text:
The Shape of Design
Chapter Ten Gifts and Giving
Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! D.H. Lawrence
There is an old Japanese tale about a poor student who was away from home and living at an inn. One evening, as his stomach grumbled, he smelled the briny scent of fish coming from the inn's kitchen as the innkeeper made his dinner. He wandered his way outdoors to the kitchen's window, and sat below the sill with his meager meal of rice, hoping that the scent of the fish might improve his paltry dish. The student did this for many weeks, until one night the innkeeper spotted him and became furious. He grabbed the youngster by the arm and dragged him to stand before the local magistrate, demanding payment from the student for the scent of the fish that he had stolen.
"This is most curious," said the magistrate, who thought for a moment and then came to a conclusion. "How much money do you have with you?" he asked the student, who then produced three gold coins from his pocket.
The student feared that he would be forced to pay the innkeeper the last of his money, but the magistrate continued. "Please," he said, "put all the coins in one of your hands." The student did as he was asked. "Now, pour those coins into your other hand." The student dumped the coins. With that, the magistrate dismissed the innkeeper and student's case.
The innkeeper yelped in confusion, "How can this be settled? I've not been paid!"
"Yes, you have," replied the magistrate. "The smell of your fish has been repaid by the sound of his money."
The Japanese have many tales about this eighteenth century magistrate's rulings, but the story of the stolen smell is the most often told. The student, despite not paying for the fish, was able to benefit from its scent, enjoying what amounted to an accidental gift from the innkeeper that added flavor to his bowl of rice. I feel similar to the student when enjoying the creative work that most inspires me. I'm working on my own projects, eating my humble bowl of rice, while reading, watching, and using the best that humankind has to offer. I'm awkwardly stringing together words into sentences, and then I get to have the wind knocked out of me by the first paragraph of Moby Dick. I get to be in that work's presence, to sit under the window and steal the scent of the things I love, in order to improve what I make.
Stop and look around you. How much of your environment is created? How many things that surround you are designed by someone? From the wheat-pasted posters on the street, to the octagonal stop signs on the road; the overstuffed arms of the sofa where you sit, to the milky consistency of the page on which these words are printed, or maybe even the bezel of the device on which you're reading this. All of these choices are designed, and they all coalesce into the experience of this moment. Most designers realize that much of our lives are designed, but we don't often stop to think that the work's widespread presence turns our design choices into significant contributions to the ambiance of life. The lesson of the innkeeper's story is that the things we make transcend commerce and ownership – they are an experience to have rather than an object to own or a service to access. There is an aspect to the work's value that can not be described in dollars and cents.
Typically, the success of a design is defined by the economics of the work. Good design is profitable, because finances help see that design endures. But as stated earlier, design is equal parts art and commerce. The dual nature implies that there are opportunities and values in the practice that transcend commerce to enter into a space of collaboration and value creation that can't be captured on a ledger. Design seeks to create experiences in addition to being profitable, so the price and profit of the work represent only part of its value. I think the most fitting way to think about the best works of design are as gifts.
Lewis Hyde, in his landmark book The Gift, describes how art simultaneously exists in both the market and gift economies, and that the appropriate way to look at the work of a creative individual is as a gift. Hyde uses the qualities of a gift economy to articulate the attributes and value of the creative perspective and to assess the resonance and worth of the creative work once it is shared with others. There is value in a creative work to bond people and engender cohesion in communities, and this worth can't be fully articulated in strictly commercial terms. Instead, Hyde looks for lessons in gift economies to understand the patterns and opportunities of an arrangement where value is exchanged outside of finances.
The gift lives in the work, but also in the work's creator. We typically describe someone's talent by saying they have a gift for it, as if their eye for color or perfect pitch were blessings imbued from someone somewhere else. In our best, most creative moments, it feels as if we are hardly doing the work ourselves, achieving a sense of flow where time disappears, improvising becomes easy, and decisions seem instinctual, like some unknown force is guiding our steps. The ancient Greeks believed that their artists were guided by daemons – divine attendants who delivered creativity and insight to the artists waiting for them. The Romans later called their daemons geniuses. Writer Elizabeth Gilbert, in a lecture for the ted conference in 2009, said that the Greeks and Romans thought their artists were not geniuses, but rather had one – genius being something to be in the presence of, that could come and go as it willed, and not something contained in the artist themselves. The genius bestowed the gift of insight to the artist, and it became the artist's responsibility to use the material provided by the genius.
Regardless of where our talents and tendencies come from, the gift of the individual is an assignment: their talents must be used to sing a song of their own. Their personal gift is made good through their labor, and the gift is passed on to others through the work they produce. We feel an obligation to use our natural resources to build and make, to mold and shape the world around us for the betterment of others.
This is hard work, though, because the obligation to one's gift forces us down a road where there is no logical end to the amount of effort, time, and attention we put into it. We have a tendency to toil and sweat the details, even beyond the point of clear financial benefit. David Chang, head chef at New York restaurant Momofuku, made a cameo on the television series Treme and framed the gap between efficiency and the extra effort extolled by so many creative individuals in their practice by calling it the "long, hard, stupid way." In Chang's case, the long, hard, stupid way was exhibited all over the kitchen, from preparing one's own stock, to sweating out the details of the origins of the ingredients, to properly plating dishes before sending them out to the table. Commercial logic would suggest that Chang stop working once it no longer made monetary sense, but the creative practitioner feels the sway of pride in their craft. We are compelled to obsess. Every project is an opportunity to create something of consequence by digging deeper and going further, even if it makes life difficult for the one laboring.
The long, hard, stupid way makes the process of design look like toiling, sweating over a drafting table, and producing piles of rejected ideas and prototypes. It's going longer, thinking harder, working smarter, and staying up later. This opens up a gap between the amount of these human resources that make financial sense and the exorbitant amount of care and attention that is actually applied to the work because of the obligation to the gift. The fruits of that labor can be sensed by the audience; in fact, we seek it out.
It's the extra essence that manifests as a well-plated dish when it comes to the table, an articulately phrased sentence as it appears on the page, or a daub of paint that sings of life in a portrait by getting the light in the eyes just right. The long, hard, stupid way is the path of creating special experiences for the individuals who can notice the details, almost as if one were speaking a private language to those attuned to listen. These careful details are what make the scent from the kitchen at the inn worth smelling.
Hyde states that a necessary element of a gift is that it must be bestowed. One can not ask for what they get, otherwise it is not a true gift. Hyde's definition mirrors the general structure of most design jobs: one person (the client) hires another (the designer) to create something for a third (the audience). It is hard to imagine this situation as anything other than gift-giving when the work is made out of kindness and consideration. Gifts – whether wedding gifts, birthday presents, or the simple exchange of business cards at a meeting – operate in a social layer to initiate a relationship between people or to fortify an already existing connection. Gifts are a form of social currency, and this is fitting for design, because it is a communicative endeavor that always exists in a social context. The work has its movement initiated in its creation, and that movement gains momentum when given to the audience as a gift. The work continues its movement as it becomes distributed and shared; becoming something that is passed on after the initial hand-off. This fits nicely with another declaration Hyde makes about gifts: that they must move, and the more movement, the greater the value assigned to the creation.
In an episode of the television show The West Wing, there's a scene about heirlooms where President Bartlet asks his personal aide, Charlie, to go on the hunt for a carving knife to use over the holidays. Bartlet rejects each knife that Charlie brings back, citing the important details that each blade lacks. This happens several times, much to Charlie's exasperation, until he finally brings the President the best possible knife he can find in Washington. President Bartlet inspects the knife closely while Charlie describes the finer details of what makes this knife the best available: its weight is properly distributed while in the hand, its edge is honed, fine, and sharp. President Bartlet refuses even this blade, but then produces a knife of his own, one that has been in his family for generations and was made by a silversmith named Paul Revere. He gives it to Charlie as his Christmas present.
A family heirloom accrues more value with the greater number of generations it has been passed down. It does not matter that the object itself remains the same, because the space around the object – its social context – is what makes us feel that the item is more valuable. The connection to Paul Revere lent Bartlet's knife a high financial value, but its social value was a product of its tradition and shared experience. The knife tied its possessor to a long line of others. I look at the obligations of our talents as a similar situation. We are part of a long line of people who have been tasked to shape this world in big and small ways, and the longer that line runs, the more valuable our opportunity becomes.
Bartlet's knife also shows that we are introduced to the finer details of a good gift and educated to its nature so that we may be able to appreciate it more fully. The context can produce a feeling of gratitude, and whether it is a family heirloom or a piece of design specially crafted for an audience, the space around the object creates an experience that primes the receiver for appreciation and thankfulness. Design gains the ability to nourish when it acts as a gift rather than as something to create yearning. We get to close loops of desire rather than open new ones.
We manipulate the context around the work to create a better experience for the one we're giving it to, much like how President Bartlet sent Charlie on a wild goose chase so that he would have to teach himself about what makes a fine knife. Gifts are wrapped for a reason – it frames the exchange, creates a surprise, and lengthens time to ensure an opportunity to have an experience.
A similar thing happens when reading an old-style book with deckled edges. The edges don't offer any sort of utility in contemporary books, but they were a necessity in much older titles. Readers would slice open pages with a knife, because the text was printed on folded paper on both sides. The binding would seal the pages shut on the right edge, and they would have to be torn, like opening a letter, to unveil the next page of text. The process turned the reading process into a literal page-by-page unveiling of a story. Italo Calvino said in his novel, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler:
