Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Monday, May 9, 2011
Why are so many Republicans overweight?
This is a very delicate area, and completely unscientific (there are many overweight people who are not Republicans, after all), but Republicans do seem to blather on the most about personal responsibility and the importance of taxpayers not having to bail people out of poor choices, especially poor health choices.
Fair enough, but have you ever noticed that Republicans all have the same body habitus?
Notice the chin of Karl Rove as it flows liquid-like over his collar.
Look at Karl Rove,
Dick Cheney has aged since this picture, but notice also the flow of chins over the collar. What is often mistaken as a scowl is simply a facial asymmetry perhaps the result of an old stroke (notice the left palpebral fissure is narrower than the right and the labial folds are flatter on the left), itself the result of longstanding cardiovascular disease worsened by decades of alcohol abuse.
Dick Cheney, and
Here Limbaugh illustrates 2 modifiable health risk factors: obesity and tobacco abuse. His illicit narcotics addiction is allegedly in remission.
Rush Limbaugh. Then look at
Glenn Beck here illustrating multiple folds under his chin. Of the cases presented here, Beck's is perhaps the least severe on the Body Mass Index front, but this could be because his drugs of choice (cocaine and amphetamines) are powerful appetite suppressants.
Glenn Beck and
New Gingrich.
I had a full frontal shot of Newt which reveals what his suit was partially concealing:
Remember Jerry Falwell, the man who said feminists, not anti-feminist religious fundamentalists, had caused 9-11? He suffered multiple medical stigmata of obesity, including advanced atherosclerosis requiring a stent to be placed in 2005 to open a 70% coronary artery obstruction; he died of a probably heart attack on May 15, 2007, being found down without pulse-less and unconscious in his office. He died at 74, which is relatively young for such a wealthy white man with access to the best medical technology (including dieticians and physical trainers whose advice he apparently did not or could not follow). Again, the man who was spent so much time telling everyone that the Antichrist would appear by 2009 (and "of course he'll be Jewish") should have spent more time watching his caloric intake and cholesterol level.
But all these "do as I say, not as I do" personal responsibility Republicans look like hell. They all have this soft, jowly look, as though some mother has been spoiling them, giving them extra portions, telling them what a smart boy they are.
What is it about people who think they have found Jesus that makes them also think they don't need to lose a few pounds?
All this personal responsibility stuff seems to end with the guy in the mirror for these Republicans; what on earth was Dick Cheney, a man with a pacemaker, 5 heart attacks, heavy smoking history, and at least 2 DUIs, doing DRINKING ALCOHOL when hunting before he shot his friend in the face on February 11, 2006?
Cheney's friend, Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, shot in the face after Cheney had "a beer" for lunch prior to hunting; the taxpayer-funded healthcare necessitated by this accident was never reimbursed by the shooter. Whittington was quite lucky he did not die; he suffered a myocardial infarction and atrial fib as a result of irritation from pellets lodged in his pericardium.
We as taxpayers had to pay for that aftermath; why do we not send the bill to Cheney who clearly was not showing personal responsibility by hunting after drinking (the amount of alcohol is unclear, but irrelevant; personal responsibility dictates that firearms and alcohol do not mix, particularly when the firearm is handled by a man with a history of 5 heart attacks and 2 convictions for Driving Under the Influence).
We are well beyond the days when it was thought you could tell a man's moral character by his physical appearance (although Hollywood directors and novelists often forget this), but when one's physical appearance is a direct byproduct of individual decisions made over a lifetime, the consequences of which all of us must ultimately pay for, do Republicans or conservatives in general really have the moral high ground from which to preach to the rest of us about personal responsibility? No more than Dick Cheney, a man who sought and obtained 5 deferrals to avoid military service in Vietnam, has a right to lecture us about patriotism.
Fair enough, but have you ever noticed that Republicans all have the same body habitus?
Notice the chin of Karl Rove as it flows liquid-like over his collar.
