‘Nutrition Heretic’ Gary Taubes on the Long Road Back From a Big, Fat Public Shaming

http://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/11/how-a-nutrition-heretic-overcame-a-big-fat-public-shaming.html?utm_content=buffer99ed0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Okay, but I'm still singing his older hits in the car.

Amy's link really is a good piece. And the thing is, you can hear & feel the pressure Taubes was under during this long stretch life in his comtemporary public appearances: See YouTube. This guy lived it, much as described in the link of Cosh's posted earlier.

We're not here just to be assholes, ever... But we're not supposed to all get along, either. We're going to need a lot more Taubes-types in the years just ahead: People to point out the naked emperors.

Note to Amy's readers in foreign nations:

Seriously. We're the best.

False memory Syndrome: In which a court fabricates an identity-politics-endorsed pretext for transferring money from a man to a woman, while wrecking his life.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/repressed-memory

Oh, Kellogs!

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/30/dumpkelloggs-far-left-cereal-giant-kelloggs-warns-of-racial-privilege/

And McDonalds.

As the labor union-backed Fight for $15 begins yet another nationwide strike on November 29, I have a simple message for the protest organizers and the reporters covering them: I told you so.

...

Earlier this month, McDonald’s announced the nationwide roll-out of touchscreen self-service kiosks. In a video the company released to showcase the new customer experience, it’s striking to see employees who once would have managed a cash register now reduced to monitoring a customer’s choices at an iPad-style kiosk.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/29/thanks-to-fight-for-15-minimum-wage-mcdonalds-unveils-job-replacing-self-service-kiosks-nationwide/#7748c136762e

The developer of the Big Mac has died. 2016, you suck.

Michael Delligatti, the man who brought you the Big Mac, has died. He was 98.

Delligatti, more affectionately known as “Jim,” was one of McDonald’s first franchisees. He first created the Big Mac in 1967 at his Uniontown, Penn. restaurant, Business Insider reports.

Almost 50 years later, it’s the same recipe served in chains today: two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions—on a sesame seed bun (for those of you old enough to remember the jingle).

http://fortune.com/2016/11/30/mcdonalds-big-mac-inventor-dies/

2008 was worse.

Some great Miss Manners letters recently:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-thanksgiving-walk-between-courses-is-strictly-voluntary/2016/11/20/60676896-a3a8-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html?utm_term=.6913ebd4796c#comments

Q: Dear Miss Manners: I am currently 14 weeks pregnant. I know I will start to show soon, and a few of my co-workers have already tried to touch my stomach. I have heard horror stories of pregnant women being touched by complete strangers in public.

What is a polite way to explain to a stranger that I don’t want my stomach touched in a way that educates them so they don’t try touching the next pregnant person they see?

A: Scream.

Comments:

dogless_infidel
11/22/2016 8:39 AM EST
I don't know about screaming, but surely if some stranger reaches for your belly when you're pregnant, you should do exactly what you would do if someone reached for your belly when you were *not* pregnant.

AuntieSocial
11/22/2016 1:48 AM EST
Dear Pregnant,
When I was in LA the other day I saw a maternity top that said "If you touch the baby bump you have to pay for college". People were giving her a wide berth---so you might tell that to people as you shove their hands back.

Kitti Brady
11/23/2016 12:25 PM EST
Pregnant lady response is PERFECT! I actually got fondled by a pair of elderly women a few years ago on the subway on Mother's Day. Total strangers just walked over to me, grabbed my stomach and said "Oh Happy Mother's Day to you! When are you due?" I replied, "I'm not pregnant, just fat, and clearly will be throwing out this shirt when I get home. Thanks for making my day, though." Then I stared at them very openly and coldly until they got off the train. Hopefully I did my part for every pregnant woman they ever encountered in the future!!

And:

Q: Dear Miss Manners: Throughout my career and in my personal life, I have sent handwritten notes/letters to colleagues, friends and relatives to thank them for gifts and kind acts, and to offer congratulations or condolences as circumstances arise.

