The "Enhanced Games": A Dangerous Human Experiment

"Imagine if Olympic athletes could take any drug they like.  Let's see how fast a human being can really run."  Ideas like this aren't new, though they usually turn up in late night stand up routines or forums for "crazy ideas".  

Not anymore.

Enter the Enhanced Games: a 2026 event sponsored by Aron D'Souza featuring athletes ranging from former Olympians to those banned from their sport currently.  What makes this different than the regular Olympics?  Oh, just the fact that the athletes will be drugged to the gills on any performance enhancing drug (PED) they can get their shady doctors to prescribe.  This can include anabolic steroids, stimulants like Adderall or Ritalin and human growth hormone to name a few.  Basically, if it's legal with a Rx in the States, they can have it in their system while competing.  Terms like "superhumanity" and other superlatives are being thrown around, though I see this going another direction entirely.  

The Enhanced Games are to be held in Las Vegas, which is hot and dry in the coolest of months but can reach temperatures of 115+ during the summer.  Say one of these doped-up athletes drops dead on the track (or elsewhere) while cameras roll.  Do you honestly think their loved ones aren't going to sue these sleazebags under the table?  That the U.S. media aren't going to turn the games' organizers into the next "Ketamine Queen" or Conrad Murray and use it as an excuse to go after the athletes' prescribing doctors? 

If there's one thing we value in this country, it's athletes--even drug-addled & poorly behaved ones.  Just look at the havoc that ensued when newly drafted NBA star Len Bias died (and his death wasn't even televised!)  His untimely overdose death was used to justify the escalation of the drug war in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan and the creation of the absurdly racist 100:1 crack to cocaine sentencing disparity that put (often Black) people in possession of crack cocaine away for decades while giving those in possession of large amounts of pure cocaine a slap on the wrist.  The only difference between the drugs being the addition of baking soda and water to crack.  Turns out Len Bias didn't even use crack--the media made that (racist) assumption and ran with it as an excuse to enact more (racist) drug laws, but the damage had been done.

Or say a hardcore underage fan of the games decides to replicate his favorite athlete's "stack" without a doctor's supervision.  He keels over while playing Call of Duty; now his grieving (negligent) parents want justice.  Yeah, we've all seen this movie before. 




History Repeats

"Enhanced" female athlete trains in the hot Abu Dhabi sun

This is actually one of the most dangerous ways to use drugs, medical supervision or not.  The whole thing is being run like a human experiment, with doctors in Abu Dhabi of all places observing the athletes closely as they train and fill themselves with more dope than a CIA plane bound for Mena, Arkansas in 1980s.  What exactly are they hoping to "learn" from this realtime unethical experiment?  That performance enhancing drugs (gasp) enhance performance?  We've already lost athletes to the abuse of these substances: Flo Jo being the first that comes to mind.  Florence Joyner, affectionately nicknamed "Flo Jo," was the picture of physical fitness and an American hero in track and field who competed at the height of the steroid abuse boom in 1988.  She started off as a mediocre athlete with a so-so physique before returning looking like a brick house & winning tons of medals for the U.S. in Seoul.   

Despite never testing positive for banned substances, her teammate Darrell Robinson as well as fellow athlete Carl Lewis claimed she indeed used PEDs; specifically human growth hormone.  When it was announced that random year-round drug testing would be implemented for Olympic athletes, Joyner promptly retired.  Her untimely death at age 38 was attributed officially to seizures and positional asphyxia caused by malformed blood vessels in the brain (cavernous hemangioma), but to this day people mentally connect her demise to the alleged use of these drugs.

There is a more well-documented case of an athlete dropping dead directly as a result of PED use.  At the 1960 Rome games, Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen began feeling "dizzy" and was sprayed with water by a teammate.  After a brief improvement, he fainted and hit his head on the concrete, fracturing his skull and later dying in hospital.  Autopsy reports both claimed that "no drugs were present" and that traces of amphetamine and "a few other things" were found.  Later it was leaked that he died due to severe heatstroke induced by a drug called Roniacol, a vasodilator administered by the team's coach.  