Look at Karl Rove,
Dick Cheney has aged since this picture, but notice also the flow of chins over the collar. What is often mistaken as a scowl is simply a facial asymmetry perhaps the result of an old stroke (notice the left palpebral fissure is narrower than the right and the labial folds are flatter on the left), itself the result of longstanding cardiovascular disease worsened by decades of alcohol abuse.
Dick Cheney, and
Here Limbaugh illustrates 2 modifiable health risk factors: obesity and tobacco abuse. His illicit narcotics addiction is allegedly in remission.
Rush Limbaugh. Then look at
Glenn Beck here illustrating multiple folds under his chin. Of the cases presented here, Beck's is perhaps the least severe on the Body Mass Index front, but this could be because his drugs of choice (cocaine and amphetamines) are powerful appetite suppressants.
Glenn Beck and
New Gingrich.
I had a full frontal shot of Newt which reveals what his suit was partially concealing:
That's not Newt's granddaughter, but his third wife, his mistress when Newt was impeaching Clinton for having a mistress. But I don't want to focus on his inability to control his appetite for sex here, instead focusing on his inability to inhibit his intake of food. Notice the fully-developed man breasts, generous paunch, and (if you zoom in) distended varicose veins, all evidence of decades of over-eating and insufficient exercise. The man is a walking cardiovascular time bomb and of course when he requires healthcare, he will get the best and the most expensive, and since he is Medicare-eligible, we will all pay for it.
Remember Jerry Falwell, the man who said feminists, not anti-feminist religious fundamentalists, had caused 9-11? He suffered multiple medical stigmata of obesity, including advanced atherosclerosis requiring a stent to be placed in 2005 to open a 70% coronary artery obstruction; he died of a probably heart attack on May 15, 2007, being found down without pulse-less and unconscious in his office. He died at 74, which is relatively young for such a wealthy white man with access to the best medical technology (including dieticians and physical trainers whose advice he apparently did not or could not follow). Again, the man who was spent so much time telling everyone that the Antichrist would appear by 2009 (and "of course he'll be Jewish") should have spent more time watching his caloric intake and cholesterol level.
But all these "do as I say, not as I do" personal responsibility Republicans look like hell. They all have this soft, jowly look, as though some mother has been spoiling them, giving them extra portions, telling them what a smart boy they are.
What is it about people who think they have found Jesus that makes them also think they don't need to lose a few pounds?
All this personal responsibility stuff seems to end with the guy in the mirror for these Republicans; what on earth was Dick Cheney, a man with a pacemaker, 5 heart attacks, heavy smoking history, and at least 2 DUIs, doing DRINKING ALCOHOL when hunting before he shot his friend in the face on February 11, 2006?
Cheney's friend, Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, shot in the face after Cheney had "a beer" for lunch prior to hunting; the taxpayer-funded healthcare necessitated by this accident was never reimbursed by the shooter. Whittington was quite lucky he did not die; he suffered a myocardial infarction and atrial fib as a result of irritation from pellets lodged in his pericardium.
We as taxpayers had to pay for that aftermath; why do we not send the bill to Cheney who clearly was not showing personal responsibility by hunting after drinking (the amount of alcohol is unclear, but irrelevant; personal responsibility dictates that firearms and alcohol do not mix, particularly when the firearm is handled by a man with a history of 5 heart attacks and 2 convictions for Driving Under the Influence).
We are well beyond the days when it was thought you could tell a man's moral character by his physical appearance (although Hollywood directors and novelists often forget this), but when one's physical appearance is a direct byproduct of individual decisions made over a lifetime, the consequences of which all of us must ultimately pay for, do Republicans or conservatives in general really have the moral high ground from which to preach to the rest of us about personal responsibility? No more than Dick Cheney, a man who sought and obtained 5 deferrals to avoid military service in Vietnam, has a right to lecture us about patriotism.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Westboro Baptist Preacher Was Abusive, Son Recalls, But Is Not All Terrorizing of Children With Images of Hell Abusive?
