10 Banned Foods

This is a response to an open invitation to fact-check an infographic. As such, it's mostly addressed to that person. However, I should state for the record that he knows more about chemistry than I ever care to (my knowledge is strictly high-school level, or at least what should be high school level), so the portions where I either "explain" a chemical process or link to an explanation are not for his benefit, but for the benefit of anyone who's stumbled upon this and chosen to read along.

The infographic is from Dr. Joseph Mercola, of whom I'll have more to say at the end.

10 Banned Foods Americans Should Stop Eating

(Apparently the theme here is that if a food is banned anywhere in the world for any reason, Americans should stop eating it, which I note without judgement)

Now before I start, I'll say for the record that I'm not an M.D., nor am I a medical professional of any sort. What I present here are logical responses to the infographic. They are not medical opinions, they're just opinions. They are not medical advice. Also, they're completely dependent upon the sources from which I drew them. The point here is to provide other points of view so that you don't feel pressured into blindly accepting the spurious advice of one person with the title of "doctor". One doctor's opinion is the start of a conversation, not the end. Again, I'll have more to say at the end.

In the following, unless otherwise obvious from context, "they" refers to Dr. Mercola and/or whoever in his organization researched and composed the infographic.

That said, here are my comments about the 10 foods he lists:

1. Salmon

I didn't bother to check facts on this one, but took them as given because I've seen them before. However, facts without logic mean nothing. Please note:

• Wild-caught salmon doesn't begin to satisfy the demands of the who have to eat something. 
• The antibiotics fed to farmed salmon are to counter the higher risks noted. 
• Farming salmon reduces the risk of over-harvesting and endangering the species. 

Obviously, due to the risks of commercial over-fishing (which is why you know what tilapia is and see far less tuna), limits must be set on the harvesting of wild salmon. This is all well and good if you want to pay exhorbitant prices for wild salmon or hop in your private plane to fly yourself to Alaska with your hip-waders and rod, but doesn't do much if you're a mom trying to feed your kids some fish.

Remember logic: if A is "better for you" than B, that does NOT equal "B is bad for you". It just means that A is better.

2. Genetically engineered papaya

ALL of the risks noted are for "GE foods", and not a single one is for papaya specifically. While this indicates an nonspecific fear of GMO foods in general, it does not indicate any particular health problem with this variety of papaya. Indeed, hawaiiseed.org lists a number of "problems" with the strain, all of which are economic, due to the closing of markets. None of the problems listed are health-related. One thing in particular is known, though... they have a lower incidence of ringspot virus, which nearly wiped out papaya in Hawai'i, the only place where it's commercially grown in the United States. Feel free to interpret this limited range as a business opportunity.

The GMO variety is presumed to be of risk because their ringspot immunity is granted to them by a gene that produces papaya ringspot virus protein, which is designated a "potential allergen" because it is chemically similar to a known allergen.

3. Ractopamine-tainted meat. 

There is only one study on the effects of ractopamine on humans (from 2012), and it examined only six men. It was severely limited for ethical reasons, only to verify that the effects on humans were similar to those already recorded for primates.

The infographic says that it's banned in "160 countries across Europe". There aren't 160 countries in Europe. There are about 50 if you list Russia (mostly Asian) and the Vatican, 28 of which are in the European Union. OK, so they aren't really careful with language.

There are 196 countries in the entire world  Twenty-seven other countries have declared ractopamine to be safe, leaving 159. Or 158 if you're China. OK, so somebody's math is off somewhere.

Apparently what has happened here is that someone took the approximate number of countries in the world, subtracted the number that have specifically declared ractopamine to be safe, and decided that it must be banned in the the rest without considering the possibility that a large percentage of them have other things to worry about and haven't expressed an opinion one way or the other. But it may very well be something close to that number. Or not. The problem is that I haven't been able to find a complete list of them anywhere... just the iffy math.

The word "poisoned" is in scare quotes here as well. Why? Because it's not defined. This number isn't from a medical source, it's from the Sichuan Pork Trade Chamber of Commerce in China [PDF]

4. Flame Retardant in drinks.

Water is also a flame retardant. So is baking soda. The use of the term here is 100% purely for scare value... it is otherwise meaningless.

The reason brominated vegetable oil (BVO) is in these drinks is as an emulsifier. Citrus drinks separate when left to sit, and this keeps them mixed up.

They state that BVO was originally patented as a flame retardant. The patent for BVO as a flame retardant in polyurethane foam was filed Nov 20, 1997. Its use as an emulsifier in soft drinks began in 1931. Perhaps there's an earlier patent that I can't find, but even so it wouldn't mean anything. I've made papier-mache pinatas using flour as paste. I wouldn't on that basis shout that bread should be banned because it's made of glue.

The bigger question, though, is about the health effects of BVO. As with everything, including water, this comes down to dosage. The only documented cases of bromism I saw involving human beings had the patients consuming FOUR LITERS OR MORE of citrus-flavored soda PER DAY. One was treated with hemodialysis and recovered, though it was not determined whether that specific ingredient was at fault. Another just quit drinking the sodas and recovered.

If you're ingesting that much of any flavor of anything, STOP IT. It's not the substance at fault, it's you.

5. Processed foods with artificial food colors and dyes

I always am skeptical when I see "Research has linked" in association with any claim about anything. All it usually means is "someone suspects". Otherwise, they'd be saying "[this study] has established that [this substance] causes [this disorder]."

I especially am leery here. Dyes can vary greatly in their chemical compositions, so lumping them together and saying "dyes cause all this stuff" is logically unsound, and probably factually so. In any case, some "artificial" dyes are "nature identical"... chemically indistinguishable from the natural dyes they replace. So how is it reasonable to presume that they are "bad" when the identical molecule from a different source is not? An example: Blue #2 is just indigo dye. It's exactly the "blue" of "blue jeans". Whether it's extracted from a plant, or from snails, or synthesized, it's still indigo. In 3,000 years nobody's complained about it, health-wise... so why is Dr. Mercola listing it? No reason really, he just lists the four most popular dyes.

