless brave people continue to look for causes outside of our genes as well as inside them.
For the complete discussion of this topic from the original forum, go to:
POF Forums, Science/philosophy Forum
http://forums.plentyoffish.com/datingPosts14040929.aspx
Opinions on the topic of Vegetarianism - Part 8
Continuation of a topic. See part 1 for an introduction.
Note: Items in italics are quotes of other people.
Ideoform Msg. 1029
"Is a bowel full of bacteria considered meat or veggie ?"
Interesting you should ask.
Are you considering switching over to bacterism?
Whatever yogurt, aged cheeses, miso, saurkraut, pickles, beer, wine, tempeh, and any other fermented product is, is the answer.
It's called pro-biotics. As opposed to anti-biotics. With pro-biotics, such as acidolphus bifidus, and bifo-bacteria, you eat the bacteria right in the food product. The bacteria then populate your intestines and actually help you to pre-digest your food for you, saving your digestive system from having to do it all. This allows you to eat things that humans can't really digest well, or particular people can't digest well, like beans. The bacteria also produce waste products that can be beneficial, like vitamin B12. This happens in animal digestive systems, also, which is why animal flesh is a source of vitamin B12.
With anti-biotics, you aren't getting the living agent (a fungus found in dirt) you are benefiting from its toxic secretions that help the particular life-form to compete in the cruel world of bacteria, mold and fungus war for dominance in a particular ecosystem.
(Note: When you take anti-biotics, you are ingesting the toxic secretions of fungi and bacteria that they use to kill each other with or slow each other's development. This can also kill off the beneficial "good" bacteria that your normal digestive system relies on to stay healthy, and so you should take a pro-biotic supplement along with the anti-biotic, or eat lots of live yogurt cultures. Otherwise, the yeasts in your system can "take over" and overpopulate your digestive tract. )
We have manufactured yeasts for breads and beer that are so strong and so virulent, that unchecked, they can take over your system and cause lots of damage because the yeast has a stage of development where it grows a mycelium, which is like tree roots, that grows into your intestines and can cause permeability, thus allowing undigested food to get directly into your bloodstream, and this can cause your immune system to react to your favorite foods as if they were a virus or forgein object. So sometimes a round of antibiotics can be the precursor to developing a food allergy or food sensitivity.)
So, I guess, the food you are eating, then, the dead part, like the milk the yogurt is made out of is a "meat" product, because it is produced by animals, but the bacteria that is in the yogurt (eating the milk as you are eating them) is not "meat" in the classic sense, but it is a living thing. If the fermented product is a vegetable or fruit, then it might still be classified as a vegan product, but with the interesting added component of living entities who are also eating the same food at the same time you are, but often end up passing right through you in the end. So I guess you could say that the various vegetarian life forms are sharing a living space for a while....
Wine and beer are made with yeast. Yeast is alive but can be stored for very long times because it can go into a sort of hibernation mode when there is no nutrient or water present. Usually, the yeast is dead when you eat it, from too much alcohol, or too much heat (as when it is used to raise dough in making breads.) But sometimes the cooking/fermenting process doesn't kill all the yeast off, and you get living yeast into your system, which then takes up residence and further digests some of the sugars and starches in your food as it passes through.
Mushrooms eat vegetables, but do not produce their own energy through photosynthesis, like plants do. Mushrooms are vegetarians, then. And people who eat mushrooms are really eating a fungi.
So what do you classify a fungi? It's alive, it eats dead and decaying vegetables. I guess you could call vegetarians fungi, then. If you want to.
If you do, however, I will then compare you with flies, and mosquitos. Who live off of animals -- the flies eat dead animals and the mosquitos eat off of the live ones, like vampire bats.
Here is a study on the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. (Not supplements.)
"This latest study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease confirms previous studies on vegetable intake and dementia. Here, healthy subjects between the ages of 45 and 102 underwent cognitive testing while their blood was checked for antioxidant micronutrients and biomarkers of oxidative stress. Their daily fruit and vegetable intake was also assessed.
The subjects in the high fruit and veggie intake group scored significantly higher on the cognitive tests, and they also had higher antioxidant levels and lower biomarkers for oxidative stress than those in the low intake group.
Cognitive test scores were positively correlated with blood levels of a-tocopherol and lycopene, and negatively correlated with F2a isoprostanes (potent vasoconstrictors) and protein carbonyls – a byproduct of oxidation that causes cell damage.
The results were independent of age, gender, body mass index, education, total cholesterol, LDL- and HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and albumin.
The researchers concluded that “modification of nutritional habits aimed at increasing intake of fruits and vegetables should be encouraged to lower prevalence of cognitive impairment in later life.”
They focused their recommendation on fruits and vegetables as opposed to the antioxidants themselves, as previous studies have shown that while antioxidants from food have a beneficial impact on your brain and can prevent cognitive decline, supplements do not appear to offer the same benefits.
It seems your brain is too smart to settle for second best, and the key for brain health is FOOD based, and can likely not be duplicated by supplements alone."
~Source: Eurekalert September 8, 2009, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease August 2009: 17(4); 921-927
=====================================
Ideoform Msg. 1032
Ahh, so that answers what has happened to you....
eating pre-digested meat, partially consumed by bacteria during the decay process.
Must be nice to not only have your vegetables digested for you by animals, now you also have the benefit of having the meat from those animals partially digested for you by decay. You big baby.....
:)
=============================
This thread spans the dates
1/13/2009 -- 12/5/2009
Postscript:
I think that anyone actually reading my opinions here should look at the original thread for some very good postings by other people.
To see the entire thread, you can go to:
http://forums.plentyoffish.com/datingPosts11606996.aspx
Subject: Science/philosophy
Thread Title: Hypothetical dilemma for Vegans/PETA...
This thread spans the dates 1/13/2009 -- 12/5/2009, has 1025 postings, and spans 42 pages.
Someday I might have some time and go through them and put up another entry of these ideas, resources, links and some of the funny, and interesting parts. However, what I would edit out would include some of the extreme stuff, and the repetitive stuff, and the stuff that is just lame. Some of it has some "shock" value and could be very entertaining to some readers, so if you have an interest in this topic and want to see it all, I think the original thread speaks for itself.
Disclaimer:
Even though I tried to be sincere, honest, accurate and factual and to quote other sources accurately, occasionally I have made some mistakes and I might have made some and not caught them. I hope that if you quote me in another context, that you will double-check my sources and make sure everything is accurate and spelled correctly. I didn't always stick to the topic, I rambled quite a bit, and I hope that anyone taking the time to read this will forgive me for that.
However, I created this series mainly for myself, because for some reason the thread intrigued me enough to get me to think very carefully about the topic, and to spend a lot of time and energy researching and composing my posts. So I guess this was a nice hobby for me that year, and it distracted me from some other issues for a while.
Thank you to Blogger for storing this for me and for allowing me to share my views with anyone who happens to be interested and stops by here.
I welcome and look forward to reading any comments, corrections and additional discussion on this topic.
Update:
I currently follow the Blood Type Diet. I am a type O negative, and following the blood type suggestions and eating meat sometimes is the way I feel best. I am still very sensitive and react to gluten and strictly avoid all gluten in my diet. I can eat some dairy now, but I have to limit it to certain kinds like Kefir.
I often go long periods without eating meat at all, and I eat very little red meat. If I do eat red meat it is grass-fed meat, or free range animals, like buffalo, or occasionally, deer, I eat some organically raised free-range and locally grown chicken less than once a week. I know this sounds "picky" but it really just reflects my long history of eating very little meat, and so I can afford to be picky about the little I do eat.
I don't think I would have ever learned so much about food and nutrition and tried so many different diets if I hadn't had health problems for over 20 years from being an un-diagnosed Celiac. At one time it was so bad I thought I wouldn't make it another year. I had so many symptoms I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I don't wish this on anyone else, but it took me on this journey that taught me so much and made me so aware of food, nutrition and made me think about where my food came from and how it was produced, and the meaning of nourishment in all its forms, physical, social, and emotional.
Note: Items in italics are quotes of other people.
Ideoform Msg. 1029
"Is a bowel full of bacteria considered meat or veggie ?"
Interesting you should ask.
Are you considering switching over to bacterism?
