Thursday, May 1, 2008

Gun control, from New York

"Let loose gunfire." What a poetic euphemism, and it linguistically absolves the gunman of guilt - he didn't "shoot and murder" a number of people. Odd. I hate following up with "guns don't kill people," but it does take more than a gun.
The classic give-guns-to-potential-victims policy, from the Maverick State. In Alaska, you can carry a gun anywhere outside, and into non-school, -government, or -airport buildings.
There is no coercion here.
Concealed carry laws require accuracy and safety examinations to get a permit. Aside from this, an background checks, it might be interesting to add a psychological exam to weed out the potential crazies. (Though who is to say the shrinks would recognize the crazies.)
So there's a law in Utah, and no problems since? And yet a classmate poll indicates that some students here think guns are scary. There's proof.

Adolescents and crazy pills

Why are kids depressed? Are they more depressed? Can we find more depression? Or is the bell-curve narrowing, and we're accepting less variation in defining the "normal" child?
Drugs don't empower children, don't work...
Real problem: We don't understand neurochemistry enough to mess with it (effectively) in very plastic brains. Check out the "This American Life" about Testosterone for a fascinating crash course in how much just one chemical affects our perception and personality.
Oh no. She's blaming the internet. Srsly.
Oooh, alternative therapies, like analysis, exercise, and going outside. Medicalization of everything, this is the sin of public health.

A redhead writes about skin cancer

And come to think of it, in stereotypes, an Indian guy wrote about beef?
In other news, someone should have written about the sex trade, specifically at laws that punish prostitutes and not their clients. The DC Madam, who supposedly ran a prostitution ring serving Capitol Hill, hung herself to avoid a 4-6 year jail sentence. Mmm, corruption.
Instead, let's rock the totally sexualized sunscreen ad. Problem here? One is aimed at parents of small children, one displays nude men and includes "largest organ" in the slogan. Perhaps not overlapping audiences.

A deep, abiding love of bad TV

Shout-outs.
Removing personal responsibility from obesity awareness - the American Dream is hurting our overweight population. No lapel pin here.
Corporate culture shirking responsibility - problem users cause obesity, not problem products.
I'd like an evolutionary argument here somewhere, people are built to survive, not buy 3L bottles of Coke for $2 and eat whole 3500-calorie pans of brownies for less.
100g sirloin: 259 calories.
100g Betty Crocker brownies: 397 calories.
100g Coke: 40 calores. But that's only 4 ounces, and who drinks 4 ounces?
100g white rice: 361 calories.
100g black beans: 227 calories. Also, 15g protein and 15g fiber.
Compare the above two to 100g whole-wheat bread: 261 calories, 6 grams of fiber, 8 of protein.
Superfood, anyone?

Twice as much sauce as noodles...

Sounds like an atkins thing. Or a noodle-hater.
Widely traveled, and has cooked with Rachel Ray, now he'll talk about downer cows.
We waited until 2004 to stop allowing downer cows into the food supply, and the USDA brought downer cows back, pending veterinarian examination.
Problem: You need to biopsy cow brains to find spongiform encephalitis (mad cow), which no vet is going to do, and no existing group of vets will be able to do for all the downer cows.
Conflict of interest? Yes. Flawed data? Maybe.
Real problem? Economics and cost-cutting reduces the quality of treatment and feed of cows, and farming is already horribly over-subsidized in the US. Botswana, where there are more cows than people, currently is supposed to have no mad cow. Can you buy Botswanan beef? No.
Best slip? "Inhumane Society."
What did the policy do? Remove mad cow controls.

Archery?

Vertical transmission of the hiv through breastfeeding. Black on fuchsia background - completele unreadable with any light.
Cultural incompetence: You will give your baby HIV, maybe. So don't breastfeed if you can manage not to, otherwise, whatever.
HIV kills babies, so does diarrhea. Formula causes microabrasions in the esophagus? Is there broken glass in formula?
The real problem: It's that difficult to feed babies in many parts of the world.

Oversharing!

Next presenter, a whole-grain protester, has celiac. No worry, I'd protest the 24oz/24hours until I got osteoporosis.
So many cartoons.
How many people are looking at celiac as a killer weight loss option? Don't absorb any food? Terrible gastrointestinal cramping? Better than surgery, I'd guess.
Also, way, way too much history.
Opiate reaction - we need needle sharing for whole-grain lovers.
Unfortunately the list of non-gluten grains are all nutritionally inferior to wheat.
The real problem: She nails it, look at other foods, stop allowing public health to be subsidized by marketers for various food industries.
Also, daily fiber without wheat: black beans. More protein, more fiber, 75 cents a can.