Losing Weight & Keeping It Off: The Problem

I'm writing this article as I helplessly watch my old co-worker, in her late 30's like me, have her leg amputated due to advanced Type II diabetes.  Despite all the excruciating pain she complains about (exposed bone, bedsores & an inability to control her bladder & bowels), she just requested donations on Facebook so she doesn't have to eat "hospital food".  She wants takeout from Panda Express.  And no, this isn't the plot from a "My 600-lb Life" episode, though I wish it were.  She's definitely resigned to dying from this, though I'm not entirely sure she's not in some kind of glucose-induced altered mental state because she sounds almost giddy about losing her leg.  Nurses frequently chide her for overuse of ambulance services & other misuses of the medical system, and honestly I can't blame them.  It must be frustrating af watching someone kill themselves in slow motion while taking resources from sick people who didn't choose their fate.  My friend takes zero responsibility for any of it, writing long screeds about the terrible "room service" at said hospital every other week.  

In other words, there's no saving her.  

While my friend is an extreme case, I'm surrounded by many variations of the same thing:  overweight & morbidly obese people walking around in various states of denial about their food addictions & the health consequences caused by them.  This has never been more apparent than since COVID hit.  America has lost 1.02 million people and counting to this disease, the most deaths of any nation on Earth.  At least some of this death toll must be attributed to our unseemly weight problem.  When I weighed just 140 lbs at 5"1, my cholesterol was in the high category, so it doesn't take much for a weight problem to start damaging your health.  If anything, the health consequences of obesity are underrated.  It's been shown to have a worse effect on health than smoking, heavy drinking or poverty.  

So what can be done?  People behave as if losing weight and keeping it off is nigh impossible, and no doubt it is a very hard endeavor.  We live in a fast-paced world where convenience, cost effectiveness & taste are our top priorities.  We want the most food for the least money and we want it FAST.  We often eat in a rush too, scarfing down our meal like rabid animals without even stopping to taste it or appreciate its smell or texture.  Likewise, when we attempt to lose weight, we want FAST easy results that require little effort on our part.  Notice a pattern?  It's this FAST bit that's at the root of our failures when it comes to weight management.  Things that are worth it are rarely fast or easy, yet that's hardly a reason to throw in the towel... especially when the stakes are this high.

If you're serious about sustained weight loss and--more importantly--maintaining good health markers like high energy levels, proper liver & digestive function, normal blood pressure, blood sugar & heart health in the long term, read on. 

The (Biological) Purpose of Eating

Don't worry:  You don't have to eat this healthy to lose weight

"Eat to live, don't live to eat."  Let's break down that overly simplistic (but true) saying, shall we?  

The purpose of eating is to fuel the body with calories & nutrients which provide the raw energy we need to power our consciousness & complete all the physical activities we need and want to do each day.  If you're feeling sluggish, foggy headed & tired after eating, that means you're eating too much of the wrong things.  Silly terms like "food coma" and "tryptophan nap" are references to this very real phenomenon of overloading your digestive system with greasy, fatty foods that are hard to break down & steal energy from other vital organs like the brain.  I repeat:  food is FUEL.  It's supposed to give you energy, not weigh you down & make you need a nap.  People who eat to live recognize this.

If you're living to eat--i.e. planning your daily activities, social events & holidays around extravagant meals--you're doing it wrong.  Humans did NOT evolve to eat for the purpose of enjoying the taste of food.  Eating is not supposed to be a hobby or source of comfort that stimulates your senses.  If something tastes palatable rather than repulsive, that means it's safe to eat & not poisonous, which is what our taste buds exist for.  In other words food should taste palatable, not hyper-stimulating like a hot Cheeto.  This distinction is paramount in the journey toward sustained weight loss.   

Why does this matter?  Because obesity is a modern affliction; something our ancestors didn't deal with.  They ate to live.  Food was for survival, not pleasure.  They lived in environments of scarcity where their meats had to be chased down and killed, their fruits & vegetables grown or wild-harvested.  Those things required work.  Even in modern times with the advent of agriculture & grain farming, there was not an abundance of things like refined white flour, high fructose corn syrup & other dirt cheap ingredients you find in junk food today.  That's why people from 1900-1980 simply were not obese at the rates we started to see at the tail end of the 20th century.  If you weighed anywhere north of 400 lbs, you were considered an anomaly & could join a circus, like this guy.  Now 600+ lbs is so common they've made a weekly television show out of it.  

Weight Loss That Sticks

Hares never win when it comes to health

So here's the bitter truth:  If you're not willing to make some sacrifices in the areas of flavor & portion size, you're never going to lose weight & keep it off.  That's the bad news.  The good news is it doesn't mean you have to give up things you enjoy like caffeine, but you will need to forgo sweet, calorie laden drinks like Starbucks coffee or soda if that's the delivery mechanism you use to get it.  It's all about trade-offs & substitutions, not losses.  Replacing bad habits with better ones that you can live with.  

But above all else, the difference between crash diets that fail (and often cause weight gain in the long term) and sustained healthy lifestyle changes is the pace at which these changes are implemented.  