This volume's pages are uncut: a first obstacle opposing your impatience. Armed with a good paper knife, you prepare to penetrate its secrets. With a determined slash you cut your way between the title page and the beginning of the first chapter.
The cutting of bound pages transforms a simple page turn into a treasure hunt, and while the obstacle doesn't necessarily scale well for someone who ravenously reads, it does make a simple page flip feel a bit like a child tearing through Christmas gifts at a feverish pace. Ripping apart pages meters the pace of reading, and frames it with a bit of nostalgia and romanticism. If anything, it forces the reader to spend more time with the words. Sometimes slowing down is a gift, because it lets the reader more fully appreciate the skill and capabilities of the writer. The design decisions of the format encouraged savoring for a better reading experience.
The success of a gift is quantified by the experience of its recipient, and harkens back to the primacy of the listener or audience. The qualities that make a great gift are the same characteristics that have been used to mark good design in this book: thoughtfulness in the choices that were made, understanding and responding to the context, and using empathy to accommodate and customize for fit.
Design, like many gifts, gains its primary value through customization to the one it is given to. "It's the thought that counts," as the saying about gifts goes, and that thoughtfulness implies an understanding of the individual receiving the gift. This is why cash is thought to be an underclass of present: it may be the most flexible and valuable from an economic standpoint, but the ability to spend it anywhere means that the gift was never personalized. Good gifts must be tailored to their recipients, so the difference between giving fifty dollars in cash and thoughtfully spending fifty dollars on someone is immense. It suggests that the quality of the gift is not just in its objective qualities like flexibility or cost, but in its subjective characteristics like intent and context. The space around the gift and the environment in which it is given sets up an excellent experience.
And perhaps the line between thoughtfully buying a gift and just giving the money to someone relates to the reason why so many creative individuals feel it necessary to do things the long, hard, stupid way. To merely work within the boundaries of financial concerns and not maximize one's creative capacity is to give someone the cash. Singing a song of our own while we make our work uses the full capacity of the creative person to create new value and something of consequence. There is a contribution greater than just the commercial concern; there is a human investment of talent, perspective, and perseverance.
These are the elements that resonate with the audience, because the work becomes a link between two individuals. Both sides of the equation are humanized, initiating a relationship between them through publishing the work. A few years ago, my friend Rob Giampietro was designing a business card for a client, and during a presentation of design options, the client chose one, then asked if the design was completed. In a moment of insight, Rob responded that the design of the business card wouldn't be finished until the client gave it to someone else. The implied exchange was part of the design, and Rob's task was to create a framework for that gift exchange to occur. The measure of a design is in its capacity to be shared: something travels from one person to another, and in the process, they both gain. Like a gift, design requires movement; the work must be shared, the ideas must move. A business card that stays in its owner's pocket is no good.
The publication of each design project initiates an exchange of gifts. On the one side, the designer and client offer their work; while on the other, the audience gives their attention, contributes through platforms, and offers their financial support. We value all these contributions, but the gift of attention is perhaps the most valuable. Attention may seem like an easy gift to give, but it is not; it is the scarcest resource available because its quantities are limited and nonrenewable. We can't produce more attention, and there are ever more things vying for it each day. Attentive audiences should be rewarded with high-quality work, and there should be a symmetry to the quality of each.
In the 1970s, Robert Irwin explored the qualities of attention as a gift. He called the experiment "being available in response." He would be available to other people who sought his presence, attention, and time, just like his responsiveness to the rooms where he installed his art. He explained:
I just sort of let it be known that I was available, in a way like I'm saying it to you. I mean, I didn't put out any ads or anything, but word got around. And you could be, let's say, up at UCLA, and you'd say, "Well, let's take advantage of that. We'll have him come up and talk to the students." And that's what I'd do. Or, "We'll have him come up and do a piece on the patio." And I would just come up and do that.
"There's an important distinction to be made here," [Irwin] continued, "between organizing and proselytizing, on the one hand, and responding to interest, on the other. I was and continue to be available in response. I mean, I don't stand on a corner and hand out leaflets. I'm not an evangelist. I'm not trying to sell anything. But on the other hand, if you ask me a question, you're going to get a half- hour answer."
The experiment started slowly, but within a few months, Irwin was almost continually on the road. The project lasted two years. He'd show up at schools and talk to students, or visit institutions and do an installation. Irwin himself said that he wasn't attempting to sell anything, implying that his availability existed outside of commerce and so was a gift. While his gift was free in commercial terms, it was terribly expensive in attention, making it a truly significant offering. The writer and media theorist Clay Shirky recently said, "We systematically overestimate the value of access to information and underestimate the value of access to each other." How inspiring for Irwin to devote so many years to being fully available to those who were interested.
The relationship between quality work and quality attention, however, is a bit of a chicken and egg paradox. Which comes first? Do people make good work to gain the rapt attention of an audience, or do they not bother with refined work until they know others are listening? Inside of commerce, this is a problem, because it doesn't make much sense to make a financial investment without a good hunch of reward. Luckily, for the creative individual, it is of no concern. The desire to produce great work will never leave the one making it, because of their sense of obligation to their gift. The song must be sung.
The things that initiate the exchange of high quality attention may start inside of the designer, but the products of the process have a tendency to have authorship and ownership evaporate. Sometimes the things we design lose the signature of the one who creates them, because their application is so widespread that their sway in culture diffuses to such an extent that it enters the air like the scent of the innkeeper's fish. They become a shared experience molding our interpretation of the world, becoming our points of reference, like the shape of a Coke bottle, the gait of the illuminated man on a street's crosswalk sign, the design of a paper clip, or the recycling logo. Design can sometimes achieve a state so fused with the culture, so widespread, distributed, and engrained into the background, that it recedes in spite of its up-front positioning. It can become easy to presume that these things have always existed, and forget that they were designed and originated with someone's decisions.
One of the best examples of this in graphic design is Milton Glaser's I ♥ NY logo. It's become something without an author, a shared symbol that permeates across all the spoofs and iterations it has inspired. Glaser's mark has become a gift to the culture that is shared, referenced, and celebrated. The mark became a vessel for emotion, a platform ready for the contributions of the audience to project their own affiliations onto to better articulate their appreciation for the city. Now, the mark is a shorthand to express affection for anything.
The art critic John Berger said that great art creates a space and gives it a face. In doing so, it's almost as if the gift names these hidden and formless experiences and enables us to more fully realize them, like the release that happens when we're searching for a word that is on the tip of our tongue, and someone else provides it for us. Empathy, understanding, and the codependency created by making things for others allows us to describe the overlaps between us by creating this shorthand language of complex feelings and experiences. All we need to do is point at something and treat it as a symbol for something more.
We are dependent on each other in this way – we finish each other's sentences, fill one another's needs, and help each other to become better. A person is not a closed system, they can never be fully self-sufficient. We need each other because we cannot make everything ourselves. Everything was invented, but it was not done alone, so we should revere the times we are able to fill this complementary role for others, and cherish when others do so for us. It's the words of others that teach us to speak, the expressions of life by other people that teach us how to express ourselves. The great opportunity of design is that we are frequently afforded the privilege to fill another's needs and desires.
I used to be a bit jaded about my work in an attempt to shield myself from the responsibility of it. I'd say, it is just a logo, only a promotional piece. It's only a website, just an essay. But, the things that we make are more than just objects. They're the way we paint pictures of what's to come. They are the projects that give us license to imagine a better future for ourselves and everyone else. These objects represent the promises that we make to one another and symbolize the connections between us. They come from the friction between the world we live in and the one we want to live in by building on top of our longings and exemplifying our capabilities.
W. H. Auden said a culture is no better than its woods. I'd say it's also no more than the things that it makes. We understand the lives of faded communities by the vesper trails they leave behind as stories, objects, and votives that represented something more. Everything fades, and in the end, all we have are one another and the things we make to put between us. As art historian George Kubler said, "The moment just past is extinguished forever, save for the things made during it." All of these creations linger, and they echo across the long line of time and speak to what those people were able to build and what they believed.
And I believe in so much. I believe in the two-way bridges we build that connect us to one another. I believe in the deep interconnectedness of everything, in the benefits of our codependency, and in the opportunity of today when we believe in a tomorrow. I believe in the gift that creative people are given and in the obligation to use it. I believe that we have done well, but I think we can do better. I believe we can do much, much better. There is more making to be done. There are dreams out there that must be made real.
And if you look closely, and ignore the things that do not matter, what comes into focus is simply this: there is the world we live in and one that we imagine. It is by our movement and invention that we inch closer to the latter. The world shapes us, and we get to shape the world.
Chapter One How and Why
Chapter Two Craft and Beauty
Chapter Three Improvisation and Limitations
Chapter Four Form and Magic
Chapter Five Fiction and Bridges
Chapter Six Context and Response
Chapter Seven Stories and Voids
Chapter Eight Frameworks and Etiquette
Chapter Nine Delight and Accommodation
Backers About
By Frank Chimero · License CC BY-NC-SA