Then there was the death of baseball player Steve Bechler in 2003 which happened in a similar fashion.  While engaging in strenuous activity on the baseball field during a Spring training activity, Bechler dropped dead.  Like Jensen, Bechler suffered a heat stroke, though his was brought on by a combination of hard exercise, high temperatures and the herbal supplement ephedra, which was banned shortly following his high-profile demise.  Ephedra is an amphetamine-like stimulant that increases heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature and it used to be widely available in numerous forms over-the-counter at truck stops and other places the way kratom and vape juice is sold now.  Hundreds of serious injuries (strokes, heart attacks) and deaths had already happened in ephedra users, but it took a D-list athlete's death to get it banned.
 



Real Health vs. A Healthy Aesthetic

Juiced swimmer Ben Proud

Even if no athlete drops dead DURING the games, we already know the long-term health risks of abusing anabolic steroids and other such drugs.  There's no need whatsoever for additional testing, let alone in actual living humans.  Take a look at the long list of premature deaths in the WWE and WCW, for instance.  This is in fact one of the most dangerous ways to use drugs, and it's being passed off as a scientifically sound practice carried out with modern medicine's stamp of approval.  In no universe will this not encourage substance abuse/PED abuse in young people and aspiring athletes.  While these drugs are strictly forbidden at the Olympic Games, the same is not true of local bodybuilding competitions, college sports and high school athletics, which may technically carry out drug testing but rarely if ever apply it to every athlete all the time.  

This is just a more high-profile version of the shit "looksmaxxing" proponents like Clavicular engage in, mixing random substances together for the stated purpose of maximizing one's natural potential.  (Clavicular recently suffered a drug overdose during a livestream and has been accused of injecting a female coworker with drugs, which tells you everything you need to know about how "legit" this practice isn't).  It's a faux-scientific justification for drug abuse; making the unhealthy appear healthy by wrapping it in fitness and athletic performance jargon, yet it's no better for you than lying in the sun covered in baby oil surrounded by mirrors to obtain that "healthy glow". 

Just because something LOOKS healthy doesn't mean it is.  Drugs like meth and MDMA subjectively feel amazing, yet they're neurotoxic & hard on the heart.  You can look buff, fit and vital like weightlifter Bostin Loyd and drop dead in the gym before your 30th birthday due to PED abuse or develop Stage 3 testicular cancer like Lance Armstrong, who only realized he was sick when he began coughing up blood due to the cancer reaching his lungs (and brain).

There are thousands and maybe even millions of people who rely on stimulant medications & hormone replacement therapies to get out of bed and function every morning, and their ability to obtain these much-needed medications is being hampered by exactly this kind of behavior.  These athletes "need" these drugs like I need a hole in the head.  You can't scold college students and exhausted workers for using Adderall off-label to stay awake and work harder while handing out the same drug to elite athletes for the sole purpose of making them run faster & jump higher.  Even the name:  "Enhanced Games," makes it sound like PEDs can turn a mediocre athlete into a superathlete... that fucking with these drugs somehow makes a person athletically superior.  As in, "we're not just good, we're enhanced."  We already have a major problem with teenage boys abusing grey-market "SARMs" and peptides obtained online--why tf would anyone think this was a good idea?

In a country that makes you sign for decongestant tablets (Sudafed) and where diarrhea pills were nearly banned, this sideshow looks especially offensive.  Do our drug laws only apply to non-athletes & their doctors?  Mifepristone, a safe and effective at-home abortion medication that's also used in treating miscarriages, was just banned entirely in my state.  Kratom, a plant-based supplement used for millennia in Indonesia, is being referred to as "gas station heroin" by the mainstream media and politicians, yet this same draconian country is hosting the Enhanced-fucking-Games?  Make it make sense.   

You can't because our drug laws are nonsensical and their application totally arbitrary.  

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Stop Going on Cruises

No, I'm fucking serious.  Just stop it.  

The cruise ship industry is a multi-billion dollar environmental disaster that was bailed out via "backdoor aid" & other shady means during COVID after helping spread the virus & lying to passengers.  Now they've facilitated an outbreak of the deadly person-to-person Andes Hantavirus which has, at the time of this writing, killed 3 and sickened 8.  Hantavirus is usually contracted from contact with dried airborne rodent feces, such as when Gene Hackman's wife Betsy Arakawa died of it in 2025, but this rare strain is the exception, having the ability to spread between humans in close contact like that on cruise ships. 