Everyone wants to see fast results on the scale, but unfortunately health isn't about quick fixes and silver bullet solutions.  We still haven't found a way to separate the miraculous painkilling effect of opioids from the addictive high that comes with them.  Vaccines are lifesaving but they don't prevent COVID or influenza entirely--only reduce their severity & duration.  This means you still have to do "inconvenient" things like wearing a mask, washing your hands and avoiding close contact with sick people.  Likewise, there's no known way to drop weight quickly, safely & permanently without some effort on your part.  

Anyone can lose weight fast with pills or crash diets, but the drastic changes needed to do so are not sustainable long term which means it'll always pile back on.  Read that again because most people have a hard time accepting it.  Weight lost rapidly through extreme dieting or exercise will ALWAYS be re-gained in the long term, often with additional pounds added.  And this makes it harder to lose weight in the future as the body fights to hold onto its highest weight.  This is the truth about why diets fail.  

The difference between a "diet" and "permanent weight loss" is like the difference between a "celebrity crush" and a "lifetime commitment/marriage".

Junk vs. Food

Health effects of fast food (click to embiggen)

Many of the items we call "food" are nothing of the sort.  Foods are things that nourish an organism's cells & provide energy for growth & activity; the junk sold in restaurants, takeout joints & corner stores does not meet that legal definition, yet it's still somehow allowed to be marketed as food.  These faux-foods contain only sugar, refined flour, unhealthy fats & salt in varying ratios, as well as some outright toxic additives.  These food-impersonators are created by food psychologists to be as addictive as possible, with parameters like "crunchiness," "crispiness" and "creaminess" carefully rated by focus groups before being approved for sale.  So it's no surprise that masses of people become addicted, eating overly large portion sizes of these faux foods every day & gaining weight to the point of morbid obesity.  That's the effect they're designed to have.  

Meanwhile they lack any nutritional value whatsoever, often clocking in at 0% fiber with little to no vitamins or minerals.  Examples include alcoholic beverages, cakes & donuts, potato chips, soda & lemonade, sweet or sour candies & sugary cereals like Fruity Pebbles & Golden Crisp.  At the same time, another kind of false advertising is taking place in which fast food companies use CGI & other tricks to make their junk appear more appetizing than it is in real life.  This should earn them a blatant charge of false advertising/consumer deception, but it never does.  

Can this crap be eaten in moderation?  That depends.  If you've never had a binge eating or food addiction problem, probably.  But viewing these junk foods as "treats" for sticking to your healthy eating plan or otherwise completing some accomplishment will always end badly.  You're not a dog, therefore food shouldn't be viewed as a reward.  Eating this junk even occasionally may provide temporary pleasure but will end with you feeling sluggish, bloated & miserable in the end.  Remember, the purpose of eating is to power your body so you can carry out your daily activities.  

And that's where the focus should be:  on activities you're passionate about.  What are they?  Do you even know?  Many people overeat in an attempt to soothe themselves or fill some void in their lives left by a lack of fulfilling relationships & hobbies.  Figuring out what your "void" is can be extremely liberating & is sure to help your mental & physical health in the long run.  Once you figure out what it is you truly enjoy, reward yourself with those things when you accomplish a goal or otherwise want to celebrate.  Splurging financially or "treating yourself" to unhealthy food is also dangerous--spend that money on other things that bring you joy & aren't likely to trigger a relapse.  

Yep, I said relapse.

That's how you have to view overeating:  as an addiction.  If a heroin addict shouldn't take a Percocet after having a tooth pulled, a junk food addict has no business stopping at a food truck for tacos & funnel cake after a bad day.  Just because these deadly "foods" are openly marketed in our culture does not make them any safer or better for you than drugs & alcohol.  Quite the contrary.  Despite all the fentanyl, meth & other drugs flooding our country, the #1 preventable killer by far is still obesity-related disease.  These diseases--Type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease, atherosclerosis, colon cancer--were also the #1 preventable cause of death by COVID.  "#1 cause" includes conditions like drug addiction, emphysema & all other diseases you can think of.  This is why I say the health effects of overweight/obesity are under-emphasized.  

Yet so many overweight people with these very conditions justify overspending on fast food, Starbucks coffee & other atrocious junk despite what it's doing to their health.  That's called denial.  If someone with COPD was doing this with cigarettes, we'd label it addiction & plead with them to stop.  If a cocaine or heroin user was doing it with their drug of choice despite having abscessed arms from shooting up, we'd call an intervention (or maybe the police).  It's high time we start viewing food addiction with the same urgency because it's the #1 cause of preventable death & disease in the U.S. and other Western countries.  It's reducing both the quantity & quality of our lives & costing us billions in healthcare expenses.  If a foreign nation was doing this to us, we'd go to war with them.

In Part 2 I'll get specific with my "Rainbow Plan" for sustained weight management.  No drugs, workouts, surgery or fad diets necessary.  Stay tuned.  🌈💪

  

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Midterms Are Upon Us

You won't hear anything about a parliamentarian, filibuster or rotating villains like Manchin, Sinema or Collins from the Democrats on the campaign trail.  But just know they're there, ready to be used against us the minute we demand these politicians hold up even the most basic end of the promises made during campaign season.  As soon as they're elected, the Grand Rug Pull will happen just like it always does.  They'll use tragedies like the Uvalde shooting, Roe vs. Wade reversal, homelessness & lives lost to COVID to garner fear-induced votes only to get in office and do fuckall.  BECAUSE THEY ALWAYS DO.  