Shay Alexi Stewart "A TREATISE ON TEACHING THIRD GRADE"
they are my sons with expiration dates.
they are retelling an old joke.
and they think it is a new joke.
they do not know this yet.
but they don't know it.
they think I am the sun.
That is the thing that their daddies forgot.


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text:
Q: Reset Auto Increment (identity) each year I'm using SQL Server 2008 R2 and I would like to create a trigger.
For each add (only add), a column will be update like that :
ABC-CurrentYear-AutoIncrementCode

exemple :
ABC-2013-00001

or
ABC-2013-1

ABC will never change
Current year could be added with YEAR(GetDate()), but for the last part, I've got difficulty: how can I get the last entry number to make last entry + 1?
Second problem :
In 2014, the auto increment counter should be reset to 1, same for 2015 etc...

A: You could calculate the new value like this:
SELECT 'ABC-' +
CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(4)) + '-' +
RIGHT('00000' + CAST(ISNULL(MAX(CAST(REPLACE(YourColumnName, 'ABC-' + CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(4)) + '-', '') AS INTEGER)), 0) + 1 AS VARCHAR(5)), 5)
FROM YourTable
WHERE YourColumnName LIKE 'ABC-' + CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS VARCHAR(4)) +'%'

The last part of the string concatenation is particulary complicated:

*

*RIGHT is used to add leading zeros

*ISNULL is used to reset the counter every year

A: Using a sample table that looks something like this:
CREATE TABLE MyTable (id INT IDENTITY(1,1), someCol NVARCHAR(20), codeCol NVARCHAR(20))

Having an id column, some random value column and third column where your code is stored.
Your trigger might look something like this:
CREATE TRIGGER tgInsertMyTable ON myTable
AFTER INSERT
AS
BEGIN

    DECLARE @code NVARCHAR(20)
    SELECT @code = 'ABC-' + CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS NVARCHAR(4)) + '-'

    DECLARE @max NVARCHAR(20)
    SELECT @max = codeCol FROM dbo.myTable mts WHERE mts.codeCol LIKE @code + '%'

    ;WITH CTE_UPD AS
    (
        SELECT REPLICATE('0', 5-LEN(CAST(COALESCE(CAST(RIGHT(@max,5) AS INT),0) + ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ins.ID) AS NVARCHAR(5)))) + CAST(COALESCE(CAST(RIGHT(@max,5) AS INT),0) + ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ins.ID) AS NVARCHAR(5)) AS nextNo, id
        FROM INSERTED ins

    )
    UPDATE mt
    SET mt.CodeCol = @code + nextNo
    FROM dbo.MyTable mt
    INNER JOIN CTE_UPD ins ON ins.ID = mt.ID

END

I know it looks complicated at some places, so I'll try to explain it a bit, but
first - here is a demo that it does works properly:
SQLFiddle DEMO
So, first I setup a desired code prefix in @code variable - that's the part without increment.
Second - I search in existing rows in table for maximal value with same prefix - and store it in variable @max
Third part is CTE - it's used to find the next increment value.

*

*From the max value strip only the last 5 characters (RIGHT function)

*convert them to int (CAST) - stripping it from starting zeros

*if @max was NULL - now it's declared 0 (COALESCE)

*add ROW_NUMBER from inserted to it - this is important - you can't just use +1 because you might add more then 1 row at the same time (like in demo). This is the whole reason CTE is needed in the first place.

*cast back to nvarchar

*REPLICATE is used to return the starting zeros in the amount of 5-LEN (new LEN in calculated to add less zeroes when number become 10, 100, 1000)

At the end, just join CTE to table and update with @code + calculated value
I am not sure, if there might be a simpler solution but this one works - and I think covers all the scenarios.

A: But where to use these functions.For Example if Student table as RegNo. requiring this Auto-Year-Increment property.Where should one write this code?Either in a stored procedure or somewhere else.

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Sex Ed Sex, Media & Culture Sexual Health
Herpes and the Myth of Detoxing
Rich Mancuso | Aug 09 2020
"There's a sucker born every minute." - David Hannum
Years ago, when I was first diagnosed, there wasn't much information on the subject of herpes simplex; as a matter of fact, there wasn't even an Internet. The only access to any information about herpes was from a doctor, or you had to get up off your ass and go to the library.
Even then a great deal of that information was somewhat outdated or access to real data was only accessible to scientists.
With the magical click of a computer mouse, any question you have can be answered in 30 seconds or less. Even with this overabundance of information a great deal of what we may find can be deeply anecdotal. And not based on any facts. Unfortunately, it seems that critical thinking has been pushed aside for quick mental satisfaction because it sounds good; it happened to me as well.
It should be evident that these intelligent marketing techniques have somewhat blinded our common sense. Even though we are partially to blame for not asking the right question or digging deeper.
This easy acceptance of what products claim can take place due to a simple need to make ourselves better and much healthier; plus it just sounds good, right?
The manufacturers of certain products exploit this and circumvent particular words. And phrases all for obtaining the almighty dollar by selling you well crafted promises.
I realize that saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." may sting and be a tad offensive. But years ago I was one of these suckers and was fooled on more than one occasion.
Many of these fake cures, detoxes, and cleansing diets make promises to remove your herpes or even detoxify you of foreign contaminants. Or the buildup of scary chemicals with big unpronounceable words.
Looking back, it is depressing to think about the amount of money I spent trying to alleviate my symptoms and other health issues. Only to be punched in the face by the true meaning of getting scammed and the full force of the words, Buyer's remorse.
I know that some will argue that their vitamins and herbal supplements do in-fact work and stating otherwise is just wrong. Well, that's true.
Some herbal products do indeed work on suppressing herpes simplex symptoms; it's not just anecdotal. But the claims of products stating that they can Detoxify you (your herpes or other chemicals within), are empty claims and smart marketing.
How do we know this?
Simply put, a person may benefit from taking herbs and supplements and they may make you feel better; it's probable, but there's a lot of evidence to show why detoxing is BS.
Detox diets rarely identify the specific toxins they aim to remove. The mechanisms by which they work are also unclear. In fact, there is little to no evidence that detox diets remove any toxins from your body. What's more, your body is capable of cleansing itself through the liver, feces, urine, and sweat. Your liver makes toxic substances harmless, then ensures that they're released from your body. - Healthline.com {1}
"Despite the fact they have no scientific backing, many 'detox diets' have emerged over the years and vary greatly. However, most tend to prescribe certain foods, detox teas, special juices or the elimination of whole food groups."
The next point of concern is the main promise of detox diets -- to detox the body. But our bodies do a pretty good job of that on their own.
"The body is naturally designed to be able to clear waste materials such as toxins, chemicals and old hormones in order to prevent an accumulation of potentially toxic and harmful byproducts building up in our systems," nutritionist Fiona Tuck told HuffPost Australia. {2}
"Let's be clear," says Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, "there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn't."
The respectable one, he says, is the medical treatment of people with life-threatening drug addictions.
"The other is the word being hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you're supposed to have accumulated."
If toxins did build up in a way your body couldn't excrete, he says, you'd likely be dead or in need of serious medical intervention.
"The healthy body has kidneys, a liver, skin, even lungs that are detoxifying as we speak," he says.
"There is no known way – certainly not through detox treatments – to make something that works perfectly well in a healthy body work better." {3}
So what's the answer?
Whether you are talking about detoxing body in general or even detoxing your herpes, it's not gonna happen. Please don't get me wrong here; I'm not saying that herbal products are a bad idea and do not have any value in your diet.
To say that out loud would be ignorant and false. There are many beneficial herbs and healthy products that we can add to our diets.
Besides the fact that eating plants is one of the best things you can do for yourself.
For me, the science is pretty clear. If a manufacturer claims their product has the ability to detoxify you, it is making quite the extraordinary claim. This also means the manufacturer must show extraordinary evidence to prove that their product does indeed detoxify you. I have to be honest here, I have not seen any evidence of that.
It's really just weird science.
Buyer Beware.
Picture source: https://healthdefacto.com/7-days-detox-diet-korean-detox/
Originally posted https://askingforafriend.us/articles/f/herpes-and-the-myth-of-detoxing?blogcategory=Detox
The Fear Of Turning Left — Pleasure For Health
Ailsa Keppie, Jun 26 2020
Sex in the Time of Corona: Tips for Groups
Russell Stambaugh, Apr 11 2020
Sex and the Pandemic
TenWays ToTouch, Apr 07 2020
Dating and Parenting
Gwyn Isaacs, Feb 17 2021
A Newborn, Sex, & Stress: 5 Tips for Couples on Intimacy
SexyEducation.org, Nov 10 2019
Painful Intercourse: Is There A Remedy For Dyspareunia?
Health In Vitro, Mar 18 2020