Whatever yogurt, aged cheeses, miso, saurkraut, pickles, beer, wine, tempeh, and any other fermented product is, is the answer.
It's called pro-biotics. As opposed to anti-biotics. With pro-biotics, such as acidolphus bifidus, and bifo-bacteria, you eat the bacteria right in the food product. The bacteria then populate your intestines and actually help you to pre-digest your food for you, saving your digestive system from having to do it all. This allows you to eat things that humans can't really digest well, or particular people can't digest well, like beans. The bacteria also produce waste products that can be beneficial, like vitamin B12. This happens in animal digestive systems, also, which is why animal flesh is a source of vitamin B12.
With anti-biotics, you aren't getting the living agent (a fungus found in dirt) you are benefiting from its toxic secretions that help the particular life-form to compete in the cruel world of bacteria, mold and fungus war for dominance in a particular ecosystem.
(Note: When you take anti-biotics, you are ingesting the toxic secretions of fungi and bacteria that they use to kill each other with or slow each other's development. This can also kill off the beneficial "good" bacteria that your normal digestive system relies on to stay healthy, and so you should take a pro-biotic supplement along with the anti-biotic, or eat lots of live yogurt cultures. Otherwise, the yeasts in your system can "take over" and overpopulate your digestive tract. )
We have manufactured yeasts for breads and beer that are so strong and so virulent, that unchecked, they can take over your system and cause lots of damage because the yeast has a stage of development where it grows a mycelium, which is like tree roots, that grows into your intestines and can cause permeability, thus allowing undigested food to get directly into your bloodstream, and this can cause your immune system to react to your favorite foods as if they were a virus or forgein object. So sometimes a round of antibiotics can be the precursor to developing a food allergy or food sensitivity.)
So, I guess, the food you are eating, then, the dead part, like the milk the yogurt is made out of is a "meat" product, because it is produced by animals, but the bacteria that is in the yogurt (eating the milk as you are eating them) is not "meat" in the classic sense, but it is a living thing. If the fermented product is a vegetable or fruit, then it might still be classified as a vegan product, but with the interesting added component of living entities who are also eating the same food at the same time you are, but often end up passing right through you in the end. So I guess you could say that the various vegetarian life forms are sharing a living space for a while....
Wine and beer are made with yeast. Yeast is alive but can be stored for very long times because it can go into a sort of hibernation mode when there is no nutrient or water present. Usually, the yeast is dead when you eat it, from too much alcohol, or too much heat (as when it is used to raise dough in making breads.) But sometimes the cooking/fermenting process doesn't kill all the yeast off, and you get living yeast into your system, which then takes up residence and further digests some of the sugars and starches in your food as it passes through.
Mushrooms eat vegetables, but do not produce their own energy through photosynthesis, like plants do. Mushrooms are vegetarians, then. And people who eat mushrooms are really eating a fungi.
So what do you classify a fungi? It's alive, it eats dead and decaying vegetables. I guess you could call vegetarians fungi, then. If you want to.
If you do, however, I will then compare you with flies, and mosquitos. Who live off of animals -- the flies eat dead animals and the mosquitos eat off of the live ones, like vampire bats.
Here is a study on the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. (Not supplements.)
"This latest study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease confirms previous studies on vegetable intake and dementia. Here, healthy subjects between the ages of 45 and 102 underwent cognitive testing while their blood was checked for antioxidant micronutrients and biomarkers of oxidative stress. Their daily fruit and vegetable intake was also assessed.
The subjects in the high fruit and veggie intake group scored significantly higher on the cognitive tests, and they also had higher antioxidant levels and lower biomarkers for oxidative stress than those in the low intake group.
Cognitive test scores were positively correlated with blood levels of a-tocopherol and lycopene, and negatively correlated with F2a isoprostanes (potent vasoconstrictors) and protein carbonyls – a byproduct of oxidation that causes cell damage.
The results were independent of age, gender, body mass index, education, total cholesterol, LDL- and HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and albumin.
The researchers concluded that “modification of nutritional habits aimed at increasing intake of fruits and vegetables should be encouraged to lower prevalence of cognitive impairment in later life.”
They focused their recommendation on fruits and vegetables as opposed to the antioxidants themselves, as previous studies have shown that while antioxidants from food have a beneficial impact on your brain and can prevent cognitive decline, supplements do not appear to offer the same benefits.
It seems your brain is too smart to settle for second best, and the key for brain health is FOOD based, and can likely not be duplicated by supplements alone."
~Source: Eurekalert September 8, 2009, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease August 2009: 17(4); 921-927
=====================================
Ideoform Msg. 1032
"I really, really like well aged steak -- let it sit around for about 20 days before eating ..."
Ahh, so that answers what has happened to you....
eating pre-digested meat, partially consumed by bacteria during the decay process.
Must be nice to not only have your vegetables digested for you by animals, now you also have the benefit of having the meat from those animals partially digested for you by decay. You big baby.....
:)
=============================
This thread spans the dates
1/13/2009 -- 12/5/2009
Postscript:
I think that anyone actually reading my opinions here should look at the original thread for some very good postings by other people.
To see the entire thread, you can go to:
http://forums.plentyoffish.com/datingPosts11606996.aspx
Subject: Science/philosophy
Thread Title: Hypothetical dilemma for Vegans/PETA...
This thread spans the dates 1/13/2009 -- 12/5/2009, has 1025 postings, and spans 42 pages.
Someday I might have some time and go through them and put up another entry of these ideas, resources, links and some of the funny, and interesting parts. However, what I would edit out would include some of the extreme stuff, and the repetitive stuff, and the stuff that is just lame. Some of it has some "shock" value and could be very entertaining to some readers, so if you have an interest in this topic and want to see it all, I think the original thread speaks for itself.
Disclaimer:
Even though I tried to be sincere, honest, accurate and factual and to quote other sources accurately, occasionally I have made some mistakes and I might have made some and not caught them. I hope that if you quote me in another context, that you will double-check my sources and make sure everything is accurate and spelled correctly. I didn't always stick to the topic, I rambled quite a bit, and I hope that anyone taking the time to read this will forgive me for that.
However, I created this series mainly for myself, because for some reason the thread intrigued me enough to get me to think very carefully about the topic, and to spend a lot of time and energy researching and composing my posts. So I guess this was a nice hobby for me that year, and it distracted me from some other issues for a while.
Thank you to Blogger for storing this for me and for allowing me to share my views with anyone who happens to be interested and stops by here.
I welcome and look forward to reading any comments, corrections and additional discussion on this topic.
Update:
I currently follow the Blood Type Diet. I am a type O negative, and following the blood type suggestions and eating meat sometimes is the way I feel best. I am still very sensitive and react to gluten and strictly avoid all gluten in my diet. I can eat some dairy now, but I have to limit it to certain kinds like Kefir.
I often go long periods without eating meat at all, and I eat very little red meat. If I do eat red meat it is grass-fed meat, or free range animals, like buffalo, or occasionally, deer, I eat some organically raised free-range and locally grown chicken less than once a week. I know this sounds "picky" but it really just reflects my long history of eating very little meat, and so I can afford to be picky about the little I do eat.
I don't think I would have ever learned so much about food and nutrition and tried so many different diets if I hadn't had health problems for over 20 years from being an un-diagnosed Celiac. At one time it was so bad I thought I wouldn't make it another year. I had so many symptoms I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I don't wish this on anyone else, but it took me on this journey that taught me so much and made me so aware of food, nutrition and made me think about where my food came from and how it was produced, and the meaning of nourishment in all its forms, physical, social, and emotional.
Opinions on the topic of Vegetarianism - Part 7
This is a continuation of a topic. See part 1 for an introduction.
Note: Italics refer to quotes posted by other people.
Ideoform Msg. 647
It's metaphysics. You can quote me as the author, but I learned it from studying truth in various forms over the years. The physical world is constructed this way.
Caution-- Boring explanation part follows:
The universe at a sub-atomic level is constructed of vibrating strings, by a current theory in physics. The vibrations come into existence at a quantum level from which many possibilities exist. This is the point at which consciousness interacts with form (through movement), and ultimately the universe you see is the result of the collective intersection of all consciousness, particularly your own. By the very nature of being the observer--you select outcomes. The present moment is the pivot point.
