I am my own social construct

Tony (poliphilo) has written a post about being plant based rather than vegan.  The very word vegan puts people's backs ups.  After all we're the odd ones out — Keeping your food source in disgusting conditions and killing it — a sentient being — before its time is the 'right' way to live and not being part of that makes us 'wrong'.

As I'm always trying to lose weight — or at least not put any on — I'm reading, and have read, a lot of nutrition books.  My go to ones just now are The Starch Solution by Dr. John A McDougall and his wife Mary — both almost 80 yet still healthy and working, and Whole by T Colin Campbell Phd — 89 years old and still going strong.  Both have worked in the medical industry for many years — T Colin Campbell did research work and Dr McDougall was a GP.  

Both are whole food plant based, neither believe that supplements are worth bothering with as taking individual items from food and synthesising them doesn't always mean that they're any good for you — and sometimes are really bad — for example beta-carotene which had to be withdrawn as it was killing people.

Another thing they agree on is that too much protein is bad.  A good go to figure is that the over 65s need more protein — the top end of the 30-85 grams a day anyone needs, and we get that and more from vegetables and starches.  

( Read more...Collapse )

You can say a lot about the People's Republic of China - and a lot of it's bad - but they do have a certain flair for spectacle.

Just look at this video of the lights being turned off at the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing:

Udpating Linkedin is a heck of a job.

I'm adding everyone I can think of, and on top of that I'm writing every director, manager, supervisor or teamleader I've ever had...

Or rather, I will, but with a bitter taste in my mouth.

This weekend I'm going on my first rowing trip for almost two years; last time was just days after a certain somebody had referred to me as his "boyfriend", and an entire week was spent longing to get back to Copenhagen and amourous adventures.

It's only for the weekend this time, but still. It reminds me of being so very, very much in love, spending fortunes on text messages, picture messages and phone calls back to the guy in Copenhagen. This time, though, I shan't be texting him or sending him pictures of the views, because... Well, because I have no right to. I love him, but he belongs to somebody else. And he belongs to somebody else because he chooses to.

Everything is quite simply less fun when I can't look forward to coming home and telling him about it.


I kow I'm pathetic.


So, we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

(George Gordon Byron, 1788–1824)

I'd be disenclined to vote for somebody who's endorsed by Chuck Norris!



Either way; let's see whom they elect president in the States, and then afterwards we can start worrying about how that's going to affect global warming, AIDS in Africa, The So-Called War On Terror etc...

(...)

Hiv and aids is a disease of shame.

Rather be silent than feel how colleagues and family distance themselves.

Rather be silent than see your friends turn down your food, share a beer or let you hold their child.

Rather be silent than being refused entry to the USA and many other countries.

That's what it's like having hiv in Denmark in 2007. Medicine ensures your survival, but your life is shattered.

(...)



The above is a section of a speach written by the Danish Aids Foundation, Aids-fondet, intended to be held several places throughout the country in connection with World Aids Day.

What. A. Load. Of. Crap.

Sure, there is a very real threat of stigmatisation connected with coming out as hiv positive, but to cast oneself as a victim to such a degree seems less-than productive.

I tested positive just over a year ago. I came out as hiv positive from the beginning, and have not had any adverse reactions to it. It can be hard work at times, but it's my obligation as a fairly privileged hiv patient to make myself visible, make myself - at times - into a walking, talking piece of awareness-propaganda. I tell about how I feel, what drugs I take, how it affects my relationship with a negative partner. I answer questions about how infection can be transferred, how it can be avoided, how the virus works, what the point is in a World Aids Day... I have to have an answer to every question, and there are times when it would have been easier to not have been so open about it, but never times where I regret it.

Some might say that your staus is your own business and that there is no reason to tell about it left and right, but there is. Stigmatisation generally arises from a lack of knowledge and a lack of personal relationship with the issue at hand. I want to make it personal to as many people as possible. Public campaigns etc. will do a lot, as they can increase the level of knowledge about the disease, but if somebody has that knowledge AND can say "I know a guy with hiv", then all of a sudden it becomes a lot less likely that he or she will feel that the issue of aids in Africa or Asia - which ought to be more of a concern than the fact that some privileged, middle-class white guy with public health insurance and free treatment, has been infected - is somehow made pertinent and personal.

So by saying that I have hiv I'm not just saying something about myself. I'm trying to make people realise that hiv is also an issue in their lives and that they need to take care of themselves and allow others the chance of taking care of themselves. They need to give people in severely hit areas a chance to avoid the disease or receive proper treatment for it.

A very strange courtcase now seems to have found it's conclusion in the Eastern Regional Court in Copenhagen.