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Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Saturday, January 02, 2016 No comments:
The GOP's Delusional Invocations of "American Exceptionalism"
One thing that drives me to distraction is the Republican Party's constant bloviating about "American Exceptionalism." Yes, Democrats, including Barack Obama, succumb at times to citing American exceptionalism, but the frequency of use pales compared to that of Republicans. Worse yet, the GOP invocations of American exceptionalism always seem to include a re-writing of history, refusal to learn from past catastrophes - e.g., the Iraq War - and a blindness to the ugliness in America's past. Without being honest about the past and accurate history, America is doomed to repeat past mistakes and allow injustices to fester. A column in Salon that looks at history from the Vietnam War forward underscores the GOP's delusions on "American exceptionalism." Here are excerpts:
The Vietnam War ended 40 years ago, yet this brutal episode continues to haunt America and affect our foreign policy, our culture, and our national identity. . . . the catastrophic war left the idea of American exceptionalism in tatters as the conflict came to be seen by many citizens as unnecessary and immoral, undermining the basic American belief that the United States is the greatest force for good in the world.
In his wide-ranging book "American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity" (Viking), historian Christian Appy explores the complex history of the war, from the Cold War fear and idealism that led to the initial American involvement to the ruthless and seemingly endless and grotesque conflict that perplexed the military, devastated Vietnam, and fueled an antiwar movement at home. Appy also looks at the aftermath of the war, analyzing the amnesia and pumped up patriotism in its wake as well as the wariness of further military intervention. But, as Appy observes, historical memory faded and policy makers after 9/11 ignored the lessons of Vietnam, launching protracted and indecisive wars in the Middle East as an imperial presidency directed foreign affairs without the consent of the citizenry.
[T]he evidence I found indicated that roughly 80 percent of the men who served in Vietnam came from poor or working-class families. The draft system of the era was class-biased in ways that allowed men with greater economic means far more opportunity to avoid military service or to find forms of service (like the military reserves) that kept them out of Vietnam. And few men of privilege volunteered.
To put it most plainly, [American exceptionalism] it's the belief that the United States is the greatest nation on earth, unrivaled not only it its wealth and power, but in the quality of its institutions and values, and the character of its people. That faith has been with us for centuries and has often had a religious underpinning—the idea that we are providentially destined for our unique mission in the world. When it reached its heyday during World War II and the early Cold War, American exceptionalism was the driving ideological force of our particular brand of imperialism. It was founded on the appealing idea that we are the greatest force for good in the world and therefore have the right and responsibility to assert "global leadership."
[I]n many ways the political and cultural values and institutions that have shaped American exceptionalism (republicanism, various kinds of freedom, etc.) were constructed on the backs of dispossessed native peoples, enslaved Africans, and, over time, the domination of many foreign lands and people. Of course, the faithful have tended to view all such devastating evidence as insignificant or temporary blemishes along the road to ever greater freedom for all.
The Vietnam War, in my view, was the first experience that shattered that broad faith. . . . . in the face of war crimes like the My Lai massacre in which a company of U.S. soldiers slaughtered some 500 unarmed and unresisting civilians in 1968, many war supporters proposed that all nations do similarly horrible things in war. Well, that excuse is itself a rejection of a core ingredient of American exceptionalism—the idea that we put a higher price on life than other nations and cultures.
Perhaps it's a tell-tale sign of a dying empire when leaders know that their exercise of military power is failing but they continue the killing nonetheless in a desperate effort to avoid defeat, to avoid humiliation, to avoid looking weak.
I have a chapter called "Paper Tigers" that is really about the significance of gender in prolonging and expanding a war that American leaders believed was failing but did not have the moral courage to stop. . . . . their primary concern was maintaining "credibility" and that really boiled down to preserving an image of national and personal toughness.
Not only is that, in my view, a kind of insanity, but it didn't work. The longer we stayed in Vietnam the more our international credibility was shredded. It didn't even work for LBJ in personal political terms—the war led him to drop out of the presidential campaign of 1968. As for Nixon, his illegal efforts to silence antiwar criticism (and thus preserve his credibility) were the first crimes of Watergate that ultimately forced him to resign.
Forced relocation was designed to deprive the Viet Cong of civilian support in the countryside and it ultimately displaced 5 to 10 million people. Their ancestral villages were then burned down or bulldozed and proclaimed "free fire zones" where the U.S. claimed the right to fire at anything that moved in the area.
Far from "winning hearts and minds," policies like these simply served to drive more and more Vietnamese to an anti-government, anti-U.S. position.
Although Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations of the Greater Middle East in which we engage in seemingly endless war are all vastly different from Vietnam (and each other) there are certainly commonalities in the way the U.S. has behaved in all of those places. Once again our troops have been sent to war under false pretexts, in faraway countries in which they are widely perceived as hostile invaders or occupiers, to prop up local regimes that lack the broad support of their own people, and to wage brutal counter-insurgency against an elusive and difficult-to-identify enemy (while also being told somehow to win the hearts and minds of the people). Moreover, our presidents have prolonged these wars, as in Vietnam, long after the American public has turned against them, and once again we have failed to achieve our stated objectives.
[F]inally dispense with American exceptionalism. I don't think the historical record justifies the faith, it alienates other people and nations (for obvious reasons), and it contributes to public acquiescence to the tiny few who make foreign policy in our name and are all to ready and willing to assure us that they can be trusted to use our "indispensable" power as a force for good in the world.
[T]hose [presidential candidate] comments strike me as delusional and reflexive invocations of American exceptionalism based on the threadbare idea that we are a force for stability and peace in the world no matter how glaringly the facts contradict the claim. They remind me of the remark Vice President George H.W. Bush made in 1988 shortly after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf killing all 290 passengers. Running for president at the time, Bush said: "I will never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are."
Just as they don't want to face the reality that their religious beliefs are untrue, much of the GOP base refuses to face the fact that "American exceptionalism" is a myth that is dangerous.
Labels: GOP delusions, Iraq War, lessons of history, myth of American exceptionalism, Vietnam War
Islamic Extremist Use Trump as Recruiting Tool
Many have accused Donald Trump of aiding the enemy - i.e, ISIS and other extremist groups - through his vitriolic denunciations of Muslims and advocacy for barring Muslims from America. Trump's demagoguery plays well with the racist, knuckle draggers of the GOP base, but plays right into ISIS and other groups' desire to depict America and the West at war against Islam and by extension, all Muslims. Not that Trump, the carnival barker playing to America's own extremists seems to give a damn. A piece in the New York Times looks at how Trump's rhetoric is being used against America. Here are highlights:
Al Qaeda's branch in Somalia released a recruitment video on Friday that criticized racism and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and contained footage of the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump announcing his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the country.
The video, released by the militant group Shabab, appeared to be the first time that Mr. Trump was featured in jihadist recruitment material. During a Democratic presidential debate last month, Hillary Clinton said that Mr. Trump had been used in a recruitment video for the Islamic State, a claim that was later debunked.
Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are rival jihadist groups that compete for recruits and money among radicalized Muslims. Representatives for the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The video was authenticated by the SITE Intelligence Group, which studies jihadist propaganda, and it appeared to be aimed at the African-American community.
In addition to footage of Mr. Trump, the video, which is 51 minutes long, included excerpts from speeches by Malcolm X and unnamed white supremacists, as well as footage of white police officers, African-Americans protesting police brutality and African-American men in prison. Some appeared to be performing Islamic prayers.
Using footage of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American member of a Qaeda affiliate who was killed in an American drone attack in 2011, the video also said the United States was gripped by a "malignant hatred" of Islam. It warned American Muslims that "there are ominous clouds gathering in your horizon."