This article on the son of the Westboro Baptist preacher (the one who picketed military funerals) is sad, but isn't there something inherently abusive in even milder variants of this horrific, apocalyptic view? Perhaps this sadistic father would have been just as sadistic wherever he was raised, but something about religion, particularly Mediterranean Monotheism, makes some otherwise compassionate, sane people do cruel things, and rationalize their cruelty. The ideas and their institutionalized method of intergenerational propagation are inherently hateful and dangerous. As an adult who was not indoctrinated religiously as a child - thanks, Mom and Dad - I can look with a certain objective distance at these images of God the Torturer-in-Chief and smile, but children exposed to them at a young age do not have that luxury. I could never embrace such strange ideas as an adult - no sentient, educated human being could - and I think religious leaders know this, which is why they are so eager to enroll kids in Sunday school and Bible camps. I respectfully request that they stop, or at least that we stop turning our children over to them for this systematic indoctrination.
It is interesting that Jesus never mentions hell at all in the book of John and in other books mentions it less than some of his loudest followers do. Stygiophobia - fear of hell - was not invented in the middle ages, but it was certainly honed and perfected then. The Western half of the Christian church was trying to consolidate its grip on political life in Western Europe and what was left of the Roman Empire post-collapse (a collapse that interestingly enough occurred shortly after its decision to adopt Christianity as the official state religion, making what had been an informal, subversive religion into a corporate one complete with all the trappings of power and central authority). "Outside the church no salvation" was a very powerful motivator for peasants who might otherwise hold onto their native faith or donate less of whatever they had left over to the local priest's latest renovation project. Fear of hell created a thriving market in indulgences - essentially Get Out of Hell Free cards. (Whatever one feels about Transubstantiation, the ability of Rome to turn worthless paper into cold hard cash approached the miraculous. It was a scam, a self-perpetuating delusion that may have continued to this day were it not for the Reformation - sparked in large part by outrage over indulgences.)
As the compassionate teachings of Jesus of forgiveness, pacifism and social justice were squeezed out by images of fire and brimstone, morphing Jesus the forgiver into Jesus the judge, drawing on the authoritarian, murderously jealous spirit of Yahweh (whose laws Jesus in all fairness said he had come not to replace but to enforce), those fighting over the right to be his only legitimate representative here on earth became as cruel in behavior as they were now in creed.
Torture had always been part of Mediterranean life - amputation, eye-gouging, stoning, and even being put to the fire were all biblically-condoned punishments - it is unclear how literally those commandments were followed and with what zeal. Punishment was probably a haphazard, tribally-based affair, with an occasional sacrifice made for public order or to redress a particularly egregious crime.
But in Christian Europe, torture was refined and honed and used for new ends. Most biblical punishments were meted out for violations of orthopraxy - literally, correct actions - such as stealing or working on the sabbath. Christian European authorities were much more concerned with violations of orthodoxy - literally, correct thinking or belief. It was no longer enough to make an outward show of obedience to the priest, lord, or king. You had to also demonstrate that you really believed in the one correct interpretation of whatever village or province you happened to find yourself. A literal belief in and dread of the Devil, as a walking, talking creature (a belief up to 40% of Americans still hold apparently) led to demon-sightings and witch-huntings. Fantastic claims about Jews wanting to drink the blood of Gentile children - claims that still circulate in parts of the world unfortunately in the form of the Elders of Zion - led to horrific pogroms and in some cases mass murder. It was no accident that Christian Europe invented the first ghetto at that time (so named after the region in Venice where the Catholic authorities ordered the Jews to move).
It did not take long before the idea of temporal torture - perhaps to prevent eternal torture - entered into the toolkit of religious leaders who found themselves with the power of life and death over their trembling subjects. After all, if you believe in hell and worship a god you believe creates most people only to torture them forever and ever, amen, then then surely the finite torture of the rack or the wheel or a strategically inserted red hot poker could be forgiven. Perhaps it was even part of the divine plan; nothing like the screams of a broken, dying man to remind all the other parishioners of the price - temporal and eternal - of dissent from the One True Way.
