the lindsley life

I Disagree!

2012-01-30T11:56:00.000-08:00

An Experiment: are you angry yet?

I am an anti-abortion libertarian hippie, Evangelical charismatic Christian, drinking and swearing pro-piracy, non-interventionist feminist who believes in organic food and capitalism.

I bet there isn't a person in the world who agrees with everything I believe in, just going from that one sentence. I'm sure that others could write a similarly impossible statement true for themselves.

Now, what if I write it like this?

More worser

I believe that abortion is or could be murder.
I believe that the only way to get to Heaven is through submission to Jesus.
I like hipster clothes, long hair on boys, and cyclists who ride with yoga mats on their backs.
I believe that the government has no business in the definition or regulation of marriage, that we should withdraw our troops in Iraq and just about everywhere else, and that the right of individuals to rule themselves is much more important than the standard of living.
I believe that fear of swearing and drinking is superstitious.
I believe that copyright can only ever belong to the author, and cannot apply to any thought or information, including electronic.
I believe that gender roles are only cultural, and pertain to what people enjoy, and stereotyping men or women according to role is incredibly hurtful and damaging to every individual.
I believe that pesticides are toxic to humans at any level of ingestion, and that most food sold today is not food at all.

As it turns out, I do believe these things.

Ok, so now some of you may be kind of irritated with me at this point. Maybe you're formulating a response - you might work for Chem-Lawn or the MPAA or something, and you're pissed that I'd infringe upon the status quo within your culture.

Now what if I said this?

The Worstest

I believe that you did something wrong when you had an abortion, regardless of the reason. Anyone who gets an abortion is a sinner.
I think you’d be better looking if you stopped wearing sweatpants, and if you grew out your hair a bit, and did some exercise.
I believe that since you don't love Jesus, you're going to spend eternity in Hell.
I believe that you are a homophobe, since you're scared when people talk about redefining a word.
I believe that you participate in the deaths of innocent people in Iraq.
I believe that you are superstitious and judgmental since you condemn those who drink or swear.
I believe that you are crazy because you *actually* think that COPYING something is the same as TAKING something from someone.
I believe you are a sexist, racist fear-monger because you gain control through putting down people who aren't like you.
I believe that you are going to have conditions and illnesses resultant of the consumption of food you insist is safe for you because some government agency published something saying it was, regardless of years of solid studies.

Now we're entering territory where I couldn't say I honestly believed all these things, but let's say I do - and I've probably said all of them at some point when I was pissed off and looking for support, except for maybe a couple. Now your blood is boiling, and you're having a little talk with yourself about whether I'm worthwhile enough to warrant setting me straight, or whether I'm just going to be one of those people that's always wrong, and you just can't interact with me anymore.

I might just be a story you go home and tell to your friends as one of those psycho, intolerant bitches who is ignorant and insulting. Or maybe you're a member of Al Qaeda or something, and you're planning to righteously kill me. You think the world would legitimately be better off if I were not on it, at least.

Tell me you haven't done that (except the Al Qaeda part, obviously), and I'll think you're awesome. Because I have. And I don't think that's a good thing. Following are some of the reasons I think I respond poorly to people to disagree with me, along with some notes about how I could behave instead.

Can you ever agree with 100% of what someone else believes?

Ok, I can't cite any sources here, but I've literally never met a single person with whom I agreed 100% of the time. Take libertarians - I don't know many (if any) libertarians who believe that abortion should not be legal. That's like, against the definition of libertarianism, right?

And Christians - I don't know any who are totally and completely cool with gay marriage, drinking and swearing, much less (whoa now) feminism. My beliefs aren't just "not that great" to most people I know, they're simply impossible.

Leaving my highly opinionated self out of it, I’ve never met anyone who has agreed with anyone all the time.

Seems like our goal may need to be learning to cope with disagreements rather than getting every person, or even one person, to agree with us on everything.

Empathy

The people who disagree with me are no different from me at all. They believe in their opinions just as strongly, passionately, and rationally as I do. That doesn’t mean they (or I) am right, but they have a lot of reasons to believe what they believe. They have been raised with different expectations of the world, with different innate feelings and reactions, etc.

Do I honestly believe that I am the only one who truly, passionately believes in my own opinions? Does everyone else actually know deep down that they are wrong, and it is my mission in life to get them to admit it? Sometimes I think that is precisely my mission in life, thank you very much.

I’m not going to dig too deep into that, because that’s just plain ugly.

I’ll just try to remember – people who can’t empathize are sociopaths.

Control and Insecurity

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard,

“Why the hell do they call us homophobes? I’m not afraid of them; I just think they’re wrong!”

Think back for a moment the audience of that question. 99% of the time in my experience, the audience is comprised of people that agree with the speaker. So someone is asking a bunch of people who will agree with them. How could those people possibly answer the question? Well, they probably can’t. They probably won’t represent the other side of the argument very well. They’ll probably be like,

“Yeah! That’s fucking ridiculous. Maybe they should be afraid of me. Heh heh.” (So maybe all your friends aren’t Bubbas, but still.)

Why do we ask our friends questions like this? It’s almost a form of rhetorical question where the intended or expected response is unanimous support of our own opinions, it seems. We cannot confront the actual issue, and we somehow have a deep personal need for confirmation of our opinions and belief sets, so we run to our groupies and have a good laugh over people who disagree with us.

This is highly human – I do it all the time. But most of the time, I don’t quite realize that I’m putting down another group. I’m saying,

“They’re ridiculous, they must be mentally deficient because they think different things than I do. Am I right, ladies? I mean, heh heh heh…”

And if someone in our group, or even outside of it, were to suggest some empathy for the opposing side, my first sensation might actually be anger that they weren’t supporting me. Why do we need this form of support?

Take my personal pet peeve:

When a healthy individual who used to eat pasta all the time tells me that they have a gluten allergy, it’s like a huge bubble of “MUST SPEAK NOW” wells up inside of me. I must tell you how Wrong You Are!!! is the only thought in my brain, stuck on repeat until I give in and let them know that science is pretty much incompatible with their last statement.

“Could your body just have trouble processing gluten lately?” I might ask sweetly, in an attempt to sound educated and relaxed. “Gluten allergies, as far as I know, are related to a genetic disorder that is very serious – if a person with a gluten allergy eats gluten even once in their lives, they end up with severe symptoms and likely in the hospital.”

See? Don’t I sound generous with the poor uneducated person?

Wrong. I’m not being generous at all. I am exercising control. I think actually, on some subatomically subconscious level, I feel like I am better than that person because I am right and they are wrong, and I can show them that I have that control by letting them in on my knowledge. If somebody I’m trying to impress is sitting next to me, they might think “Ah. This girl is so right, she’s smart.” And throughout history, smart people are powerful people. There are lots of things that give a person power, but believing you’re right is one of them.

People do this to me all the time (shockingly, I think I actually do not know very much, as it turns out). It makes me feel like even people who love me deeply don’t care about me or my opinions at all. It also makes me angry, and even if it’s not rational, I want to see them disproved. Even if I have to make up a fact to get it.

It makes me feel insecure, and like the only way to regain my self-security is to make the other person feel like that too! Must take back control!

And this, I think, may be the reason we do it in the first place. We are not secure in our own opinions.

So when some portion of our culture rises up and becomes more mainstream, like homosexuality for example, it’s as though they’re standing in our faces saying,

“Heh, you’re so unprogressive and backwoods. Am I right, boys?”

And the only response to regain our lost security, to overcome our own fear of a lack of self-worth, is to put them down in return.

Bad form, me.

All opinions, even wrong ones, are valuable

Let’s go back to empathy for a minute. How rewarding is it when we speak with someone who genuinely wants to know what you believe about something, and who changes their mind after speaking to you? It gives me, at least, some of that sense of power, but also a sense of value in the mind of that person. They cared enough about me to listen to what I was saying.

If we want this to be done for us, how can we not do it for others? I want others to listen to my opinion for no other reason than I think my view is valuable. That means that likely, other people want the same thing – even when their opinion is different than mine.

Not to mention, I’ve held a great many views on a single subject in my whole life; I would not be the same person as I am today without having been incorrect all those times before – and it’s not like I’m moving toward one perfect viewpoint on everything; as the times change, our needs and our behavior also changes. It may be good for me to buy a house now, but in two years not so much. It may be good for you to buy a house now, but not for me. This brings us to the next question:

Does a belief have to be true for everyone? (The difference between absolute truth and “IMO”)

Notice I’m not advocating relativism here. I’m not saying that “everything is relative, so let’s just live our own lives and never bother others with our opinions.”

I’m just saying that the fact that you believe something isn’t sufficient to make it true for everyone. I might not think it’s ok for me to listen to classical music, for example, but do I have to spread that to others? Maybe it’s true for everyone! But why do I care so much? If a person very close to me is making what I think is a mistake, then I (believe that I) have every right and duty to speak into their lives and say that I think they’re damaging themselves or someone else. But when I don’t know someone, how can I possibly speak usefully into their lives?

But WAIT! What about if it’s in The Bible? Hah. You got me! (Nope.)

So God told the Jews they couldn’t eat unclean meat, that it was an out-and-out sin, in no uncertain terms. How then must Peter have felt when God told him to eat all sorts of unclean things? Just because it’s in the Bible can’t, from this passage, mean that God intended it for everyone. Do we think “oooh, it was in the Old Law, so Peter should have been cool with it.”? The whole book of Acts is about the debate that went on concerning what cultural behaviors were important for new Gentile believers to follow – Paul even tells them to observe some of the old law, like not eating meat sacrificed to idols (which David, himself in the Old Testament, demonstrated as not a law at all).

It doesn’t mean that He didn’t mean it for everyone, but the “It’s in the Bible!” argument can’t work on its own.

If you believe in God (and I do), then I believe He will speak into your life as needed. I just don’t have a lot of experience with God telling me how all generations for all time must behave. God has not as yet deemed it relevant for me to know. I do think He’ll tell me how to behave in my own life.

And if I know you well, or if some special situation comes up, then I’ll tell you that I think God has something to say to you too; but it’s not me saying it, so I’m not going to be super concerned if you think I’m an idiot. (And for those of you who don’t believe in God, you probably will.) And I’m certainly not going to be afraid that my self-worth is exposed to you. It is ok if you don’t think I’m important, because I know that I am.

(That said, I judge people all the time, and think that tons of people are idiots, and mean people hurt my feelings all the time. I just don’t want to be this way.)

Is the truth always useful?

There are lots of things that I believe, like in the “More Worser” section above, that I would never say to just anybody. Why? Because I know that how a sentence is perceived is more important to the listener than what was meant, and when people hear those things, they think I’m saying the things under the “The Worstest” section. They think I’m judging them. I do not ever want (speaking in general terms, not in a specific instance…) to make someone feel insecure or not valuable. In the heat of a moment, I may want someone to feel like I’m better than them – I often want people to feel shamed at how wrong they have been (ahh, vindication!). But it’s not right, and I want to cultivate a different attitude in the moments that I’m not all fired-up, so that I’ll respond better when I am.

The Test: Facebook Debates

Oh Lord. This section included just for fun.

My personal modus operandi is more on the passive aggressive side – like:

“Sometimes I get the feeling that people don’t realize they’re being kind of rude.”

Not made to any person in particular, but out of a total fuming response to some jerk I just read on my feed. :P so there! Now I feel good about myself because I just made it clear how much I like putting you down. And to make it all better, I’ll get 3 likes and a bunch of people commenting how much they agree with me.

Self satisfaction meter: registering pretty high levels of smug.

Some of my favorite logical fallacies on the internet, for your enjoyment:

“I’m an expert in the field, so I really don’t see why you’d be disagreeing with me.”
“Hey, Ron Paul believes the same thing I do, so…”
“You might think that, but look at all the friends who liked my viewpoint.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize how ignorant some people could be.”
“Hey, 'progressive' is the very name of my political stance. That means you’re anti progress.”

That last one is a favorite of mine. I don’t even know what to say to that, other than (passive aggressively), This Post Is For You.

Vaccinations

2009-09-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

Methylmercury

The bad news:

Methylmercury is in Thimerosal, a preservative once used in most vaccines.