At a family gathering, I overheard a small group of young adult relatives mocking my habit. They feel it is pretentious of me to send written thanks after having already thanked a relative in person for a birthday or holiday gift, and proclaimed it ‘’creepy’’ that, after the sudden death of a close relative, I wrote condolence letters to his wife, brother, mother and stepfather.

They are not aware I overheard these remarks, and I have attended subsequent family gatherings without letting on, but their words haunt me, and I feel hurt and embarrassed. Is my practice incorrect? Should I stop sending handwritten thank-you notes and letters of condolence to my relatives?

A: Please tell Miss Manners that you do not really suspect your expressions of gratitude and sympathy of being wrong, on the opinion of people who sneer at graciousness.

Their attitude is common among those who want to justify their own indifference to the feelings of those who are generous or bereaved. You should certainly not allow them to persuade you to be equally coarse.

However, if you have occasion to write to one of the relatives who took part in that conversation, you might open your letter by saying, “I know you may consider it ‘creepy’ of me to write, but I dearly want to express my sincere gratitude/appreciation . . .’’

If nothing else, this will instruct them to watch what they say in crowds.

Comments:

Sheila16
11/22/2016 7:59 AM EST [Edited]
A friend of mine, to whom I wrote a condolence letter on the death of her mother (and slaved over the composition, as their relationship had been difficult, but still -- her mother!), told me that she'd had no idea how comforting it would be to receive all those condolence letters -- that she took them out and read them over and over. Creepy? Someone's got a screw loose.

dogless_infidel
11/22/2016 8:38 AM EST
This is why the LW shouldn't do as Miss Manners suggests, quoting the "creepy" comment in a note to one of the offenders. Nothing can be more effective than experiencing first-hand the comfort or gratification of a kindly meant letter.

Terrils
11/22/2016 5:37 PM EST [Edited]
To the disconnected iPod crowd, genuinely expressed emotion might seem really uncomfortable and unfamiliar (even overly intimate) - hence creepy. Real emotion, to them, is expressed via emojis.

Crabby Pants
11/22/2016 2:08 PM EST
Young adults have not experienced death enough to understand how comforting a simple condolence letter can be. Don't stop writing them.

CalypsoSummer
11/23/2016 10:01 AM EST
Pretentious??

Oh, I get it. These are the same people who sneer, "If she WANTED to get me something for my wedding, that's not MY problem, and besides, I probably said thanks already during the reception."

And then they wonder angrily why they never get any more presents. Like, say, for baby showers. "I mean, it's not like she can't afford it! And I had a lot of stuff on the registry!"

Enjoy.

"Parenting column: Quiz determines if parents suffer from co-dependency with their children"

By John Rosemond.

http://www.news-sentinel.com/living/Parenting-column--Quiz-determines-if-parents-suffer-from-co-dependency-with-their-children

"The directions are simple: Answer each statement with either Mostly True, Somewhat True, or Not True. Then assign yourself 10 points for every Mostly True and five points for every Somewhat True...

"...If you score 60 or above, you are suffering from Egalitarian Parenting Syndrome. The good news is you can recover. Here’s a great first step in that direction: The next time you need some parenting advice, ask your grandmother or some other person over age 65."

The de-fanged language the CDC has adopted to label male victims of sexual assault underscores a worrying tendency among researchers as well as rape counselors and law enforcement officials, Stemple says. The implication: "For men, all sex is good sex."

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/the-hidden-epidemic-of-men-who-are-raped-by-women

Ever wonder why they go to Twitter and/or Facebook instead of the cops?

http://www.michigansthumb.com/news/article/False-rape-report-leads-to-felony-charges-10645870.php

1926 sucked.

Like Crid I thought we were the best, however we don't even get listed in the top 20.

https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-which-nation-has-the-most-total-freedom-of-all/

Wonder what the immigration practices are in Hong Kong or Switzerland since ours are so awful and unfair.

Decapitated reindeer causes child to weep.