As for the others, I know jack about them except that they're "azo dyes", and that Red 40 replaced Red 2 and Red 3 because Red 40 was deemed safer. I'm just going to link to the Wikipedia article for Red 40 since it describes the two yellows as well (Sunset Yellow and Tartrazine)

Other than link to these specific dyes I can't address the claim because it's too broad. Yes, they do list four specific dyes, but as we've seen, that list is only drawn from frequency of use.

As an aside, I hate the common usage of the word "processed". It means anything, and therefore nothing. The simple act of butchering is "processing". In fact, Dr. Mercola's website rails against "deli meat". I don't know what deli he frequents, but if it's a real one, it's kosher, and the products are a damned site more natural than any of the pills and supplements he hawks on his website. It's just a further example of sloppy language.

6. Arsenic-laced chicken.

As always, dosage. Though the infographic states the arsenic-based drugs "make animals grow quicker and make the meat appear pinker and fresher," that appears to be inaccurate by implication. These drugs were used to kill off infections, ward off disease, and produce a healthier animal. Get that? The feed was given in such doses as to produce a healthier chicken, not in doses that kill it off. That's why they grew quicker and had better meat.

Furthermore, you are much larger than a chicken. A dose that keeps a chicken healthy isn't likely to make you sick. However, that's the drug, and not necessarily the arsenic.

As you know, chemistry is tricky... just because something starts out as safe, that doesn't mean it stays that way. Likewise, as we'll see with the next substance, just because something starts out as dangerous, it doesn't necessarily stay that way, either. Atoms are lost and gained. Molecules are split and recombined. New molecules are formed. (My questioner knows all of this intimately. I'm stating that for the rest of you.) In this case, there's a concern about raised levels of inorganic arsenic found in rice, which is often fertilized with poultry droppings.

Last year the FDA withdrew approval for three of the four arsenic-based drugs that exist, so this criticism is largely obsolete. The last drug, Nitarsone, is the only known treatment for histomoniasis, a disease fatal to turkeys. Nitarsone is an organic drug. (Don't get excited; that just means it contains carbon... but where arsenic's concerned, that's important).

On the infographic the risks listed are those of eating arsenic itself, not chicken.

7. Bread with potassium bromate.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information relates that when potassium bromate (KBrO3) is fed directly to rats (orally), it is a carcinogen, and also causes kidney problems in humans, also when fed directly and orally.

In bread it is used as an oxidizing agent to form bonds in the gluten. In doing so it gives up its oxygen and becomes potassium bromide. Unless you're seriously overdosing, this is harmless. The alternative to using the oxidizing agent is to age the flour (in open air, not sealed)... then knead the fool out of the dough then let it rest and knead it again so that the oxygen is taken from the atmosphere. This is time-consuming, and because it's often skipped at home that's why you'll find that some commercial breads are softer than your best attempts. It's not your ingredients, it's your process. You've got to let the dough rest.

Nevertheless, it's possible that if it's not properly used in the baking of bread that some potassium bromate may be left behind, and if you ate large quantities of poorly prepared bread you may develop problems. Fortunately the bread aisle is full of unbromated alternatives.

8. Olestra/Olean

I had to laugh. One of the risks given is that rats that were fed the stuff gained weight. Usually that's a "risk" attributed to "food". Nevertheless, this is the stuff that also advertises its own side effects, such as "leaky bowels" and "oily anal leakage".

Personally, I prefer baked chips and fries to those that have been oil-fried; and while this is in some packaged foods I don't know of any fast-food restaurants that use it (nor would they continue to after the word got out).

It's probably worth noting why this stuff was invented in the first place. It's a fat substitute that got traction only because fat's gotten a bad rap from nutrition fear-mongers. Be careful what you reflexively trash... the alternative is almost always worse.

9. Preservatives BHA and BHT

Let's take them separately, just to be different. Yes, I know, they say that these are "toxic" preservatives, but they also have been remarkably fact-challenged already.

Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) is a preservative. For instance, they say BHA "is known to cause cancer in rats". Yes. In abnormally high doses that is true. In hamsters, too. But not in mice... not even a little bit. In mice it seems to retard other carcinogens. And while NIH "reasonably anticipates" that it could be a human carcinogen, no one has found a link at usual levels of intake.

"Comparison of the present results to a similar study using BHT clearly indicates that BHA at equivalent dietary doses is considerably less toxic than BHT"

So let's look at BHT.

Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) is an anti-oxidant. And the same people who decry the scary sounding "chemical" go out of their way to find other anti-oxidants that are claimed to retard aging. Some studies say it increases cancer risk, others say it decreases the risk, the usual upshot of which is that it might not actually affect it one way or the other. In point of fact, you can buy BHT in health-food stores. $12.95 for a big bottle full of capsules of the stuff from Vitamin Research Products. Folks gotta make up their minds. It's terrible when "Big-Pharma" or "Big-Agra" or "Big...er...Fooda" sells it, but just peachy when Big-Vita sells it.

10. Milk and dairy products laced with rBGH

That would be the "recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone" you hear about. Once again they need to fact-check, and in this case I'm going to link you to Cancer.org's page on the subject. I'm using this as a source because if you're going to claim a thing causes cancer, you should be paying attention to what the people who specialize in cancer actually say.

Here are a couple of choice quotes:

"Bovine growth hormone levels are not significantly higher in milk from rBGH-treated cows. On top of this, BGH is not active in humans, so even if it were absorbed from drinking milk, it wouldn't be expected to cause health effects."

"Of greater concern is the fact that milk from rBGH-treated cows has higher levels of IGF-1, a hormone that normally helps some types of cells to grow. Several studies have found that IGF-1 levels at the high end of the normal range may influence the development of certain tumors."

Just so we're clear on this... the issue isn't about products "laced with rBGH", it's about the higher levels of IGF-1 in cows treated with rBGH. Now, you might thing this is picking nits, but not when medicine is involved. Getting it wrong leads people to ban the wrong damned thing. (and yes, I may have it wrong, too... that's why you get other opinions).