"The West will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens," he said, jabbing his finger toward the camera. Only two choices remained for Muslims in the United States, he said.
"You either leave or you fight," he said. "You leave and live among Muslims, or you stay behind and follow the example of Nidal Hasan and others who fulfilled their duty of fighting for Allah's cause."
What is frightening is that far too many Americans seem only too happy to play right into ISIS's hands, especially GOP presidential candidates who are only too eager to prostitute themselves to the ugliest elements of the GOP base.
Labels: aiding the enemy, Al Qaeda, anti-Muslim bigotry, Donald Trump, GOP Demagogues, ISIS
New Year's Male Beauty
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Friday, January 01, 2016 No comments:
Ft. Lauderdale - Day Two and Three
Between work matters - I have spent a number of hours each day dealing with office e-mails and client matters - and seeing friends and trying to enjoy the trip, I simply never got around to blogging yesterday. Overall, the trip has been great and we are very happy with the Coral Reef Guesthouse where we are staying. We have met a number of really nice couples and guys from various parts of the country and the facility is immaculately kept and the staff very friendly and helpful. We will definitely stay here again.
Wednesday, we spent time by the pool, met friends from Virginia Beach/Norfolk for lunch and then we went to the home of friends and clients of the husband's salon where he did their hair as I sat by the pool at their gorgeous home in Lighthouse Point, just north of Ft. Lauderdale. That evening we went to the Lauderdale Yacht Club (see the image above of the pool complex) for dinner. We ended the night hitting clubs in Wilton Manor, finishing the night at Hunters where there was great dance music.
Yesterday, after dealing with office issues until nearly noon, we hit Sebastian Beach at the ocean front for several hours. We attended a New Year's Eve party in Wilton Manor at the home of a friend from Virginia Beach and saw many friends down from Virginia and finished the night/early hours of the morning at the guesthouse having cocktails with other guests at the pool and hot tub. As I have been blogging, the husband in fact has been sleeping in. :)
Labels: Coral Reef Guesthouse, Ft. Lauderdale, gay guest house, gay travel, LGBT tourism
America's Self-Destructive Whites
Much of the base of the Republican Party consists of working class whites, many with no college education. I suspect that many have never traveled overseas and - except perhaps in the military, if then - and have a limited view of the world. Especially if they are far right evangelicals who statistically have the lowest education levels of those calling themselves Christians. Rather than attempt to adapt and accept a changing world and society, they rage and seek to impose their beliefs on all. Anything is more acceptable than having to think and re-evaluate long held beliefs and prejudices. In the long term, the behavior is also self-destructive. A column in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon. Here are excerpts:
Why is Middle America killing itself? The fact itself is probably the most important social science finding in years. It is already reshaping American politics. The Post's Jeff Guo notes that the people who make up this cohort are "largely responsible for Donald Trump's lead in the race for the Republican nomination for president." The key question is why, and exploring it provides answers that suggest that the rage dominating U.S. politics will only get worse.
For decades, people in rich countries have lived longer. But in a well-known paper, economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case found that over the past 15 years, one group — middle-age whites in the United States — constitutes an alarming trend. They are dying in increasing numbers. And things look much worse for those with just a high school diploma or less. There are concerns about the calculations, but even a leading critic of the paper has acknowledged that, however measured, "the change compared to other countries and groups is huge."
The only comparable spike in deaths in an industrialized country took place among Russian males after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when rates of alcoholism skyrocketed.
A conventional explanation for this middle-class stress and anxiety is that globalization and technological change have placed increasing pressures on the average worker in industrialized nations. But the trend is absent in any other Western country — it's an exclusively American phenomenon.
Deaton speculated to me that perhaps Europe's more generous welfare state might ease some of the fears associated with the rapid change. Certainly he believes that in the United States, doctors and drug companies are far too eager to deal with physical and psychological pain by prescribing drugs, including powerful and addictive opioids. The introduction of drugs such as Oxycontin, a heroin-like prescription painkiller, coincides with the rise in deaths.
While mortality rates for middle-age whites have stayed flat or risen, the rates for Hispanics and blacks have continued to decline significantly. These groups live in the same country and face greater economic pressures than whites. Why are they not in similar despair?
The answer might lie in expectations. . . . . other groups might not expect that their income, standard of living and social status are destined to steadily improve. They don't have the same confidence that if they work hard, they will surely get ahead.
The Hispanic and immigrant experiences in the United States are different, of course. But again, few in these groups have believed that their place in society is assured. Minorities, by definition, are on the margins. They do not assume that the system is set up for them. They try hard and hope to succeed, but they do not expect it as the norm.
The United States is going through a great power shift. Working-class whites don't think of themselves as an elite group. But, in a sense, they have been, certainly compared with blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and most immigrants. They were central to America's economy, its society, indeed its very identity. They are not anymore.
Donald Trump has promised that he will change this and make them win again. But he can't. No one can. And deep down, they know it.
Some may think that I am unsympathetic, but having gone through the coming out process, been fired from my job for being gay, forced into bankruptcy, and having had to work hard and struggle to rebuild, I do know that giving up hope and/or merely lashing out at others who are different is not the answer - no matter whatever sound bites Donald Trump may throw to you.
Labels: angry whites, Donald Trump, failed GOP policies, loss of white privilege, middle aged whites, mortality rates
Ben Carson Aides Resign Over Conflict with Closeted Adviser
As noted in a prior post, the already troubled Ben Carson campaign is being wracked by rumors about Carson friend and non-titled adviser Armstrong Williams who has faced male-on-male sexual harassment allegations. Now, campaign manager Barry Bennett and communications director Doug Watts have resigned due to apparent conflict with Williams, a long time Carson friend and confident. Talking Points Memo looks at the development and one can only wonder when Carson opponents try to fan the flames over Williams. Here are highlights:
Two top aides to Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson resigned from the campaign and predicted a wave of departures to come Thursday, casting the troubled campaign into uncertainty with just a month until the Iowa caucuses.
Campaign manager Barry Bennett and communications director Doug Watts resigned over conflict with Armstrong Williams, a Carson adviser the campaign has said has no official role, according to the Des Moines Register.
The Register later reported Deputy Campaign Manager Lisa Coen had also left the campaign.
Days before Christmas, Armstrong and Williams invited The Washington Post and Associated Press for a sit-down at the candidate's Maryland home about upcoming staffing changes to the campaign – without Bennett's knowledge, the Post reported.
"I spent the holidays hearing every day that I had lost my job," Bennett told the Post in an interview Thursday. "My relationship with Carson was always good and friendly but being campaign manager in that kind of situation, where outside advisers are in essence driving the campaign and setting up interviews and raising questions about everything, it's not the right atmosphere."
Bennett said he thought airing the campaign's dirty laundry to the press was a "stupid move," one that Williams pushed for.
On Thursday, Williams told the Post he heard the news of Bennett and Watts' departures on Twitter.
"There's enough pain today, enough feelings that have been damaged in some ways," Williams said. "I'm already being blamed, as I knew I would be, but I would never criticize Barry and Doug."
The Post's Robert Costa reported the campaign was in "chaos" over the news.
I have long viewed Carson as a whack job and we can only hope that this is the beginning of the end of his campaign.
Labels: 2016 GOP clown car, anti-gay Republicans, Armstrong Williams, Ben Carson, closeted Republicans
Happy New Year to one and all.
Labels: male beauty, New Year
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Wednesday, December 30, 2015 No comments:
Donald Trump and Christofascists - Kindred Narcissists
As regular readers know full well, I have a very low opinion of evangelical Christians, especially those I refer to as Christofascists. They are defined by the selfishness, false piety and hatred of anyone and everyone who does not subscribe to their toxic version of Christianity or who tries to limit their ability to abuse and discriminate against others that they deem as "sinners" or as not being "real Americans." These folks are a walking advertisement as to why one should leave Christianity. Some are surprised that a significant portion of the Christofascists in the Republican Party base are flocking to Donald Trump's banner. A piece in The Raw Story makes the case why Trump and the Christofascists are made for each other and tied to one another by a common trait: narcissism. Here are highlights:
One of the questions vexing the mediocre punditry of American discourse is how Donald Trump—a former star of the tabloids with a track record of scandal and little history of religious affiliation—is polling so well with evangelical Christians.
But Trump and America's religious right are not as different as one would think. If any corner of American Christianity encourages narcissism, it's conservative evangelical Christianity.
One of the oddest traits of many deeply religious people is their self-professed humility even as they claim to understand the plan of the creator of the universe as well as their own special role in its development. The late Christopher Hitchens perfectly summarized the brand of arrogance that wears the mask of modesty: "Don't mind me—I'm only on an errand for God."
Despite the attempt religious believers often make to monopolize morality, it turns out that teaching children they are the center of the universe is not healthy. A large study recently published in Current Biology, found that the more religious the child, the less likely they are to behave altruistically with peers. In fact, religion in children correlates strongly with selfishness and mean-spiritedness.
[T]he Christian right in America has a long history of encouraging narcissistic, intolerant ideology.
Trump, meanwhile, is the rock bottom of Republican decline from a political party with a coherent policy agenda to a loosely connected network of nativists and extremists. The party's loss of credibility is the predictable outcome of its transformation into a vehicle for the self-promotion and theocratic advocacy of white evangelical Christians. In order to appeal to evangelical voters, candidates like Carson and Cruz have to project narcissism and selfishness. They do it very well, but Donald Trump is the demagogic master of it.
Having perfected his personality through years of reality television performance, Trump is able to successfully sway evangelicals to his side, despite his lack of Christian credentials, because narcissists take comfort in each other. His meanspirited attacks on minorities, disabled reporters and women who disagree with him do not subtract his support: quite the opposite. It actually makes him more appealing to those who, like the children in the study, believe they are special and that those who are different are inferior.
Evangelical Christians believe they are a persecuted minority because anything less than total ownership is unsatisfactory. God blesses America, and God has selected them to carry out his will. "Making America great again" will require the execution of God's plan through the exclusion of those who do not share the religious vision of America as a white Christian paradise.
Barry Goldwater telegraphed the entire decline of the Republican Party in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan first began welcoming evangelicals into the room. The senator warned that, "If and when these preachers get control of the Republican Party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know. I've tried to deal with them."
Arthur Miller once remarked that Christian conservatives don't want a president. Instead, they "ache for an Ayatollah." Right now, they have Trump.
Labels: 2016 GOP presidential candidates, Barry Goldwater, Donald Trump, GOP religious extremism, selfish and self-centered, white Christofascists
America's Misplaced War on Marijuana
As noted in other posts, a majority of Americans believe that the nation's marijuana laws need to be changed. As they exist currently, Virginia's marijuana laws produce thousands of citizens each year permanently marked by a criminal record - even for possessing small amounts of the substance. All of this despite the fact that no research exists that has demonstrated that marijuana use has any where near the health issues of tobacco - which can still be legally purchased - which costs the nation billions of dollars in otherwise avoidable health care costs and lives ended prematurely. Talk about having your priorities backwards. A column in the Washington Post looks at these misplaced priorities. Here are highlights:
In January [1964], the surgeon general announced that scientists had found conclusive evidence linking smoking to cancer and thus launched our highly successful 50-year public- health fight against tobacco. In August, the North Vietnamese fired on a U.S. naval ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, which led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the public phase of the Vietnam War. Alongside an accelerating deployment of conventional troops would come their widespread use of marijuana and heroin.
By 1971, cigarette ads had been banned from radio and television, the surgeon general had called for regulation of tobacco, and cigarette smoking had begun its long decline. T he impact of drug use among troops and returning veterans provoked President Richard M. Nixon to declare a war on drugs. This was followed, of course, by the 1973 passage of the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York. These set the model for criminalization and increasing penalties for the country as a whole, especially regarding drugs.
In the contrast between what has happened since 1964 with tobacco, on the one hand, and marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other banned substances, on the other, we have an instructive lesson in the comparative effects of choosing a public-health or a criminalization paradigm for dealing with addictive substances.
The approach to tobacco has worked. Between 1964 and 2014, smoking rates declined by half; . . . . The progress against smoking has been steady and impressive. It's an altogether different tale with banned substances. While levels of illegal drug use have risen and fallen since 1971, current levels are equivalent to those we had in the mid-1970s.
There is an even starker contrast in how perceptions of the risks of smoking and of illegal drugs have changed. In 1975, 51.3 percent of 12th-graders thought that smoking one or more packs of cigarettes a day posed great risk; by 1991 that number was 69.4 percent, by 2014 it was 78 percent. With illegal drugs, arrows move the opposite direction or stay essentially flat.
In other words, for all the money spent and lives ruined through violence and criminalization, we have made zero headway against illegal drugs.
So what did we do about smoking? Tobacco control has focused on prevention and cessation.
Beginning in 1964, public- health campaigns worked toward the "denormalization" of smoking, in the words of the 2014 Report of the Surgeon General
What we have done with marijuana and the other illegal drugs is, of course, invest heavily in criminal justice.
According to a 2011 Justice Department report, addressing illegal drugs cost the nation $193 billion in 2007. . . . . this criminalization means a massive overload on the judicial system.
Rather than using the FBI to bust up fancy tunnel networks, we should legalize marijuana and decriminalize other drugs, and then tax and sue drug producers to generate revenue to support public health campaigns against their products, agencies to regulate them and treatment for those who suffer from addiction. Legalizing and decriminalizing drugs doesn't mean giving up on the fight against them, and we have the lesson about what works right in front of our eyes.
Add to the ass backward approach taken on marijuana the unequal arrest rates for young black males and what we have is a disaster. Conservatives are anti-drug yet whine and bitch about blacks not working when the failed war on drugs has made many nearly unemployable. The cynic in me at times wonders if this hasn't worked more to hold back blacks than the foul Jim Crow laws. The drug laws need to change now.
Labels: broken criminal justice system, legalized marijuana, misplaced priorities, tobacco, war on drugs, young black males
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Tuesday, December 29, 2015 No comments:
Ft. Lauderdale - Day One
It has been a super long day today. The husband and I were up at 2:30AM to get ready for our 5:15AM flight to Ft. Lauderdale Florida, via Charlotte on American Airlines. As seems to be the norm, American Airlines was a disappointment, but we eventually got here albeit late. We are staying at the Coral Reef Guesthouse (the pool is shown above) and will be seeing numerous friends who have second homes down here. The husband's brother is staying at the house and watching the dogs. We lazed by the pool when I wasn't dealing with client phone calls and e-mails - I NEVER really escape - and plan on a low key dinner before visiting some clubs in Wilton Manor later this evening. Normal posting will resume tomorrow. Dinner tomorrow evening at the Lauderdale Yacht Club compliments of our reciprocal privileges through the Hampton Yacht Club.
Labels: Ft. Lauderdale, gay guest house, gay travel, LGBT tourism, pink dollar
Monday Morning Male Beauty
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Monday, December 28, 2015 No comments:
GALLUP: 64 Million Religious "Nones" In America
If one believes that a decline in religion in America is a good thing as I do, a new Gallup survey contains good news: those identifying as Christian is at a new low and the numbers of those claiming no religious affiliation is at a new high and translates to some 64 million Americans. Is the GOP noting any of this? Of course not! The GOP continues to focus on prostituting itself to the most extreme and ugly elements of the Christofascists. Here are highlights from some of the findings:
[A] review of over 174,000 interviews conducted in 2015 shows that three-quarters of American adults identify with a Christian religion, little changed from 2014, but down from 80% eight years ago. About 5% of Americans identify with a non-Christian religion, while 20% have no formal religious identification, which is up five percentage points since 2008.
The general trends in the data over this eight-year period are clear: As the percentage of Americans identifying with a Christian religion has decreased, the percentage with no formal religious identification has increased. The small percentage of Americans who identify with a non-Christian religion has been essentially constant over this time period.