“Methylmercury is a neurotoxin. The toxicity of methylmercury was first recognized during the late 1950s and early 1960s when industrial discharge of mercury into Minimata Bay, Japan led to the widespread consumption of mercury-contaminated fish (Harada 1995). Epidemics of methylmercury poisoning also occurred in Iraq during the 1970s when seed grain treated with a methylmercury fungicide was accidentally used to make bread (Bakir et al. 1973). During these epidemics, fetuses were found to be more sensitive to the effects of methylmercury than adults. Maternal exposure to high levels of methylmercury resulted in infants exhibiting severe neurologic injury including a condition resembling cerebral palsy, while their mothers showed little or no symptoms. Sensory and motor neurologic dysfunction and developmental delays were observed among some children who were exposed in utero to lower levels of methylmercury.” – the FDA’s article on “Thimerosal in Vaccines”

The good news:

Thimerosal is not used in most vaccines since a few months ago. However, you should ALWAYS ASK, because apparently some vaccines still have it.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/thimerosal.htm

More bad news:

The only childhood vaccine in the US that contains thimerosal in “greater than trace amounts” is the influenza vaccine.

http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm

The above link is the CDC’s tracking of quantities of thimerosal in different vaccines.

The MMR Vaccine

Several studies on Pubmed indicate a possible link between the Mumps, Measles, and Rubella vaccine to autism.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/thimerosal.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19756911?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Several studies on Pubmed contradict or disagree with the findings of the aforementioned studies.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19200293?ordinalpos=25&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19176580?ordinalpos=27&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

The CDC denies any link between them, although this is not evidence to me personally, either way.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/thimerosal.htm

Effects of H1N1 2009 Vaccine on 240 Subjects

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19745216?ordinalpos=8&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Positive. No deaths or anything. Obviously, no long term health effects could be noted.

The Polio Vaccine

In the 60s, cells used in the creation of the polio vaccines were accidentally infected with the SV40 virus – It causes tumors in rodents, and is found inside of some human cancer cells (brain, bone, etc). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2F%28SICI%291097-4644%2820000201%2976%3A2%3C189%3A%3AAID-JCB3%3E3.0.CO%3B2-J

However, it doesn’t appear that the people injected with the contaminated vaccines have a higher risk of cancer, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9776244, though it was only 40 years ago; too many recipients were too young to make a generalization.

Hannah’s Personal Conclusions

I typically don’t like vaccines; long-term studies are simply not performed, and anytime any doctor or nurse or other medical professional answers questions of toxicity, they invariably respond with “chances of death are incredibly low – lower than that of normally contracting the virus.” I take great issue with that; my concern is not over immediate problems, but eventual ones. Are there higher rates of some cancers, alzheimers, cellular or muscular degenerative diseases? Do those increased risks come from exposure at all to the virus, whether through viral contraction or through vaccination, or from additives in the vaccine?

Because of the lack of evidence, I hesitate to use drugs from companies that do not disclose all of their ingredients to me. Which includes basically all vaccines.

So there are a couple of factors to consider and weigh against each other:

If it is the virus itself that is dangerous to me or my child, is the likelihood of contracting the disease greater if I get the vaccine? With the vaccine, I have a 100% chance. Without the vaccine, do I have a lower risk of contracting that virus?

What are the risks if the disease is contracted? With something like the regular influenza, even a young child, if otherwise healthy, is not at a particularly high risk of major problems (what we’re really concerned about here is the infection spreading to the brain or something major like that). Getting a runny nose is not particularly worrisome, if that’s where it ends.

Does the vaccine lessen the risk of major problems, presumably because it’s a low dose?

For me, it’s very, very hard to not be affected by the mass concern over H1N1. However, just in attempting to have a sound, unbiased and unafraid perspective, I have to admit that the evidence does not indicate that H1N1 is any less treatable or any more frightening (in fact, considerably less dangerous, mortality-wise) than the regular flu. http://www.cdc.gov/H1N1flu/.

Does this mean that I won’t get my son vaccinated this year? Yes, it does mean that. Does this mean that I won’t in the future? No. I may do it, but only when I evaluate the risk of contracting it regularly to be greater.

An Important Aside

Remember, folks, that God is in control. That may sound overly cliché or much like unto a bumper sticker J But it’s something that helps me sleep at night, knowing that I cannot possibly know what’s best for my son. And other people certainly cannot know what’s best for my son. Only God can. We cannot know everything. We’re only asked to do what’s wise, and submit to God. So, if God tells you one morning to stay home from work because you’re not feeling well, he may be preventing your son or daughter from getting a disease that they would have gotten from daycare if you hadn’t been home to watch them – there are literally infinite numbers of possibilities, and decisions that God leads you to make/foreknows have impacts on them. So be wise, weigh the options, and even if you make the “wrong” decision, God will honor your wisdom. If something happens, it isn’t your fault or my fault for not getting the vaccination – it was God’s will. Whine about that if you don’t believe in God, and tell me how I use religion as a crutch and I’m not an evolved thinker, but the evidence is on my side. *sticks out tongue*

Part 4: God is Outside of Time

2009-07-15T11:42:00.001-07:00

It has been presented to me multiple times that libertarian free will is logically impossible on the following basis:

The Argument Against Libertarian Free Will
If I come to a fork in the road of life, and I have two possibilities of choice,
AND
If God knows beforehand the road which I will choose,
THEN
In the point at which God knows (let’s say, at the beginning of time), that means the choice has already been made – by the time I actually arrive at my forky destination, in order for God to truly have foreknowledge of the event, I cannot choose the possibility which God did not foresee.

If I were to choose OPTION B, in the scenario above, that would nullify God’s foreknowledge – he would have been wrong. Since it’s impossible for God to be wrong, I have to choose (I have no choice in the matter) OPTION A. God’s foreknowledge necessitates his predestination, in this view.

This particular argument never ceases to amaze me. It’s almost funny how impressed people are when they whip this bad boy out.

Scriptural Rebuttal
What it fails to recognize is that God is not inside of time. He is not subject to the same restrictions as we are. Yes, indeed, if God were one of us and He had foreknowledge, we’d be in a bit of a pickle on this one. But because God is not on the same grid as are we, inevitability is something He is not bound to.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 says

“I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all [implying that God is not like that]. Moreover, man does not know his time: like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare…”

Daniel 2:21

“It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings…”

Luke 4:5

“And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.” – if the devil can do that, surely God can too…

Acts 1:7

“He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;”

Jude 1:25

“…to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

Isaiah 38:7-8

“This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken [He added 15 years to Hezekiah’s life]: Behold, I will cause the shadow on the stairway, which has gone down with the sun on the stairway of Ahaz, to go back ten steps.” So the sun’s shadow went back ten steps on the stairway on which it had gone down.” (This story also recorded in 2 Kings 20.)

Joshua 10:12-14

“Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “O sun, stand still at Gibeon, and O moon in the valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. There was no day like that before it or after it, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.”

A More Basic Argument
A much more basic Biblical argument is that if God is self-limiting – that is to say, if no entity can limit God other than Himself, then that includes Time, and God cannot be bound by it.

Space-Time
At the risk of being morbidly incorrect, it also seems that if God created space-time, then that would imply that He created time itself, thereby implying that He is necessarily outside of it.

The Inherent Inconsistency
Furthermore, if we revisit our graph with a few replacements,

If God is inside of time, it means that any decision He makes is also predicated (or predestined by) His own foreknowledge, which is circular.

Part 3: Mercy

2009-07-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

When I had my best friend (my brother, Micah) read over parts 1 and 2 of this series, his response to me was quite surprising. He said that my logic seemed consistent, and he might be forced to agree with me, but that it didn’t jive with his own personal experience of God – that God in his experience is not the kind of God who would punish someone for something they couldn’t help. This surprised me because Micah is the very last person on Earth to use an emotional, experiential argument as a rebuttal to a logical one. But actually, I believe he poses an excellent point – one that neatly ties up libertarian free will and demonstrates a possible reason for the sensation that Micah expressed. exp

While a morally-responsible-type understanding of the Scriptures includes us as punishable for sins we could not help but commit, the infinite mercy of God – equally inalienable as His justice – gave that none of us actually be punished for such sins, in this view. The sins for which we are punished are only willful and optional, because of the work of Christ, restoring us to a pre-Adam state.

This sheds light on the basic human sense of justice and injustice - If I picked up your hand to kill someone, whether or not you desired to do it, no court of law and I'd argue no mental healthy individual would punish the owner of the hand; rather, one would punish the mover of said hand. Not to say that human "common sense" in any way necessitates this conclusion, but when viewed in this light it does provide a reason we might experience such a notion. And personally, I do find it very interesting that God made our minds capable of understanding and considering the concept of libertarian free will. If it is non extant in reality, then what would the purpose be in the creation of a mind capable of its comprehension within the confines of science and nature? Again, not really a logical argument in favor of LFW, but the answers to that question are still interesting to consider.

Part 2: Moral Responsibility

2009-07-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

I would say that in my own experience, this is the most misunderstood aspect of my particular view of libertarian free will.

As a rebuttal to a non-free-will perspective, many of my fellow free-willers often inquire, “How could God punish us, that is to say, how could God hold us morally responsible for actions that we could not help?” I would like to demonstrate here why I do not consider this a valuable or meaningful response to the opposing view, though there be many others, for I understand there to be moral responsibility regardless of freedom.

First, let’s assume that by “moral responsibility” we mean “God being just by punishing us”. So the question becomes, can God be just if He punishes us for things we did unintentionally? And this is a very good question.

Romans 5:13

“for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed [attributed or credited against someone] when there is no law.”

This passage seems to suggest that sin is not held against someone, or punishable, unless the knowledge of the alternative is present. However, I think further understanding of the context is in order before we make up our minds.

Romans 5:12-14

“12Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-- 13for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.”

These passages surrounding and including Romans 5:13 are often forgotten or unconsidered. Paul says that until the Law came – and I believe there is sufficient evidence to suggest that he is referencing the Levitical law here – sin was in the world. Ok, we’re on board with that – sin was in the world pretty much always, since Adam. Then the tenses change. Continuing with verse 13,

“…but sin is not imputed when there is no law.”

Paul is making a general statement, that sin is not punishable when a law is not present – he isn’t saying that before the Law came to Earth, no sin was punished. Quite the contrary: verse 14 says nevertheless – despite that fact! – death, singularly a punishment for sin, still occurred during the period in which the Levitical law had not yet come to Israel (the time from Adam until Moses).

If we stop here, we lose something incredibly valuable. So let’s not. The rest of verse 14 reads

“even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam.”

What’s going on here? We’ll have to back up to understand.

Sin was in the world, even before the law came (vs. 13).
Sin is not punished, generally speaking, when there is no law (vs. 13).
Sin was punished, even before the law came (vs. 14).
People who did not sin the same way that Adam sinned were still punished (vs. 14).
Adam’s sin is different from the sin of people who are not under the Levitical Law (vs. 14).

Point 5 is the most important for this moment. Paul assumes it, yet how is Adam’s sin different from the sin of people who are under not under the Levitical Law? The next phrase helps to clarify:

“… Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.”

Clearly, we’re referencing Jesus here. In my mind, Paul is saying that Adam sinned in a way that was somehow linked to him being a type of Christ. How does that work? The following verses go on to say how they were different: The fact that Adam sinned, and Christ did not. So what was their commonality?

I’m sure there is much discussion on this, and I’m no scholar. But my interpretation, and I think reasonably so, is that their commonality is that they did not have a sin nature.

God calls Jesus the offspring of a woman, not of a man, in Genesis 3:15. In John 3:6, Jesus Himself says,

“That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit,”

(this is why we must all be born again) and as Jesus was born of the Spirit (unlike everyone else), he was separate from “flesh”. Note that when people receive Christ, they go from being “children of men” to being “children of God” (John 1:12, Romans 9:8).

Romans 8:7-8 says

“the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”– my emphasis.

Adam of course was not a child of man – a child of himself – He was equally without that nature that he would eventually bring upon the world.

The commonality between Christ and Adam is, it would seem anyway, that they were both in a place of libertarian free will; they were not constrained by the seed of Adam to a state of inability to please God, they had the choice to and the choice not to choose God.

So, back to our discussion. Let us modify our list of understandings:

Sin was in the world, even before the law came (Rom 5:13).
Sin is not punished, generally speaking, when there is no law (Rom 5:13).
Sin was punished, even before the law came (Rom 5:14).
People who did not sin the same way that Adam sinned were still punished (Rom 5:14).
Adam’s sin is different from the sin of people who not under the Levitical Law (Rom 5:14).
Adam sinned out of libertarian free will;
The people who sinned before the Law was introduced sinned out of compulsion.

Now that we have seen point 5 and its expansion (6&7), let’s reiterate points 2 and 3: Sin is not punished when there is no law, but the sin of even the people who were unable to do anything different (Rom 8:7-8) was still punished.