The infographic mentions that cows treated with rBGH have higher incidents of mastitis (udder infections), but Cancer.org rightly notes they are also given more antibiotics. It's not the rBGH that Cancer.org questions, but the increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

More:

"Some studies have shown that adults who drink milk have about 10% higher levels of IGF-1 in their blood than those who drink little or no milk. But this same finding has also been reported in people who drink soymilk. This suggests that the increase in IGF-1 may not be specific to cow's milk, and may be caused by protein, minerals, or some other factors in milk unrelated to rBGH. There have been no direct comparisons of IGF-1 levels in people who drink ordinary cow's milk vs. milk stimulated by rBGH.

"At this time, it is not clear that drinking milk, produced with or without rBGH treatment, increases blood IGF-1 levels into a range that might be of concern regarding cancer risk or other health effects."

So while IGF-1 can contribute to cancer, this is present in comparable levels in all milk-drinkers, even when rBGH hasn't been administered to the cows, and even when there are no cows at all, as in soy milk. That would sound like cause for advice to avoid milk in general were it not for the matter of dosage and daily allowances. Read the Cancer.org site for more info.

Can I Trust The Source?

I'm sure he has a selection of very
flattering pics on his own site

Now, about who they are. As noted, they are Mercola.com, or more specifically Dr. Joseph Mercola, who has hollowed out quite a lucrative niche in the health advice industry.

Apparently Dr. Oz likes him, though Sciencebasedmedicine.org doesn't. In fact, the site gives nine reasons to ignore Mercola.

Steven Novella M.D., professor of neurology at Yale, vilifies Mercola on the NeuroLogica Blog for Mercola's dangerous stance on vaccines. Being wrong on vaccines doesn't necessarily mean Mercola's wrong on nutrition, but he has established a pretty firm track-record for fear-mongering.

Quackwatch.org reports that the FDA has ordered Mercola to stop illegal claims. Again, that doesn't mean that these claims are illegal. It just establishes that he's willing to make illegal claims and has a track record of doing so.

ScienceBlogs.com published an article on Mercola entitled "15 Years of Promoting Quackery".

Dr. Mercola is entry #274 in The Encyclopedia of American Loons.I find this entry to be entirely on-point.

Given Mercola's track record, anything he says is at best questionable; by which I mean you should question it and get a second opinion. That said, my opinion is that your second opinion should be your primary opinion, so get a third. Of course, Mercola might respond that of course the entire medical and scientific establishment are against him, because everyone but him is in the pocket of Big-something. That would be putting words in his mouth, so I won't suggest it.

LDS grapples with dating service in a "Mormon Match"

Anthony Zurcher at BBC news reports the following:

A trademark fight over the word 'Mormon' 

You may have thought that there's such a thing as the "Mormon Church", but really there isn't. It's officially the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or "LDS" for short; and its members are latter-day saints. But because of their religious text entitled the Book of Mormon the common appellation is "Mormon Church", and the members are informally known as "Mormons". In fact, they're almost exclusively known as "Mormons" outside of their own church.

It seems that the LDS objected when a dating website called "Mormon Match" tried to trademark the name "Mormon Match". The LDS argues that it holds ownership of a family of trademarks, each of which includes the word "Mormon", and to allow a commercial venture to use it in a trademark would dilute the non-identical trademarks owned by the LDS and damage the Church.

The BBC story is in error when it claims that the LDS "has a trademark on the word". They link to the trademark document for "Mormon.org", which is distinct from "Mormon". According to the LDS, they did try to get a trademark on the word "Mormon", but they were denied by the USPTO, as "Mormon" is a generic word. They gave up trying in 2007. According to the Church, Mormon Match filed for trademark, the Church filed an official objection, and it is Mormon Match that sued the Church. So this is a bit more subtle than the BBC story implies, and even their title is inaccurate.

Now, the LDS objects to the trademark of "Mormon Match" despite the fact that the website in question exists to match Mormons with like-minded individuals (aka other Mormons), and it's not at all clear how they'd do that if not allowed to simply describe their services. This is also despite the fact that the website contains on its landing page the following disclaimer:

"MORMON MATCH IS NOT COMMERCIALLY AFFILIATED WITH OR ENDORSED BY 

THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS"

You might think that they could use another word, like "Latter-day Saints", but that's actually the official title, so if anything that would be worse. Or perhaps they could come up with some completely new word to describe the membership, but that wouldn't be informative, and could quickly become pejorative. This might not be appreciated by the members. It would be like naming your Italian dating service, "Wop Swap 'n' Shop".

By contrast, mainstream Christians of all stripes would like Christians to meet other Christians, and no one would think twice about describing their dating service as being "for Christians". Yet the LDS have a problem with it. Very odd.

To be fair, here is the LDS' position as stated by church spokesman Eric Hawkins:

"We have made repeated attempts to resolve the issue without litigation, as we have in many comparable disputes over the years, including similar trademark applications. The objection of the church is that a for-profit business is trying to deceptively capitalize on the church’s name and image to promote a product that has no affiliation with the church. By attempting to trademark the name, the group seeks to claim exclusive rights to use a term that is clearly associated with the church."

I technically have no horse in this race, not being Mormon, nor having stock in the website. But I do like the English language, and I like being able to use it without being arbitrarily sued. And I do love little logical conundrums, so I find myself wondering how I'd argue the case.

I think I'd do it like this:

But first... I had a very clever case plotted out as to why the LDS can't trademark "Mormon". That was done after having read the BBC article, and before I found out the USPTO had already denied that trademark. So all of that cleverness is lost to the bit bucket. There remains this boring little list of obviousness.  *sigh* At least I got to clear up the BBC's misinformation.