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.  By all means, vote for who you think will serve you best at the local level where your vote actually counts.  But do not give another dollar or vote to Democrats (or Republicans) at higher levels.  Not until they put some action behind their empty hot air promises.  Biden is planning to nominate anti-choice, child rapist-pardoning SCOTUS member Chad Meredith to a lifetime position in Kentucky, a fact that came out on the same day Roe v. Wade was overturned.  The right to reproductive autonomy is a core part of the Democratic platform.  If they can't even protect that, you must ask yourself what they're good for.  

I can tell you I support timely rent payment, but if I don't pay my rent until the 25th every month, that's clearly a lie.  I don't have to be evicted from my apartment for everyone to see that, but I certainly will be.  Some of you are perfectly content with the pretty lies of politicians who are getting top-shelf healthcare & other perks on your dime.  You can claim you're not but if you keep voting for them & donating to their campaigns every few years, you are.  Your actions in the voting booth are all that count.  It's time to evict them once & for all.  

If you vote this year, use your vote to send the message that you're sick of this shit.  Vote your conscience, not from a place of fear.  Democrats & Republicans are not the only parties on the ballot.  Stop treating elections like horse races, choosing the candidate you think "has the best chance of winning".  Your vote is your highest endorsement.  Use it accordingly.  

The Overdose Crisis: America's 3rd World Problem

Fentanyl addict sheltering in a former church in Kensington, PA

After watching Vice's recent report on "Basuco," I was reminded of the absolute depths the black market will sink to just to make a buck.  Basuco, labeled The World's Cheapest Drug by Vice, is a substance popular among Colombia's poor that contains cocaine paste plus byproducts leftover from production of the drug such as kerosene, lead dust, chloroform, sulfuric acid & other toxic chemicals.  In this report, witches were hired to sit in the trap houses & bless the dealers' drugs & guns, praying for their bullets to "be blessed" and hit the right people.  In Jesus' name.  

It would almost be funny if it wasn't so terrifying.  See for yourself:

Basuco:  The World's Cheapest Drug

In Kinshasa, Africa, addicts desperate to escape their bleak reality steal car motors & scrape up the powdered exhaust from catalytic converters to snort.  They call the toxic grey substance "bombe" and claim it has a calming effect that causes them to stay frozen in a standing or sitting position for hours.  What this is doing to their brains & bodies long term, nobody knows.  It's a totally new behavior even among folks who use inhalants or other extremely dangerous/volatile substances recreationally. 

In another part of South Africa, a concoction called "whoonga" is all the rage.  It consists of any combination of the following:  low-grade heroin, strychnine, HIV medications like Efavirenz, cocaine, asbestos & other unknown fillers.  Among other things, increased risk of drug-resistant HIV is one possible outcome of abusing anti-retroviral medications in this way.  Whoonga is often sold as marijuana which means users often aren't expecting the toxic high they get.  

And of course everyone's heard of krokodil, the nightmare drug named for the way it turns the user's skin into something resembling crocodile skin.  The medical terms for these effects include thrombophlebitis, ulcerations, gangrene, and necrosis which often leads to amputation & death.  This Russian phenomenon is a result of amateur attempts to convert codeine into desomorphine, a heroin-like drug.  Done incorrectly as it often is by impatient addicts in a hurry to get their next fix, it contains caustic impurities that eat away flesh in a similar way to MRSA or straight up battery acid.

Coming full circle back to Colombia, we find the latest drug craze:  "2-CB" aka Pink Cocaine.  Sadly the drug is neither the psychedelic 2-CB nor cocaine but a potentially deadly concoction of random drugs ranging from stimulants to opioids like oxycodone or fentanyl to ketamine.  The pink color is merely a marketing ploy achieved with pink food coloring.  Do users care?  Apparently not if you ask the giddy clubbers ingesting it.  This drug isn't confined within the borders of Colombia & is being exported everywhere the cartels can sell it including the U.S.  Only time will tell if it takes off.

Hold Your Judgment

If these toxic drug trends make you gasp in horror, they should.  But no more than what's happening right here at home.  Between 2020 & 2021 we lost over 100,000 precious Americans to overdose, most of them in their peak productive & creative years.  This is an all-time record... more than died of drug addiction/overdose during the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, the drug-drenched '60s and '70s or ANY time in our 245 years as a nation.  And it's all because of a preventable issue:  adulteration of the black market drug supply.  What started with a nasty prescription painkiller problem spread like a cancer to total adulteration of the black market drug supply, with everything from heroin to cocaine to fake Percocet, Xanax bars & MDMA now containing fentanyl.  And if that wasn't bad enough, fentanyl isn't even the worst adulterant out there--now we've got an entirely new, more potent & totally undetectable class of drugs to worry about:  the nitazenes.  (Though opioids aren't the only culprit:  the U.S. also has its own bizarre & horrifying drug trends like "wasping" to contend with).