While this is a unique and horrifying situation, it's far from unprecedented.  Every year, multiple outbreaks of gastrointestinal illnesses like norovirus and E. coli infection spread on cruise ships.  We're only halfway through 2026 and already we've had 2 of each of the above on 4 separate ships.  And because these big ass boats are in international waters, how quarantine is handled depends entirely on which country you dock in.  In the case of a new highly contagious disease, you may end up stranded at sea for weeks or months.  That's what happened to passengers aboard the "Diamond Princess" in early 2020 when passengers started falling ill with the mysterious & frightening new respiratory disease now known as COVID-19.  700 were infected & "several" died, which had to be terrifying for those trapped on this death vessel.  As a germophobe I can think of no more nightmarish fate than being stuck with no escape with a hoard of snot-slinging vomit-spewing plague rats in the middle of the ocean.  




Maritime Law(lessness)

From Google

But it doesn't end with disease:  roughly 400 people have gone missing from cruise ships in the last 2 decades, a number the industry cites as low compared to the millions who take cruises annually.  Tell that to the families of Rebecca Coriam, Amy Bradley or any of the countless others who've vanished without a trace under mysterious circumstances.  But some victims lived to tell the tale.  In 2024, 2 Kentucky women were drugged and raped on a Carnival cruise by employees of the ship.  A Florida teen raped & killed his stepsister on a 2026 Carnival cruise, and a lawsuit against Royal Caribbean claims a woman's husband was served 33 drinks and then tackled to his death by guards.  Then there was this asshole who dropped his grand daughter out an open window & got 3 years' probation.

Creep of all creeps speaks about "Terra Mar" Project

Maritime law and international waters are hella sketchy.  If you wanted to kill someone (in theory of course), this would be the best place to do it due to plausible deniability ("they got drunk & fell over!") & the convoluted, rarely enforced laws.  Recall when John McAfee was accused of murder & took to the high seas?  Or Ghislaine Maxwell's creepy concern for the oceans?  This likely had something to do with the lawlessness allowed there if I had to guess.  Private islands are equally sketchy, and not just Epstein's. 

When Amy Bradley went missing in 1998, the captain refused to stop the cruise and alert passengers of the situation which might've helped save her life or at least find her body had she fallen overboard.  That's because the cruise industry is only looking out for their own interests and will do anything to protect or cover for bad actors aboard these death trips.  (The main person of interest in the case, "Yellow", worked for the ship as a band member, which means the cruise line would've been majorly liable if he was responsible for her demise/disappearance).

At best, cruises are expensive canned vacations full of seasick strangers and a high risk of sickness or death. At worst, they may be the last place you go before your own untimely demise.  Please stop financing this filthy industry with your hard-earned dollars.  

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On Identity Foreclosure

How much of what you believe is truly yours? 

As children, we're indoctrinated by our parents and those around us in regards to religion, behavior, goals/aspirations & a million other things.  It's only natural that children almost always reflect the views of the adults in their lives, but there comes a time when you have to examine those views to decide what fits and what doesn't.  Facing the fact that what you've been taught might be not only wrong but toxic is not an easy process, but it's necessary if you're going to truly grow up and become your own person.  This process is called self-discovery. 

I went through the first phase of this process around age 10 and still go through it today occasionally in my older age.  The bad news is that it's never truly over if you're a thinking person... there's no magical point when you're "done" examining the belief system you were fed and can just stop.  But you do get to a place where you feel confident in separating out the beliefs of your family, friends, teachers, community & even your country from that which is truly your own.  When you know that loved ones are entitled to an opinion on your life, not a vote, and begin to realize that those who truly love you will come around regardless of what you choose if given time and space to process it.  This isn't "selfish," it's a natural healthy part of growing up and becoming an individual.  

These kids are reflecting their parents' views, not their own.

And let's reverse the roles a bit:  would someone who truly loves you and cares about your well-being WANT to control you and micromanage your life?  Would they disown you over something trivial like who you marry or who you vote for... talk behind your back at family functions or get-togethers?  Is this an act of love or toxic control?  If a partner behaved this way, we'd call it abusive but when our parents and older family members do it, we view it as "looking out for our best interests".  Well I've got news for you: the only thing your parents should want is for you to be happy, healthy & safe.  How you get there is none of their damned business.  You don't exist to glorify them or live out their dreams. 