1. The use of the term on the "Mormon Match" website poses no problem of confusion with the LDS. Not only are their products different, they clearly label themselves as not being affiliated or endorsed by the LDS so as to remove remaining doubt, should any exist. The mere use of the word "Mormon" does not provide adequate grounds for objection, as their activities occupy different domains. For example, the term "Apple" is simultaneously trademarked by a computer company, a record label, a rubber products company, a publisher, and numerous other companies.
2. This aside, there exists no other term that adequately describes a Mormon, or Latter-Day Saint, other than those over which the Church claims trademark. This lack of alternatives reduces the term "Mormon" to a common word in the language. Its use by Mormon Match is purely descriptive and without alternative. The use of this common word in LDS trademarks therefore poses inadequate grounds for objection. It is, after all, a common word; the generic term for a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for whom the website's services are specifically intended.
3. This aside, the Church's object that Mormon Match is attempting to "deceptively capitalize on the church’s name and image to promote a product that has no affiliation with the church" holds no water. On the contrary, Mormon Match is attempting to blatantly and openly market to church members a service that has no affiliation with the Church. They make no secret about the fact that they are not affiliated with the Church nor do they hide that their service is for Mormons. And the fact that this is "a product that has no affiliation with the church" cuts straight to the issue of "domain", as stated in point #1, so we may take this clause as a concession of that point. There is no barrier of law, ethics, or morals to prevent Mormon Match from offering their service to Mormons. So what else would you call them?
4. This aside, the Church's objection to the use of the word "Mormon" in someone else's trademark amounts to a de facto claim on the word "Mormon" itself, which is exactly what has already been denied by the USPTO. As the USPTO has already rejected that claim, so should the objection to the use of the word by Mormon Match be rejected. It is equivalent to the word "Chicken" or "Steak" being claimed as exclusive trademarks by competing restaurants, and is contrary to Trademark law.

In short, Mormon Match operates in a distinct domain, describing itself using a common word that is appropriately and properly applied without malice, deception, or confusion, and should be allowed the trademark to trademark their name without further objection.

---

PostScript:

This leaves the question of why Mormon Match would have sued the LDS and refused an out-of-court settlement. A clue to that lies in the Church's own statement:

"We have made repeated attempts to resolve the issue without litigation, as we have in many comparable disputes over the years, including similar trademark applications..."

They do this a lot. To a lot of people who can't afford to defend themselves. If their logic fails here, then it fails for others.

Sometimes it's not just your business interests that are at stake. Sometimes it's the principle. As the Electonic Frontier Foundation's Corynne McSherry said in a statement. "Trademarks are supposed to be used to protect from unfair competition, not to stifle a small business or to control language." And as stated in the EFF's amicus brief:

"By granting Eller’s motion now, this Court will help ensure not only that Eller’s business can survive, but also that other similarly situated persons, from entrepreneurs to authors, filmmakers, cartoonists, songwriters, and other creators will not feel pressured or succumb to meritless infringement claims."

Dear Symantec...

UPDATE:
Symantec have corrected the problem. Scroll to the bottom, please.

---

Today I received an email thanking me for my interest in a product for which I have expressed no interest whatsoever. Nevertheless, Symantec, you thoughtfully stepped in, made an assumption that I desperately need and/or want your advice, and sent me your spam offer anyway.

Fine. I know what to do... I search the fine print at the bottom of the email for the required "Unsubscribe" link. Scrubbing my mouse around (since there were no highlighted links) I find a "Communications Preferences" link and correctly surmise that this is where I should go.I am greeted with a page with the headline "Unsubscribe" in which I can type my email address.

Now, most companies have a one-click unsubscribe feature, to minimize the annoyance they visit upon potential customers. I value that, for while I don't want their regular emails, chances are that I've either bought something from them in the past, or will consider them and their polite deference when looking for future products.

Likewise, my dear Symantec, I will remember that you obfuscated your link by calling it something other than Unsubscribe, and further obfuscated it by using style settings that hide links as plain text. And I will remember the page to which you sent me, reproduced here, which forces me to give you permission to send me more spam along with my request to stop the spam.

CLICK FOR FULL SIZED IMAGE

To which I have just this to say...

Disdainfully yours,

Not a customer.

---

UPDATE:

This morning I received another email, same as the first, with these differences:

The message at the bottom of the email has changed. It no longer obfuscates the unsubscribe link, and the wording has changed to make it clear that this is how you unsubscribe.

The Unsubscribe page no longer states that you have to give them permission to subscribe you in order to unsubscribe.

THANK

YOU

It's Your Life: on the trauma of bullying

This is a discussion of bullying, but not the recent, ongoing sort. It's about the lasting trauma that can eat at you for years afterward and poison your current relationships. I’m going to share something personal with you, that I don't share often; and I’m going to make some statements following that that, likely as not, you will not believe.

If it seems to you that my presentation is without compassion, I'll ask whether you would rather have someone cry in the mud with you, or have them help you up?

Personal History

My mother was the very smartest person I’ve ever met in my life, bar none. I’ve never met a college professor, a Ph.D., a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a doctor, a lawyer, a politician, a pundit, or man on the street with the raw intelligence and wisdom that she displayed. I mean that very sincerely. I’m rather dull compared to her. Now, you likely think that I’m writing this merely because she was my mother, but I say that’s because you didn’t know her.

Nevertheless, for a good portion of her life my mother believed herself to be stupid. She married at a very young age, to a man who turned out to be a substance abusing wife beater who repeated told her how stupid she was. She had her first child, my sister, at age sixteen. Her second child lived only a couple of weeks. And she stayed with this abusive drug-addict, my father, for a further 20 years, repeatedly subjected to verbal reinforcement of how stupid she was. By “verbal reinforcement” I mean shouted insults and belittlement which became bolder and more persistent over time, just as his substance abuse increased over time. By “substance abuse” I mean not just alcohol, but morphine and other illicit drugs.

Now I am either blessed or cursed with exceptional memory (save for names, which are my blind spot… I’m likely to forget your name the moment you’re introduced). I accurately remember events from at least before I was two years old, as I remember not having a little brother, and I very clearly remember my crib and mobile. The point here is that I remember the yelling and the screaming though I did not know what it meant at the time. And I most clearly remember that night when I was six years old when my father was in the hospital and my mother packed us all up and drove us to a different city to get away from all of that. There was no job and no home waiting for us.

That was not entirely her decision. My older brother had a great deal to do with it. He walked in on my father beating my mother yet again. In her defense, he gave my father the beating that put him in the hospital with a collapsed lung. He told my mother that if we didn’t leave, my father would very likely kill one of them when he got out of the hospital. Without that impetus Mom might have remained where she was; whether out of stubbornness; or loyalty to her vows (if not to her husband); or fear that she couldn’t make it on her own with a “real job”, believing herself to be as stupid as she was told. She would have certainly taken more beatings. It was only when she was faced with the hard choice of trusting in herself or losing her children that she packed up and left. And for that I am forever grateful.