I think Paul is saying a few things here. Firstly, I think he’s making the implication that the people who came before the Levitical Law were under a law, and that was something that the followers of the Levitical Law needed to hear, which is one reason why he included verse 13 of Romans 5. Note the following passage from Romans 1, as well:

Romans 1:18-20

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." - emphasis mine.

Secondly, and being far more pertinent to our conversation, it looks as though Paul is pointing out that even people who are not in a state of libertarian free will are punishable for their sins – they’re punished for sins that they “couldn’t will to help,” so to speak.

Though the why is not as important to our discussion, I will hint at my thoughts; it seems to me that we in America, or possibly the world, have a somewhat distorted view of sin. Sin is not necessarily this thing that God set up as a line to cross, and when we choose it God says, “Bad Dog!” and we get spanked. Sin is quite simply falling short of perfection, doing something other than what God desires - whether it's our libertarian choice or not. God’s punishment is part of His justice; it is an unchanging (*and unchangeable) part of his character. In order to be internally consistent, imperfection is “punished” with not being with Him – eternal separation from Him. A consequence of us not being like God. Whether or not an individual is able to will to love God, the way God is designed/has designed Himself is absolutely permanent (thank God He’s not like us), and he in some sense cannot let imperfection slide. Though the inevitability of sin is inherited from Adam and whether or not we ourselves can chose to choose it, we can’t be with God.

Part 1: The Premise and The Conclusion - To Be Supported...

2009-07-15T09:47:00.001-07:00

Every individual has the freedom and complete power to choose whether or not to follow God – which means that they could either not choose Him, or choose Him – the Libertarian view of Free Will.

This first series isn't particularly destined (hehe) to support this conclusion, but rather to show how some common arguments against it are groundless and to demonstrate other conclusions when it is held as a premise.

Ron Paul's Freedom Report

2009-06-14T11:47:00.001-07:00

Every month we get Ron Paul's Freedom Report - his newsletter to update people on his current legislature and his opinions on upcoming issues, etc. Today, one of his articles covered Governor Perry's statements alluding to secession.
If you recall, the media and several of the general public were entirely up in arms, even calling for an impeachment due to treason.
I don't quite follow this. I definitely understand distaste for our fair Governor. In the 1990 election, he promised to reduce property taxes, but backed down after getting in office (and why he doesn't see it as renting land from the government is beyond me). Go read wikipedia to see more about this and his wonderful "aid" through the lottery (excuse me while I go mourn the memory of our freedom), and my personal favorite, his support of the (now vanquished, thank God) sodomy laws in Texas (GOOD GOSH MAN, are you insane?!) - the next time you and your spouse play a little fun "tie me to the bedpost", expect to get a rude intrusion from Governor Perry. The sodomy laws also included homosexuality; he wasn't just trying to strictly define marriage, he was trying to outlaw a particular event that ocurred in the home. Whether or not one agrees with the morality of homosexuality, it is not the purpose of the government to tell us what is right and wrong, and when we can and can't do things we want to do with a consenting adult. And if you bring up suicide, I'll fight back.
Anyway, I'm not Perry's biggest fan.
But it is complete ridiculousness to suggest that it is treason to secede - much less bloody talk about it! That's my favorite, actually - the fact that so many thought that it was treason to talk about secession. Goes to show how little people care about freedom of speech.
But the idea of secession is necessary, I argue. As does Ron Paul :) He brings up two excellent points: the first is our very nature as a country. Whether we like it or not, America is a government born of secession. We seceded from Britain because (and here's the kicker) they promised something that we didn't get. You do the math for today. His second point is equally poignant: If we have a contract with someone, and they don't hold up their end of the bargain, then the contract is broken and you are not bound to it any longer.
The argument should be, "Perry, why is it that you think the government has not held up their end of the deal to states?" Although, I feel as though anyone who didn't know the answer to that question probably hasn't thought it through very much.

delicious pairing i never would have considered

2009-05-29T12:44:00.001-07:00

Our friends Philip (for his professional website, click here) and Julia - UT grads, aspiring actors, incredibly hard workers, and food-geniuses - have moved just minutes from our apartment. Last night we were chilling at their house, and Philip serves us a pre-dinner snack: Are you ready for this?

Granny smith apples drizzled with lime-honey.

Typing it now I'm drooling. It was so mind-blowingly delectable - the sour and tangy apple, the sharp lime, and the mediterranean sweetness of the honey... HEAVEN, pure heaven.

Will and I just made ourselves a dessert of it, but we realized we didn't have granny smiths, so we had to use the Fujis we did have. It was nice, but not nearly the exotically pleasant thing that Philip had made us. The granny smith-ed-ness of it all really made a difference.

Our new quest: to make an apple sorbet with either a topping of lime honey, or to make an apple-lime-honey-combination sorbet. Maybe ice cream, if that milky flavor goes with it. All thanks to our new Vita-mix :)

Seriously, go try this stuff. It's healthy in terms of how much good stuff there is in it for you, however as usual there's a ton of carbs and no fat. Many people consider honey to be a healthier carb for you than traditional table sugar, because there are trace amounts of good things in honey - but honey is higher in fructose than sugar and as such may be associated with obesity, insulin-resistance, cancer (by extrapolation from central obesity), and many other baddies according to many studies.

Interestingly, agave nectar is nearly 90% fructose, despite it's recent glamor. So, as with apparently all natural caloric sweeteners, there is some bad to be had with the good, and I'm not certain what outweighs what, so the message for now is extreme moderation.

Granny smith apples are surprisingly high in sugar for their tartness, at 13 g of sugar (add 3 grams of fiber, and you wind up with 16 g of total carbs).

Limes only contribute 2 carbs, but just two tablespoons of honey lends another 34 carbs, for a total of about 49 g of non-fiber carbs. And at a healthy, low amount of 60 carbs per meal, 49 for a snack is rather excessive.

Moral of the story: Get yourself and apple, drizzle it with lime and honey, and split with somebody you love. It's better that way anyway.

Oh and one quick note: Philip seved it to us with cheese, and it was delicious all stacked together.

can someone tell me why? medical mayhem!

2009-04-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know that everybody's all up in arms about insurance companies, saying that they charge way way way too much and that some people can't get coverage, and that the government should regulate them, blah blah blah.
But I see it as the medical provider's (the doctors, the nurses, etc) problem, and here's why:

Eli just had several urological procedures, because he had E. Coli in his kidneys. He had to have a renal ultrasound and a VCUG - which is a very expensive X-Ray.

The "list price" at the doctor's office was
$693.00 for one part of the X-Ray
$230.00 for another part of the X-Ray, and
$335.00 for the ultrasound
_____________________________
$1,258.00

I think to myself, wow, that's expensive, but good medical care is worth it, right? Apparently I'm wrong.

I got a "deal" because I paid that day, which was 40% off, for a total of
$754.

I think to myself, that's a good deal, right? Apparently I'm wrong.

I just called the insurance company to see what my responsibility would be, because I figure they would cover a substantial amount of it. Here's what they said:

The price that my medical provider has agreed to accept from Aetna is the following:

$245, instead of $693, for the first part of the X-Ray.
$61, instead of $230, for the other part of the X-Ray.
$86, instead of $335, for the ultrasound.
____________________________________
$392.00

This number in bold is what the medical providers will accept for their services.

Why, can anyone tell me, will the doctor's office not accept this number from me? And why do we not call the HUGE upselling that they tried to pull on me FRAUD?

In these scenarios, I feel like faulting the MEDICAL PROVIDERS for overcharging, and for not listing their prices publicly (for all services, to all customers - insurance rates or otherwise), and for not being competitive in price.

And interestingly enough, having insurance only saves me $224 - MUCH less than my monthly insurance rate, and this was a pretty large procedure.

Please, someone tell me WHY we are looking at universal health care, when fixing this would be an obvious remedy?! And I'm looking for a logical answer here, one that reflects the questions posed given the information present. I'm not looking for "but but but we have to help the poor people, let me tell you a personal story."

GAH! This, my friends, is highway robbery.

grass fed butter

2009-03-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

In my ongoing quest for decent grass fed meat and animal products, I have learned that nobody makes good grass fed cow's butter.
Remember When Dairy makes delicious milk - and that is where the deliciousness stops. Their cream and butter are very sour, smelling like my son's spit up. While I understand that their butter is a sour cream butter, a cultured butter, it is not like other cultured butters I have tried, and even their fresh cream is sour. So, all in all, not a good option.
The best grass-fed butter I've had by far is the goats milk butter (can't remember what brand) they sell at Wheatsville. I think it's rather heavenly, actually. But, it's no cow's butter, and you can certainly taste the difference in everything.

There does seem to be some relatively (meaning, not very) affordable grass-fed butter you can purchase online at Grass-Fed Traditions. I haven't tried it yet, but they offer two different brands, one from New Zealand, the other from Minnesota. As soon as I run out of my grain-fed at home, I'm going to order a pack of 3. We'll see if I drown in the shipping costs.

texas raised catfish?

2009-03-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

A commenter noted that the Texas raised catfish does not deserve the stigma associated with much of the farm-raised fish out there.

"The "Texas raised" catfish is from Markham Texas, and is a cooperative group of producers. But they use lime stone tanks to raise there fish, and there's no over crowding, and no chemicals added to there waters. Cause there's no need for it."

It does sound like the Markham Texas fish are indeed in better hands. I need to do some more research into them though before I can recommend them - looking at their website, I cannot find what the fish eat.

More an issue in my mind even than additives to water, storage, and animal conditions, is the food given to the fish. To my knowledge, most fish farms use grains or other fish or prepackaged vitamins and minerals. I would honestly be a bit surprised if Certified Texas Farm Raised Catfish fed their fish these things, but as mentioned above, I'm not sure yet.

Fish, like ruminants, were clearly not designed to eat grains, and their N3 content is greatly diminished. I've even heard in some cases that they become basically "beef" (grain-fed, of course) in terms of their N3-N6 ratio.

Most of the fish I regularly consume (and most other mainlanders) are herbivores, and were again not designed for the consumption of meat (their sick acquaintances, sometimes).

Not to mention, a major reason to avoid farmed fish, and in fact carnivorous fish as well, is because as mercury is consumed up the food chain it is stored in higher and higher amounts in its consumer. Fish fed other fish get exponentially more mercury stored in them, and then it's passed to you - fish that feed off the plant life in the water are contaminated with mercury, as our water sources are contaminated, but not in nearly as high the amounts.

I'll keep you posted on the Texas farm-raised catfish. In the meantime, I'll still stick with wild, but it seems to be a better option than I originally thought.

turkish borek with chard and feta

2009-03-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

After Micah went to Turkey, he blabbed for weeks about Borek. So I found a recipe and made it tonight with 100% organic ingredients, courtesty of Wheatsville - except the filo dough, that was from Sun Harvest.
It was saintly in my mouth, gracious. Had way too much of it, actually. Here's how it went:

I put olive oil and butter (a bunch) in a pan, and over medium heat I sauteed 1/2C of green onions with 1 C of chopped walnuts. Then I added one "head" or "bunch" or whatever of green chard, chopped. I cooked that for about 8 minutes or so, then moved it to a bowl, where I added 1 cup of feta, 1 beaten egg, and some red pepper.

I layered filo dough onto a pan, with 2 eggs + 1/4 C milk between each piece, and then rolled the chard mixture into the middle of it, lengthwise. After rolling it seam-down, tucking the ends under, and glazing it with the egg/milk stuff, I baked it for about 15 minutes at 350.