My policy is to not involve myself in the personal affairs of my siblings, parents or friends unless they're doing something that puts their health or safety at risk, and it's served me well.  I don't judge who they date, how neat their house is, how they raise their kids, how they vote in elections or other personal decisions and our relationships are better for it.  But if they skip that important medical check-up?  I'mma be on their ass.  Of course nobody wants to disappoint or embarrass their loved ones, but at the end of the day you have to live for yourself.  It's true that elders have lived longer and have more firsthand experience in life, that their input is important, but it's not a substitute for your own conscience.  We have to be allowed to live for ourselves and learn from our own mistakes.  The biggest regret dying people have is not living for themselves & following their own dreams.  So yes, this stuff is important.

The good news is that you can likely hold onto some of the beliefs you were raised with.  I've found that about 40-50% of mine were actually solid and worth adopting as my own.  But that other 50-60%?  Hot dog water.  🌭🫗

Talk to God Phone Booth

 

Talk about a random throwback!  This pic popped up in my Pinterest feed and sent me hurtling back to Black Rock City, 2010.  Picture it:   Burning Man, 2010.  Sunset.  My 3 friends & I happen upon this phone.  "Talk to God".  Hah!  No way did this dusty old contraption work.  At best it probably spat out a pre-recorded message saying "Fuck your Burn" or something.  I inserted a quarter and started dialing.

Lo & behold, I got a dial tone!  So I decided to call the most un-godlike person I could think of: my mother.  Just to let her know I wasn't dead in an LSD-related accident of some kind.  (Burning Man averages about 1 death per year, which isn't that bad considering the 70,000+ person attendance rate at the one I went to).  I rode a giant flashing pirate ship one night only to find out that it had run over a person the following night--that was our 1 death in 2010.  Or so I thought.  I can't find any details about a death in 2010, but I remember it plain as day.  A dehydration-induced delusion, or was it just not recorded?  Who knows. 

I have no memory of what we talked about on that rickety old phone but needless to say I was impressed it worked, and I'm fairly sure it gave me my quarter back after hanging up, though that may be another sun-induced delusion.  We didn't have cell service out there in the middle of nowhere, yet this analog phone somehow worked like a charm.  That someone found it cool enough to share a picture of online says a lot because there were so many mind-blowing art installations at that event, and I'm sure at every Burning Man since.  That the picture then found its way to my feed after all these years feels like maybe God did receive my call after all.  

Would I want to attend Burning Man again?  Ehh, no.  Conditions are too harsh for my wimpy ass.  Too hot/dry in the daytime and too cold at night with far too much alkaline dust (my lips were swollen to thrice their size by Day 8 when we left; some kind of allergic reaction).  But I'm grateful I got to go for the experience.  It's one of the most memorable and insane things I've done to this day.  And I'm sure glad I got to experience this once-in-a-lifetime trip before the billionaire set took over.   When asked to describe it, I'm always at a loss for words so maybe these photos taken from around the 'net will tell the story better than I can:

The camping setup (aerial view)

Art installation




People of Burning Man





Night time in Black Rock City





Nudity is common, yet you rarely hear of sexual violence on the playa

The Temple, which burns on the final night

Can you hear me NOW, God? 📞.

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Boundaries vs. Bigotry (with Bad Visual Aids!)

* "Biracial" in this article refers only to people of African and European descent--the most common type of biracial people in the U.S.  And before anyone says it:  Not All Biracials/Not All Bisexuals, etc.

It's no big secret that I royally SUCK at explaining things verbally, so I decided to whip up some equally shit-tier quality visual aides to help explain a concept that's been bugging me for ages.  It's not a 1-to-1 comparison, mind you, but it's the best I can come up with, and it also highlights the drastically different ways we view racism vs. sexism in this country when both should be treated as equally abhorrent.  Because they are.  

What other group is subjected to this deliberate erasure & slander?

In every comment section of every lesbian discussion and site on the www, you'll find bisexuals and their male partners tone- and content-policing lesbians, again, IN OUR OWN SPACES, calling us bi- and transphobic for sharing our opinions and experiences, venting our frustrations or laughing about things so we don't cry.  Most of the topics they're commenting on center on lesbians' refusal to date/sleep with bi women--  something not every lesbian subscribes to, mind you, but many of us do.  They refer to this boundary as "biphobia," a form of discrimination & bigotry on par with homophobia or misogyny.  Allegedly.