We all create the future whether you believe this or not... or study metaphysics. On a very mundane level, what you put out into the world comes back to you. If you are a very aggressive person, the whole world seems wary and possibly aggressive. Psychologists call it "projection" but it is also a way of seeing the creation process.
It's been called new age mumbo jumbo, until quantum physics, the formulation of the holographic paradigm, the study of dark matter and string theory began seeing these relationships in the study of atomic structure, and astronomy. Yet it's been a part of human knowledge for dozens of centuries.
There now is no question at all in quantum physics--proven by replicated experiments--that the act of observation changes what is observed at an atomic level. Not only that, but the interactions between various paired sub-atomic particles happens simultaneously at a distance, with nothing, not even a wave form, in-between them.
Ecclesiastes 11:1 "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth." “Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later.”
Galatians 6:7, “... A man reaps what he sows.”
Luke 6:38,“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
If we were Gods to animals (or plants, or whatever), would we consider their pleas as assiduously as we hope God will consider ours? If the universe is a mirror of our hearts, and inner longings, and the level of compassion we have learned to show, then perhaps the world we see is only the result of our own limitations of compassion, not God's. Perhaps we kill and are killed because they are two sides of the same coin.
Our true limitations, then are the scope of our own ideals, expectancies, conscience, and dreams, not the physical laws we then operate with as a result of our scientific understanding.
What use is a tool if it is used against its purpose? Is the physical understanding more important than how it comes to be?
=========================================
Ideoform Msg. 771
I know, its quotes. I just had to post this one because when I read it, it appears to directly answer the original OP's question of this thread:
"My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarfs in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures."
~George Bernard Shaw
OK. So I am going to personalize this quote with more comments about my experiences with vegetarianism just so you have more to digest (so to speak.) :)
I was discussing vegetarianism with my sister yesterday. My sister became vegetarian "for her health" in high school, (mainly to loose weight, and to train for competitive swimming) but a few years later went back to eating meat because she heard it wasn't that much healthier to avoid meat altogether. She said she ended up eating too many refined carbohydrates, and too much cheese...and wasn't really staying as thin as she would like. She's been a size 4 to size 6 her whole life.
"I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer
I, on the other hand, ate meat in high school, (and tons of dairy products) and was very thin, also. I thought my sister was just doing a fad diet at the time. But later, in college, while taking a philosophy class, and studying world religions, I became a vegetarian for ethical reasons, like Mr. Singer above.
In some ways I felt really strong for a while, I was a crew on a racing sailboat, lifted weights, did running, took a bicycle everywhere, learned fencing, ballroom dancing and yoga. But after some very stressful events, I got sick and didn't heal well from it. I think the stress caused me to react to some foods I was eating, and in particular, wheat and dairy products, but I didn't know this then. At the time, I was eating a lot of cheese sandwiches, and I think just because I was busy with college and three jobs, I really didn't want to cook that much from scratch.
So I felt gradually worse over time. When I got married ten years later, I went to eating meat again so the whole family could eat the same things. I got distressing symptoms for about a year after starting to eat meat again because my body wasn't used to digesting meat--meat requires a very different type of digestion; more stomach acid, mainly to kill bacteria, and the chemical urea is produced (which isn't the case with vegan foods) which can build up in your system, crystalize and cause gout, which is very painful.
I didn't get gout, because I think gout is mainly from eating more than 3 oz. of meat a day, combined (usually) with drinking alcohol (particularly red wine.) I hadn't drunk alcohol for 35 years. But as we age, our kidneys and liver have a harder time flushing out the urea quickly enough before it starts to build up and crystalize in the body, so many people I know who are my age group are getting gout.
Anyway, after more stressful events related to my child being in the hospital (hospital food is not that healthy...plus sitting around in waiting rooms worrying is probably the worst form of non-exercise there is.) I gained weight, even though I was eating pretty much a normal American diet, and a normal amount of calories. I got high cholesterol, and always felt fatigued, even though I was less active than before.
I have finally lost weight, after completely eliminating two specific proteins in my diet...gluten and casein. I am now the healthiest I have been since high school. I think going on a vegetarian diet for your health is not going to automatically make you more healthy.
From my experience, there is a lot more to eating healthy than just giving up meat, because what's left after you eliminate meat from the typical American diet is really pretty un-healthy food unless you are very careful about what you eat.
Plus there is the side-effect of annoying your friends and family if you are not diplomatic about it, and active relationships with friends and family are essential to good health:
"Vegetarianism is harmless enough though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness."
~Robert Hutchison, address to the British Medical Association, 1930
To complicate things even more I met someone I really like who happens to be a vegetarian. He does eat some fish. (This is not why we met, or what we have in common.) Even though I was a vegetarian for 17 years, he's the first vegetarian I have ever dated. (So now I get to see what it is like from the other side of the dining table.)
He had a major heart attack (he ate meat before the aattack.) He actually died at one point while in surgery. He avoided getting a pacemaker and further surgery by changing his diet and exercising, learning to meditate, and taking certain supplements designed to remediate deficiencies shown in his labwork, among other things.
He was given less than 5 years to live and has outlived that by several years. He can't stand even the smell of meat cooking now. He also remembers how poorly the animals were treated when he was growing up in a farming community, and says that nobody would eat meat if they were to visit the places animals are raised and slaughtered now.
"Heart attacks... God's revenge for eating his little animal friends."
~Author Unknown
"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
He's now the healthiest, most active person I have dated so far, since dating again.
Recently we went out with a friend of his who wanted to go to a Polish buffet that had a lot of meat dishes, and he couldn't go there because he can't stomach the strong smell of the meat cooking. He had a very viceral reaction to it.
"Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own."
~Robert Louis Stevenson
I didn't go looking for a vegetarian to date. It wasn't on my profile. I just found that a compatible person for me happened to be a vegetarian even though I wasn't anymore. I think that vegetarians show a certain compassion toward the human condition that my situation requires.
I had thought when I eliminated gluten and casein that I would not be able to go back to being a vegetarian, but I now only eat fish and eggs and no other meat products. I like this way of eating. I feel good, I like the foods I cook and buy, I'm not hungry, I don't miss the way I used to eat at all.
I can manage both limitations now since I have been on the gluten free/casein free diet for over a year and I have it memorized and really know it. I can cook everything and find lots to eat wherever I go now. Restaraunts are pretty good with special diets, allergies and all kinds of special requests. There are many more products on the shelves that are healthy choices for prepared foods too...that aren't just junk laced with preservatives, artificial flavorings and pesticides.
The latest on my health, is I have gone back to doing all the things I used to do in high school and college again, with no fatigue, no medications anymore, no problems, no dieting to loose weight, but I am loosing a small amount each week (1/2 a pound or so) with no cravings or hunger for anything. I run 3 miles every day, learned swing dancing and go dancing weekly, I lift weights, go sailing again, and now am going touring bicycling again. I take a chewable calcium, some vitamin B12, once in a while, and I cook with cast iron pots for iron (which works--my Doctor is surprised at my iron levels being very good.)
"In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death - even vegetarians."
~Mr. Spock, Star Trek, "Wolf in the Fold"
I think that vegetarianism is an attempt to create a life that does not further any kind of suffering....not to save animals from death, for we all die, animals included, but to create a world where suffering of any kind, of any living being is considered with compassion and not ignorance. We are a big part of forming the world we live in--and how we learn to treat each other and learn compassion is a big part of how we experience it. How can we learn compassion better? This is one way.
I think the universe is perfect, but in Gnosticism, the world is a bad place created by a nasty God (demiurge) who was created by the Universe and the material world is a nasty place that we must learn to escape. Evidence for this is the fact that simply to exist we must end something else's life.
Sadly, to create fuel for our bodies that doesn't kill something has changed our health. Processed, food-like substances (fake food) are usually produced from living plants, anyway. To eat only non-living substances might remove all connection we have to the living world, the world of nature, God's world, divorcing us from our source even further.
"If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat? "
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Ideoform Msg. 813
"One-quarter of what you eat keeps you alive.
The other three-quarters keeps your doctor alive."
~Hieroglyph found in an ancient Egyptian tomb.
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Ideoform Msg. 925
Morals vs. moralizing.