No trigger warning. SFW.

Something surprising in this article:

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/how-lesbians-lose-their-virginity

Last paragraphs:

..."Lesbians lose their virginity by having sex," says Blank, "just like everyone else." Which of course immediately leads to another question: What is sex?

Again, the act has until recently been defined by penetration. Studies by the Kinsey Institute, the Archives of Sexual Behavior, and the Canadian Journal of Sexuality have attempted to find a universal definition of sex, and all have failed. In a review of previous studies, the Canadian research team found that 97 percent of respondents viewed penis-in-vagina (PIV) sex as sex. However, a study done by the Kinsey Institute in 1999 found that only 82 percent of men over the age of 60 believed PIV sex with condoms was still sex. For them, sex needed to have a potentially procreative aspect or it didn't count.

The Canadian study, which only surveyed people who identified as heterosexual, found that only "less than 25 percent of participants considered oral genital behavior to be having sex, more than 60 percent thought that the giver or receiver of oral sex was a sexual partner, and more than 97 percent considered a partner who had oral sex with someone else to be have been unfaithful." In short: The definition of sex changes depending on who's having it with whom, and when, and how.

"A lot of queer folks feel they lost their virginity the first time they had an orgasm with a partner," says Blank. "It wasn't about what acts or even what genders were involved. It's as valid a definition as any other."
________________________________________

That Kinsey study from 1999 is what surprised me. I mean, I can barely imagine men born before WWII saying, in effect, that sex with a condom doesn't count as sex - i.e., as adultery - but surely they would think it counted as sex if their teen daughters were having that type of sex with their boyfriends - right? Not to mention, if they really don't WANT to have children with their wives, why wouldn't sex with condoms count as sex? Unless they're just looking for an excuse to be miserable.

lenona, "... 82 percent of men over the age of 60 believed PIV sex with condoms was still sex." is pretty clear.

It's not the same thing as saying the "men born before WWII saying, in effect, that sex with a condom doesn't count as sex" because who knows what that other 18% believed.

Besides a certain percentage of any group of males can be really out there.

Maybe something got misquoted.

Well, it's difficult to imagine what else that 18% could have believed.

And yes, 82 percent, on the other side, is a lot. But so is 18%.

Though when I was a lot younger, I had trouble understanding, somehow, that anything less than half can count as "a lot," so I didn't understand why a birth defect that affects 1 out of 4 babies in certain neighborhoods was so alarming. I think kids in middle school should be taught that, say, "1 out of 20 people" means that chances are high that they know someone from that 1-out-of-20 group. Otherwise they may well refuse to believe it.

And, in the same vein, when sex ed teachers teach kids that 4 out of 5 teen couples who have unprotected PIV sex will be facing a pregnancy within a year, they need to remember that many a teen will interpret that as "you mean I have a 1-in-5 chance of winning the lottery? Yippee! No embarrassing birth control for me from now on!"

I was reading Ken Smith's book "Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970." It's not as funny as you might expect, since he takes the subject quite seriously - and a good thing, too. He led me to look up the 1957 film "As Boys Grow..." on YouTube. It's just over 16 minutes long. Another 22-minute film mentioned on the same page (p. 68) is the 1950 "Human Beginnings," filmed in color. As he says, both of them are "wildly atypical" for their time. I haven't watched the 1950 film yet, but he said it caused a furor because it showed breastfeeding and "featured adults explaining childbirth to six-year-olds."

What made my jaw drop upon watching the 1957 film was how the coach talks between the 9:00 and 10:00 marks. How modern can you get? No wonder it wasn't shown much at the time. Now, of course, you'd have all sorts of silly humor to make kid viewers feel less awkward - as well as lots of flashy special effects. Not that that's bad.

Here is "As Boys Grow...":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMdY3mPngyg

Btw, I don't know if Smith is the same person as the gay novelist, but he did write at least three other nonfiction books, including "Ken's Guide to the Bible."

Newflash: Many US businesses are just fronts for moneymaking operations.