Because when she made that decision, magic happened. She got a job in a factory, putting the metal eyelets on fishing poles. She found that a “real job” wasn’t a challenge. She got another job, a better one in another factory, this time making electrical connectors. She worked in the stock room and she worked as a screen printer, printing miniscule pin designations on tiny rubber grommets. She became good at it, then supremely good at it. She was promoted to quality assurance, then observed that defective parts didn’t need to be scrapped, but could be salvaged despite the fact that they couldn’t be disassembled for re-work. However, the equipment to do that work did not exist. She demonstrated to her bosses her ability to legibly re-paint the defective labels using a jeweler’s loupe and a brush consisting of two hairs, and thus made a new position for herself in the company; one which she kept until retirement.

In the meantime she divorced, then met and married a new man… a better man… took me to the public library every weekend, and read voraciously. She made the finest lace and embroidery I’ve ever seen, and upon her retirement she taught continuing education classes in needlework at Clemson and help manage my step-father's farm. She discovered that she was anything but stupid, and never experienced another moment of self-doubt.

The fact that she wasn’t stupid wasn’t a gradual revelation. It was immediately obvious when she made the decision that her abusive husband was not going to define her. If you had only met her in the latter half of her life, there is no way that you would have believed she spent the first half in constant self-doubt. I know this through conversations with her friends. Her very closest friend recalled that when they first met at work, she thought  my mother was some kind of stuck-up intellectual snob. That was before she realized that Mom was always explaining things, but only the things you genuinely didn't know, and she thought you would be as fascinated by the process of learning as she was. She was constantly teaching.

As a result, I grew up in a very different world than the one I could have grown up in; the one that still occupies the dim recesses of my memory. I could have been beat up daily by my father like my brother was. I could have been told how weak and unimportant I was. I might have believed the lies. Instead I practically breathed literature, and was taught that I alone owned my sense of self-worth, and I was taught that by someone who knew for an absolute fact that it was true. And I believed her, and believe her still, because I personally watched it happen.

These are ironclad, unassailable Laws of Nature. Facts that you can not waive away with expressions of negativity:

NO ONE ELSE OWNS YOUR MIND

NO ONE ELSE OWNS YOUR EMOTIONS

YOU CONTROL YOUR DESTINY

If you don’t believe this to be true, it’s only because you still believe the lies. But rest assured that they are lies. You do have the power to dismiss them if you choose to embrace the truth.

What This Means

Well, what it does not mean is that bullying doesn’t happen. Of course it bullying happens.

What it does not mean is that you are being blamed for being a victim of bullying. Of course the bully is to blame for his actions. But blame is unimportant. Control of your life is.

What it does mean is that you can choose how to respond to those actions. You can choose to allow someone else to define you, or you can choose to define yourself and dismiss the offensive opinions that will not matter to you if you know that you are what you decide to be.

A little more personal history: I was for a very long time the smallest boy in my class (in fact, when I joined the Air Force at 21 years of age I still weighed only 119 pounds). And being the smallest, and often the smartest, and certainly the most well-read I was picked on and bullied. And I do make a distinction between taunting and flat-out bullying. The one is words, and the other is being physically beat up.  I know the difference because I’ve experienced them both. In my high school I belonged to a racial minority: Whites were 17% of my school’s population. I received verbal taunts based on… well, everything possible to be taunted about. I grew up back in the day when “geek” was to an intellectual what “nigger” was to a Black. Today it’s fashionable to be a “geek” and “geeky”, but then it wasn’t. I don’t mind telling you I’m in equal parts miffed that total non-geeks aspire to the title that earned me a few bloody noses and satisfied that we geeks won the day in the end. Today’s “geeks” don’t understand what that word meant, but in the 1970s being a geek meant you should be in a traveling freak show. There wasn't another definition. I was a geek and a nerd and a "Poindexter" and a space-cadet and an egg-head. And I had 2 brothers, a sister, and four step-siblings, so we didn’t have a bunch of money to through around, either. Toughskins jeans don’t wear out easily, so eventually you’re going to be called “Highwater” and whatever else they can think of about your appearance.

I’ve also been beat up, picked up, held upside down with my head in a toilet, had my pants stripped off of me and have been stuffed in a locker.

Of the two, I’ll take the taunting. I get to decide whether it’s true or not. And if it’s true, then my response is, “So what?” I’m proud of my Jewish heritage, so ethnic taunts fell on deaf ears. And my pants didn’t fit well. So what? And if some genius pushed the “point” that my pants didn’t fit, then my response of “So what?” revealed that they really didn’t have anywhere to go with the taunt. That was it. They shot their wad, and it was pathetic. They couldn’t tell me I was stupid because I knew it wasn’t true, and they couldn’t shame me for being intellectual because I knew I didn’t care what they thought.

But I really wasn’t fond of the idea of broken bones. Still, I don’t hold it against the guy who gave the swirlies. For one thing, I’m fairly certain that his home life wasn’t the greatest. And there was a certain culture that he grew up in in the 1970s; and there I was, a weak little White guy who made a perfect scapegoat for the frustrations of a burly Black kid 8 inches taller than me. And then there’s the fact that what he did was not targeted at me in particular. If I had not been there then it would have been somebody else, so in the grand scheme of things it was probably a good thing that I was his punching bag and not someone who would have been mentally scarred. I very much doubt that if we met today he would even remember that I was his target. None of this excuses his bullying, but it makes it very easy for me to forgive him. And I do it because I can.

Now, as an aside, I will point out that at the time, my primary response was the very sensible one of not being there, and also telling an adult. If someone is abusive, you don't spend time with them. The Anti-Defamation League has published "10 Ways to Respond to Bullying" which are immediately useful for people who are currently the target of bullying. I would recommend these steps to them in addition to a cultivation of self-ownership. I would pay close attention to them.

For the rationalist…

I live in a country that was founded by what today we would call Libertarians. They held an ideal of individual freedom, and they codified that ideal in the Constitution of the United States, and especially in the “Bill of Rights”... the first ten amendments.  The very first of these asserts our right to freedom of religion, expression, and assembly. Note that our rights are not granted to us by this Amendment. Rather, it merely acknowledges the fact that these rights are inherent, inalienable, and that they do in fact exist. And this means they exist whether you choose to grant them or not. They exist whether you legislate against them or not. They exist whether you judge against them or not. You cannot remove one's right to the free expression of one's opinions.