It was so incredibly delicious and easy, words cannot describe.
Next time I'm going to try several different types of chard, plus spinach, and I'm going to double the inside mixture. Or at least, I'm going to double the green leafy part. We'll see if I notice and get grossed out... :)

And yes, Micah, I saved you a piece, because I am a wonderful sister. :p

review of wheatsville's bigger and betterness

2009-03-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official: The back part of the store is open. And damn, it's fun :) Lots and lots of shelves are empty, which is a great sign - more options will be coming very soon.
The deli is shiny and new at the very back of the store, and the coffee bar is all modernized against a nicely painted wall.
The fabulous additions I've noticed:

Wheatsville has added Straus Family Creamery ice cream to their shelves. This is of special importance to me, as that was something I added to their wish list the very first time I went into the store. The Straus Family Creamery has products the closest to perfection I can find: their ice creams (and yogurt, actually) are 100% certified organic, and the nearest thing to grass-fed we can get, which seems to be about 90% grass, along with some grain and silage supplements during tough times of the year for pasture. While I maintain that it's possible (and by far superior) for the industry to show respect for the animals and for those consuming animal products by raising them in a way so obviously well designed, I very much respect the difficulties associated, and Straus Family Creamery is doing an admirable job - even without 100% grass, the consumer still gets a pretty darn close to accurate balance of N3s to 6s. Straus' ice cream is the only grassfed cows milk ice cream available in central Texas that I'm aware of, and by far beats the price of the delicious (but wickedly expensive) organic, grassfed, raw goats' milk frozen pints of heaven that Waterkoak Farms churns out. Another selling point for Straus: the ice cream is divine. I just had my first bites of their vanilla and mint-choc-chip, and I was surprised at how unique (especially the vanilla) and satisfying it was. I'm something of an ice cream snob (which may mean that many people won't like this ice cream, actually), and I'm rarely surprised in a pleasant way when I try new, even "premium" brands.
Wheatsville will be carrying an organic french baguette. Ok, so I have not yet tried it, the first of the stuff will be in hopefully the middle of next week, helpful deli people say, but I could not be more excited. Will and I have all but sworn off of fresh bread due to the inability of the free market to produce anything organic worth eating, and also of course due to my total ineptitude at making it from scratch. And I have tried. Numerous failed attempts have somewhat dissuaded me from the practice... not to mention, buying organic pastry flour is not exactly cost effective when you use almost the entire bag for one damned loaf.
Margarita's Tortilla Factory tortillas. No, this is not new. But what is new is that I now know that her tortillas are organic. Unfortunately, I don't think the canola oil she uses is organic, but she's getting pretty close. Nowhere on her package does she mention that she uses organic ingredients, and I'm not exactly sure why... I'm sure it has something to do with the bloody USDA. But in case you're wondering: Margarita's Tortilla Factory tortillas, according to her website, are organic. Hoorah.
Fish!! I'm hopeful there will be some more options in the future, but today they had some fabulous looking wild sockeye salmon, Texas-raised catfish, and something else that I can't remember right now. I would not myself or recommend to anyone else to eat farm-raised fish (again with the omega 3s, mercury, and other serious issues), and I don't know what "Texas-raised" means, but it sounds like a farm. So, despite it's tempting $8ish dollars a pound, I'd have to go with the salmon, which was $15/pound today. I'm not sure if this is a good deal or not, but I know I sure can't afford it all that often. That's probably not that big a problem though, since fish are entirely too contaminated with mercury, even in the wild. Not to mention, if grass-fed ruminants are available, there's no real reason to prefer fish even for their N3s.
I've never been one to frequent the deli, just because I don't really like to pair dining with grocery shopping (Will thinks I'm ridiculous) and we live 15 miles from the place, but the menu looks pretty, and seriously expanded. Will got a mozzarella and tomato salad and country fried tofu - oh. my. gosh. Good. Although, Will and I both think it would be far more apropo for it to be called Chicken Fried Tofu. That'd rattle some vegan/vegitarians :)

Things that remain to be seen:

Reasonable meat options. So far, the only place I've been able to find that has organic, grass-fed (or other nature-ly feed, in the case of chickens and pigs) meat is the farmers' market. Not to mention, the prices on meat at Wheatsville have always been staggeringly high, not that I can really blame them. But buying only semi-acceptable
(healthwise) meat at $8 a pound or more still hurts, especially given the ever-present temptation of running over to HEB and picking up almost anything for like $2-4 per pound... worthless though it may be.
Organic tortilla chips. While currently my hero for carrying Kettle's organic potato chips (HOLY YUM), Wheatsville has either been hiding the organic tortilla chips, or does not yet have them. Central Market is my go-to place for tortilla chips. And I hate Central Market.
Organic drinks. This isn't exactly an issue with Wheatsville, it's more a problem with the market. Blue Sky is the only thing I've found with organic stuff, and Wheatsville carries them. Maybe I'm completely tasteless here, but I think Blue Sky's organic line tastes like poo. It's really gross to me, I'm not sure why. Not to mention, it's not 100% organic, and they have silly additives which if I had to guess, I'd say came from Everyone's Favorite Satanic Company (Monsanto). I'd also love to see more options with stevia instead of aspartame or splenda. Steaz Teaz and Zevia both make pretty good drinks - and Steaz is organic (shame on you, Zevia). Wheatsville does carry the Steaz organic energy drinks, but I won't go into the health risks posed by most things labeled "energy drinks". To be fair, I haven't researched Steaz's, and they're definitely a better choice than the others, just in the fact that they're organic. Also, other than the organic cider I'm quite partial to, I don't think there are any fermented beverages for sale on a regular basis that are organic. If they're there, they're not clearly labeled.
Organic specialty breads. Sun Harvest has some organic pitas and filo dough in their freezer food section, I can't remember what the brands are though. I'll repost when I can remember. But Sun Harvest makes it 4 grocery stores (or markets) I frequent. It gets old, especially when Wheatsville is far superior.
A more stable line of organic produce. Wheatsville is actually AWESOME about affordable, delicious organic produce. However, some random weeks there will be only conventionally-grown versions of certain, normally organic, products - the next week it'll be back to organic, but I can't predict it, as it doesn't seem to fall (always) within growing seasons and such. This is an area (wholesale produce purchasing) which I'll admit I have zero knowledge in, so I'm not entirely sure if anything can be done about this, but since I'm listing my druthers.
Organic, grass fed cheese. If it's there, it's not clearly labeled (due of course to the producing companies, but it irritates the tar out of me).

We'll see if any of the things on my list rush in to fill some of those empty shelves :) And the single greatest thing about Wheatsville: I can make a difference. I'll put all of these things on the wish list once I can get the brand names I'd like to see, hopefully in the next couple of days. Please go "wish" for some of these things as well - if we have enough customers hopeful for these products, I'm sure some will make their way to the shelves, if they're not already on their way there.

rock on, free thinkers

2009-03-16T10:35:00.001-07:00

http://www.lessig.org/blog/

Augmenting Augmentin

2009-03-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

Jackson has E. Coli in his urine and kidneys, which the doctors inform me to be quite dangerous if not remedied. It's no big deal, just antibiotics, but it could likely cause kidney cell death if the E. Coli aren't dealt with. I have been avoiding antibiotics...
Not exactly my idea of fun: He just had two massive ear infections that threatened to burst his eardrums, so we had a round of antibiotics for that. A week later, he got the E. Coli infection, and we had to treat with antibiotics again. This week (just a week after we finished the second round of antibiotics), the E. Coli are back! Or perhaps they never left. So we've started antibiotics again - This time we're going with Augmentin, because it's a weaker antibiotic than the others, since he has fewer units of the E. Coli in his urine (meaning, the infection is hopefully on its way out, not recurring).

I was about to administer his first dose, reading the information on the drug, when ASPARTAME stuck out on the label like a goose in a grape barrel. They sweeten their damn stuff with aspartame? You're joking! No, they were not.

I called the doc and asked whether I should still administer, or if there were another option. He said that the risk of aspartame toxicity is better than the risk of going with another antibiotic, because they'd be stronger, and would be more likely to promote resistance. I agree with him, frustratedly.

GSK is the company that manufactures Augmentin, and after scouring their website and several others I could find no way to contact them by email. ARG. Finally, I found tfX - a consumer group against trans fats - and they had barraged GSK for adding transfats to their originally trans-fat-free child formula. I found the email address they had used, thank goodness, and let them know that until they resolved this ridiculous issue, I would try my hardest to remove as much business from them as I possibly could.

It isn't that aspartame is so dangerous, it's not that at all: It's just that I firmly believe that especially in medicine, there should be NOTHING in the concoction that isn't ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED to help resolve the problem. My son's problem was not "he won't drink funny-tasting liquids", rather his problem was "he has a bacterial infection".

The issue of whether or not to use aspartame is one I would like as my own choice. And I have already decided "no". But the fact that this company put it in just for kicks and giggles makes me mad, and I don't want to use them. Gah.

Time for a Little Loud Language

2009-03-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Don't read this if you're shy of profanity, but damn do I ever enjoy the rampage. Good blog, actually, for food followers.

http://omnivorousfish.com/node/363

Disastrous Bills in Congress

2009-03-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

So, there's an uproar in my local Hippie community, and it has a good reason, but that reason is not why the uproar is occurring.
Here is a link to the article that has flooded the tree hugger interweb.
Basically, the author of the article claims that there are several bills currently or soon to be in Congress, drafted by such dreadful food production giants as Monsanto and Tyson that will eliminate all farmers markets and small farms. EE GADS!
Naturally, I want to contact my representatives if this is true. Upon further research, however, I can find no further information than about a gillion links to that one article. Gar.
I looked up each of the bills separately on govtrack - excellent site by the way.
One of the bills does not even seem to exist - some SR 425. The others, however, do pose a significant problem that everyone should be aware of.

HR 759, which is currently on committee, requires that all food companies (and this, by my understanding of the language, would include all vendors of food, including me selling eggs to my neighbor, and my local farmers) would have to obtain accreditation - anyone who's ever taken a glance at Organic certification laws knows just how prohibitive the expense of this is sure to be.
This bill also allows the FDA or the CDC (geez!) to shut down any facility who refuses to be inspected for these guidelines or who refuses to attain accreditation. So anyone who cannot afford it (meaning, the girl a few blocks over who sells me eggs) will be fined and terminated. Probably by Arnold. The bill specifically includes the sale of eggs, this is not just me overreacting.
One thing that I appreciate about this bill, however, is that it imposes standards for the cosmetic industry; not accreditation standards, rather labeling standards. Cosmetic safety is an issue very close to my heart, and I hold all companies in contempt who do not disclose their ingredients, especially when over 99% of cosmetics are incredibly toxic, even in extremely low doses absorbed through the skin - please see Skin Deep's Cosmetic Database if you doubt me, and look long and hard at all the studies that have been done on each of the ingredients you search for - some will be positive, but most will be disastrous.
Either way, I cannot support this bill in its current form because of the ridiculous accreditation enforcement it outlines.
This is just another way to shove the government into the hole left by our receding freedom.

HR 814 would impose a traceability system for all animals in the food industry - and it is explicitly stated that any animal being used somewhere in the food system that was ever not in the trace system could not be used, and the perpetrator would be subject to penalties including fines and closure. GOOD GOSH! It doesn't even leave a loophole for the sale of food - I can only infer then that if I want to shoot an animal and eat it, I would have to make sure it was traceable first, so I'd have to pay for a damn chip in it. Are you freaking JOKING?!
Though clearly that's not the intent of the law, it is not excluded, not to mention the fact that this is flagrant trampling of private business. For the love.

HR 875 - I do not have a good grasp of this one because it has no summary, and the full text of the bill is wicked long - I did read it, but I cannot understand it well, due to too many references to outside bills and texts. But I'm pretty sure I've read enough at this point, and I HATE HATE HATE the idea of expanding the influence of the wicked and impotent FDA, which it clearly does.

So - the information on the internet about these bills is sensationalist and exaggerated, however I absolutely agree that they must be stopped. I cannot ascertain whether they are in fact written by Monsanto and Tyson, but that would just pour more fuel on my fire - go wikipedia those nasties if you want to learn what Hell will be like.

Please, contact your representatives - do it by phone if at all possible. And contact ALL of them, not just one!

Contact Your Senators
A petition to sign
Contact Your Representatives

BUBBLE AND BEE: Navigating the EWG Skin Deep Database

2009-03-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

BUBBLE AND BEE: Navigating the EWG Skin Deep Database

The Trouble with Writing - Especially Love

2009-02-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

When I was young, I wrote over 100 short stories. Literally, until last week, I had completely forgotten that part of myself. For some reason, the only thing I can think about these last few days is writing. I ache to write. But I have nothing to write about.

I can’t write (or respect myself if I did) plot-driven characters. I can’t just pick a plot and run with it – firstly because I have no original ideas whatsoever. Secondly, I don’t like empty characters, or untrue characters.

I’m not looking to write Shakespeare here, but I do envy his ability to be true to characters – it’s really as if he’s recounting an actually story, rather than forging it artificially. It may seem a bit harsh to label the writing process artificial, but fiction is just that. You create the characters.

My dilemma is this creation. Whoever I choose for my characters will make decisions based on their personalities and free will that bring a story into being. I, and I imagine I’m not alone here, long for something to make me special. Unique – even if only to one other person. In that way, I love the idea of a magic only available to some, or a gift only one possesses, or something. However, battling my whimsical protagonist is The Everyman. He learns his skill, and his value or uniqueness is in his choice, not in his abilities. He is me, the author, and you, the reader, and everyone else there could ever be. He’s batman, with attained strength, to Superman, with supernatural strength.