If you really believe a Jew or Baptist or free thinker or Muslim is going to hell, why not give them a head start on all that pain they will be experiencing after death? Why not make their torment instructional for others who still have time to repent and renounce the errors of their ways?
Such a legacy has never been fully renounced. There has been no Truth and Reconciliation equivalent for any branch of Christianity as there was for the post-apartheid regime in South Africa. I still hear some otherwise intelligent, compassionate people defend, apologize for, or downplay some of the worst abuses of Christianity.
Until we stand up to these religious bigots and tell them to stop lying to each other and - most importantly - to our children, we are all doomed to repeat this cycle.
It's interesting in the article when the abused preacher's son was asked if there was a baby to be thrown out with the bathwater, he could not quite bring himself to imagine a world free of religious orthodoxy. I imagine religion is like alcohol, in the sense that it is a social lubricant that relaxes most people who can use it in moderation, but a significant minority will abuse it, and become so intoxicated they will become murderous. Some will convince others to start wars, or open concentration camps because they get it in their heads that's what god really wants them to do.
Since we don't know when the next convulsive outbreak of self-righteous, religiously-based violence will occur, and history shows us that these sorts of outbreaks sneak up on us, we must be always vigilant even against more innocent-seeming religious distortions of reality.
But it is dangerous to ignore the historical ugliness underpinning Mediterranean Monotheism, an ugliness that projected the cruel tribalism and petty racism endemic to that part of the world onto an angry god who sounds more in need of lithium than appeasement. Those who believe in predestination, such as the religious extremists who founded Massachusetts or the father of the article in question, correctly point out that such a god cannot really be appeased anyway. Only a tiny handful of those he created, if the sacred texts found in every hotel room and partially cited in Sunday schools and bible camps are to be believed, will be saved from eternal torture, mainly for the crime of having not chosen their parents better or perhaps because of an errant fruit-picking expedition in a garden several thousand years ago. Original sin seems such a wimpy justification to impose such an apocalyptic world view on our children, so why do we continue to do so? Is it because deep in our hearts, we are all holding back that tiny grain of doubt, that maybe the most lurid fantasies are correct and just in case, if we pay some lip service to this angry god, if we propitiate, we or our family might be saved. It's Pascal's dilemma all over again, never mind that an omniscient god would know if you are faking something you don't really believe and perhaps punish you even more severely for compounding the crime of dishonesty - mouthing words you did not believe - with spineless groveling. It never seems to occur to anyone that perhaps god wants us to be honest, just, and true to our conscience, even if that is painful or takes us to some lonely places sometimes. Monotheists - who by definition are atheists to all gods but one - are also unaware of what a massive, cosmic bet they are taking, and that if there is a monster or team of monsters in charge of this universe, perhaps they are more offended by those who worship the "wrong" deity than none at all.
The fact is that none of us knows what happens when we die, but if the track record of those who use the Bible to make predictions about things that we can actually go out and measure is any guide, we should all be deeply reassured. Making absurd claims about something we can't possibly know about is tremendously convenient, since those who invented these fantasies do not have to risk anyone coming back and blowing their scam. And as long as enough people here and now see all this hell fire and eternal torture stuff as harmless or even useful - it might make our kids floss and eat their vegetables if they thought god would burn them forever for not doing so - no one will call their bluff here and now.