Of course, this means that opinions will be expressed that are at odds with what you believe. Some of them will offend you. And there is no guarantee at any time, anywhere, that shields you from offensive speech.

This isn’t a digression.

I bring this up because a commenter elsewhere has noted that “the bullies must be stopped”, to which I respond that while this sounds all Good and Noble as rhetoric, in practice it’s meaningless. You cannot stop someone from expressing their opinion, though it may be vile and offensive to you. Not if it’s about religion, or politics, or their opinion of your intelligence or your stupid highwater pants. Everyone, even an idiot, has an equal right to express an opinion, even an idiotic one you disagree with, even if it’s about you.

And if you actually believe what you say you believe when you say you believe that there is no guarantee of “freedom from offense”, then you already know that verbal abuse is unstoppable and no amount of thought-policing will change it. We can punish offenses, but we cannot ever, ever, ever prevent them. Not without being worse bullies than the bullies. That is a title reserved for those who would attempt to enforce "freedom from offense".

Having discussed this many times before, I’ve already heard the argument that “that’s completely different". Wrong. They’re exactly the same. Being offended when somebody speaks poorly of fat people when you’re fat is exactly the same as being offended by somebody speaking poorly of Muslims when you’re Muslim, or Democrats when you’re a Democrat, or “Tea-baggers” when you’re in the Tea Party. Being offended by a lie doesn't depend on the lie, and your response needn't either.

In every case you get to defend your position if it's accurately represented or correct the offender’s inaccuracies. When someone derides your politics it is your choice as to whether you will correct the error, denounce or ignore the accuser, change your politics, or just sit there and feel bad. And you have the same broad range of choices when someone derides your person.

The fact is, you probably already regularly do it for the one even when you insist that the other is beyond your ability. You regularly flex these mental muscles of self-defense and tolerance every day. It’s a matter of application, not ability.

People choose to be offended every day, and it is often taken to unhealthy extremes. Jihadists choose to take the mere existence of other religions as an affront against Islam. They want laws against it, and wind up with sharia. Some politicians choose to be offended by the opinions of the Tea Party, and they want rules against that, and we wind up with IRS scandals. Some atheists choose to be offended by the free exercise of religion by pious people, they want laws against that, and having none, they make up laws regarding a “wall of separation” and pervert the First Amendment so that “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” means to them, “you shall not publicly practice religion”. And people who are offended by the insignificant personal opinions of tiny minds want laws prohibiting the expression of those insignificant personal opinions. And the petty laws about more and more petty “offenses” will never end.

In every single case, always, the answer lies not with more laws, rules, and thought-police; but with more tolerance. You have to be willing to say...

• ...it does not matter to me that you think God should be worshipped a certain way, or not at all. I am a Christian and will continue to be.
• ...it does not matter to me that you are a Democrat or Republican. I am a Libertarian and will continue to be.
• ...it does not matter to me that you think I’m dull. I am intelligent and will continue to be.
• ...it does not matter to me that you think I’m untalented. I am creative and will continue to be.
• ...it does not matter to me that you think “poor” is shameful. I am poor, but I’m working on it.
• ...it does not matter to me that you think “fat” is ugly. I’m as thin and contented as makes me comfortable.

This is empowerment, and it’s entirely due to attitude. It’s entirely inside your skull. Nothing about it requires your environment to change. Laws cannot empower you, they can only restrict you; and you don't need laws to protect you. And “tolerance” does not mean “acceptance”. Rather it’s the mere acknowledgement that jackasses have the same rights you do. And it means applying that without double-standards.

But it does not mean that people who actually harm you get away with it. We cannot prevent thought, but we can outlaw and punish action. 

And I'm aware that there is some irony in the fact that the argument I just made probably offends you.

For the spiritualist…

For this part of the discussion, I’m going to assume for a moment that you’re religious, and that you are a Christian. Then I’m going to remind you of Matthew 5:44:  “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you”. In context, this is,

“You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.… 

One point here is that God already loves your enemies. He doesn't play favorites with his children. He waters their fields the same as He does yours, and frankly I don't think He would listen to you if you begged for their destruction. But the bigger message is hidden behind the fact that God commands you to love them; and that is that He doesn’t say “if you can” or “try to”. God commands you to do only that which He has already empowered you to do. You are commanded by God, without qualification, to love your enemies. This should tell you immediately that this is something you can do. When you say you can’t, I remind you of another verse a little earlier in Matthew 5:25: “Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'”

A lot of people focus on the preceding verse that says it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. And they quote it as some kind of “proof” of the impossibility of salvation for the rich. But they forget the punchline, “with God all things are possible”. Likewise, you can tell me all day long about the impossibility of forgiveness on your part, and I’ll just shake my head and remind you that “with God all things are possible”.

You still don’t believe me.

If you’re still reading this and you still don’t think your reactions and your emotions are your choice regardless of the things that happen to you, then I’m writing directly to you now.

I understand that what I’m telling you is completely a matter of belief. And I mean “belief” in the sense of Heinlein’s word, “grok”. If you believe that a bully’s opinion does not matter, then he has no control over you. But you can’t be told how to believe something in your gut, thoroughly, with certainty, any more than you can just tell an Atheist to believe in Jesus. 

You've been telling yourself that you can't control your emotions; that someone else has that power over you. You're telling yourself right now that the things I've just said don't apply to you, or your situation is somehow unique, or it's the way you're made, or that "it's different for x", where "x" is any difference that you can grasp at to justify the status quo. And I'm not going to sugar-coat this. You don't believe in yourself because instead you believe in a pack of lies. I'm not saying it's your fault that you believe them. I'm just say that you do.

You tell yourself how difficult it is. Letting go of something is so much easier than hanging on to it. It is so much work to tightly grasp, cultivate, pamper and feed your insecurities when the ones you blame are long gone or dead! And though you feel the weight of that effort, and it's making you miserable, you still don't recognize it for what it is. I can't tell you how to let go. I can only tell you that you can... and if you find it hard you should try it differently. 