Since when is having personal boundaries, standards & deal breakers in one's personal life comparable to denial of basic human rights in the public sphere?  Everyone has their own lines in the sand, and I regret to inform you that they don't have to make sense to anyone else.  They're YOUR deal-breakers.  That's how dating and attraction work.  Hell, they may not even make total sense to you, but refusal to honor them generally leads to dysfunctional, toxic relationships & resentment down the line. 

If I don't want to date you because you have a mole or birth mark in a certain place, that's my right.  It may seem cruel or petty to you, but you have to accept it.  You don't have to understand or like it, but lying to cover up the truth so I'll sleep with you when I've already shared this boundary is tantamount to rape. We're all experts on our own limits, and it's disrespectful to question or pressure another adult person about theirs.  Obscuring the truth to get in their pants is sexual assault, full stop.  As long as I'm not actively campaigning to deny you equal rights in housing, employment, marriage or other parts of public life, it's not discrimination, hate or a "phobia".  




No Means... Keep Arguing

...except when you're lesbian.

In my day, the anti-rape slogan "no means no" was popular among teens and on college campuses, and if you heard it you could be about 99.5% sure you were the bad guy.  No does not mean no anymore, it apparently means "keep pestering and prodding until you either get a 'yes' or the last word.  Women are often the worst offenders, doing the heavy lifting for trans-identified men or their own bisexual selves.  We have exactly 0 all female, all lesbian dating apps because the owners keep getting sued and shut down by litigious rapey tr00ns who won't take no for an answer.  Yet Blackpeoplemeet.com, JDate and the hetero-exclusive E-Harmony remain unchallenged despite their blatantly exclusive nature.  Where's the bisexual outrage toward that?  

And now for the bad visual aides.

Similar but not the same, and certainly not more oppressed.

The whole "biphobia" brouhaha can be compared to a biracial person joining a discussion group for Black people on the evils of colorism & shaming them for reverse colorism, attempting to police their tone & the direction of the conversation.  In this upsidedown world scenario, the biracial person accuses the dark-skinned Black folks of "biracialphobia" because of some anecdotal experience they had when they were 10 years old, claiming that biracials who can pass for white actually have it worst of all.  For reasons. 

Told you it was gonna get fugly.  😆

There are several pages like this around the 'net and the similarities to the bisexual-lesbian phenomenon are striking in at least one glaring way:  this biRACIAL cohort always punches down exclusively--never up at whites who deliberately created colorism by putting lightskinned slaves in the house & dark slaves in the field & continuing the divisiveness to this day in the courts, media & other levels of society. They're angry at the dark-skinned Black people who were rude or exclusionary to them, which is totally fair but not the same as racism/colorism.  

This is exactly what biSEXUALS do, barging into lesbian spaces and calling us bigots for having boundaries & discussing issues affecting us (punching down) while letting heteros off the hook entirely.  Never mind that plenty of straight people flat out refuse to date bisexuals for personal or religious reasons.  The straight men who do date them often do so for self-serving reasons, viewing them as more likely to be open to polyamory, threesomes and all manner of kinky shit... The kind of girl you date casually but never bring home to mom..  But do bisexuals ever call them bigots, misogynists or biphobes for this vile behavior?  About as often as the trans community calls out the violent straight men actually killing them.  So no.  🚮

What's the problem, you ask?  Bisexuals indeed may face hurdles with both gay and straight people when it comes to dating & relationships.  The difference is in the numbers: upwards of 85% of bi women end up marrying and reproducing with men.  And the comment sections speak for themselves, with accusations of "biphobia" only flying in one direction--toward lesbians.  Not at straight or bisexual men; not at other bisexual women who quietly prefer dating hetero men or lesbian women instead of their own kind.  It's a nearly identical situation in the trans community--straight men who actually commit violence against them are given a pass while women who simply say "no, we'd rather you not be put in prison cells with us or compete against us in sports" being called TERFs and other sex-specific slurs.  Other transwomen who quietly and suspiciously prefer to date "cis" women are never called out for their internalized transphobia.  The problem is the fucking disproportionate double standard, the misogynistic lesbophobic bullshit that gives men a pass regardless of how they identify or who they fuck while holding women's feet to the fire even in the few safe spaces we've got left.