The most potently fire-lighting reads (in the words of Hemmingway) are the ones where there is at least some romance: To me, an American, this is the most natural use of the literary tool called “choice”. As a woman, perhaps as a human, I long for my female protagonist to be chosen by my male protagonist. Who knows if it’s an instinctive dance or just my culture, but amidst all my feminism, I resonate with male pursuers, especially bedazzled ones.

I have never known a man to be like men in fiction – rather, I have never known a man who notices my scent, and the way I frown ever so slightly when I’m concentrating, or thinks it’s adorable that I only take baths. And if by chance one ever did notice such a thing, it was sure to be just a noted feature, it was never a source of adoration. I’m not entirely sure that adoration like that exists. Not to say that simply because I don’t experience it, it isn’t there, but I don’t have a grid for it. Adoration in my understanding is infatuation, and something stronger, longer, takes hold after that. The adoration is not desirable in itself, and is in fact dangerous and immature, limited. The choices that make up the second kind of attraction make up love. Perhaps I should not call this second thing “attraction” – perhaps that is the distinction – perhaps the initial sensation is attraction, and the second is the permanence, that which holds the proximity resulting from the attraction.

One example of this, is that I forget what people I love look like. I don’t mean that I literally forget and can’t bring their faces to mind, but once upon a time when I met my husband, every time I looked his way I was struck by how insatiably beautiful he looked. Now, I still think he is one of the most gorgeous people in the world, but it does not come to my mind every time I look at him. When we’re on a date, I’m connected to his soul, not his face. It isn’t that I don’t care about it anymore, not at all. It’s only that I don’t think about it – I don’t remember to think about it – I’ve become accustomed to his face, as they say.

This kind of love is not volatile.

But this is not the stuff of my imagination.

Again, I most connect with the image of a protector/pursuer – one that protects everything about my female, her ability to choose for herself, her physical safety, and her changing personhood – yet is forever frozen in that state of pursuit.

An important part of the interplay between my favorite protagonists is an overstepping of roles in the protector capacity, resulting in a diminishment of the role of the pursuer. Leaving the girl in order to protect her safety or her desires is the most abominably overused example from modern literature that comes to mind, but there is also the Austen model where there is a forced nonphysical distance, or lack of honesty or trust in order to protect misinterpreted wishes of the female.

My female protagonist in this image is somewhat undefined. She isn’t – can’t be – one who needs protecting any more than the male. I can’t connect with the cliché construction of the woman who needs help more than the man. To make the love believable, she must protect and pursue the male as well (I like how it sounds like I’m talking about gazelles here). J But it’s different, and I only lead myself into clichés and untruths when I consider my mysterious female. So here is one point at which I am stuck.

Another, vital role in this interaction is the satisfaction of the pursuit; progress. The single most potent turn off to me in the creation of a plot is the endless circles of television miniseries. The entire first season is usually planned out, and more often than not the girl and the guy get to have each other. But eventually, they fall back out of love, totally untrue to their originally sweet (if not slightly quirky or gruff) dispositions, and circle forever until the station pulls it off the air.

The only appeal to this pursuit is its gratification. Which seems to necessitate that it does become less volatile. But the overstepping of bounds from the protector can be an ever-present device, as it is in my own human relationships.

Love to me, then, is a form of choice, literarily – it makes the protagonists completely unique, because they did not choose anyone else. The hope in this is that they are the Everymen – the giddiness felt when hearing such a story is the believability, the desire or the temptation to be in their shoes.

And that's just one manifestation of literary "choice" - there are others that equally confound me... and don't get me started on the antagonist. I'm so torn on him/her... I want (we shall call him "him") him to be believably bad - not just wielding his desire for everyone else's harm. There's no character in that, only an overdone plot device. Yes, even the greats are fell prey to this: Tolkein, Lewis (at times), Goodkind, Asimov, - I don't think I would say the same for Austen as a general rule, but certainly Rowling (like how I lumped her into this group?) and *GASP* Meyers... oh dreaded Meyers...

My State Representative

2009-02-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

Ok, here's how it all started.
Ever since I delivered Jackson, I've been drowning in the information on nutrition regarding organics, grass-fed products, and individual foods themselves. Anyone who has had more than a 30 minute conversation with me knows I'm also an avid Libertarian - or at least, more Libertarian than the other unmentionable parties. Perhaps "Functional Libertarian" would be a better description.
Will and I "found" Wheatsville Co-op, and they've been a big part of our lifestyle changes regarding nutrition, and since they're so small (tiny, really), I have been much more apt (or apt at all, I suppose) to let them know when I like something they're doing or when I would like to see a change.
Just in case any of you is wondering, Wheatsville has been awesome every step of the way. We told the produce manager the other day that we were concerned about the viability of their organic produce, as much of it was underneath the nonorganic produce - when the misters are turned on, all the water runs off the conventionally farmed produce and carries pesticides to the used-to-be-organic produce. This may seem like an extremely ridiculous, unncecessary fret, but I've read some studies about how it can in fact affect the integrity of the organic benefit. I was painfully aware of how I must sound to the manager, and phrased it as gingerly as I knew how.
Though I suppose I may have become one of those customer service horror stories he told his buddies on beer night, he acted as though he was delighted to hear that I cared. This last week when we went in, the produce was rearranged entirely.
There have been many other occasions when Will wanted a particular beer in stock, or I wanted more grassfed options, for example, and we have the opportunity to give feedback directly to the buying managers for those sections.
This has made me realize something: I have an impact. Ok, that sounds totally gay. But still, despite junior high mantras and ad campaigns, it didn't hit me until I was at a level so tiny that I could see the difference immediately.
Then I realized, if I don't do something, no one will do it, and I'll get the activists (who I almost invariably disagree with) wreaking havoc on the system. I should be an activist.
Or a mini activist, perhaps.
So, I just finished up a 3 line email to my state Representative asking how I could get in contact with her and become more involved. I will do the same to the state Senator, and the US Rep and Senator for Texas. I'd like to get involved with some judges, as the judicial system is in my opinion the biggest bungle in history. I don't know what else I can do to get involved, reasonably, but I'm going to do it. I have a brain, so I'm going to use it.

In Defense of Breast Milk

2009-01-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

So, I have been trying to cure myself of warts, and since I'm breastfeeding I can't do anything topical, so I've had to opt for freezing.

This. Is. Miserable.

In a flash of brilliance, I thought, "breast milk is the cure for everything, why don't I google it and see if it can cure my warts!"

This is what I found:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/23/health/main625825.shtml

Here's the link to the peer-reviewed journal in which it was published (you can purchase the article to read it in detail):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15215478?ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

The gist of it is, a team of scientists near Denmark were trying to kill a bacteria that was present in some lung cancer cells. They applied a material that is i think only found in breast milk, it bonded with another compound from the milk, and "blew up" both the bacteria and the lung cancer cell.

It was made into a cream that is highly effective on warts, and is being further explored for use in cancer.

Sweet.

Isaiah 49 and the Middle Class?

2008-12-29T13:54:00.000-08:00

Read Isaiah 49. This is considered to be a Messianic passage, which makes verses 2 and 4 quite curious... Of course the suggestion has been that Jesus was a carpenter until he was 30 years old, which is not exactly "missionary work".

In the great debate I have with myself of what God wants my life to look like, this throws an interesting light on the subject.

Ice Cream Cream

2008-12-08T09:01:00.001-08:00

This serves as an update on my Stevia Ice Cream progress.

Just in case my past experience hasn't deterred you, please take a hint from my more recent experience: DONT USE NUSTEVIA. It is absolutely appalling in flavor. I made some otherwise delicious ice cream, but the sweet part was bitter. And I mean bitter like battery acid. I know for sure that Nirvana Stevia (the one from Australia) is delicious... but their shipping takes forever, so I'm still searching in town for some.
Not all creams are equal. It appears that there are several different types of cream: double cream, single cream, half & half (ok, I did know that one), heavy (whipping) cream, and commercial cream. Commercial cream is pretty much unobtainable, and I don't know anything about it other than it's very thick. I had always thought that heavy cream was what you wanted for ice cream - and apparently I am wrong. I have made ice cream with heavy cream, but it is almost intolerably fatty. It coats my mouth with goo. While the texture and flavor are positively lovely, 100% heavy cream ice cream is a bit over the top in my opinion. This last time I made ice cream, I accidentally made it with "single" cream - what I thought was the same as all other types of cream - and it came out icier, and not nearly as mouth-coating. It was SO good. Tasted like snow ice cream :) I think probably there's a happy medium somewhere in between: next time I'm going to try mixing the single cream with the heavy cream, and see what comes out.

'Til Next Time...

Shampoo and Conditioner Woes

2008-12-05T18:21:00.001-08:00

In an effort to rid my house of nasties, I replaced my (super high quality) Suave and Garnier Fructis hair products with Dr. Bronner's Fragrance-Free Castile Soap.

Quick sidenote: I'm pretty sure Dr. Bronner is a scary guy - read his bottles sometime. He's all about "Everyone is one, everything is one and I can't grammar" etc. Not to mention - look at him.

Anyway, Suave and Garnier Fructis hair products are some serious baddies, and Dr. Bronner slays them with his poor syntactic constructions and pure oil.

Castile Soap is saponified (soap-ified) oil from a vegetable, in this case olive oil. We use another soap at home made from coconut oil, and still another made from canola oil. Other soaps, non-castile ones, are made with animal fat instead of veggie oil (yeah, lucky you, you've got like a 99.99999% chance you're rubbing Bessie's love handles all over yourself in the shower... For That Nice Clean Feeling... ) Glycerin is added in varying proportions to make it soapy.

It is one of nature's most effective safe cleansers. It can be used on babies, fruits and veggies, dishes, bodies, toilets, hair, basically anything.

That said, we've shifted just about 100% of our cleansing products to castile soap (and it's cheap, mostly!), Dr. Bronner's or otherwise. The major problem has come in with using it as a shampoo. It is the most effective soap I've ever used, and I'd never before understood the phrase "squeaky clean". Oh, I get it now. My hair literally squeaks as it pulls and tears from my scalp - no more oils. Anywhere. I had been thinking of perishing within my quandary of either shaving my head, or going back to my unhealthy old ways, when I got a newsletter-type thing in the mail from an organic hair product company I like to buy from.

The newsletter reminded its readers to use a diluted vinegar solution after shampooing with castile (or any safe) soaps.

Hmm. Miffing. I figured it would probably suck donkeys for nickels and make me smell like death, but what could it hurt? Other than the inherent pains in sucking donkeys for nickels and smelling like death, but what else could it hurt?

So, I followed their recipe of around 20-oz ish of water with 5-oz ish of vinegar (5 to1) - either white or apple, I figure any kind is ok - and dumped the whole thing (yes, all of it) on my freshly de-oiled head, all over my hair and scalp.

The results, other than getting it in my mouth, casuing me to sputter and thrash about in the tub (only losers stand up in the shower, cool people take baths), it was the most miraculous event to ever take place upon my head.

I could instantly run my fingers all the way through my hair - not a SINGLE snag. No joke. And I only smelled mildly of the stuff, but when I was dry the odor was completely gone!

This was a ridiculously long post for such a simple recommendation.

Please, hurry up and get tired of paying a lot for your hair products and killing your hair and bodies (it gets into your blood stream through your pores). Go buy a gallon of dirt cheap vinegar from HEB (or from Wheatsville, if you're extra good), and a bottle of castile soap.

Dilute the castile soap to 2-3 parts water, 1 part soap, and dilute the vinegar to the aforementioned units. It'll last you forever, and your hair will be AWESOME.

Deuteronomy 30:1-20 (NASB)

2008-12-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

1"So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the LORD your God has banished you, 2and you return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, 3then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.
4"If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back.
5"The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.
6"Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
7"The LORD your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. 8"And you shall again obey the LORD, and observe all His commandments which I command you today.
9"Then the LORD your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground, for the LORD will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers; 10if you obey the LORD your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.
11"For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. 12"It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' 13"Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'
14"But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.
15"See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; 16in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. 17"But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, 18I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it.
19"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, 20by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them." (Bible Gateway)

My favorite part is Moses getting all rankled (Hannah 1:1) and saying it "is not too difficult for you [!!], nor is it beyond your reach..." The Hebrew is more accurately translated as "HELLO !" :)

This is really as a continuation of previous posts regarding the true nature of choice. As I described (in painful detail) in those posts, my understanding of choice has it as a complete ability to do one thing, and to not do that one thing. AKA, "It is not too difficult for you, it is not beyond your reach..."