America has some of the most draconian drug laws on Earth, which creates an insatiable demand for every single drug that's banned.  Combine that with the fact that we border an impoverished, highly-populated region (Mexico & South America) & you have a recipe for disaster.  We want drugs, they need money.  Do the math, capitalists.  It's basic supply & demand economics.  Harsh drug laws artificially inflate the price of said drugs by making them a hot commodity that carries risk to handle, thereby making drug dealing an obvious career choice for people who are dirt poor & have nothing to lose, no other career prospects & no real chance of legally immigrating to the U.S. (a country with equally draconian immigration laws).

Only One Way Out

"Brave" cops pose with drugs, a bunch of $1's & a single $2 bill in now-deleted post

The solution to this problem is painfully simple:  legalize, regulate & educate.  Remove the profit motive from these criminals who sell poison using violent tactics.  Nothing else will stop them.  Lock one up and the Consigliere just moves up to Underboss & the Underboss is promoted to Boss.  This cycle is infinite as long as the profit motive remains.  No matter how many pounds, kilos or tons of drugs you seize & pose with (or in the case of the cops above--half-grams & singles), it's a grain of salt in a sea of dope.  And our lawmakers know it.  The only reason this charade continues is to justify the racket of the 3-letter agencies & everyone else who currently profits by keeping certain drugs illegal.  

As for the demand side of the equation, governments lack the political will to address that because it's too complex & would require sustained investment--financial, physical & emotional--in the people & communities who voted them into power in the first place.  They'd have to admit that the very premise of the war on drugs is fatally flawed, that poverty & addiction shouldn't be punished with incarceration & that you can't legislate morality.  As long as someone's bad habit isn't harming another person, it's better to let them engage in it peacefully in the privacy of their own home rather than busting the door down, arresting them & letting the criminals take over whatever vice they were using when you busted in.  As scientists learned from the Rat Park study, individuals whose environments are lively & enriching are far less likely to become addicted in the first place; in fact, they actively fight against using drugs even in the face of painful withdrawal symptoms.  This suggests it's neither the person nor the drug that's to blame for addiction but the environment.  

And the environment in America has been steadily becoming more hopeless for too long.  

When entire industries are outsourced overseas to the lowest bidder and roads, bridges & buildings fall into total disrepair; when the minimum wage hasn't risen since July 24, 2009; when a Bachelor's degree is worth what a free high school diploma used to be worth & corporations are allowed to gentrify neighborhoods so only the very wealthy can afford to live there, that's when hopelessness & addiction take hold.  Drug addiction is a symptom of a deeper problem, not a standalone problem to be singled out & punished.  Any official or media figure who isn't willing to address the root causes has no business speaking on the opioid crisis or any other aspect of the "addiction problem".  

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Victoria's Secret Documentary: The Epstein Puzzle Comes Together

The new documentary Victoria's Secret: Angels & Demons was one of the most revealing Epstein docs to date in that it finally touched on the Israeli/Mossad aspect of the case as well as Epstein's ties to Leslie Wexner, the man who financed him under very strange circumstances & is still alive and walking free.  

Up to now the only person with the guts to speak freely about anything relating to the anti-gentile mindset of Epstein & his pals was Maria Farmer*, one of the first Epstein victims to contact the FBI in the '90s and be ignored.  She stated that he and Ghislaine attended exclusive Jewish Country clubs that refused entry to non-Jews as well as other disturbing claims.  There have been rumors that Epstein specifically avoided abusing Jewish girls & women, targeting non-Jewish whites because he viewed them as disposable trash (and wasn't attracted to Blacks or other ethnicities).  I'm not sure if there's a term for this, uhh, Jewish supremacy but the Hulu documentary claims Epstein wanted to create a master race by paying his abuse victims to bear his children once they turned 18.  

Maria Farmer on Epstein's Jewish Supremacy

Yes, you heard that right:  a Jewish man wanted to create a "master race".  The same language used by Nazis during the Holocaust.  While this is clearly only the mindset of a depraved handful of elites in the Jewish community, there definitely needs to be a name for it akin to anti-Semitism.  Because it's alleged that Epstein wasn't alone in this view.  Ghislaine Maxwell also shared this disgust for non-Jews, as did those in their elite circles.  While Jews only make up 2-3% of the American population, they comprise 30% of American billionaires & those in the Forbes 400--proof that being a religious or ethnic minority doesn't necessarily preclude one from attaining financial success or power.  One man in the documentary said Wexner's mother forbade him from having grandchildren with a 'Shiksa' woman that he was in love with in his younger years which left my mouth agape.  Les's mom Mrs. Cabakoff-Wexner served as Secretary-Treasurer at L Brands (now Bath & Body Works, Inc.) for many years.  

(I want to make perfectly clear that I despise anti-Semitism & am aware that these abhorrent views are not prevalent among a majority of Jews.  I don't buy into paranoid conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the media, banking system or other institutions.  While I'm generally agnostic-atheist in my views, I'd probably choose Judaism if I had to pick a religion myself.  What I'm talking about applies specifically to a handful of extremely wealthy, powerful & twisted elites who have literally been confirmed of attempting to create a master race & targeting those outside their own in-group for abuse.  If that doesn't disturb you, you're the problem).  