I say we do just that, though. I say we stand up to the bullies who want us to believe in their infallibility or else face eternal torture in the same way we would stand up to someone who makes a racist joke (except those talking about hell are usually not joking, unfortunately). Remind them, if it's the case, that there are children in the room, and just as we would not talk about the torture scene of a particularly graphic film, so we should not expose them to this particular imagery, even if some of the adults in the room believe it's real. In fact, BECAUSE some adults believe literally in hell, it would be even more disturbing to expose children, who are not in a position to know better, to this strongly held but deeply disturbing world view. They have neither the logical nor the historical context to understand that hell was an idea created and propagated by men for very specific historical and financial reasons. If hell is real, they will have all their adult lives to learn about it. If it's not, then why torture the next generation? They have no valid reason to be exposed to this apocalyptic cosmic vision anymore than they have a reason to be exposed to graphic sexual images.
It is interesting that Jesus never mentions hell at all in the book of John and in other books mentions it less than some of his loudest followers do. Stygiophobia - fear of hell - was not invented in the middle ages, but it was certainly honed and perfected then. The Western half of the Christian church was trying to consolidate its grip on political life in Western Europe and what was left of the Roman Empire post-collapse (a collapse that interestingly enough occurred shortly after its decision to adopt Christianity as the official state religion, making what had been an informal, subversive religion into a corporate one complete with all the trappings of power and central authority). "Outside the church no salvation" was a very powerful motivator for peasants who might otherwise hold onto their native faith or donate less of whatever they had left over to the local priest's latest renovation project. Fear of hell created a thriving market in indulgences - essentially Get Out of Hell Free cards. (Whatever one feels about Transubstantiation, the ability of Rome to turn worthless paper into cold hard cash approached the miraculous. It was a scam, a self-perpetuating delusion that may have continued to this day were it not for the Reformation - sparked in large part by outrage over indulgences.)
As the compassionate teachings of Jesus of forgiveness, pacifism and social justice were squeezed out by images of fire and brimstone, morphing Jesus the forgiver into Jesus the judge, drawing on the authoritarian, murderously jealous spirit of Yahweh (whose laws Jesus in all fairness said he had come not to replace but to enforce), those fighting over the right to be his only legitimate representative here on earth became as cruel in behavior as they were now in creed.
Torture had always been part of Mediterranean life - amputation, eye-gouging, stoning, and even being put to the fire were all biblically-condoned punishments - it is unclear how literally those commandments were followed and with what zeal. Punishment was probably a haphazard, tribally-based affair, with an occasional sacrifice made for public order or to redress a particularly egregious crime.
But in Christian Europe, torture was refined and honed and used for new ends. Most biblical punishments were meted out for violations of orthopraxy - literally, correct actions - such as stealing or working on the sabbath. Christian European authorities were much more concerned with violations of orthodoxy - literally, correct thinking or belief. It was no longer enough to make an outward show of obedience to the priest, lord, or king. You had to also demonstrate that you really believed in the one correct interpretation of whatever village or province you happened to find yourself. A literal belief in and dread of the Devil, as a walking, talking creature (a belief up to 40% of Americans still hold apparently) led to demon-sightings and witch-huntings. Fantastic claims about Jews wanting to drink the blood of Gentile children - claims that still circulate in parts of the world unfortunately in the form of the Elders of Zion - led to horrific pogroms and in some cases mass murder. It was no accident that Christian Europe invented the first ghetto at that time (so named after the region in Venice where the Catholic authorities ordered the Jews to move).
It did not take long before the idea of temporal torture - perhaps to prevent eternal torture - entered into the toolkit of religious leaders who found themselves with the power of life and death over their trembling subjects. After all, if you believe in hell and worship a god you believe creates most people only to torture them forever and ever, amen, then then surely the finite torture of the rack or the wheel or a strategically inserted red hot poker could be forgiven. Perhaps it was even part of the divine plan; nothing like the screams of a broken, dying man to remind all the other parishioners of the price - temporal and eternal - of dissent from the One True Way.
If you really believe a Jew or Baptist or free thinker or Muslim is going to hell, why not give them a head start on all that pain they will be experiencing after death? Why not make their torment instructional for others who still have time to repent and renounce the errors of their ways?