In Summer 2006 a man called out "what's up, Louise" to a male police officer in Christiania, the free town in Copenhagen. The police officer filed a report, and in the Copenhagen City Court the man was fined DKK 600,- (approximately €80) for "displaying insulting behaviour designed to disturb the public peace".

In the Regional Court, however, the judge ruled that the name could not be deemed to be inflammatory enough to fit that description, and the charge was dismissed.

The name Louise has a history of being used in a derogatory meaning against men with long hair, both in the armed forces and at football matches, but I'll state a more general question:

A dining table
Purchased on the internet;
Tabula rasa.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next three sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
6. Tag five other people to do the same.

"I was in fact no enemy of Germany and still less a Russian patriot. To me the war was an abomination, a madness, a crime, and from the first moment onwards - more out of impulse than reflection - I inwardly rejected it and could never reconcile myself with it up to this very moment*. The intoxication of patriotic feelings has always been something alien to me, on the contrary I felt an aversion for everything that smacked of super-patriotism."
(Alexandra Kollontai: Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Woman)

*Editor's note: Crossed out in the original manuscript.

And as usual I'm not tagging anybody, especially when it's an old meme that's doing the rounds again.

(Also, I love this icon. Really, I do! I mean, how many people have an icon of their great-grandfather, right?)

Dedicated to Ms biascut of Dublin

I've heard of a ladee who wobbles
Ev'ry time that she walks on the cobbles,
'Cause her heels are too high
And each time she walks by
There's an imminent risk that she topples!

The other night there were bonfires and vandalism in a street some 300 meters from where Denis lives, and a present there is a peaceful demonstration marching towards Nørrebroparken, a park 50 meters from his flat. Both yesterday and Thursday, peaceful demonstrations have devolved into violence, and one might fear that this could easily happen again.

Did I mention that we're having 8 people over for dinner tonight to celebrate Denis' birthday last Sunday? Somewhat absurd to be preparing canapés for 10 with police helicopters hovering over the building at low height and having to warn guest arriving by car to park as far away as possible. I feel very bourgeois, and have no qualms about it!

(Okay; Denis just called me to the window as I had posted this; they were marching past the building on their way, and it looked very peaceful, but i do worry that this might not last.)

Danish police braced for more street protests in Copenhagen
(http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2323408.ece)
Danish police expect more clashes
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6411559.stm)

And then one from "the other side":
Pics of the brutal eviction of Ungdomshuset, Denmark
(http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/363903.html)

The eviction was hardly brutal, by any standards. One person injured out of the 35 present in the house when the police entered can hardly be described as "brutal". What was brutal was the following riots that we'll probably see for more days to come, with the destruction of private and public property and attacks on the police who are, of course, only acting in accordance with the court's decision.

One person so far has been seriously injured since the riots began Thursday, and that was an activist who was hit by a flying paving stone, thrown by other activists. "Police brutality"? I think not... During the riots in 1993, Danish police were not well enough prepared to handle such riots, and excessive force (police shooting at demonstrators) was used. This time around, however, it seems the police is prepared and know what they are doing. During the violent protests on December 16th last year there was no examples of such excessive force, and in these past couple of days it also seems the police are doing a very good job at trying to contain and - as much as possible - stop the violence.

I loved Ungdomshuset and the Otherness it represented, and in my opinion the city of Copenhagen is the poorer for not having this place any longer, but that is no excuse for barricading roads, burning cars, sacking schools and whatever else we see these days.

If anybody is showing brutality, if anybody is impinging on my freedom, if anybody is behaving in a totalitarian manner, then it is the violent protesters who take a city hostage to further their own, narrow interests. It's not acceptable, and it infuriates me.

I love the fact that every time I watch this film, I've forgotten the plot! Hooray for ditziness!

Once again every possible media has at least one story about how the race for presents is making Christmas an incredibly stressful time for many people. Boohoo.

Like last year I've opted out of the whole present race. I'm giving a present to Denis and Denis and I are giving joint presents to his mother and grandmother (since I'll be spending Christmas with his family), and that's it. Does this make me any more or less enthusiastic about Christmas? Neither. It simply makes me less stressed, both with regards to time and money.

Christmas spending is set to hit yet another record high this year. Well, don't blame me, eh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qf0puHJ-KM


This made me go "awww..."!

(From the Dutch part of the Eurovision Song Contest for kids.)

The cutest of all of the riahs
Is the riah that's cut on the bias,
'Cause it flows and it bounces
When our Mary flounces;
It's a sight that makes one feel quite pious!

-Happy birthday, biascut

I've heard of a fellow called Rummy
Whose last days have been rather crummy:
Even George Dubya Bush
Fucked him right up the toosh,
So now Rummy's becoming a commie!