The other disturbing part of this documentary that was casually mentioned between rather boring segments about the changing cultural attitudes toward women's body image was that 700 of Epstein's blackmail tapes containing footage of world leaders, politicians & media moguls engaging in sex acts with minors are in the possession of an ex-police officer who is currently exiled in Russia.  His name is John Mark Dougan and his life was threatened after he created a forum where anonymous posters could share information about police corruption in Palm Beach County, Florida.  He was facing 35 years in prison for leaking the names & personal info of FBI & CIA officials & was told he'd "never make it out of jail alive," at which time he fled to Canada & then Russia where he currently resides as a political refugee.  Until this documentary it was unknown who, if anyone, had possession of the tapes or whether they even still existed.  Dougan claims to have only watched 7 out of the 700 videos.  Source.   

I'd really like to know more about these tapes & his plans for them.  They definitely need to be kept somewhere safe or, preferably, released to the general public.  If this man's life has truly been threatened by powerful American agencies who forced him out of his job & country, he doesn't owe it to them to keep these compromising tapes under wraps.  I'd posit that his life is in danger as long as he continues holding onto them without releasing them now that it's known he has them.  Please take a page from the Weathermen/Weather Underground's book in 1971 & publish what you've got.  If not for them, we'd never know about the FBI's racist COINTELPRO operation.  It's your duty to share whatever's on those tapes with the world, Mr. Dougan.  

Filling in the Blanks

The movie raises the question of whether Wexner was gay which seems HIGHLY likely to me, particularly after seeing how he behaved around models compared to all the straight men in his orbit.  His extremely close relationship with his mom is another clue to me as is his flair for women's fashion.  The only reason it matters is because he turned over power of attorney as well millions of dollars to Epstein, plus a jet (later re-christened the "Lolita Express") and countless other gifts for no apparent reason.  Those close to him said such a thing is unheard of for a billionaire.  It's simply not done.  Epstein was questioned about his sexuality:  ("Are you bisexual?") in a deposition to which he laughingly responded NO.  But the whispers have always been there.  

My opinion is that, before he was pimping out underage girls to rich men, he pimped himself out to Wexner.  He probably even pimped Ghislaine out a couple times before convincing her to recruit others.  That's how it works in the pyramid scheme of sex trafficking.  She was his bottom bitch, not his "girlfriend" like the media reports.  Going back even further, there's a high likelihood Epstein himself was sexually abused as a kid.  Nobody develops that level of hypersexuality, seeking sexual gratification up to 5-6 times per day (with children no less) out of the blue.  

With that in mind, is it really so hard to imagine that this social succubus, in his desperation to become one of the wealthy NY elite after being kicked out of Dalton School & Bear Stearns, sold his ass to this closeted fashion designer?  After a while he likely had the revelation that he didn't want to live like that forever & would start looking for other desperate pawns to recruit.  Upon meeting Maxwell, whose father was long rumored to have ties to the Mossad, he was introduced to the blackmail game.  Combining his love of sex (with children), pimping & blackmailing powerful people would make him one of the most untouchable people in the U.S.  Win-win-win.

The real villains here are the FBI, CIA, attorneys general & other agencies that stood by & allowed this filthy scheme to happen for decades while doing nothing.  Florida prosecutors as well as the FBI did nothing when informed of this predatory old man's proclivities.  Alex Acosta, Bill Barr & others literally greenlighted the rape of children.  The Non-Prosecution Agreement & other unprecedented sweetheart deals were a slap in the face--salt in the wound--to the victims of this rabid animal.  

Most importantly, this confirms that our nation's disgustingly weak penalties for sex crimes are due to a systemic problem with lawmakers engaging in criminal sex acts themselves.  How many of these politicians have tapes floating around somewhere of them assaulting a child?  They knew that if they sentenced Epstein appropriately he could pull an Uno Reverse & threaten to release actual video of them doing the same thing, thus the slap-on-the-wrist sentences.  "He belongs to intelligence" were the exact words of Alex Acosta.  That roughly translates to:  "He's got a shit-ton of kompromat on us, guys.  Don't touch with a 10-ft. pole." 

There's nothing worse than being labeled a pedophile (rightfully so).  It's the ultimate taboo.  Being gay is no longer blackmail-worthy like it was in Hoover's day.  Once Epstein was locked up for real & was going to stand trial with the chance to actually reveal the dirt on the world's most powerful people, he had to die.  If you have any doubt that he was either murdered or forced to commit suicide (like the FBI tried to force MLK to kill himself), note that close Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel died under identical circumstances in a French prison in February 2022.  As the documentary said, these pedophile sex rings are one of those "too big to fail" industries like banking.  Bringing the perps to justice would bring down society as we know it.

Remember that every time you see a news story in which a convicted rapist or pedophile gets probation with no jail time or a similarly tiny sentence.  Our judges, cops, politicians, lawyers & others in power are not only complicit but guilty themselves.  The ones who aren't get chased out of the profession like John Mark Dougan.  The deeper question is:  In a country where we were given the choice between 2 rapists for president in 2020, should any of this come as a surprise?  Does any of it even matter?  It certainly should, but too many are willing to look the other way or explain away evil behavior when "their guy" or "their friend" is the one accused.  Until the day victims are given our full empathy & protection regardless of who the offender is, this evil will continue unabated.  