The percentage of Christians is highest among older Americans and decreases with each progressively younger age group. This trend reflects the high number of "nones" -- those without a formal religious identity -- in the younger generations, as well as a higher proportion of non-Christians among them.
One key to the future of Christian representation in the U.S. population will be shifts in the religious identification of today's youngest cohorts. Traditionally, Americans have become more likely to identify with a religion as they age through their 30s and 40s and get married and have children. If this pattern does not occur in the same way it has in the past, the percentage of Christians nationwide will likely continue to shrink.
Of the Millennials that I know who now have children, few have returned to identifying with any religious affiliation.
Labels: decline in Christianity, Gallup Poll, GOP religious extremism, Millennials, no religion, nones
The GOP Seeks to Repeat the Worst of Bush/Cheney
Much of the Republican Party base is adverse to accepting objective reality (especially the Christofascist element of the base), but the problem extends all the way to the top of the party leadership and the 2016 clown car occupants. On economic policy, all of the presidential contenders seek to reinstate all of the policies of Bush/Cheney that failed miserably and fueled both growing wealth disparities and helped to the Great Recession. A column in the New York Times looks at this frightening pattern. Here are highlights:
2015 was, of course, the year of Donald Trump, whose rise has inspired horror among establishment Republicans and, let's face it, glee — call it Trumpenfreude — among many Democrats. But Trumpism has in one way worked to the G.O.P. establishment's advantage: it has distracted pundits and the press from the hard right turn even conventional Republican candidates have taken, a turn whose radicalism would have seemed implausible not long ago.
After all, you might have expected the debacle of George W. Bush's presidency — a debacle not just for the nation, but for the Republican Party, which saw Democrats both take the White House and achieve some major parts of their agenda — to inspire some reconsideration of W-type policies. What we've seen instead is a doubling down, a determination to take whatever didn't work from 2001 to 2008 and do it again, in a more extreme form.
Start with the example that's easiest to quantify, tax cuts. Big tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy were the Bush administration's signature domestic policy. They were sold at the time as fiscally responsible, a matter of giving back part of the budget surplus America was running when W took office. . . . . it's harder than ever to claim that tax cuts are the key to prosperity.
You might think, then, that Bush-style tax cuts would be out of favor. In fact, however, establishment candidates like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are proposing much bigger tax cuts than W ever did. And independent analysis of Jeb's proposal shows that it's even more tilted toward the wealthy than anything his brother did.
What about other economic policies? The Bush administration's determination to dismantle any restraints on banks — at one staged event, a top official used a chain saw on stacks of regulations — looks remarkably bad in retrospect. But conservatives have bought into the thoroughly debunked narrative that government somehow caused the Great Recession, and all of the Republican candidates have declared their determination to repeal Dodd-Frank, the fairly modest set of regulations imposed after the financial crisis.
The only real move away from W-era economic ideology has been on monetary policy, and it has been a move toward right-wing fantasyland. . . . . these days hostility toward the Fed's efforts to help the economy is G.O.P. orthodoxy, even though the right's warnings about imminent inflation have been wrong again and again.
Last but not least, there's foreign policy. You might have imagined that the story of the Iraq war, where we were not, in fact, welcomed as liberators, where a vast expenditure of blood and treasure left the Middle East less stable than before, would inspire some caution about military force as the policy of first resort. Yet swagger-and-bomb posturing is more or less universal among the leading candidates.
The point is that while the mainstream contenders may have better manners than Mr. Trump or the widely loathed Mr. Cruz, when you get to substance it becomes clear that all of them are frighteningly radical, and that none of them seem to have learned anything from past disasters.
The truth is that there are no moderates in the Republican primary, and being reasonable appears to be a disqualifying characteristic for anyone seeking the party's nod.
Labels: 2016 GOP presidential candidates, big banks, deregulation, failed GOP policies, GOP extremism, housing bubble, tax cuts for the wealthy
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Sunday, December 27, 2015 No comments:
The Great Republican Revolt
A lengthy piece in The Atlantic looks at the war raging within the Republican Party. Part of the warfare stems from the shortsighted welcoming of the Christofascists into the GOP. But another major cause of the battle for the party's soul is the fact that the so-called GOP establishment has based its policies on benefiting Wall Street and the wealthy to the detriment of working class Americans. Yes, appeals to racism, religious extremism, and anti-immigrant hatred for a long time have duped the GOP base to vote against its own financial and economic best interests. Now, those tools of distracting the base may be losing their power. The result is that the GOP establishment's preferred candidates - Jeb Bush being the starkest example - are failing even as the Trump insurgency goes on undiminished. The article ends with options confronting the GOP elite. Here are article excerpts:
The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description.
You can measure their pessimism in polls that ask about their expectations for their lives—and for those of their children. On both counts, whites without a college degree express the bleakest view. You can see the effects of their despair in the new statistics describing horrifying rates of suicide and substance-abuse fatality among this same group, in middle age.
White Middle Americans express heavy mistrust of every institution in American society: not only government, but corporations, unions, even the political party they typically vote for—the Republican Party of Romney, Ryan, and McConnell, which they despise as a sad crew of weaklings and sellouts. They are pissed off. And when Donald Trump came along, they were the people who told the pollsters, "That's my guy."
They often don't think in ideological terms at all. But they do strongly feel that life in this country used to be better for people like them—and they want that older country back. . . . . they lean Republican because they fear the Democrats want to take from them and redistribute to Americans who are newer, poorer, and in their view less deserving—to "spread the wealth around," in candidate Barack Obama's words to "Joe the Plumber" back in 2008. Yet they have come to fear more and more strongly that their party does not have their best interests at heart.
A majority of Republicans worry that corporations and the wealthy exert too much power. Their party leaders work to ensure that these same groups can exert even more. Mainstream Republicans were quite at ease with tax increases on households earning more than $250,000 in the aftermath of the Great Recession and the subsequent stimulus. Their congressional representatives had the opposite priorities.
Their rebellion against the power of organized money has upended American politics in ways that may reverberate for a long time. To understand what may come next, we must first review the recent past.
Political identity has become so central because it has come to overlap with so many other aspects of identity: race, religion, lifestyle. In 1960, I wouldn't have learned much about your politics if you told me that you hunted. Today, that hobby strongly suggests Republican loyalty. Unmarried? In 1960, that indicated little. Today, it predicts that you're a Democrat, especially if you're also a woman.
Meanwhile, the dividing line that used to be the most crucial of them all—class—has increasingly become a division within the parties, not between them. Since 1984, nearly every Democratic presidential-primary race has ended as a contest between a "wine track" candidate who appealed to professionals . . . . and a "beer track" candidate who mobilized the remains of the old industrial working class . . . . . The Republicans have their equivalent in the battles between "Wall Street" and "Main Street" candidates. Until this decade, however, both parties—and especially the historically more cohesive Republicans—managed to keep sufficient class peace to preserve party unity.
Not anymore, at least not for the Republicans. The Great Recession ended in the summer of 2009. Since then, the U.S. economy has been growing, but most incomes have not grown comparably. In 2014, real median household income remained almost $4,000 below the pre-recession level, and well below the level in 1999. The country has recovered from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Most of its people have not.
It was these pessimistic Republicans who powered the Tea Party movement of 2009 and 2010. They were not, as a rule, libertarians looking for an ultraminimal government. The closest study we have of the beliefs of Tea Party supporters, led by Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, found that "Tea Partiers judge entitlement programs not in terms of abstract free-market orthodoxy, but according to the perceived deservingness of recipients. The distinction between 'workers' and 'people who don't work' is fundamental to Tea Party ideology."
Yet even as the Republican Main Street protested Obamacare, it rejected the hardening ideological orthodoxy of Republican donors and elected officials. A substantial minority of Republicans—almost 30 percent—said they would welcome "heavy" taxes on the wealthy, according to Gallup.