It's almost impossible to state a moral or value without making someone else feel guilty or wrong. Any social pressure that is not law, is a choice people make. If I set my personal standard to only obeying the law, I might still do some harmful (or stupid) things, but the government leaves that up to me. That doesn't make it better to do--my behavior just won't put me in jail or have me paying a fine. Using seatbelts and child car seats used to be voluntary...but they were always a good idea. I know, I used to be in the Children's Hospital a lot, and saw the end results.
So if I set myself a standard--any standard--that is more work, more sacrifice, more costly, than that required by law, I set myself up for the social consequence of making other people uncomfortable around me sometimes...and sometimes uncomfortable enough that they ridicule me to feel better about what they aren't doing, that I am doing.
It is so interesting to see such a bland topic as this: "What some people aren't eating."
getting so much attention. Its not enough to make the news, generally, what people aren't doing. People are smoking less. Not that great a news story compared to so many others. That doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment for human health. Some people lost their jobs in the tobacco industry because of less consumption. Perhaps that will make the news someday....
If you have a value, and follow it, that isn't news either. Until you start to tell other people your value-- that is considered preaching. (Unless you are a parent, then it is considered acceptable to tell a person a value as long as they are underage.) So no matter what the value is; protecting the environment, minimising the suffering of food animals, treating minorities as equals, going to war, loosing weight, running a marathon for a charity, hunting game, dying your hair, sending thank you notes.... if you have to explain what you are doing to others--instead of just doing it--it can be preachy sounding.
For example. Your friend has lost 30 pounds and looks great, you start to talk, and he/she says to you:
"I went on a 'cleanse' because my Doctor recommended it for my heart."
"I am loosing weight because I am on a fast for peace."
"I decided to become a vegetarian because I don't digest meat very well."
"I joined Peta and they are all vegetarians, so I became a vegan."
"I have cancer, and the chemo drugs make me nauseous."
"I have aids."
"I became a Buddist and am following a 10 day fast."
"I qualified for America's Biggest Looser and just got back from three weeks at the studio."
"My husband died six months ago, and I can't seem to cook anything just for myself without missing him so much."
The answer makes all the difference. Some of the answers might make you wish you hadn't asked. But the end result is the same...your friend lost some weight. The significance of it can be so varied...and this is the difference between morals and moralizing. The person who chose to become a Buddist, or a Peta activist, or a hunger-striker is going to make a very different impression on you with their answer even if they do nothing else but to answer your question--no preaching, no moralizing, no other explanation.
The only way to get this issue this much attention on this dating forum was to set it to an extreme--where what is not being eaten is a matter of life or death. (However, in almost no real-life circumstance is not eating something going to be life or death unless you are giving up all food entirely, and permanently, and that would be suicide or mental illness on the level of anorexia. Hmmm, well, I guess diabetes and sugar would fit this, as well as Celiac and gluten, and peanut allergies and peanuts.) The question would have to be on the order of: "What political issue would make you go on a hunger strike?" or something like that.
But the alternative question might sound wacky, like; "Would you eat meat if you were deathly allergic to it, if you were in a banquet honoring a famous cattle rancher?" No meat eater is going to be risking their lives immediately by eating normal meat, so you can't reverse the question. Can anyone come up with the logical opposite question from the one being asked? For one thing, people don't usually eat meat primarily for moral/ethical/religious reasons.
But this is a developed country, and most people who are truly starving are on the desert island of public opinion...they are invisible to us.
We can focus on the extreme case of a well-nourished vegetarian person falling onto a desert island in a plane wreck, or we can focus on how to talk about real starvation, and how food choices in developed countries affect the rest of the world and what actions might be able to solve the problems created by the vagaries of the food industy and distribution issues.
If being vegetarian helps anyone or anything, then isn't that a good thing? And then, if it is, does it have to be moralized about? Or can it just be something good, like wearing seat-belts?
I think people reject having to explain wanting to live....
There is nothing wrong with wanting to live in a survival situation...and also nothing wrong with being required to bend one's values in order to survive if necessary. And also nothing wrong with not bending at all...and not surviving. (As long as that isn't against the law, its their choice, right?)
Some people seem to think they can't live comfortably without meat, and others see meat eating as a luxury they can easily give up for a variety of reasons.
But asking for an explanation means you have to accept the answer being written here, and not reject that the explanation is even being given. After all, this is a free website forum, nobody is loosing any money, and nobody has to read all the postings, or any postings at all. As long as people follow the forum posting rules, you can give your opinion. Moralizing has its own forum, in the form of the hidden Religion forum.
I say, lets find a real problem...not a plane wreck, or some other statistically insignificant problem that is mainly by chance or accident. And lets find some real solutions. And maybe a part of the solution will include changing the way we eat in this country. And that might be something almost all of us are already trying to do anyway.
I say, lets talk about some of the ideas people have come up with about food production, distribution and consumption that seem to be designed to solve some issue that concerns people. Like:
* Fair Trade,
* Buying food locally grown,
* Organic food production,
* Non-genetically modified food,
* Buying heirloom varieties to protect biodiversity,
* Supporting local farmers by going to farmer's markets.
I have one. I like what the Kosher designation tries to do. It's a bit out of date, and specific to mainly one culture/religion, but a good idea nonetheless. It is like an independent evaluation of food, like when an inspector comes to a restaraunt and looks for cleanliness back in the kitchen where you as a customer don't get to see.
Only I think we could get or create a group (probably not Peta--they obviously are good at rabble-rousing, not inspection) that could go in and inspect various aspects of food production/distribution/consumption with regard to ethical issues like the food blog The Ethicurian points out. The group could be non-sectarian, or multi-sectarian, or have a collaborative approach with scientific methodologies, and health specialists.
There is a guy on Oprah who specializes in health coaching, who developed some standards for food and has been allowed to put a symbol on packaged foods saying that they meet his health standards for weight loss reasons, such as low-sodium and low-fat.
The advantage of his label is like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Quality used to be. Another pair of eyes on the industry, so you can find foods you trust to be of a certain quality based on certain pre-set standards. Now we have a similar symbol for "Fair Trade," and for "Organic," although these standards sometimes are variable. We also have the "No Animal Testing" label for cosmetics.
The problem is agreeing on a standard, any standard that might make sense. But if the health coach on Oprah can do it, anybody can. You don't need a federal law to do this. You can just start one. Say, the standard is the least suffering for a food animal during its slaughter. Someone trained to do this could visit slaughterhouses, and rate them on a scale of one to ten, and simply publish the results somewhere. This makes the invisible, visible. We can't see how an animal died on the package when we buy the meat. Not that anyone needs a photo...but having someone else you trust, visit the place and give it a rating makes the unknown variable now something you can base your purchase on.
Its the stuff that hides in the shadows that can rot...the things nobody sees because they don't care to look...the places nobody wants to go...like in the sewers. The sewers are necessary to all of us, but why should any of us have to go down there just to make sure things are running smoothly and up to code? That's what inspectors are for. And independent inspectors might be nice, if there was something going on that corrupted the original inspectors. I'm not saying slaughterhouses have corruption. But they do have a bias...toward the efficient slaughter at the least cost of our food. There is no incentive for them to consider suffering when they are already causing the animals to die anyway.
But if we can have such nuances about our food as to: how many trans-fats, how many calories, how many omega 3 fats, how much sugar, what types of allergens it contains, how it looks, cartoon characters on the box, etc., etc., and these matter to somebody then if this matters to people, it could be done and marketed to benefit the business. Just like Starkist markets its tuna as dolphin-safe.
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Ideoform Msg. 939
I'm a pescatarian, too. I eat seafood, but I am concerned about the heavy metals and factory farming of seafood, so I don't eat seafood every day.
I just listened to a radio show today on NPR where the columnist "Miss Conduct" (similar to Miss Manners) was interviewed, and the discussion came up about how to have a dinner party when your friends all have very different eating styles and issues...Kosher, vegetarian, gluten-free, low-calorie, peanut allergic, etc., etc.,.... and she said that in today's world, we are becoming more and more aware of the diversity of values and lifestyles.
It used to be we all thought of one generic ideal for a person--marriage, family, lifestyle--and to be polite meant only needing to be aware of that set of values. Like writing thank you notes. She said it's ok to have varied lifestyle choices and values and still get along...well, we seem to be working on that. But it isn't ok to wear your lifestyle "in someone's face"...as in; someone is eating a hamburger at a party and you say to them, "Oh, I'm a vegetarian now." It's going to seem judgemental.