Rejection ≠ Hate Crime

No one is saying biracial people OR bisexuals don't face their own unique issues due to their identities.  But that's just it: we're not interchangeable, any of us.  The sexes, the races, the sexual orientations.  Our struggles may overlap in places like the Venn diagrams above, but we all lose when we start playing the Oppression Olympics, especially in other peoples' spaces.  Biphobia is the "reverse racism" of sexual orientation.  Transphobia is the "All Lives Matter" of civil rights.  Both are shallow, narcissistic ways of dancing around women's & lesbians' boundaries and not taking 'no' for an answer.  If biracial people face oppression in society at large, it's due to their Blackness, not their whiteness.  If bisexuals face oppression, it's due to their homosexual attractions, not their heterosexual ones.  Yet to hear them tell it, it's the other way around!  

Minorities and oppressed groups (they're not always one and the same--women make up 50% of the Earth's population and are most certainly oppressed) deserve spaces to vent and speak openly about our unique plights without being shouted down by a chorus of entitled hashtag-tivists looking for a reason to be offended.  Maybe what's being said IS rude and potentially hurtful on a personal level, but brash does not = hate or phobia, and we have every right to say it.  You're a guest on our turf so start acting like it or get booted.  If lesbians come into bi spaces and give unsolicited opinions,  we should expect to be challenged too because that's how that works.  Being offended doesn't make you right.  Either come with facts and stats or save your virtual outrage. 

When lesbians say we've been hurt by bi women or simply prefer not to date them for other reasons, that's it.  Conversation over.  Y'ain't gotta like it but you do have to accept it.  Maybe start taking our experiences (and the raw statistics) seriously & address the people on your side of the fence about these issues if you truly want to heal the divide.  Also:  rejection is a natural part of dating and sex, and it can happen for any reason or seemingly no reason.  It's never hate or bigotry because no one is entitled to another person's affection or attraction to start with.

Sexist Conservatorships & the Reward for a Lifetime of Loyalty

 

Love her or hate her, Wendy Williams' life story is a heartbreaking and enraging reminder of what women going through a hard time in America can face at the hands of those who supposedly love them.  After her husband and long-time business partner Kevin Hunter cheated very publicly with a younger woman, Wendy went down a serious spiral into alcoholism.  She'd previously overcome a crack addiction and went on to become a major force in daytime TV after alleging that Diddy had her fired from her radio show in 1998 for joking about his homosexuality.  She always spoke highly of her husband Kevin and their son Kevin, Jr. on her talk show.  They were the loves of her life, her pride & joy.  Even amidst the cheating rumors and tabloid photos of him with another woman, Wendy came to his defense on national TV.    

They were also her downfall.  While already dealing with the loss of her mother, her talk show and marriage, Kevin Jr. apparently told her he wanted to rent "a boat" for his graduation.  She gave him her credit card.  He rented a yacht.  This triggered her bank, Wells Fargo, to file for a conservatorship under the belief that she was being taken advantage of financially.  Which, to be fair, she was.  By this point, Wendy was in bad shape cognitively:  it was clear her speech was affected like someone who'd maybe had a stroke or something.  She put out a video claiming repeatedly that it "wasn't fair" and "wasn't right" that Wells Fargo had frozen her account.  But the worst was yet to come.

Showing signs of Thyroid Eye Disease and dementia in 2024

Eventually Wendy was placed in an old folks' home for people with dementia after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD)--the same disease Bruce Willis was diagnosed with in 2022.  FTD is a 100% progressive and fatal brain disease that tends to strike younger than Alzheimer's but follows a similar path of memory loss, personality change & eventual loss of all bodily functions.  A 2024 documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? showed what looked to be a person in the middle stages of this disease, with Wendy even exhibiting sundowning typical of many dementia diseases.  She briefly met with her son at the end for a moment (he showed up late and seemed annoyed with her the whole time, claiming she'd been diagnosed with alcohol-induced dementia, something I noted as contradictory and odd at the time). 

Overall, most fans found the whole thing exploitative and heartbreaking, assuming it was the last "production" we'd ever see Wendy appear in.  Her eyes were huge, she made no sense when she talked, lashed out randomly at people and had horrific lymphadema among other issues.  And she drank throughout the movie.  A LOT.  