Such a legacy has never been fully renounced. There has been no Truth and Reconciliation equivalent for any branch of Christianity as there was for the post-apartheid regime in South Africa. I still hear some otherwise intelligent, compassionate people defend, apologize for, or downplay some of the worst abuses of Christianity.
Until we stand up to these religious bigots and tell them to stop lying to each other and - most importantly - to our children, we are all doomed to repeat this cycle.
It's interesting in the article when the abused preacher's son was asked if there was a baby to be thrown out with the bathwater, he could not quite bring himself to imagine a world free of religious orthodoxy. I imagine religion is like alcohol, in the sense that it is a social lubricant that relaxes most people who can use it in moderation, but a significant minority will abuse it, and become so intoxicated they will become murderous. Some will convince others to start wars, or open concentration camps because they get it in their heads that's what god really wants them to do.
Since we don't know when the next convulsive outbreak of self-righteous, religiously-based violence will occur, and history shows us that these sorts of outbreaks sneak up on us, we must be always vigilant even against more innocent-seeming religious distortions of reality.
But it is dangerous to ignore the historical ugliness underpinning Mediterranean Monotheism, an ugliness that projected the cruel tribalism and petty racism endemic to that part of the world onto an angry god who sounds more in need of lithium than appeasement. Those who believe in predestination, such as the religious extremists who founded Massachusetts or the father of the article in question, correctly point out that such a god cannot really be appeased anyway. Only a tiny handful of those he created, if the sacred texts found in every hotel room and partially cited in Sunday schools and bible camps are to be believed, will be saved from eternal torture, mainly for the crime of having not chosen their parents better or perhaps because of an errant fruit-picking expedition in a garden several thousand years ago. Original sin seems such a wimpy justification to impose such an apocalyptic world view on our children, so why do we continue to do so? Is it because deep in our hearts, we are all holding back that tiny grain of doubt, that maybe the most lurid fantasies are correct and just in case, if we pay some lip service to this angry god, if we propitiate, we or our family might be saved. It's Pascal's dilemma all over again, never mind that an omniscient god would know if you are faking something you don't really believe and perhaps punish you even more severely for compounding the crime of dishonesty - mouthing words you did not believe - with spineless groveling. It never seems to occur to anyone that perhaps god wants us to be honest, just, and true to our conscience, even if that is painful or takes us to some lonely places sometimes. Monotheists - who by definition are atheists to all gods but one - are also unaware of what a massive, cosmic bet they are taking, and that if there is a monster or team of monsters in charge of this universe, perhaps they are more offended by those who worship the "wrong" deity than none at all.
The fact is that none of us knows what happens when we die, but if the track record of those who use the Bible to make predictions about things that we can actually go out and measure is any guide, we should all be deeply reassured. Making absurd claims about something we can't possibly know about is tremendously convenient, since those who invented these fantasies do not have to risk anyone coming back and blowing their scam. And as long as enough people here and now see all this hell fire and eternal torture stuff as harmless or even useful - it might make our kids floss and eat their vegetables if they thought god would burn them forever for not doing so - no one will call their bluff here and now.
I say we do just that, though. I say we stand up to the bullies who want us to believe in their infallibility or else face eternal torture in the same way we would stand up to someone who makes a racist joke (except those talking about hell are usually not joking, unfortunately). Remind them, if it's the case, that there are children in the room, and just as we would not talk about the torture scene of a particularly graphic film, so we should not expose them to this particular imagery, even if some of the adults in the room believe it's real. In fact, BECAUSE some adults believe literally in hell, it would be even more disturbing to expose children, who are not in a position to know better, to this strongly held but deeply disturbing world view. They have neither the logical nor the historical context to understand that hell was an idea created and propagated by men for very specific historical and financial reasons. If hell is real, they will have all their adult lives to learn about it. If it's not, then why torture the next generation? They have no valid reason to be exposed to this apocalyptic cosmic vision anymore than they have a reason to be exposed to graphic sexual images.
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