Do not dismiss the fact that you are still wrestling with your childhood traumas and I am not. I know I make this sound easier than you think it is, but experience counts, and you should ask yourself whether you would rather be taught to swim by a lifeguard for whom swimming is easy, or by one who is also floundering*.

In every case the truth is something you have to discover for yourself. I’m just telling you it’s there.

---

* an allusion to C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity".

Solar Freakin' Hype

So this IndieGoGo pitch is circulating social media:



And here's a link to the IndieGoGo page: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways#home
And here's a link to the company behind it: http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml

The pitch is for SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS. (I think the "freakin'" is a required component of the name.).

Now, I'm always a bit wary of ads (and yes, this is an ad) that channel Idiocracy to show you only the positives and none of the negatives while actually portraying you, the listener, as a brain-dead surfer dude. It's said to pay for itself, but when? What's the actual rate of return? If, like many solar panels, that extends beyond the working life of the panel, then it does not pay for itself. And the rate of return for these would have to be far higher than that of residential panels due to the increased complexity and cost of manufacture. This isn't addressed.

Furthermore, what is the environmental impact of harvesting the chemicals required to make photovoltaic cells on this scale? It isn't free. Where will they get them, and what exactly is the availability of these materials? Is this sustainable?

Also, consideration has to be made of applicability of use. Some of the places most likely to embrace them are also places where their usefulness may be spotty. I'm lookin' at you, California. How do these things hold up during an earthquake? Even a small one with no apparent lasting effect may break thousands of panels and circuit boards that are rigidly interlocked on the ground. This could be addressed by spacing them, but then we have the issue of windblown dust and sand settling in, shortly followed by grasses and weeds. Lovely. We haven't even solved that problem with asphalt and concrete.

We know these work, and have been tested on a small scale. Before we all shout "YAAAAY" and jump into the fjord together I'd like to see a serious, sober implementation plan that addresses real concerns and not just the surfer-dude strawmen in the video.

Investment opportunity?

I could very well see myself investing such a thing IF it were an investment and IF it had a sound plan. But from these guys I see a lot of red flags that curb my enthusiasm for the vision of this project lead by these people.

Red Flag #1: Capital "PROVES". Hype-alert. My standard of proof is a lot higher than one seven-minute fact-deficient infomercial.

Red Flag #2: "Solar Freakin' Roadways". They start off by telegraphing that you're not going to learn much of use here, except that you've got interlocking panels that will be expensive. How expensive? Each is expensive enough to withstand pressure from the heaviest vehicles that can be placed or carried on a road, contain computerized multicolor LED graphic arrays, heating elements and solar panels, and the capacity to route data and power both out of themselves, but also through themselves. Each must be individually addressable, and there will be millions upon millions of them.

Red Flag #3: Panacea. You get the idea from #2. This would not just be replacement infrastructure for roads, but also for a replacement data web; for storm water management; for bulk data transmissions; for power generation. You name it, this does it, flawlessly.

Red Flag #4: No down sides. Nothing at all about mining materials, or the availability of those materials, or whether they're available here or from, say, China... and if not here, nothing about competition for these materials from other countries (similar practical tests on smart roadways have already been done in Europe using competing technologies).

Red Flag #5: More government. The underwear gnomes are running the show.

That profit is loosely defined as universal everything to everybody. Roads, Jobs, Data, Cooler Planet, Save the Birdies, Star Trek Economy, etc. And the way to do that is through mo' bigger government. When your plan is to invent something and be a monopoly selling it to the government on a short time span, then you need another plan... and another planner. And if that is not your plan then you need to fess up and tell your investors what the plan actually is.

Red Flag #6: "This isn't just donating; it's an investment in a real future." Well, actually it is donating. More accurately, it is a glorified bake sale. This is a sale of thank-you notes and ball caps and t-shirts and other small tchotchkes, the proceeds of which go to the company, Solar Roadways. An investment would entail some level of ownership and return for the investor. That would mean stock, and that means a prospectus and answering those sticky questions I already posed. Frankly they wouldn't be able to treat stockholders like pizza-and-beer-laden late-night infomercial junkies if this were actually an investment. And frankly, I'm turned off when the saviors of the universe feel they have to lie to me to get my money.

Red Flag #7: Saviors of the Universe    .
I'm sure that Scott and Julie Brusaw are nice people, but they're way over-hyped here. I cannot tell you how infuriating it is to have the narrator of your Indigogo pitch, that you commissioned for your product pretend that you are too modest to blow your own horn. Another trigger for me is that nowhere on the Indiegogo page are Scott and Julie identified by last name. This is an old advertising trick of pushing "down-homeyness" and "feel-goodedness" so that you're emotionally invested in them as people, and don't think too hard about what they say. I'm sure Scott and Julie are not intending to lie to you; they're just really jazzed about the possibilities and are wearing the blinders of enthusiasm that are worn by nearly all driven and creative people. But they're not quantifying actual returns; they just assume that they will happen and will be enough, and that omission is a lie. Whoever told them to push this as a cult of personality isn't doing them any favors. We gave a U.S. President a freakin' Nobel Peace Prize on the basis of personality, and it didn't buy us a moment's peace. I'm sure as hell not buying into the largest infrastructure project in the history of the country based on a warm smile.

Those aren't all the red flags, but they give you the idea.

No, really... investment opportunity?

Not as it stands, no. But it could be.

I think that this is a really good idea for sports courts and private deployment where "cool" is a factor and cost is secondary. I can see an immediate market for the panels; and in some of those applications they wouldn't need to be as heavy duty as they would for road use. There would have to be a different manufacturing process anyway since the road units have a knobbed surface that wouldn't do for tennis or basketball.