As a class, big Republican donors could not see any of this, or would not. So neither did the politicians who depend upon them. Against all evidence, both groups interpreted the Tea Party as a mass movement in favor of the agenda of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. One of the more dangerous pleasures of great wealth is that you never have to hear anyone tell you that you are completely wrong.
The rank and file did not like it. But they could not stop it. The base kept elevating "not Romneys" into first place, and each rapidly failed or fizzled; Romney, supported by a cumulative total of $139 million in primary funds by March 2012, trundled on.
Romney ultimately lost the presidential election, of course, to the surprise and dismay of a party elite confident of victory until the very end. One might have expected this shock to force a rethink. The Republicans had now lost four out of the past six presidential elections. . . . . And yet, within hours of Romney's defeat, Republican donors, talkers, and officials converged on the maximally self-exculpating explanation. The problem had not been the plan to phase out Medicare for people younger than 55. Or the lack of ideas about how to raise wages. Or the commitment to ending health-insurance coverage for millions of working-age Americans. Or the anthems to wealth creation and entrepreneurship in a country increasingly skeptical of both.
Instead of holding on to their base and adding Hispanics, Republicans alienated their base in return for no gains at all. By mid-2015, a majority of self-identified Republicans disapproved of their party's congressional leadership—an intensity of disapproval never seen by the Republican majority of the 1990s nor by Democrats during their time in the majority after the 2006 midterm elections.
In fact, disapproval had flared into an outright revolt of the Republican base in the summer of 2014.
[W]ithin five weeks of his formal declaration of candidacy on June 15, Bush's campaign had been brutally rejected by the GOP rank and file. From Jupiter Island, Florida, to Greenwich, Connecticut; from Dallas's Highland Park to Sea Island, Georgia; from Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to California's Newport Beach, the baffled question resounded: What went wrong?
The mutiny of the 2016 election cycle has been different. . . . . What was new and astonishing was the Trump boom.
Half of Trump's supporters within the GOP had stopped their education at or before high-school graduation, according to the polling firm YouGov. Only 19 percent had a college or postcollege degree. Thirty-eight percent earned less than $50,000. Only 11 percent earned more than $100,000.
Trump Republicans were not ideologically militant. Just 13 percent said they were very conservative; 19 percent described themselves as moderate. Nor were they highly religious by Republican standards.
What set them apart from other Republicans was their economic insecurity and the intensity of their economic nationalism. Sixty-three percent of Trump supporters wished to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants born on U.S. soil—a dozen points higher than the norm for all Republicans.
The GOP donor elite planned a dynastic restoration in 2016. Instead, it triggered an internal class war.
Labels: 2016 presidential elections, class warfare, Donald Trump, failed GOP policies, GOP civil war, GOP establishment, GOP fear mongerers
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Datura, or Jimson weed bloom.
When we write about gardening and post on social media, garden writers usually choose bright, pretty pink flowers or robust tomatoes as our subjects. Yet, many plant lovers can enjoy flowers and also get a kick out of growing edgier plants.
Jimson weed is not a pretty plant but the flowers are gorgeous, especially for an evening garden.
I thought I'd share with you some of Stewart's insights into wicked plants, and list several that thrive in our entryway or rock garden.
Several deadly plants make up the nightshade, or Solanaceae, family. The one we grow every year (it comes back with a vengeance) is Jimson weed, or Datura stramonium. The entire plant is somewhat poisonous, but the real danger lies in the seeds inside the fruit pod that remains after the flowers fade.
The seed head of a Datura.
I admit I love the flowers and watching hummingbird moths feed off the blooms, which open at dusk. According to Stewart, Jamestown colonists found out the hard way about the toxic alkaloids in Jimson weed. In fact, the name has evolved from its original moniker of "Jamestown weed." The Jimson weed is the dry cousin of other toxic nightshades and grows naturally in some of the worst conditions of the desert Southwest.
Angel's trumpet flower in a Pasadena garden.
Castor bean (Ricinus communis) is a member of the Euphorbiaceae family. It's known for the ricin in the plant's beans. Eating only a few of the seeds can kill a person. Like the Jimson weed, the toxic beans grow on an otherwise gorgeous plant. In full sun, we've had them shoot from seed to 10 feet tall in a summer growing season. The large leaves of the plants we've grown turn a dark bronze color. Also like the Jimson weed, the fruit can explode when dried out and scatter the toxic seeds. if you decide to plant this potentially deadly ornamental, you must remain vigilant about cutting off the fruit. I don't have photos of our castor beans, probably because I keep a distance. But here is a link to more information and some excellent images of the plant and beans.
Crown of thorns and a pencil cholla add a little danger to our home's hallway.
The spinier and spikier, the better for our sunny hallway. Relatives of the castor bean in the spurge family include the lovely Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milii). It also has a sticky, white sap called latex that can irritate the skin. I can't imagine any animal chomping on the thorny branches, but I've seen deer eat rose branches, so it's good to make sure dogs don't eat the euphorbia. Euphorbias also include poinsettias, which are not truly poisonous, but can cause irritation if the toxins from leaves contact your eyes or stomach problems if children or pets eat the leaves.
Larkspur plants that reseeded and bloomed in early summer.
Stewart includes larkspur among her "Dreadful Bouquet" flowers. Larkspur is a member of the Delphinium family, and sometimes, the names are interchangeable. Plains larkspur plants are found throughout high plains of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. The plant has dangerous levels of alkaloids in seeds, flowers, sap and leaves and can lead to death in cattle who consume the plains flowers at and after flowering. I love the early spring blooms of larkspur, which reseed between rocks in our garden and took over most of a bed last year. I've never seen deer damage, and as long as I wear gloves when handling the plant and avoid taking bites of it, I'm good.
I wear gloves when I tend to these pretty Larkspurs.
Oleanders are popular shrubs and hedges in warmer Southwest climates (zones 8 through 10). They have long, slender leaves and colorful flowers. Because the plants grow quickly and need little care, they're popular choices in landscapes. The plant's sticky sap carries several toxins, including oleandrin, which can cause nausea and vomiting and affect heartbeat. People have been known to commit suicide by eating the plant, but the main concern is to keep curious children away, since it takes eating less to make them seriously ill. It's too cold here to grow oleander, but we have a beautiful cousin of the plant that has a similar milky sap, a Desert Rose (Adenium), that we keep as a houseplant in winter.
The desert rose, or Adenium, is a cousin of the oleander bush.
The poppy (Papaveraceae) is a favorite Southwest plant. Many species of poppies have toxins that can hurt animals. After all, Papaver Somniferum is the plant that supplies opium. The opium poppy is illegal to grow, but seldom regulated, says Stewart. That's largely because of how many plants it would take to supply an individual with enough opium to maintain a habit. Our poppies have spiky leaves that distinguish them from the smoother foliage of an opium poppy.
A white Oriental poppy bloom.
Stewart's book breaks down dangerous plants by plant families and other categories, such as phototoxic plants. These have sap that can burn the skin when exposed to light and include the rinds of limes and other citrus fruits.
Lobelia is an annual here with small, delicate flowers like those I placed in the top of this tiny chiminea.
One of our favorite summer annuals is Lobelia, which also is called Indian tobacco because some ingredients in the plants cause effects similar to nicotine. In small amounts, lobelia can't hurt you, but it can be toxic in large doses if used as an herbal remedy. I also love, love, the red bird of paradise, another warm climate ornamental shrub. But Even sweet peas and tulips have toxins in various parts of the plants or bulbs.
The gorgeous, fiery bloom of a red bird of paradise.
The bottom line is this: All gardeners should use caution when choosing plants for their home or garden to make sure curious pets and children are safe (this is an extensive list of both, and toxicity ratings, from California Poison Control). On the other hand, growing a spiny or dangerous plant can appeal to adults and older children, and be a great introduction into plant care and the gardening bug!


Bob Marshall has been a Consultant in Oxford since 2001, having qualified from St Thomas' Hospital Medical School in 1988, and trained in General and UGI surgery at Guy's Hospital, London and in the South East Thames region.
He treats gallstones, abdominal hernias and reflux disease, usually using laparoscopic or keyhole techniques. He is also one of three surgeons providing a specialist surgery service for oesophageal and gastric cancer in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and currently Bob Marshall is Lead Clinician for this service.
Information about the conditions treated and the operations performed is given on this website.