Food is so important to our lives; and this makes it even more of an issue when in social situations. We celebrate with food, we socialize with food, we use food as a topic of discussion, we have rituals involving food in almost every religion, we associate food with security, with nurturing, with comfort, and every lifestyle and every generation has its "in" foods. (Hot food, what a concept.) We use certain foods and their availablility or scarcity as status symbols, or symbols of rebellion, during a boycott. Right now, one of the 'in' foods is pomegranates.
Certain foods are almost ritualised in certain sports and recreation. I went to a baseball game last week (our team won!) and I was amazed to find a vegetable wrap at the hot dog stand, and hard lemonade as a choice instead of beer....but the beer and hot dogs were such a part of the ambiance of the experience, I wouldn't change it. At least in my generation...perhaps the next generation will prefer other foods to remind them of their childhoods. (I didn't "cheat," I had the maple roasted nuts, and a pickle, my date had the vegetable wrap, and I brought gluten-free pretzels that are addicting.)
So we have more choices now but the rules of etiquette aren't keeping up. For instance, how do you react when the same thing is done on the internet, in a public forum or on Face book? Does it seem judgemental when answering a question about vegetarianism?
I have thought of a new label for myself, which I am going to wear proudly: "Pesky-tarian." I have decided that I am going to have to get used to being seen as slightly judgemental whenever the subject of what I eat/don't eat comes up. Maybe I will put this label on a bumper sticker on my van so I can warn people right up front and not suprise anyone.
Why do I need a label? I guess so I can find other Peskytarians so I have a group around which I can relax and feel comfortable about my value choices concerning what I eat. And, no, Peta doesn't count, because they don't eat seafood. Even if they cheat, Sorry. There is such a thing as too pesky for a pesky-tarian. Plus, I don't want to have to do a security search on them when they come to my buffet, which might actually have some chicken on it.
(Oh, and Miss Conduct said she has a menu plan on her blog for a buffet that takes into account all the usual dietary restrictions so many of us seem to have now. She says a helpful rule is to have at least two things each person can eat, one has to be a protein item.)
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Ideoform Msg. 1027
Post # 365:
Post # 374:
I hate to go so far back in this thread, but I recently came across this article about the life experience of bacteria. It sounds like an anthropology article.
I believe that all life forms have all aspects similar to our own. Many things about us that we think are exclusively human, like social behavior and altruism are present, and make the arguments of our specialness as a reason that we can eat meat without regard to how it was produced less compelling. As above, so below. I think the pattern of life is the same for all life, and this pattern reflects itself, like a hologram, in all living things.
Since we consider ourselves to be a social species, and one that can uniquely comprehend abstract concepts such as the meaning, purpose, and value of social behavior, then we humans *should* be more likely to consider the value and importance of social behavior than the lifeforms we are referring to, not less. Unfortunately, the reality is that most Americans are using our sophisticated abstract reasoning ability to discount and minimize the similarities and abilities of other species, and to rationalize their use and exposure to abuse for our convenience and taste preferences.
Is it possible that many of our uniquely human abilities are present at all levels of life, from amoeba on "upward?" I think that the only reason we are seeing such uniqueness in humans is by selective forgetting. Our society has become less agrarian, and we are forgetting the source of our food -- forgetting the intimate connection we have with other life forms that give us life. And so we can selectively choose to forget our immense control and influence on the quality of the lives that take other forms than our own.
In this vein, I offer the latest bacteria research, of which this is only one of many examples:
One-Celled Socialites
Bacteria mix and mingle with microscopic fervor
~Bruce Bower
Welcome to a vibrant social scene that has operated largely in secret until the past few years. Its participants don't seem to mind going unnoticed. They congregate in immense numbers to fend off enemies and the brute forces of nature, to obtain food, to reproduce, and to move to greener pastures. They're adept at forming bands to hunt prey, which are consumed on the spot. Vital messages repeatedly course through these assembled throngs. Under some circumstances, certain community members sacrifice their lives for the good of the rest. At other times, entire congregations cozy up to unsuspecting hosts before coalescing into stone-cold killers.
(Photo showing intricate patterns of bacterial growth.)
OUT ON A LIMB. Starvation conditions elicit a series of branching offshoots from a colony of Paenibacillus dendritiformis bacteria grown in a laboratory.
A. Shoob, Ben Jacob
All this high drama occurs in the microscopic world of bacteria. As the first form of life on Earth, one-celled organisms have lots of experience in getting together by the billions or even trillions to procure and process energy sources. Yet only in the past several years have scientists with a variety of academic backgrounds launched an intensive effort to explore the social lives of bacteria and other microorganisms.
Research on bacterial gatherings got a boost in 2001 from behavioral ecologist Bernard J. Crespi of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Crespi reviewed findings from the past few decades on social behavior among microorganisms that "would be strangely familiar" to researchers who study the social ways of insects and vertebrates, he concluded.
Cooperation among individuals lies at the heart of social behavior in both microbes and animals visible to the naked eye, according to Crespi. For instance, just as bees build hives, many bacterial species create and inhabit sticky substances known as biofilms. Bacteria encased in biofilms thrive in moist settings, such as on ships' hulls, in sewage-treatment plants, on our teeth, and sometimes, with ill effects, in our lungs.
As in coalitions of creatures such as ants and naked mole rats, Crespi adds, bacterial colonies often feature a division of labor in which some members rarely or never reproduce but nonetheless provide other critical services to the community. Rhizobium bacteria, for example, form nodules that transfer nitrogen to plant roots and shuttle essential carbon to bacteria in and just outside the nodule. Bacteria in the nodule often refrain from reproducing, while their neighbors on the outside multiply fervently.
"The study of social behavior in bacteria has taken off in the last 3 or 4 years," says behavioral ecologist Ashleigh S. Griffin of the University of Edinburgh. "It's much easier to do experimental work on such behavior in microorganisms than in traditionally studied animals."
Scientists predict that understanding of bacterial cooperation and communication will yield medical breakthroughs. In particular, with such knowledge, researchers may devise new ways to undermine bacterial social bonds and thus neutralize virulent strains before they can kill a person."
Source:
Science News, Volume 166, No. 21, November 20, 2004, p. 330.
http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/one_celled_socialites.html
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Note: Italics refer to quotes posted by other people.
Ideoform Msg. 647
Other poster quoting Ideoform: "...what we think, dream and conceptualize is the formation of the very future we are heading toward. The future we are becoming is the one we are formualting right here with our thoughts, intentions, desires, choices and actions. "
>>>>>Very well said, Is this one of your quotes? I don't see a name behind it. It should be framed and hung on a wall."
>>>>>Very well said, Is this one of your quotes? I don't see a name behind it. It should be framed and hung on a wall."
It's metaphysics. You can quote me as the author, but I learned it from studying truth in various forms over the years. The physical world is constructed this way.
Caution-- Boring explanation part follows:
The universe at a sub-atomic level is constructed of vibrating strings, by a current theory in physics. The vibrations come into existence at a quantum level from which many possibilities exist. This is the point at which consciousness interacts with form (through movement), and ultimately the universe you see is the result of the collective intersection of all consciousness, particularly your own. By the very nature of being the observer--you select outcomes. The present moment is the pivot point.
We all create the future whether you believe this or not... or study metaphysics. On a very mundane level, what you put out into the world comes back to you. If you are a very aggressive person, the whole world seems wary and possibly aggressive. Psychologists call it "projection" but it is also a way of seeing the creation process.
It's been called new age mumbo jumbo, until quantum physics, the formulation of the holographic paradigm, the study of dark matter and string theory began seeing these relationships in the study of atomic structure, and astronomy. Yet it's been a part of human knowledge for dozens of centuries.
There now is no question at all in quantum physics--proven by replicated experiments--that the act of observation changes what is observed at an atomic level. Not only that, but the interactions between various paired sub-atomic particles happens simultaneously at a distance, with nothing, not even a wave form, in-between them.
Ecclesiastes 11:1 "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth." “Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later.”
Galatians 6:7, “... A man reaps what he sows.”
Luke 6:38,“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
If we were Gods to animals (or plants, or whatever), would we consider their pleas as assiduously as we hope God will consider ours? If the universe is a mirror of our hearts, and inner longings, and the level of compassion we have learned to show, then perhaps the world we see is only the result of our own limitations of compassion, not God's. Perhaps we kill and are killed because they are two sides of the same coin.