And yes, I know that I put "it" in the quotes above, and it is not in the quote. I did that one for you, Jugulum. Worthy Nemesis. But don't worry, I couldn't choose otherwise ;)

There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch - Except When You're Giving It Away Yourself

2008-12-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Most of you know my dad's a full-time photographer and I work with him when I'm not at my "soul sucking day job". We frequent the Strobist blog (see my blog list), and today I found something that may be of interest to the world at large: giving your services for free.
Since Americans' time has been slightly less full these last few months, with unemployment pulling deeper into our pockets and gas prices being the only satisfaction we get from it (except for me), what could it hurt to donate our talents to the community?

I don't mean become a volunteer and wish for the rest of your life that you had shoes. But wouldn't it be better than pouting about the market, or sitting on the couch watching Friends reruns over and over again? If you've got the time, why not give yourself some excellent professional experience that you otherwise probably would not have received, and give back to a community that is only what you make it to be?

I really love the Strobist's comments in his post, especially where he talks about not just going up to someone and saying "Hey, I'm underbooked, do you want to do some TFCD?" Instead, pick one of those fabulous ideas rolling around your head that you've always known you'll never get a client to pay for, and approach the perfect subject with a business proposal.

I've always preferred a more distant, less 80's-in-your-face-type photography, but with very few paying customers in agreement. So, since I've got some time on my hands, it couldn't hurt to mock up a vision for an image and go out and shoot it. For Free. For Fun.

And indulge me in a nostalgic display of Acts 2 Christianity - what if you had people doing this for you? Of all the times in recent decades, this is the time when families could use some help. What is the church for if not edifying and blessing each other, and this is a sensible, doable way of achieving that aim.

Whine if you want about lowering your value. But in my mind you're only gaining exposure and talent to make you all the more marketable when your clients are paying, and you can design it to be extremely professional and valuable with work in charities or low-income families. Or whoever!

Stevia Update

2008-12-03T07:23:00.001-08:00

I have learned something new. And now that I look it up, it seems rather obvious.
There is a difference between "powdered stevia" and "white stevia". Powdered stevia is literally the leaves of the plant that have been ground into a fine powder. So it basically looks like weed. And tastes like... well honestly, like weed. Or at least what I imagine weed would taste like. Weed, tea, and dirt. Gross, seriously. It has its own unique (nasty) flavor. And it doesn't seem all that sweet.
Side story: The way we came to know how gross it was is that Will (who is rather prone to such acts) took a teaspoonful of the stuff to taste it, and he stood over the sink gagging for a full few minutes. Then I put it in a chocolate pie, hoping it would miraculously improve. Silly me. It wasn't sweet, though I tripled the amount the recipe called for (and oddly enough, it did call for raw powdered stevia...), and it was starting to taste like the leaf.
So, don't use raw stevia. :) I'm going to Wheatsville tonight and I'm going to pick up some white stevia (which has had the leafy-nastiness removed), and use that instead.

To Be Continued... Again...

Christmas Tree Hunt

2008-11-30T20:44:00.001-08:00

Probably the single most anticipated day of the year for me is the day after Thanksgiving. That is the day that my family packs a lunch and trots out to a Christmas tree farm to chop down the perfect tree. Two things to note:

1) This is not a farm of fake trees. They are real trees. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the fire. I'm pretty sure that in English, that can be translated, "If you don't have a real Christmas tree, don't have Christmas."

2) This is not a Christmas tree 'tent'. If you pull off I-35 in the middle of downtown Austin and feel deliciously brawny as you strap a perfectly manicured, pre-cut tree to your black suburban with the sports stickers for your 2.4 children, you lose in the game of Christmas.

In all seriousness, it's really fun to go and chop down your own tree. But learn from our mistakes:
We went out to Loma Alta Christmas Tree Farm because it's where we always went when I was growing up. It has a duck pond and picnic tables and lots and lots of Christmas trees - hay rides, candy canes, you name it.
Well, it apparently sucks. We got out there and they 'couldn't do a hay ride because it wasn't the weekend' (whatEV!), the whole place was seriously run-down, and worst of all woes, the Christmas trees were dreadful. Skinny and bare boned, they slouched in depression. As did I, at the sight. To make matters worse, we were all starting to pour sweat from the 99% humidity and 80 degree weather, which is simply not fitting for such an outing.
Just when I was beginning to think all was lost, my wsweet husband put everyone back in the cars and lead the caravan back to our traditional favorite (for the past 6 or so years) farm, Evergreen Farms in Elgin (which, if you watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles, you'll know that Elgin is pronounced El-jin and is close to Corpus Christi).
As soon as we stepped out of the vehicular devices, the air dropped between 20 and 30 degrees (it had rained some on the trip there), and was very cold for our summery-clad selves.
We got apple cider and hayrides, and acres and acres of trees too perfect to decide between. In fact, it took us over an hour (probably a record, for us) to decide on the tree to get. Poor Jack nearly froze, and I had to nurse him several times standing up in the wind (not my favorite thing, with judgmental people dashing about here and there), but he was dressed in his 'Jack's full-service gas station' onesie covered by his overalls, and we sang lumberjack songs to set the mood.
When we finally picked a tree, we got out the ole' saw and pulled the sucker down triumphantly, and dragged our spoils to the road where the hay ride picked us up.
In the end, we came away with a tree for our little family, a tree for my parents and their house, a tree for Adam and Cindy (although, they took even longer than we did - Adam said that he didn't want to end up regretting the one he chose on the ride back if he saw a better one), and a 2 foot tall tree for Micah's new apartment :)

The Jackson Three (Number of Teeth)

2008-11-30T20:43:00.000-08:00

11.30.08

Jack now has another (count em, three) tooth, this time the top right (his right, not mine). It had swollen up REALLY big last week and turned black and blue - I asked my mother-in-law and she said it wasn't normal. It wasn't until later that I realized it must have been from when he fell to the floor in my parents' house (tile!). :( Poor little guy. But it's all better now, except that there's a tooth poking through where there wasn't before.
Speaking of bumps, Eli's been crashing all over the place lately. He spends most of his time pulling up on things, but he hasn't mastered getting himself back down. If the object is short enough, he remembers to unlock his knees and plop gently (if not gracefully) to the floor. But he's gotten rather ambitious with his reaching and often ends up stuck without a good way to sit back down. The other day he stood in his crib crying and crying (I was trying very hard to rouse myself from a disconcerting dream) and suddenly he crashed down - basically a pencil fall - and thwacked his head on the opposite side of the crib. He's done that once more, but I've been getting there faster. For some reason it hasn't been hurting that much - he actually just whines about it, doesn't really cry. I think it must give him a bit of a headache (though it sounds bad, it's not a very far tumble), because he's a bit grumpy for a bit afterwards.
But there are bumps for other reasons, too. He crawls to things, and when he reaches them with his hands, he sits up. This might seem to you like a reasonable situation, but once he sits up, his top half (the hand-pincers included) are too far away from the object. Dilemma. So he gets closer to the thing than he would otherwise need to be (he hasn't yet grasped the concept of grabbing the thing before attempting to sit up). With the sofa, this often means a thump and some tears.
He's gotten much much better at not falling over whilst sitting. He's pretty damn stable, actually. And he sure can motor around. I've had to build a blockade around our living room and pick up EVERYTHING off the floor so that he doesn't go gallavanting off into danger. The Christmas tree is surrounded by two walls and two chests.
Ever since last Monday, Jack's been doing the strangest thing: He screws up his face and crinkles his nose and snorts like a pig. He does it when he's pretty happy, or when he's pretty upset. It's super weird. Nobody seems to be able to figure out why he's doing it...
We've got Jack's 6 month old appointment on Tuesday, which is fitting, seeing as how he's seven and a half months old, so we'll see whether I cave and give him his immunizations.

Ice Cream and Stevia

2008-11-26T12:54:00.000-08:00

So, I have discovered my new mission. To create the perfect ice cream, using Stevia instead of sugar.

I was so thrilled when I realized that I could have cream with grass-fed cows milk. But there are two drawbacks:
1) Apparently, no one on earth sells it. This is actually not true. There are several little creameries in the Northern part of the country that will not ship anywhere, and there are two creameries that will ship for (naturally) exorbitant fees that I simply can't afford.
Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams
Strauss Family Farm - they sell at diamondorganics.com
2) The only milk farm here does mostly grass-fed, just not in the winter :( But ok, I'll take what I can get.

I'm making it from scratch, I've decided, despite saddening dairy woes. But now I have to face the sugar issue.

I've been majorly annoyed at my choice of college degrees in the past several months, and now I'm wishing I picked Chemistry. Cooking never seemed like a big deal to me, but after disasters with Stevia (mixed with some epiphanies), it seems a much more daunting task to play around with molecular bonds.
I'm not always a fan of custard ice cream. So I'm going to make a version that is custard based, and one that is not, just so I can be sure which one I prefer. I was hoping to put little containers packed in bags of ice in all the stockings this year, filled with peppermint and eggnog ice cream.

Apparently, recipes for ice cream using stevia (that do not include tofu and crap like that) are nowhere to be found on the internet. I've walked through the entire web. Seriously, not there. This seems strange. It will shortly be different.

Will wanted to do Christmassy things tonight, and so he's going to hang Christmas lights and I'm going to try my hand at the ice cream. We'll see where it ends up.

To Be Continued...

Growing Strawberry Plants Inside, Year-Round

2008-11-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

Apparently everyone knows about this but me.
You can grow strawberry plants inside, in just a little pot, and they'll grow pretty much year round!

Get the everbearing or day neutral varieties
Plant one plant per pot
Plant established specimens, and they'll bloom that year. Plant new specimens, they'll bloom next year, or the next.
They need 6-8 hours of sunlight per day, at least.
Can be planted in hanging pots, sitting pots, wherever
Don't put at ground level, will get eaten by bugs
Aromas, Capitolas, Chandlers, Diamantes, Seascapes, and Sweet Charlies are all good species to grow in the South indoors.
Must be planted in well-drained soil. Just water it enough to keep soil damp. Don't let it stand in water or anything like that - but don't underwater. Remember, strawberries are 95% water, so if they don't receive enough, they'll be small and hard.
When harvesting, grasp stem 1/2 inch from the strawberry and pull off - the strawberries are very delicate.
Long stems grow up in the middle of the plant called runners - you can bend them over and plant their heads in the soil to grow a new strawberry plant.
Strawberry plants will only give you one to two good harvests - they must then be replaced. Use the runners to do this (their natural means of reproduction).
Apparently, many creatures like strawberries, perhaps the worst of which are snails. It is not apparent to me yet how to remedy this without the use of pesticides. Don't use pesticides. :) It may be enough to just grow it indoors rather than out - I don't know yet.
When planting, make sure the roots are well-covered.
They say that 3-6 plants is plenty for a regular sized family, with berries to spare. I'm not sure they've met my husband though, I imagine we'll get like 10.

Reasons to Use Stevia

2008-11-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

Stevia has no recorded side effects, and has been used for hundreds of years - also, the WHO (World Health Organization) performed a bunch of studies and found that
"stevioside and rebaudioside A are not genotoxic in vitro or in vivo and that the genotoxicity of steviol and some of its oxidative derivatives in vitro is not expressed in vivo."(1)
Sucralose, most commonly sold as Splenda, may have possible side effects, but more research needs to be done before conclusive results may be reached. One study found that in very high dosages, it caused DNA damage in mice (2).
Stevia can be grown at home :)
Stevia is much sweeter (though arguably not 300 times sweeter) than sugar, so less is required.
Stevia does not undergo a chemical breakdown even in high heat - unlike aspartame (which winds up as formaldehyde) and sucralose - so it is perfect for baking and cooking (3).
A few studies have indicated possible positive effects of Stevia upon blood sugar response (4). One study did not find this to be true. More studies are underway.
Stevia looks like weed.

Stevia - The Natural Sweetener

2008-11-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

I've lately been turned onto the use of stevia, or Stevia rebaudiana, as a replacement for sugar. Stevia is a green leaf that can be obtained in powder form, alcohol-liquid, or plain liquid - even tablets. Supposedly it's about 300 times the potency (sweetness) of sugar.

Here are some things I have discovered:

It is NOT 300 times the potency of sugar. At least not in any of the 3 brands I've tried so far. It is much less sweet than that, but still way sweeter than sugar.
Not all brands are created equal. I've tried one that I can't recall, NuStevia, and also Nirvana Stevia. And the only one even worth a glance is Nirvana. And it just so happens that they are the only organic stevia producer that I could find.