*Maria Farmer was accused of anti-Semitism by Alan Dershowitz, one of the men accused of receiving illicit massages at Epstein's properties.  Listen to the interview of Maria above and decide for yourself whether she's being "anti-Semitic". 

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The Telecommunications Act of 1996: The Death Knell of Music

As an '80s baby, I had the privilege of growing up with some amazing music:  Punk, New Wave & the birth of Hip Hop in the '80s gave way to Grunge & what most consider to be the Golden Era of R&B, Rap & Electronic music.  Every genre had its innovators & stars, all of which got plenty of airplay & spotlight on MTV, VH1 & in music magazines like Rolling Stone.  You could even call into your local radio station & request your favorite songs for the DJ to play.  These artists tended to write their own music, play an instrument (or two) & make deeply thought-out concept albums that could be played from front-to-back without skipping any songs because they were THAT good.  Artists of the '90s heyday included:

Nirvana, R.E.M., Michael Jackson, Alanis Morrissette, En Vogue, Sinead O'Connor, Boyz II Men, Sublime, No Doubt, Fugees, Notorious B.I.G., Seal, TLC, Sheryl Crow, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Oasis, The B-52's, Prince, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Mary J. Blige, 2Pac, PM Dawn, Selena, Soundgarden.

(And that's not even counting more "underground" artists like DAFT Punk, The Prodigy & Aphex Twin that didn't get much airplay on some mainstream stations.  Those influential bands could take up another whole article, but for the sake of making a point I'll stick to better known artists).

What I didn't know is I was witnessing the last era of great pop music that would ever exist.  

That's not to say amazing music is not being made today, but it certainly isn't receiving airplay, recognition on The Grammys or Billboard Music Awards or attention via other media.  So it's not part of the popular culture & thus might as well not exist because we can't all enjoy it together & make shared memories with it as the soundtrack to our lives like we did for pretty much all of modern history.  

This seems to be one of those issues everybody notices but can't quite put their finger on, yet we've accepted because we have no choice.  Some (inevitably younger folks) get indignant, claiming today's music is just as diverse & high quality as the music of decades past if only we'd "give it a chance".  They say we're just "out of touch" and have no idea what we're talking about or that we haven't kept up with today's pop music, vaguely asserting that there's amazing stuff out there but never quite seeming to actually produce any examples.  Then the conversation turns to "music taste is subjective" which is totally true, but at what point is a "song" not actually music but just commercially profitable noise?  The death of distinct genres & the homogenization of music into a mishmash of electronic-hip hop-pop-dance singles & off-key ballads is one problem with today's pop; we'll get into more in a minute.  

None of this may matter to you if you're not an audiophile--someone who values music for the artistic aspects rather than entertainment value.  I define it this way:  Music-as-entertainment is merely something to sing along to or play for background noise while you do other things such as host a party; music-as-art alters your mood & takes your imagination and spirit to other places.  Almost like a drug.  Those who listen to it for entertainment alone won't fully appreciate what I'm talking about here.  If you care about the quality, sound & complexity of your music, read on.  

Defining "Good" Music

Everybody has their favorite (and least fave) genre of music.  The tendency to be biased toward music that you came of age to--that is, grew from an adolescent to a proper teen--is also real.  Associating great memories like your first relationship, taking a cruise in your first car, becoming Prom Queen, losing your virginity or winning your first All-State Football tournament with a certain song or album is natural & we're all prone to that kind of bias.  But I want to make it clear that's NOT the case for me.  I came of age in the 1998-2001 period & had already been disenchanted with popular music for 3 years by that point.  Let's take a look back at that era and see what was popular on the Top 40 charts, shall we?

N*Sync, Britney Spears, Spice Girls, Puff Daddy, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Sugar Ray, Mystikal, Mandy Moore, Nickelback, Ja Rule, Avril Lavigne, Will Smith, R. Kelly, Ricky Martin, Nelly, Jessica Simpson, Hanson, LFO (aka Lyte Funkie Ones), Kid Rock, Lil' Bow Wow, Unkle Kracker, Lil' Romeo, BBMak, Staind.

I'll stop there.  You get the picture (I hope).  It was a far cry from the artists topping the charts just a few years earlier.  By the late '90s & early 2000's, popular music was all about the teeny bopper boy/girl band, Butt Rock (i.e. Creed, Nickelback, Hinder & other gravel-voiced soundalikes), bad Ska-Alt Rock knockoffs like Sugar Ray & Smash Mouth & that gawd awful Nu-Metal that helped make Woodstock '99 a rape-filled shitshow of epic white dude proportions.  And we can't forget the rise of Crunk Rap/Southern Hip Hop like Ying Yang Twins & D4L's "Shake That Laffy Taffy".  

The mid-'90s saw the deaths of both Hip-Hop & Rock's biggest stars:  Kurt Cobain in '94, Eazy-E & Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon in '95, 2Pac & Bradley Nowell of Sublime in '96 & the Notorious B.I.G. in '97.  In my childish naivete I thought those deaths were responsible for music's downfall but now I know something much bigger was at play.  After all, we lost Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix & Jim Morrison in 1970-71 and great music did not grind to a halt.  