Our true limitations, then are the scope of our own ideals, expectancies, conscience, and dreams, not the physical laws we then operate with as a result of our scientific understanding.
What use is a tool if it is used against its purpose? Is the physical understanding more important than how it comes to be?
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Ideoform Msg. 771
I know, its quotes. I just had to post this one because when I read it, it appears to directly answer the original OP's question of this thread:
"My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarfs in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures."
~George Bernard Shaw
OK. So I am going to personalize this quote with more comments about my experiences with vegetarianism just so you have more to digest (so to speak.) :)
I was discussing vegetarianism with my sister yesterday. My sister became vegetarian "for her health" in high school, (mainly to loose weight, and to train for competitive swimming) but a few years later went back to eating meat because she heard it wasn't that much healthier to avoid meat altogether. She said she ended up eating too many refined carbohydrates, and too much cheese...and wasn't really staying as thin as she would like. She's been a size 4 to size 6 her whole life.
"I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens." ~Isaac Bashevis Singer
I, on the other hand, ate meat in high school, (and tons of dairy products) and was very thin, also. I thought my sister was just doing a fad diet at the time. But later, in college, while taking a philosophy class, and studying world religions, I became a vegetarian for ethical reasons, like Mr. Singer above.
In some ways I felt really strong for a while, I was a crew on a racing sailboat, lifted weights, did running, took a bicycle everywhere, learned fencing, ballroom dancing and yoga. But after some very stressful events, I got sick and didn't heal well from it. I think the stress caused me to react to some foods I was eating, and in particular, wheat and dairy products, but I didn't know this then. At the time, I was eating a lot of cheese sandwiches, and I think just because I was busy with college and three jobs, I really didn't want to cook that much from scratch.
So I felt gradually worse over time. When I got married ten years later, I went to eating meat again so the whole family could eat the same things. I got distressing symptoms for about a year after starting to eat meat again because my body wasn't used to digesting meat--meat requires a very different type of digestion; more stomach acid, mainly to kill bacteria, and the chemical urea is produced (which isn't the case with vegan foods) which can build up in your system, crystalize and cause gout, which is very painful.
I didn't get gout, because I think gout is mainly from eating more than 3 oz. of meat a day, combined (usually) with drinking alcohol (particularly red wine.) I hadn't drunk alcohol for 35 years. But as we age, our kidneys and liver have a harder time flushing out the urea quickly enough before it starts to build up and crystalize in the body, so many people I know who are my age group are getting gout.
Anyway, after more stressful events related to my child being in the hospital (hospital food is not that healthy...plus sitting around in waiting rooms worrying is probably the worst form of non-exercise there is.) I gained weight, even though I was eating pretty much a normal American diet, and a normal amount of calories. I got high cholesterol, and always felt fatigued, even though I was less active than before.
I have finally lost weight, after completely eliminating two specific proteins in my diet...gluten and casein. I am now the healthiest I have been since high school. I think going on a vegetarian diet for your health is not going to automatically make you more healthy.
From my experience, there is a lot more to eating healthy than just giving up meat, because what's left after you eliminate meat from the typical American diet is really pretty un-healthy food unless you are very careful about what you eat.
Plus there is the side-effect of annoying your friends and family if you are not diplomatic about it, and active relationships with friends and family are essential to good health:
"Vegetarianism is harmless enough though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness."
~Robert Hutchison, address to the British Medical Association, 1930
To complicate things even more I met someone I really like who happens to be a vegetarian. He does eat some fish. (This is not why we met, or what we have in common.) Even though I was a vegetarian for 17 years, he's the first vegetarian I have ever dated. (So now I get to see what it is like from the other side of the dining table.)
He had a major heart attack (he ate meat before the aattack.) He actually died at one point while in surgery. He avoided getting a pacemaker and further surgery by changing his diet and exercising, learning to meditate, and taking certain supplements designed to remediate deficiencies shown in his labwork, among other things.
He was given less than 5 years to live and has outlived that by several years. He can't stand even the smell of meat cooking now. He also remembers how poorly the animals were treated when he was growing up in a farming community, and says that nobody would eat meat if they were to visit the places animals are raised and slaughtered now.
"Heart attacks... God's revenge for eating his little animal friends."
~Author Unknown
"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
He's now the healthiest, most active person I have dated so far, since dating again.
Recently we went out with a friend of his who wanted to go to a Polish buffet that had a lot of meat dishes, and he couldn't go there because he can't stomach the strong smell of the meat cooking. He had a very viceral reaction to it.
"Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own."
~Robert Louis Stevenson
I didn't go looking for a vegetarian to date. It wasn't on my profile. I just found that a compatible person for me happened to be a vegetarian even though I wasn't anymore. I think that vegetarians show a certain compassion toward the human condition that my situation requires.
I had thought when I eliminated gluten and casein that I would not be able to go back to being a vegetarian, but I now only eat fish and eggs and no other meat products. I like this way of eating. I feel good, I like the foods I cook and buy, I'm not hungry, I don't miss the way I used to eat at all.
I can manage both limitations now since I have been on the gluten free/casein free diet for over a year and I have it memorized and really know it. I can cook everything and find lots to eat wherever I go now. Restaraunts are pretty good with special diets, allergies and all kinds of special requests. There are many more products on the shelves that are healthy choices for prepared foods too...that aren't just junk laced with preservatives, artificial flavorings and pesticides.
The latest on my health, is I have gone back to doing all the things I used to do in high school and college again, with no fatigue, no medications anymore, no problems, no dieting to loose weight, but I am loosing a small amount each week (1/2 a pound or so) with no cravings or hunger for anything. I run 3 miles every day, learned swing dancing and go dancing weekly, I lift weights, go sailing again, and now am going touring bicycling again. I take a chewable calcium, some vitamin B12, once in a while, and I cook with cast iron pots for iron (which works--my Doctor is surprised at my iron levels being very good.)
"In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death - even vegetarians."
~Mr. Spock, Star Trek, "Wolf in the Fold"
I think that vegetarianism is an attempt to create a life that does not further any kind of suffering....not to save animals from death, for we all die, animals included, but to create a world where suffering of any kind, of any living being is considered with compassion and not ignorance. We are a big part of forming the world we live in--and how we learn to treat each other and learn compassion is a big part of how we experience it. How can we learn compassion better? This is one way.
I think the universe is perfect, but in Gnosticism, the world is a bad place created by a nasty God (demiurge) who was created by the Universe and the material world is a nasty place that we must learn to escape. Evidence for this is the fact that simply to exist we must end something else's life.
Sadly, to create fuel for our bodies that doesn't kill something has changed our health. Processed, food-like substances (fake food) are usually produced from living plants, anyway. To eat only non-living substances might remove all connection we have to the living world, the world of nature, God's world, divorcing us from our source even further.
"If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat? "
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Ideoform Msg. 813
"One-quarter of what you eat keeps you alive.
The other three-quarters keeps your doctor alive."
~Hieroglyph found in an ancient Egyptian tomb.
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Ideoform Msg. 925
Morals vs. moralizing.
It's almost impossible to state a moral or value without making someone else feel guilty or wrong. Any social pressure that is not law, is a choice people make. If I set my personal standard to only obeying the law, I might still do some harmful (or stupid) things, but the government leaves that up to me. That doesn't make it better to do--my behavior just won't put me in jail or have me paying a fine. Using seatbelts and child car seats used to be voluntary...but they were always a good idea. I know, I used to be in the Children's Hospital a lot, and saw the end results.
So if I set myself a standard--any standard--that is more work, more sacrifice, more costly, than that required by law, I set myself up for the social consequence of making other people uncomfortable around me sometimes...and sometimes uncomfortable enough that they ridicule me to feel better about what they aren't doing, that I am doing.
It is so interesting to see such a bland topic as this: "What some people aren't eating."
getting so much attention. Its not enough to make the news, generally, what people aren't doing. People are smoking less. Not that great a news story compared to so many others. That doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment for human health. Some people lost their jobs in the tobacco industry because of less consumption. Perhaps that will make the news someday....