NuStevia was an interesting brand to me, because they have tons of different flavors of Stevia. However, I'm not sure whether it's because they distill their liquid with alcohol or if it's because they don't have good quality Stevia, but it tastes like medicine and has a horridly bitter aftertaste. Just try a drop of it plain and you'll see what I mean, and then you'll die.

Nirvana, in contrast, is one hundred percent Stevia - and it's not distilled with alcohol. When placed on the tongue, it is only sweet, with a hint of a different aftertaste. When used in recipes, I swear I can't tell the difference. But that's just me - I'm sure everyone will be able to taste things differently. My husband loves it, to his credit :)

Two recipes that I've loved:

Cranberry Spritzer
1 part Lakewood Organic Pure Cranberry Juice (it's unsweetened, and not from concentrate or diluted - it's INCREDIBLY sour and strong) - one cup (way too much) only has 11 carbs.
3 parts (ish?) sparkling water
Stevia to taste
Note: I haven't tried it with any other juices yet, but I've been looking for naturally sour -ish juices (like lemon, lime, etc) with which to try this, so that I can have a variety of low-carb-calorie drinks.

Whipping Cream
So, I can hardly call this a recipe, but last night we made some organic whole wheat choco-chip cookies, and needed something sweet and creamy to go with them. So, we whipped up some cream and threw in a little liquid stevia, and HOLY MOTHER it tasted so good.

Truth be told, I actually haven't tried any other recipes. But here are some that are next on my list (I'll just give you the links):

Root Beer (!), Choco-chip Cookies, & Raspberry Sherbet

Pumpkin Pie - this looks especially interesting to me

Peanut Butter Cookies, Brownies, Straw/Banana Muffins, Whipped Cream

Hmm... after reading some, I have found claims that some liquid or powdered extracts are 1-5% stevia, the rest is fillers, even water, so this may account for some of the sweetness-loss.

Anyway, you should give it a try. I'm still looking for a place to find Nirvana Stevia here in the States - I had to order mine from Australia.

Further thoughts on Meaningful Choice

2008-11-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

I'm going to extrapolate a little bit on my comments under Exodus 34:7 in my last post.

In this verse, God seems to be saying that He is just and merciful (merciful, merciful, merciful!), but He is and would still be just in punishing descendants for their fathers' crimes. Also, note how it is said in contrast to his lovingkindness - remember:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." (John 3:16, in case any of you have forgotten)

If this is his lovingkindness, then this giving of His son is in contrast to punishing the descendants for their fathers' sins (falling short - ness). What does it mean to be in contrast to punishing the descendants for their fathers' sins? Well, either not punishing them at all, or punishing them for their own sins, it would appear. And since we know some are still punished, if Christ's death applies to everyone (John 2:2, well, all of John), then it means retribution for one's own sins. The only sin (falling short) that anyone is really capable of doing, in a simplistic sense, ever since Christ's death, is falling short of the Father - meaning, not being in Christ, who is literally the only bridge to the Father - apart from Him we necessarily fall short (sin), and in Him we necessarily do not (we measure up) - John 14:6 among other things. And if we're punished for our own choices, and not any longer for the sins of Adam (our inherited sin nature), then it must be our own choice that we're in Christ, or not in Christ - meaning, we must have been able to choose either Christ or not Christ, and it was within our power completely.

Alright, continuing on from there in the text of Exodus 34:
God says that despite his lovingkindness and mercy and forgiveness of sins, he will visit the sins of the fathers upon the generations to come - that those sins will not be unpunished. Moses' response to this is to fall on his face (I like how he 'makes haste' to do so), and ask for mercy and forgiveness - presumably for the sins of the fathers, so that they will not be visited on the children of Israel.

God responds with a covenant. Remind anyone of anything? If we take this as an analogy or an example of our relationship with the Father, then God's response to the sins of Adam being on our heads is a covenant in Christ; thus, we see one angle of what it may mean for Christ to be the second Adam. To flesh out the picture, consider why it would be that Christ is a reasonable replacement for Adam as our inheriting lineage-holder:

He was a king (human lineage of David, and Godly lineage of ... God). This means that we reap the consequences of His actions, just as we did with Adam. If our king or president leads us into battle with Russia, and we lose, we get taken hostage. And there's pretty much nothing any of us can do about it - we inherit that position, just by being born into that society.
He did not inherit a sin nature from Adam - so Jesus is in the exact same position Adam was in: He could sin or not sin, and it was completely within His control to do either.
The only important difference between these two Types is that though they were set up exactly the same, to have the same influence on humanity, the choice was different.

So our lineage, our history, and our inheritance have changed. Further commonalities, or the results of commonalities, can be seen throughout Romans, specifically in chapter 5:
Verse 15 says that "the many" died by the trespass of ONE MAN (so we're inheriting this condemnation because of Adam), and that the grace and gift came to "the many" (so here it's pretty clear that it implies all people, as it did in the previous section talking about death coming to the many).

I can definitely see responses to this, and I'm not saying it necessarily has to be this way, but it makes some sense to me.

"Free" will?

2008-11-06T12:27:00.000-08:00

Predestination v. Free Will

I've recently been having a sort of ongoing conversation with Tim about Calvinism vs. Free Will. Of course, of the two of us, Tim is the Calvinist.

We got to talking about what I meant by 'free' will - and so here I have come to define it as such:
Free will is the situation that occurs when an individual is capable of doing one thing, and is capable of not doing that one thing, and which one he chooses is entirely in his own power.

Tim responded with a very good question: If that is the only 'meaningful' choice, then how could God punish us for being descendants of Adam (specifically when He says that we are not punished for our fathers' sins, but for our own)? That is, would God be 'wrong' to punish us for a sin that we weren't capable of not choosing? Let me stop right here and note that, while it is an excellent question (and kudos to you, Tim, for pointing out an argument that I'd never heard before), the implications to me are simply absurd - that we could call it choice, when we were forced by circumstances into the action - calling falling down the stairs an act of will just seems like Tim and I would be living in alternate universes. Ah well, here is my response:

No, it is still not meaningful choice if we could not choose otherwise; yes, even in the case of our state after the fall. We are not choosing to sin, in some sense (I hope this statement infuriates everyone, and you stop reading right here before I explain).
We are not (nor never were) punished for anything but our own sin - and our own meaningful choices.
Were God to have implemented a different system (without many of the promises he made), He could of course be justified in doing whatever he saw fit, including damning us all to Hell with no recourse.

The real answer to the question comes in the extrapolation of point number 2, and in the weird part of number 1. The story begins in Exodus (excluding the story before that, I suppose) 34:

1Now the LORD said to Moses, "Cut out for yourself ^(A)two stone tablets like the former ones, and ^(B)I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered.

This of course is just after Moses has thrown down the tablets of the Lord in frustration with the Sons of Israel.

2"So be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to ^(C)Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain.

3"^(D)No man is to come up with you, nor let any man be seen anywhere on the mountain; even the flocks and the herds may not graze in front of that mountain."

This is in direct contrast to what the Lord had originally said to Moses, the first time he came to the mountain - God told the people of Israel to come to the mountain as a nation (not to touch it), that He might descend there and speak to them, but they sent Moses because they were too terrified, and they told Moses they would hear it from his lips, not the Lords - they disobeyed. See Exodus 19 & 20.

4So he cut out ^(E)two stone tablets like the former ones, and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and he took two stone tablets in his hand.

5^(F)The LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD.

6Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, ^(G)compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;

7who ^(H)keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He ^(I)will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, ^(J)visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."

Aha, we have our first problem. Well, not really, I'm getting ahead of myself. We shall just remember that the Lord does punish the children for the sins of the fathers. Note how this is in contrast to forgiving iniquity,trangression and sin, and His lovingkindness for thousands.

8Moses made haste ^(K)to bow low toward the earth and worship.

9He said, "^(L)If now I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though ^(M)the people are so obstinate, and ^(N)pardon our iniquity and our sin, and ^(O)take us as Your own possession."

The Covenant Renewed

10Then God said, "Behold, ^(P)I am going to make a covenant Before all your people ^(Q)I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of the LORD, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you.

His response to Moses is the Israelite Covenant (again). Their part of the bargain is to be faithful.

11"Be sure to observe what I am commanding you this day: behold, ^(R)I am going to drive out the Amorite before you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite.

12"^(S)Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst.

13"^(T)But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their ^[a]^(U)Asherim

14--for ^(V)you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God--

15otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the harlot with their gods and ^(W)sacrifice to their gods, and someone ^(X)might invite you to eat of his sacrifice,

16and ^(Y)you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods.

17"^(Z)You shall make for yourself no molten gods.

18"You shall observe ^(AA)the Feast of Unleavened Bread For ^(AB)seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the ^(AC)month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.

19"^(AD)The first offspring from every womb belongs to Me, and all your male livestock, the first offspring from cattle and sheep.

20"^(AE)You shall redeem with a lamb the first offspring from a donkey; and if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck You shall redeem ^(AF)all the firstborn of your sons ^(AG)None shall appear before Me empty-handed.

21"You shall work ^(AH)six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest you shall rest.

22"You shall celebrate ^(AI)the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.

23"^(AJ)Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.

24"For I will ^(AK)drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God.

25"^(AL)You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread, ^(AM)nor is the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover to be left over until morning.

26"You shall bring ^(AN)the very first of the first fruits of your soil into the house of the LORD your God. "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."

27Then the LORD said to Moses, "^(AO)Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made ^(AP)a covenant with you and with Israel."

28So he was there with the LORD ^(AQ)forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water And ^(AR)he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, ^(AS)the Ten Commandments.

After this, Moses comes down from the mountain and his face shines - it terrifies the people, and Moses' face must be veiled. Note that this is with the coming of the Old Law. Recollect the veil into the Holy of Holies, and the veil over the hearts of the Israelites that the author of Hebrews mentions.

Next we get to Deuteronomy, where our issue arises. It's not really worth putting the context here in all its explicitness, suffice it to say that we're just rattling off a bunch of rules here, including giving a woman a certificate of divorce for marriage, giving a worker his wages before the sun sets, etc.

16"^(O)Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin."

So we come to conflict. Way back in Exodus 34:7 he said "... He ^(I)will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, ^(J)visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."

One thing to note is the possibility that God can visit the iniquity on the descendants, but not people - consider the audiences in each passage. That point is actually somewhat minor

Consider another thing he said (and I don't really think it's necessary to go find a particular passage, as you can just randomly open the old testament and find an example) - He commanded the Israelites to sacrifice burnt offerings for their sins - but then look at what David says:

6^(N)Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired;
My ears You have ^[b]opened;
Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.
7Then I said, "Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8^(O)I delight to do Your will, O my God;
^(P)Your Law is within my heart."

Notice that many people did not follow the law, and yet their faith is still counted as righteousness - Paul references this in Romans 2:

12All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

See that the "law is written on their hearts" both in the case of David and the Gentiles; it's awfully similar wording to what God promises of the new covenant with the coming Messiah in Jeremiah and Genesis, among others.

The point is this: Clearly, at some point God describes that He will punish the descendants for the sins of their fathers. Similarly, he gives out the old law. These things are to show (in my mind) how pathetically hopeless we are! We cannot choose anything more than 'falling short' - no matter what we do, we cannot ever measure up! We are forever punishable for Adam's sin! And we can never change that, in anything we do, and we cannot choose at all. Hopeless! Then we see Christ fulfilling the law instead of us - and in Him we recognize that we CAN measure up. Anyone can measure up, now that Christ has accomplished it. The only thing holding us back from measuring up is what we do with the forked road of belief in Christ as the Messiah.

We very well could be punished for the sins of Adam - but NO MAN EVER WAS. See how even before Christ (who in God's foreknowledge was slain before - prior to - the foundations of the world), people were saved through faith. The way God chose to work was to restore our choice to us in the work of Christ - This is demonstrated in the very definition of 'sin' (not measuring up). Since Christ measured up for us, nothing stands in our way, unless Christ's work was only intended and available to a few (which Tim and I have both conceded to be inaccurate).

Either way, I didn't intend to get into Free Will v Calvinism here, I just wanted to explain how I could believe that it isn't for a 'meaningful choice' that we are guilty in Adam (so I'm not trying or going to defend my previous statements). Of course, it is only for 'meaningful, personal choice' that we are in fact condemned, because God had mercy and we can now choose either Him or not Him.