So what the fuck happened?  

Did I just get old, or did music quality actually go down the crapper?  Remember, I wasn't old by that point.  I was an adolescent-bordering-on-teenager.  Prime music loving years.  I always wondered what could account for this sudden shift toward formulaic, dumbed-down music aimed solely at tweens & cavemen.  How did we go from "every song no matter the genre is my favorite" to "I can't stand a single thing on the radio!" in the span of 1-2 years?  

Pinpointing the Culprit

Clinton signs Telecommunications Act into law

Enter the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a bill signed by none other than Bill Clinton.  While the details of this bill are complicated & encompass more than just music/radio, I encourage you to do some deeper digging.  Basically, this bill deregulated the airwaves in an unprecedented way, taking control away from local DJs and giving it to megacorporations like Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) whose sole focus was the ads rather than the music itself.  These corps used focus groups to decide which songs to play between the ads to keep listeners' attention rather than playing music that's, you know, actually good.  Calling in to request your favorite song quickly became a thing of the past because DJs no longer controlled what songs got played.  No more spontaneously mixed-in jams heard over the weekend at the club or while the DJ was traveling.  Just nauseatingly repetitive corporate playlists made by some CEO in an office.  

Now it's all about targeting the music to the demographic most likely to buy shit.  That would be tweens--particularly girls in the 12-14 age range.  Hence all the boy/girl band music:  Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, BTS & other specially-groomed teen stars.  Sure, those types of artists have always existed but they used to exist as part of a larger and more varied landscape of music made mostly for adults.  And as for the quality of music itself, there's literal proof of the decline in lyrical complexity over the last few decades.  Check out the documentary "Before the Music Dies" (2006) for a full explanation of the situation we're in.  It's probably even worse by now, actually.  

To further drive the nail through the coffin, shows like American Idol & its more "organic" (yeah right) alternative The Voice became popular around 2002, proving that the only way to the top was by conforming to a highly generic image, sound & format.  No more organically formed bands doing it the old fashioned way--now you were gonna have to audition in front of stuck up suits doing extremely sterile covers of other artists' songs.  If you didn't sound enough like the original artist, prepare to get destroyed.  But more importantly, if you weren't young, beautiful, clean-cut & groveling you'd better expect to get your ass handed to you by the incredibly cruel judges. 

The Fallout

The overuse of autotune, the nauseatingly repetitive choruses (Beyonce's "Who run the world? Girls"; Bieber's "Baby baby baby, Oooh" x1000), unbearable embellishments like "cursive singing" & the millennial whoop make today's music physically painful for people like me who remember how soulful, intricate & complex popular music used to be.  (Being autistic and having sensory issues probably doesn't help matters, but one needn't have those to find this offensively shitty music unbearable).  For someone who used to genuinely love every song I heard on the radio as a kid, I can honestly say I haven't enjoyed a song played on the radio since 2003.  That's almost 20 years.  So you can see why it might bother me.  We have Spotify, Youtube & countless other ways of discovering music now--great.  But not everyone has endless time to search for obscure bands & assemble playlists.  And even if they did, it's just not the same as when great music was part of the mainstream popular culture for pretty much all of modern history.  That's a hill I'll die on.  

Before you let anyone make you feel like a delusional old fart for saying music was better "back in the old days," show them this article.  While they're entitled to their opinion, they should also know the facts before repeating tired old tropes about romanticizing the past.  I would posit that this goes deeper than musical tastes:  it's symptomatic of the fall of our society.  Dramatic?  Maybe, but when quality art & music cannot be found through mainstream channels--all of which are controlled by giant media conglomerations--the soul of the nation starves.  Whether you realize it or not, we NEED art to flourish as a society.  And on the flipside, art is the cultural thermostat that reads the health of a nation... our collective moods, emotions, political & social wellness.  Judging by our popular music, we haven't been in a good mood since the turn of the millennium.  

This same phenomenon has come to pass with big-budget movies in the past decades as well:  the dumbing down of plots, remakes of remakes, over-dependence on CGI to dazzle audiences in the absence of decent writing & childish movies for adults (the Harry Potter series, Twilight & all the Marvel & DC comic superhero films).  And of course reality TV replacing sitcoms & other types of shows that require the hiring of actually talented writers.  Ditto journalism.  Go back & watch an episode of 20/20, Frontline PBS or 60 Minutes from the 1970s or even the 1990s and then watch one from today.  The decline in quality is startling.  I won't even get started on the quality of Netflix's so-called "documentaries".  

For all this talk of how enlightened we are & how far technology has progressed, we don't seem to have noticed that our institutions have been crumbling beneath us for the last half-century.  How much of this is due to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 vs. our ever reduced attention spans I can't be sure, but I do know that bills that deregulate industries & allow huge corporate mergers are a big part of the problem.  And both parties are equally to blame for allowing it.  These are the consequential decisions we're not being given a vote on--the political changes that rarely even get media coverage.  And We The People the ones who pay.  