If you have a value, and follow it, that isn't news either. Until you start to tell other people your value-- that is considered preaching. (Unless you are a parent, then it is considered acceptable to tell a person a value as long as they are underage.) So no matter what the value is; protecting the environment, minimising the suffering of food animals, treating minorities as equals, going to war, loosing weight, running a marathon for a charity, hunting game, dying your hair, sending thank you notes.... if you have to explain what you are doing to others--instead of just doing it--it can be preachy sounding.
For example. Your friend has lost 30 pounds and looks great, you start to talk, and he/she says to you:
"I went on a 'cleanse' because my Doctor recommended it for my heart."
"I am loosing weight because I am on a fast for peace."
"I decided to become a vegetarian because I don't digest meat very well."
"I joined Peta and they are all vegetarians, so I became a vegan."
"I have cancer, and the chemo drugs make me nauseous."
"I have aids."
"I became a Buddist and am following a 10 day fast."
"I qualified for America's Biggest Looser and just got back from three weeks at the studio."
"My husband died six months ago, and I can't seem to cook anything just for myself without missing him so much."
The answer makes all the difference. Some of the answers might make you wish you hadn't asked. But the end result is the same...your friend lost some weight. The significance of it can be so varied...and this is the difference between morals and moralizing. The person who chose to become a Buddist, or a Peta activist, or a hunger-striker is going to make a very different impression on you with their answer even if they do nothing else but to answer your question--no preaching, no moralizing, no other explanation.
The only way to get this issue this much attention on this dating forum was to set it to an extreme--where what is not being eaten is a matter of life or death. (However, in almost no real-life circumstance is not eating something going to be life or death unless you are giving up all food entirely, and permanently, and that would be suicide or mental illness on the level of anorexia. Hmmm, well, I guess diabetes and sugar would fit this, as well as Celiac and gluten, and peanut allergies and peanuts.) The question would have to be on the order of: "What political issue would make you go on a hunger strike?" or something like that.
But the alternative question might sound wacky, like; "Would you eat meat if you were deathly allergic to it, if you were in a banquet honoring a famous cattle rancher?" No meat eater is going to be risking their lives immediately by eating normal meat, so you can't reverse the question. Can anyone come up with the logical opposite question from the one being asked? For one thing, people don't usually eat meat primarily for moral/ethical/religious reasons.
But this is a developed country, and most people who are truly starving are on the desert island of public opinion...they are invisible to us.
We can focus on the extreme case of a well-nourished vegetarian person falling onto a desert island in a plane wreck, or we can focus on how to talk about real starvation, and how food choices in developed countries affect the rest of the world and what actions might be able to solve the problems created by the vagaries of the food industy and distribution issues.
If being vegetarian helps anyone or anything, then isn't that a good thing? And then, if it is, does it have to be moralized about? Or can it just be something good, like wearing seat-belts?
I think people reject having to explain wanting to live....
There is nothing wrong with wanting to live in a survival situation...and also nothing wrong with being required to bend one's values in order to survive if necessary. And also nothing wrong with not bending at all...and not surviving. (As long as that isn't against the law, its their choice, right?)
Some people seem to think they can't live comfortably without meat, and others see meat eating as a luxury they can easily give up for a variety of reasons.
But asking for an explanation means you have to accept the answer being written here, and not reject that the explanation is even being given. After all, this is a free website forum, nobody is loosing any money, and nobody has to read all the postings, or any postings at all. As long as people follow the forum posting rules, you can give your opinion. Moralizing has its own forum, in the form of the hidden Religion forum.
I say, lets find a real problem...not a plane wreck, or some other statistically insignificant problem that is mainly by chance or accident. And lets find some real solutions. And maybe a part of the solution will include changing the way we eat in this country. And that might be something almost all of us are already trying to do anyway.
I say, lets talk about some of the ideas people have come up with about food production, distribution and consumption that seem to be designed to solve some issue that concerns people. Like:
* Fair Trade,
* Buying food locally grown,
* Organic food production,
* Non-genetically modified food,
* Buying heirloom varieties to protect biodiversity,
* Supporting local farmers by going to farmer's markets.
I have one. I like what the Kosher designation tries to do. It's a bit out of date, and specific to mainly one culture/religion, but a good idea nonetheless. It is like an independent evaluation of food, like when an inspector comes to a restaraunt and looks for cleanliness back in the kitchen where you as a customer don't get to see.
Only I think we could get or create a group (probably not Peta--they obviously are good at rabble-rousing, not inspection) that could go in and inspect various aspects of food production/distribution/consumption with regard to ethical issues like the food blog The Ethicurian points out. The group could be non-sectarian, or multi-sectarian, or have a collaborative approach with scientific methodologies, and health specialists.
There is a guy on Oprah who specializes in health coaching, who developed some standards for food and has been allowed to put a symbol on packaged foods saying that they meet his health standards for weight loss reasons, such as low-sodium and low-fat.
The advantage of his label is like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Quality used to be. Another pair of eyes on the industry, so you can find foods you trust to be of a certain quality based on certain pre-set standards. Now we have a similar symbol for "Fair Trade," and for "Organic," although these standards sometimes are variable. We also have the "No Animal Testing" label for cosmetics.
The problem is agreeing on a standard, any standard that might make sense. But if the health coach on Oprah can do it, anybody can. You don't need a federal law to do this. You can just start one. Say, the standard is the least suffering for a food animal during its slaughter. Someone trained to do this could visit slaughterhouses, and rate them on a scale of one to ten, and simply publish the results somewhere. This makes the invisible, visible. We can't see how an animal died on the package when we buy the meat. Not that anyone needs a photo...but having someone else you trust, visit the place and give it a rating makes the unknown variable now something you can base your purchase on.
Its the stuff that hides in the shadows that can rot...the things nobody sees because they don't care to look...the places nobody wants to go...like in the sewers. The sewers are necessary to all of us, but why should any of us have to go down there just to make sure things are running smoothly and up to code? That's what inspectors are for. And independent inspectors might be nice, if there was something going on that corrupted the original inspectors. I'm not saying slaughterhouses have corruption. But they do have a bias...toward the efficient slaughter at the least cost of our food. There is no incentive for them to consider suffering when they are already causing the animals to die anyway.
But if we can have such nuances about our food as to: how many trans-fats, how many calories, how many omega 3 fats, how much sugar, what types of allergens it contains, how it looks, cartoon characters on the box, etc., etc., and these matter to somebody then if this matters to people, it could be done and marketed to benefit the business. Just like Starkist markets its tuna as dolphin-safe.
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Ideoform Msg. 939
...."More properly then, a pescatarian "...
I'm a pescatarian, too. I eat seafood, but I am concerned about the heavy metals and factory farming of seafood, so I don't eat seafood every day.
I just listened to a radio show today on NPR where the columnist "Miss Conduct" (similar to Miss Manners) was interviewed, and the discussion came up about how to have a dinner party when your friends all have very different eating styles and issues...Kosher, vegetarian, gluten-free, low-calorie, peanut allergic, etc., etc.,.... and she said that in today's world, we are becoming more and more aware of the diversity of values and lifestyles.
It used to be we all thought of one generic ideal for a person--marriage, family, lifestyle--and to be polite meant only needing to be aware of that set of values. Like writing thank you notes. She said it's ok to have varied lifestyle choices and values and still get along...well, we seem to be working on that. But it isn't ok to wear your lifestyle "in someone's face"...as in; someone is eating a hamburger at a party and you say to them, "Oh, I'm a vegetarian now." It's going to seem judgemental.
Food is so important to our lives; and this makes it even more of an issue when in social situations. We celebrate with food, we socialize with food, we use food as a topic of discussion, we have rituals involving food in almost every religion, we associate food with security, with nurturing, with comfort, and every lifestyle and every generation has its "in" foods. (Hot food, what a concept.) We use certain foods and their availablility or scarcity as status symbols, or symbols of rebellion, during a boycott. Right now, one of the 'in' foods is pomegranates.
Certain foods are almost ritualised in certain sports and recreation. I went to a baseball game last week (our team won!) and I was amazed to find a vegetable wrap at the hot dog stand, and hard lemonade as a choice instead of beer....but the beer and hot dogs were such a part of the ambiance of the experience, I wouldn't change it. At least in my generation...perhaps the next generation will prefer other foods to remind them of their childhoods. (I didn't "cheat," I had the maple roasted nuts, and a pickle, my date had the vegetable wrap, and I brought gluten-free pretzels that are addicting.)