But for the stated vision there are a few things that would need to be done to get my support:

• Answer the questions regarding return. We need to know the cost of a panel, the sourcing of the materials, the life expectancy, the total power generated in direct sunlight, the total power generated in the shade (parking lots are filled with cars, y'know), and a lot more beside. How much power must a single panel generate over it's life to give us a return? Does it generate that much power? Does it last long enough to reach profitability before replacement? Remember, you didn't promise us "break-even", so show us the profit.
• Show me that these LED lights are clearly visible in direct sunlight from the angle of a driver in a car without being washed out by the glare of the glass surface. Show me that it's superior to alternative technology such as solar-powered signage, which will never be affected by road wear and which doesn't have to be viewed at a sharp angle. The working panels you actually show in the video are not comparable with your artist's renditions, so you have something to prove here.
• Show me that they're still clearly visible after heavy use and repeated cleanings, and won't be rendered unusable when sand is ground into the surfaces by heavy rubber tires. Even if the electronics last forever, mechanical wear must factor into the lifespan (and therefore economic return) of the unit.
• Show me the amount of power degradation under the same circumstances. Also, today we fix potholes but we don't wash entire roads. Show me the cost of cleaning.
• Collecting power is only part of the equation. Storing and releasing it is another part. This takes batteries or capacitors, which wear down over time. Show me that you have the battery problem licked. How often do those have to be replaced? At what cost? What is the plan for recycling and/or disposal of spent batteries?
• In other words, show me what these devices willl look like and how they'll perform five and ten years from now with realistic wear and tear.
• These are glass surfaces, which are inherently slick. Show me that they provide safe traction.
• Drop the over-hyped grandiose plans. Show me something that works and some verbiage behind "Phase 2". Here's a suggestion: Start with sales of parking lots and recreation courts to private customers. Parking lots that would generate power for the businesses they serve. Let's see a sales pitch tailored to those private deployments. If you can't sell a business owner on "free energy", then you shouldn't be selling it to credulous taxpayers.
• Don't tell me how wonderful you are. I'll decide that for myself based on results.

Wrapping Up

When you invent a hammer, it doesn't follow that every problem is a nail. Someone on Facebook has astutely pointed out that she lives in Arizona, and if solar power were everything it's advertised to be, then given the high cost of electricity there, every house would have a solar panel roof. There are limitations, and you cannot "Hey, brah" your way through them.

Here's some competing (or perhaps complementary) technology from the Netherlands, in use now.

A solar-powered variable
message sign from
Dambach UK

With regard to these, everything save for induction lanes can be applied to existing roadways. I will say that there's precious little that photo-luminescent paint can provide that's not already provided in the US by reflective "cat's-eyes". And road way markings don't strike me as superior in every case to solar-powered roadside signage, no matter the technology that's employed.

I realize that Solar Roadways' value proposition is for the generation of power, and that all the markings and safety feature come along for the ride, BUT... they haven't demonstrated to their "investors" that the technology is durable or safe, or even that it works well enough to justify the manufacture of millions of units that are vastly more complicated and expensive than even standard solar cells; In the meantime we have a number of alternative technologies that can provide similar safety features at a minuscule fraction of the cost.

The suprisingly simple way ancient cultures got to the second floor without an elevator

Photo courtesy of Jack Newton

Few have looked at an ancient building and not wondered how the people who built it got to the second floor without the use of an elevator (or lift). 

Indeed, why would an culture expend the effort on building structures that are inaccessible? Some say it was for ceremonial purposes, as a tribute to the gods, and that these structures were never actually used. On the flakier side, some say it was for the benefit of ancient aliens who would have levitated to the second floor using mental powers or advanced technology.

The most confounding mystery is how the building materials made their way up there in the middle of the air for construction. Engines did not exist to raise a lift, and no construction worker, not even the kind from Brooklyn who whistle in sexist fashion at women as they pass, is that strong.

The truth, researchers at the University of Nevermind announced this week in a study published in the journal Shit You Already Knew, may actually be quite simple. It has long been believed that ancient humans used series of offset wooden platforms to raise themselves and cargo, but until now it hasn’t been entirely understood how they overcame the problem of height. It amounts to nothing more, scientists say, than a “clever trick.”

They likely used a lot of platforms. ”To get to the second floor, ancient peoples had to lift their heavy asses the entire height of the first floor,” the university said. “They therefore placed a series of platforms next to each other, each short enough so that it can be reached by stepping up without actually climbing. Research revealed that by repeatedly "stepping up" and pausing to wheeze and catch their breath, people eventually reached the top of the stairs. Getting back to the first floor involved repeatedly "stepping down" in similar fashion. The elegance of this scheme was that ascending or descending was accomplished using the same set of platforms!

It has to do with physics. See, your ass is pretty heavy. Making the platform too high means you'd have to lift yourself in one go, probably by jumping or some such stuff, and let's face it, you can't even do a pull-up. Dragging yourself up to the second floor by your fingernails just isn't going to happen. It “was perhaps observed by the Egyptians or some other other old dudes that a hill's pretty tall, and you still get to the top, so maybe building something like a hill was worth a shot,” says the study, authored by a team of eight researchers led by Idi Oates..

Archaeologists' reconstruction of what early "steps" may have looked like

The problem is that the top of a hill is pretty far away from the building, requiring a ramp or platform and a really sturdy pair of shoes with the grippy soles.

This was partially solved by leaning the hill up against the building. But the big breakthrough came when the hill was replaced by wooden platforms, enabling the entire structure to be brought indoors for the first time. This couldn't be done with the hill technology because of ancient housewives' insistence that "you're not bringing that dirty thing in my house".

Eventually this evolved into "stairs". While the actual existence of stairs has been long known, what they were actually for has been a matter of great debate and discussion.“This was the question,” Oates wrote in an e-mail to The Gullible. “In fact, archaeologists had been interpreting the steps as part of a floral display, or maybe some really badly built bookshelves, and had never sought a scientific explanation. And walking up stairs is a terribly complicated problem. Unlike an escalator you can stand there forever and you'll never get to the top. We had always assumed that trying to use a non-motorized lift would end in starvation."

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, building on this work, have released a video detailing how this novel invention may have been used:

Oates said the experiment not only solved “the architectural mystery, but also shows, interestingly, that people probably had a lot fewer books than we thought they did.”

In all, the scientists say, “pretty much everybody before about 15 years ago were probably aware of this handy trick.”

---

Ok, yes, I'm parodying this Washington Post article about Egyptology... or more accurately, I'm lampooning the reporter who wrote it.