R.I.P. music

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To All Healthcare Providers in a Post-Roe World:

I've been reading articles like this all week and I want to vomit.  Combined with the personal stories I'm seeing on social media, I've never been so scared to live in the U.S.  And it was pretty fucking horrifying to live here through COVID as we (well, YOU) allowed the hospitals to be overrun with anti-vax science denialists for the last 2 years because you refused to enact rational, ethical triage protocols.  

It's utterly appalling that pharmacists are taking it upon themselves to deny patients access to prescribed medications like methotrexate because they fear they "might" be used off-label to induce abortion.  That's not your call.  Pharmacists already act as an obnoxious barrier to much-needed medications, giving patients the 3rd degree about drugs that are legally prescribed to them by doctors such as pain or ADHD medications.  The fact that they might now prevent terminal cancer, autoimmune disease or other patients with serious diseases from obtaining their much-needed meds because they're concerned about jeopardizing THEIR licenses is as unethical as it gets.  It's one thing if you're genuinely concerned about the patient overdosing or combining drugs like opiates & depressants; it's another when you're only worried about possible consequences for yourself.  If you can't handle the risks associated with your profession, find another one.  

Ditto all the doctors in ERs and OB/GYN units across the country who are electing to let women with ectopic pregnancies & pre-eclampsia code & die as you call your lawyer or simply turn them away in fear of losing your license.  Shame on you.  (I implore any nurses or others who witness these horrors to leave reviews & include the names of these butchers when sharing these stories so women know who NOT to entrust our lives to).  

When in doubt, please refer to the Hippocratic Oath you swore to uphold at the beginning of your career, remembering that violating it is considered medical malpractice.  If someone comes to you to save their life, refusing to do so for fear of losing your license is not only doing them harm but sentencing them to death.  In such a case you not only deserve to lose your license but to go to prison as well.  (Well, I suppose a judge or jury can decide that, but it certainly warrants serious legal action & a trial).  In no universe should you be able to turn a patient away for fear of treating them because you don't understand the laws around abortion or how they might affect your precious little career.  Again, if you're not sure or don't have the courage to save the life of a desperate dying patient, please choose a less consequential career.  I hear a lot of fast food joints are hiring.

We're at a point where doctors, nurses & other medical providers--the ones with a conscience--are going to start quitting en masse due to moral injury which will be catastrophic & irreversible.  This is the same thing we see in war veterans who are forced to kill innocent people & are told it's for a greater cause yet aren't able to square this with the reality of what they're seeing and feeling inside.  It already happened with COVID as doctors & nurses across the country watched patients die miserably & were forced to ration care while working to the point of exhaustion.  It would be far more impactful to organize, protest these unjust abortion laws & try to prevent this inevitable (further) decline in America's medical system now than to sit back & wait for the fallout.  Either way, you're going to end up walking out.  Why wait until your psyche is broken beyond repair?  A general healthcare strike is long overdue in this country.

It's really a question of how many immoral, unjust orders you're willing to follow.  I'm sure many of the Germans living under Nazi rule; a few of Unit 731's "scientists" & many others involved in history's horrors were "good people just following orders".  It's just that, without those enablers, those crimes against humanity couldn't have been carried out.  At some point we've got to make a conscious choice to stop repeating our mistakes as a species & evolve.  

On Snotty Snitches & Controlling Bitches

Remember that kid in class who would tell the evil teacher there were tacks in her chair, ruining the intricate prank everyone had worked so hard to pull off?  The goodie-goodie who always had a question or "idea" that would hold the class up long after the bell rang?  The first-in-the-door, last-out-the-door suckup who just HAD to make life a drag for all the other students because they were obviously lacking something inside themselves?  

Chances are that kid grew up to be an asshole who throws their peers, co-workers & even their "friends" under the bus whenever they get the chance.  They see themselves as shining examples of morality due to their habit of always following The Rules, yet they're the first to sabotage another hardworking person's efforts to make themselves feel better or look good.  But they don't look good.  They look like pathetic, insecure little twat waffles.  And the sad thing is, there's no need for any of it.  That effort could be better spent building up their own work, relationships or hobbies instead of tearing down yours.  Because they tend to be intelligent and competent people in their own right, they just won't relax their anuses long enough to chill & let other people be.  

The English department at my college was full of these people--sharply dressed WASPs who would exclude you from group projects for the slightest perceived misstep while turning in work that was consistently 'meh'.  I had an older cousin--an only child with a major inferiority complex--who exuded this energy my whole childhood, playing the benevolent big sister role when family was around and turning into an outright bully when they weren't.  Elon Musk's "you must come to work in the office/no more work-from-home" passive-aggressive email is another example.  You get the picture.  

It's one thing to be a Type A overachiever who takes your work seriously & likes to be in control.  It's another to try and control other people.  If you fall into the latter category, please seek help & try to reign it in.  It's not a good look & makes things that would otherwise be bearable or even fun seem like a drudgery.  Workplaces turn into nightmares with you around.  I can't imagine what it must be like to be in an intimate relationship with you people.  Not everyone's brain is wired like yours and that's okay.  We don't need an unpaid nanny following everyone around & playing bossy Big Brother.  Life is hard enough without the added pressure of Controlling Cathys & Snitchy Steves dissecting our every move.  

Relax.  Let your butthole breathe.  It's all gonna work out just fine.