So we have more choices now but the rules of etiquette aren't keeping up. For instance, how do you react when the same thing is done on the internet, in a public forum or on Face book? Does it seem judgemental when answering a question about vegetarianism?
I have thought of a new label for myself, which I am going to wear proudly: "Pesky-tarian." I have decided that I am going to have to get used to being seen as slightly judgemental whenever the subject of what I eat/don't eat comes up. Maybe I will put this label on a bumper sticker on my van so I can warn people right up front and not suprise anyone.
Why do I need a label? I guess so I can find other Peskytarians so I have a group around which I can relax and feel comfortable about my value choices concerning what I eat. And, no, Peta doesn't count, because they don't eat seafood. Even if they cheat, Sorry. There is such a thing as too pesky for a pesky-tarian. Plus, I don't want to have to do a security search on them when they come to my buffet, which might actually have some chicken on it.
(Oh, and Miss Conduct said she has a menu plan on her blog for a buffet that takes into account all the usual dietary restrictions so many of us seem to have now. She says a helpful rule is to have at least two things each person can eat, one has to be a protein item.)
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Ideoform Msg. 1027
Post # 365:
"We just have no respect for the other species on the Planet. Even if I were on that island with a dog, I'm sure I couldn't eat it just to survive. (I might be tempted, though, if it were a small, yappy dog.)
This is such a burden for me. Many nights I lie awake, my mind tormented by thoughts of how evil humans are. Do you know about the smallpox genocide? It was speciesism at its most brutal. Humans set out deliberately to eradicate smallpox as a species, destroying its habitat and using toxic chemicals with no mercy. And after slaughtering billions upon billions of individual viruses, they succeeded.
And to flaunt our dominion over other life forms, we kept a few viruses alive as trophies. We locked them away in a couple labs, like tiny, lonely animals in zoos. If one day we become bored with even these few survivors, we can kill them, too. Yes, I know some will trot out the tired old fact that smallpox killed more humans than all the wars and diseases in history. My answer is this: So what? It is (or was) a species, just like humans. Who made us the judge of its right to live? That was for Gaia to decide!
p.s.: Do not buy honey, or any product (like some breads) that contains it! Working together, enlightened humans can one day put an end to the cruel and shameful enslavement of bees."
This is such a burden for me. Many nights I lie awake, my mind tormented by thoughts of how evil humans are. Do you know about the smallpox genocide? It was speciesism at its most brutal. Humans set out deliberately to eradicate smallpox as a species, destroying its habitat and using toxic chemicals with no mercy. And after slaughtering billions upon billions of individual viruses, they succeeded.
And to flaunt our dominion over other life forms, we kept a few viruses alive as trophies. We locked them away in a couple labs, like tiny, lonely animals in zoos. If one day we become bored with even these few survivors, we can kill them, too. Yes, I know some will trot out the tired old fact that smallpox killed more humans than all the wars and diseases in history. My answer is this: So what? It is (or was) a species, just like humans. Who made us the judge of its right to live? That was for Gaia to decide!
p.s.: Do not buy honey, or any product (like some breads) that contains it! Working together, enlightened humans can one day put an end to the cruel and shameful enslavement of bees."
Post # 374:
"All the way down to the weakest of creatures , those wonderful bacteria & viruses kill each other.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a mixture of viruses as a food additive to protect people.
The additive can be used in processing plants for spraying onto ready-to-eat meat
and poultry products to protect consumers from the potentially
life-threatening bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes).
The viruses used in the additive are known as bacteriophages.
Bacteriophage means "bacteria eater."
A bacteriophage, also called a phage (pronounced fayj), is any virus that infects bacteria.
No one seems to wonder the sentience, suffering and pain of these creatures."
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a mixture of viruses as a food additive to protect people.
The additive can be used in processing plants for spraying onto ready-to-eat meat
and poultry products to protect consumers from the potentially
life-threatening bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes).
The viruses used in the additive are known as bacteriophages.
Bacteriophage means "bacteria eater."
A bacteriophage, also called a phage (pronounced fayj), is any virus that infects bacteria.
No one seems to wonder the sentience, suffering and pain of these creatures."
I hate to go so far back in this thread, but I recently came across this article about the life experience of bacteria. It sounds like an anthropology article.
I believe that all life forms have all aspects similar to our own. Many things about us that we think are exclusively human, like social behavior and altruism are present, and make the arguments of our specialness as a reason that we can eat meat without regard to how it was produced less compelling. As above, so below. I think the pattern of life is the same for all life, and this pattern reflects itself, like a hologram, in all living things.
Since we consider ourselves to be a social species, and one that can uniquely comprehend abstract concepts such as the meaning, purpose, and value of social behavior, then we humans *should* be more likely to consider the value and importance of social behavior than the lifeforms we are referring to, not less. Unfortunately, the reality is that most Americans are using our sophisticated abstract reasoning ability to discount and minimize the similarities and abilities of other species, and to rationalize their use and exposure to abuse for our convenience and taste preferences.
Is it possible that many of our uniquely human abilities are present at all levels of life, from amoeba on "upward?" I think that the only reason we are seeing such uniqueness in humans is by selective forgetting. Our society has become less agrarian, and we are forgetting the source of our food -- forgetting the intimate connection we have with other life forms that give us life. And so we can selectively choose to forget our immense control and influence on the quality of the lives that take other forms than our own.
In this vein, I offer the latest bacteria research, of which this is only one of many examples:
One-Celled Socialites
Bacteria mix and mingle with microscopic fervor
~Bruce Bower
Welcome to a vibrant social scene that has operated largely in secret until the past few years. Its participants don't seem to mind going unnoticed. They congregate in immense numbers to fend off enemies and the brute forces of nature, to obtain food, to reproduce, and to move to greener pastures. They're adept at forming bands to hunt prey, which are consumed on the spot. Vital messages repeatedly course through these assembled throngs. Under some circumstances, certain community members sacrifice their lives for the good of the rest. At other times, entire congregations cozy up to unsuspecting hosts before coalescing into stone-cold killers.
(Photo showing intricate patterns of bacterial growth.)
OUT ON A LIMB. Starvation conditions elicit a series of branching offshoots from a colony of Paenibacillus dendritiformis bacteria grown in a laboratory.
A. Shoob, Ben Jacob
All this high drama occurs in the microscopic world of bacteria. As the first form of life on Earth, one-celled organisms have lots of experience in getting together by the billions or even trillions to procure and process energy sources. Yet only in the past several years have scientists with a variety of academic backgrounds launched an intensive effort to explore the social lives of bacteria and other microorganisms.
Research on bacterial gatherings got a boost in 2001 from behavioral ecologist Bernard J. Crespi of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Crespi reviewed findings from the past few decades on social behavior among microorganisms that "would be strangely familiar" to researchers who study the social ways of insects and vertebrates, he concluded.
Cooperation among individuals lies at the heart of social behavior in both microbes and animals visible to the naked eye, according to Crespi. For instance, just as bees build hives, many bacterial species create and inhabit sticky substances known as biofilms. Bacteria encased in biofilms thrive in moist settings, such as on ships' hulls, in sewage-treatment plants, on our teeth, and sometimes, with ill effects, in our lungs.
As in coalitions of creatures such as ants and naked mole rats, Crespi adds, bacterial colonies often feature a division of labor in which some members rarely or never reproduce but nonetheless provide other critical services to the community. Rhizobium bacteria, for example, form nodules that transfer nitrogen to plant roots and shuttle essential carbon to bacteria in and just outside the nodule. Bacteria in the nodule often refrain from reproducing, while their neighbors on the outside multiply fervently.
"The study of social behavior in bacteria has taken off in the last 3 or 4 years," says behavioral ecologist Ashleigh S. Griffin of the University of Edinburgh. "It's much easier to do experimental work on such behavior in microorganisms than in traditionally studied animals."
Scientists predict that understanding of bacterial cooperation and communication will yield medical breakthroughs. In particular, with such knowledge, researchers may devise new ways to undermine bacterial social bonds and thus neutralize virulent strains before they can kill a person."
Source:
Science News, Volume 166, No. 21, November 20, 2004, p. 330.
http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/one_celled_socialites.html
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