But then she turned up on The Breakfast Club morning radio show sounding damn near like her old self.  And she kept making appearances and sounding like she'd improved, so much so that she was tested AGAIN for dementia and determined NOT to have FTD!  Indeed, while dementia patients may have moments of clarity amidst the fog, they don't go backwards and regain previously lost function.  Once those brain cells are dead, they don't regenerate.  So why tf is she still in a memory care home with 80 and 90 year olds and a frozen bank account?  Even if she's doing better because she's not drinking, isn't it her choice to destroy herself if she so chooses?  



Alcohol-Induced Dementia: A Under-Recognized Affliction

Alcohol + the brain = a deadly combo

Unlike FTD or other dementias, alcohol-induced dementia is not inherently progressive and fatal if the person stops drinking and gets nutritional support.  It may not be 100% reversible depending on several factors (duration of drinking, severity of neuron damage, age, etc) but it won't progress to death on its own without continued alcohol consumption. 

Alcohol impairs every function of the brain from reasoning and judgment to memory, language, personality & spatial understanding, making symptoms of this dementia hard to distinguish from other types, especially in older people with multiple chronic illnesses like Wendy has.  But a history of alcohol abuse should serve as a major clue.  Thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency plays a large role in this condition; some professionals have even suggested adding the vitamin to beer and other alcoholic beverages as an easy solution to prevent the condition.  Because women metabolize alcohol less efficiently than men, we're more prone to developing this and other harmful outcomes of drinking than men consuming the same amount of alcohol. 

Apparently we're also more prone to being institutionalized for having public mental health/cognitive crises, as evidenced by the conservatorships of Britney Spears and Wendy Williams while maniacs like Shia Lebouf, Kanye West, Andy Dick, Ezra Miller, the Tate brothers, Charlie Sheen & Chris Brown repeatedly act unhinged, violent & mentally ill on the public stage & maintain control of their bank accounts/freedom.  The amount of drugs, sexual assault and arrests between these men dwarfs that of any list of female celebs you can throw together, yet here they are, selling out shows and living it up while we tear down Chili of TLC for her voting habits & Chappell Roan for maybe putting up a privacy boundary with a fan.

Wendy's mast err, guardian: Sabrina Morrissey

If prison is for poor people, conservatorships are for rich women surrounded by greedy opportunists who bleed them dry and then refuse to get off the gravy train when it goes off the tracks, as trains tend to do after decades of chugging along without rest  Apparently Lindsay Lohan came THISCLOSE to being put under one in her party days too, and it was the same lady that initiated Britney's who came up with the idea.  Like Wendy & Britney, Lindsay's family consists of unrepentant stage parents and greedy types whose main concern is getting at her money.

A Lesson for All Women

Domestic servitude in the 1950s.

The lesson here is one I've witnessed in my own life many times: you can devote your whole life to being loyal to a man and giving your kids everything only to be tossed aside like yesterday's leftovers when they get bored or you hit a rough patch & need support.  It's often the most loyal women who get trampled on the hardest--the ones who were actually codependent and put up with too much, enabling bad behavior under the guise of love, putting the "sanctity" of marriage or shame of divorce above their own dignity and happiness.  I have no idea where that misplaced loyalty/martyrdom complex comes from but it definitely missed me. 

It never ends well for these women for one reason: we teach people how to treat us, and once you've set the bar low it's almost impossible to raise it with those people in that situation, be it the home or work or wherever.  Low key users will subject you to household labor inequality or small things like "forgetting" anniversaries; the pros will cheat, lie, steal and abuse overtly as long as you stay.  These types will calculate how much mileage they can get out of someone before discarding them, which usually happens when the effort becomes greater than the reward, such as during menopause or a mental health crisis.  The antidote is for women to stop fearing loneliness and start embracing solitude.  Only then are you able to walk into relationships from a place of calm dignified openness rather than neediness.  "I want this, I don't need it energy."   

As for alcoholism, it does make people impossible to be around.  Constant mood swings and lashing out, erratic and embarrassing public behavior, loud sloppy puking-redfaced-yelling-crying-sweating-trembling-stumbling-passed out-forgetful-aggressive outbursts.  It frankly makes a person more insufferable than heroin or even meth in some cases.  There's nothing more wicked than an angry drunk's tongue; something I know because I am one.  Which is why I don't drink.  At all, ever.  I'm not drug-free but I know better than to fuck with substances that make me feel and behave WORSE because this is where it gets you: locked up, either in prison, a psych ward or a dementia home for the elderly.  It may take a while but eventually that's where it leads, either that or the morgue.  And you'll wreck a lot of good relationships and opportunities in the meantime.  

...so yeah, keep living those Tradlives that slowly steal your spirit, staying drunk to get through the day.  Spin it as social drinking, call yourself a "Wine Mom," joke about how your family "drives you to drinking".  But make no mistake:  you're incurring brain, liver and other organ damage with every glass.  The legal status of booze has no bearing on its risk to your health.  If you doubt this, just watch Where Is Wendy Williams? or look at her current reality.  (Can you even imagine if cannabis or any other drug had put her in this situation?  There is no other drug that causes literal dementia--only alcohol). 

Or perhaps you'll end up like Diane Schuler, villain of "There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane" who killed herself, her daughter & 3 nieces as well as another innocent family while driving drunk one morning going the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway.  (Diane was a hardworking overachiever with a bum husband who likely got mad at him on the camping trip that weekend and did what she did for revenge FWIW). Instead of just splitting up and getting the mental help she could easily afford, she took 8 lives to "teach him a lesson".  Or because she couldn't wait to get home and drink to the point of blackout.  Or whatever.  

The bottom line is, there's nothing heroic or admirable about putting yourself last and tolerating repeated blatant disrespect.  It's not a sign of strength or character but an unhealthy coping mechanism that will lead to others, like drinking to excess.   And yes, people can tell even if you're "functional" and working a full-time job.  It's obvious in the little slips of memory, the repetitive questions and slurred speech.  The sudden mood swings and bursts of anger that seem to come from nowhere.  The red eyes, the disheveled look by the end of the day, the way you have to hold onto others to steady yourself in photos.  That's not judgment, it's just real.  And shame on you if you drive in that condition.  That IS judgment because you have no right.

Just remember Wendy Williams' plight when you stay in that bad marriage or pour your next drink.  Your outcome could be even worse.

🍾🍷🍺🍹🥃🧠🔥🫥⚰

2009 Taconic State Pkwy crash that killed 8 

Super Mario World: Dots of Disappointment

 
Let me describe to you the biggest disappointment of my childhood.  It wasn't finding out Santa wasn't real or breaking my favorite toy; it was when I found out the colorful dots at the top of Super Mario World's Special Zone didn't actually do anything or lead anywhere.  Random, I know.  After completing all 8 super-hard levels and ending up right back in the mainland, albeit a bit altered, I was so upset I even considered calling the 1-800 number on back of box to find out what I was missing.  But I'd already been in big trouble for calling paid "hotlines" of another variety and decided against that.  😬

Sure, Special Zone is cool and all, but I assumed those dots were worlds of their own or portals to yet another undiscovered zone such as "GENIUS" or "GODLIKE".  If this was outer space, maybe the next level was Heaven!  Or maybe they were lights on a spaceship that would lower & beam you up out of Super Mario World into Super Mario Neptune or Super Mario Mars...   🪐

Alternate reality

A tiny part of me still holds out hope this is possible, that a glitch or hack will send Luigi moonwalking up there to discover a hidden version of Polybius or a map to where all those ET Atari games are buried.  Heck, it was only recently I discovered all the glitch Yoshis in this classic game, which already has more secrets than Area 51.  If I had hacking capabilities like all these Youtubers, I'd go straight for the 4 dots and make them "playable".  Perhaps they'd lead to 4 different universes that look like this:

Still not that impressive, but at least I TRIED.  😤

Perhaps the theoretical post-Special levels in the dots could've featured some of the glitch Yoshis but without having to do weird complicated glitchy shit to obtain them?  (I favor the ice blue one and the black one personally).  Throw in some more bonus level games and rejected levels from this or past Mario games and viola--DotWorld.  Maybe give them backward names like repuS, sreknoB and !rezwoW.  

Okay, I'm just giving away brilliant ideas for free at this point.  🙃

Someone please tell me I'm not the only shut-in nerd child who thought these dots led somewhere or did something?

P.S. - I know they're just the colors that represent the 4 elements/color scheme of the game now... I get that.  No need to reiterate.  But they still feel out of place in Special World as mere decoration to me, especially with all the other hidden aspects of this game.