So, back to the stupid thing I said earlier:

"It is still not meaningful choice if we could not choose otherwise; yes, even in the case of our state after the fall. We are not choosing to sin, in some sense."

So, ok, I did use a bad tense (purposefully, to make everyone mad) - I should have said We WOULD not be choosing to sin. That is, if Christ hadn't restored us our ability to choose. God could still be totally just and not give us choice, and He'd be totally within His bounds - as Paul says, he has mercy on whom he has mercy, etc. But again, I'm not going to go into depth on that here.

Mercury in Fish

2008-11-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

So I'm sure everyone knows now that mercury can be found in fish - but it seems that many don't understand the implications. pubs.usds.gov gives some basic information. They say,

"Humans generally uptake mercury in two ways: (1) as methylmercury (CH3Hg+) from fish consumption, or (2) by breathing vaporous mercury (Hg0) emitted from various sources such as metallic mercury, dental amalgams, and ambient air. Our bodies are much more adapted for reducing the potential toxicity effects from vaporous mercury, so health effects from this source are relatively rare. Methylmercury, on the other hand, affects the central nervous system, and in severe cases irreversibly damages areas of the brain
The most well documented cases of severe methylmercury poisoning are from Minamata Bay, Japan in 1956 (industrial release of methyl-mercury) and in Iraq in 1971 (wheat treated with a methylmercury fungicide). In each case, hundreds of people died, and thousands were affected, many with permanent damage. In milder cases of mercury poisoning, adults complain of reductions in motor skills and dulled senses of touch, taste, and sight. These milder effects are generally reversible if exposure to mercury is halted. Unborn children are at greatest risk from low-level exposure to methylmercury. (1)

I hope this gives you pause about what you use as a fungicide or pesticide (mother..) - just because we can buy them at the convenient store doesn't mean they're safe...

The EPA and FDA both recommend that high-mercury fish like swordfish, etc, are not consumed, and that low-mercury fish are consumed only twice (6oz servings) per week (2).

Again, one more reason to move toward grass-fed meats to replace all or most of your fish diets, because remember, grass-fed meats have the same amount or more of the beneficial nutrients in fish, most notably the Omega 3 fatty acids, and their ratio to Omega 6's.

More Information on Grass vs. Grain

2008-11-05T14:29:00.001-08:00

Here's a good chart I found on Slanker's website (1) - please note it is not pier reviewed, but I liked the layout and thought it would be useful:

Beef's Nutritional Ledger
	Grain-Fed Beef	Grass-Fed Beef
Added Hormones	Usually	No
Fed Antibiotics	Usually	No
Fed Grain	Yes	No
Omega-3 Fatty Acid	0.1	1.22
Omega-6 Fatty Acid	3.1	1.08
CLA	0.21	1.46
Beta Carotene	41	87
Vitamin E	1.3	5.3
Vitamin A	10	52
Total Fat	High & Saturated	Proper Balance
Flavor	Bland/Pasty	Original and Bold
All Other Factors	Fair	Perfect
E. coli Danger	High	Minimal

My favorite part is where they say "All other factors" - grain-fed beef: fair, grass-fed beef: perfect. Lol. Very scientific.

But definitely note a few things - the Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acid ratio is the same in grass-fed beef as it is in fish! And without the mercury.
Speaking of mercury, I'll post next on the dangers with that.

Grass-Fed Meat

2008-11-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

Speaking of grass- vs. grain-fed, I just found some sites with pretty good prices on Texas grass-fed animals (uh, dead ones that is, for the eating).

Here is the site I used to look up a bunch of Texas farms - I've only browsed the first 6 or 7 or so. Every one of these farms that I list below do not ever use antibiotics or artificial hormones, and feed the cows only grass from birth (aside from mommie-cow's milk, of course).

Paidom Meats has a great deal on a variety pack right now:
Beef Variety Pkg (50 lbs @ $4.60/lb)
15# of steaks (rib-eye, T-bone, sirloin, round, cubed, and/or others)
15# of roasts (rump, eye of round, arm, chuck, stew meat, and/or others)
20# of ground beef (1-lb packs, 90% lean)
half boxes (25-30 lbs) are allowed on deliveries

Will and I are looking to find 5 or 6 families who might want to split the cost and the mooing booty - even 25-30 lbs is a bit much for our little family :) Not to mention the freezer space required...

At $4.99/lb, My Rancher is a good choice for ground beef. Some of their other prices are a bit on the up side, but they offer more than I've explored, so they're worth a glance.

Probably the best overall prices for lamb, pork, or beef, is Burgundy Farm. Way cheaper than it is at the grocery store, leg-of-lamb for $6 a pound is just a plain good deal.

Slanker's Grass-fed Meats is also pretty reasonably priced, and they carry lots of other stuff, like cheese, eggs, and more - their eggs are from completely uncaged chickens (they currently aren't selling eggs actually, because they haven't found all their chickens' nest on their 80 acres) - their chickens are never fed by farmers, they graze on grass and grass-eating bugs.

Milk from grass- or grain-fed cows?

2008-10-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

There are two components to the discussion on cows' milk that should be considered:
1. Grass-fed cows versus grain-fed cows
2. Cows that are given milk-stimulating hormones and that are given antibiotics

In this post, we'll be discussing the first issue.

Most farms, and pretty much all large farms, feed the cattle grains, because it's cheaper and does little to inhibit milk production (as opposed to grass, which can interfere with the amounts of milk produced per cow) (1).

A study funded by the European Union took on this question, to determine whether there was a difference between the milk produced by cows with different diets. Not all that surprisingly, as cows' bodies were not designed to handle grains, it was discovered that cows which were fed grass produced milk that was significantly higher in many vitamins and antioxidants - up to 40% higher than the amounts found in the milk produced by grain-fed cows (2).
Not only did the study find that grass-fed-cow milk has more value than its cousin, it also determined that grain-fed-cow milk actually had a significantly higher level of toxins like pesticides, myotoxins, heavy metals, and toxicants (3).
An article in The Independent covered the study a year before it was published (4).

It's very important to note:

The term 'organic', even '100% organic', does not speak to whether a cow was fed grass or grains.
The terms 'free-range' and 'grass-fed' are not regulated, and do not necessarily imply that the milk you're buying is from cows that did not ever eat grain. The only way I know of currently to find out for sure is to call the company.

Community Supported Agriculture - CSAs

2008-10-30T11:58:00.001-07:00

I've been asked a lot lately about information on CSAs -
CSAs are Community Supported Agriculture Projects - meaning local farms want to make some weekly revenue, and they sell directly to individuals in the community. Of course, Will and I looked immediately for affordable organic-only produce. We currently spend over $20 a week on vegetables alone; the CSA we found is $13 per week for a bushel of organic veggies, comprised of around 8-12 different varieties; and we plan to split the cost and the booty with my parents, for a comparable (if not greater) amount of greenish produce for a third of what we were paying at the grocery for conventional produce..
Since the recent decline in the economy, CSAs have experienced something of a boom. Because of this, many farms are taking some time to expand production to support the growing demand. As such, expect a waiting period before you can sign up. Our waiting period is 2 months - there's an excellent CSA that we also looked at that has a 1-3 year waitlist. That won't work for us :)

Here is a link to community supported agriculture projects in Austin, TX.

Will and I have signed up our family on the waiting list for the Johnsons' family farm, 5 miles east of Austin, and we can pick up veggies a couple different times a week at various locations all over town. Check out their spread in Edible Austin here. Makes me want to start my own farm...

I love this idea, because we can go visit the farm and see whether or not they're living up to their 'organic' word, and we can volunteer whenever we want to participate in some healthy outdoor activity that contributes to lower taxes, better food policies, and better support for the environment!

Voting for Chuck

2008-10-29T08:46:00.001-07:00

I voted yesterday for Chuck Baldwin. My primary motivation for doing so, I must admit, was Ron Paul's endorsement of him. His economic policies are great, small govt = great, get out of the war (noninterventionalist) = great, prolife = perfect (boo to you bob barr!!), however...
I am slightly concerned. Ron Paul is really the best guy for the White House, no doubt about it, but he didn't want people voting for him because he wanted a unified vote for something other than the main to parties - which I totally respect. There's no way an independent party could possibly win this time around, but that's no reason not to vote how I believe - on principal alone, but also because if more of us vote how we believe, everyone else could see what a viable option a third-party is!
However, good ole Chucky will vote against gay marriage, and speaks against it; While I do agree that it's wrong, I don't believe it's the government's decision to mitigate between morally sound marriages and any other kind of marriage - I don't understand why the government gives rights to 'married' people at all, for that matter.
Also, I just read something about Baldwin that, while I don't have all the facts, seems retardedly absurd: He doesn't want women in the military. ?!?!! What in the hell? What am I missing people? If it's effective, that is, if they can be used to any avail, then why not put them in the war? We count them as adults, which means they can consent...

Other than those rather upsetting divergences from the doctrines of small government, though, Baldwin seems like a decent choice. Especially as someone who is really just representing the idea of liberty to people who are disenchanted with the old party lines.

How Can Anyone Afford to do Anything Safe?

2008-10-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

Food. Is. Expensive. Organic food - it's way the hell worse.
Will and Jack and I have just gone through the process of switching all our hygiene and cosmetic products to safer alternatives, and honestly that wasn't all that expensive. In fact, I'm certain it was less than what we paid to come by our toxic versions. But food, now that's another story.

Will and I have always eaten relatively healthily - stocking up on fresh, rather than frozen or canned foods, avoiding sweet drinks and too much alcohol, etc. Which is why our grocery bill has generally shocked most people at $500/month. I can't imagine less than that. Well, in the last month, we've spent 150% of that already - and that was trying to SCRIMP, buying only organic foods only from companies that I'd researched and whose claims had been supported. After balancing my bank statement last week, I have decided this is not going to fly. Here's what I've learned is out there:

CSAs. Probably the best option for anyone, a community supported agriculture project is where an individual or family purchases a share in a farm and receives weekly or monthly produce. In the Austin area, there a apparently tons of family farms, almost all of them organic, where you pay somewhere from $10-20 per week and receive something like a bushel of fresh, in-season vegetables. A bushel every week is way too much for my little family, so we will be splitting the spoils with my parents - along with the cost, which makes the cost for 1/2 bushel of veggies a week for my family only around $6.50. We pay way more than $6.50 just for our organic spinach. . . The CSA we've signed up for has like 6 pick-up points, so each week on a given day I can run by a super-convenient pick-up location after work and grab my bushel. Others deliver, and still others have you pick up your produce from the farm and work for a couple hours with them. A few farms have fruit CSAs as well, but Texas wasn't particularly designed for growing fruit, and the CSAs are pretty expensive for not very much fruit. There are better options for fruit to follow.
Co-ops. A co-op is basically a grocery store where customers can puchase part of the company in order to pay less for their groceries. They often carry a large percentage of local and organic varieties of foods. There isn't a very good way to rate the success of a particular co-op in other places, as they seem to vary greatly, but in Austin at least, I would highly recommend Wheatsville Co-op on Guadalupe at 31st street. I've only been 2 times, but both trips were for the express purpose of evaluating prices and quality. The price of organic fruit (including berries!) at Wheatsville was less than the price of conventionally grown equivalents at HEB! Also, bulk spices, including vanilla extract, were on average 1/2 the price I paid at HEB, and I had the added bonus at Wheatsville to bring my own glass container instead of using plastic (more ranting on that to come in future posts). There do seem to be some things not to buy at Wheatsville, such as any dairy product (expensive, not good anyway), cereal, veggies (CSAs are better deals), and hygenic solutions.
Farmers Markets? I've only been to the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market, and while I absolutely adore the atmosphere and fun, it is just a little on the expensive side. Nothing is cheaper than it is at the grocery store, at least as far as I can tell. I hear, however, that this isn't always the case, and I'll be venturing to others in the future. One thing I know for sure - I've bought eggs from cage-free grass-only-fed chickens for $3.50 a dozen at the FM, and I just paid $5 for the same thing at Whole Foods.
Mail Order: While I'm violating the haply-held "local-only" rule, mail ordering some unlikely items can mean a serious price reduction - and sometimes it's the only way to get a healthy option at all. Many meats can be mail-ordered, and I'm in the process of finding good examples of this. Currently all I've found is about $20/pound meat - and that's not the kind of meat I eat :) Lots of hygenic products are found (after thorough investigation at Skin Deep's Database!!) at www.drugstore.com - free shipping too. That's your biggest bugger, the shipping. I'm always on the lookout for excellent sites with good shipping deals.
Food a la You: While I can't do this at my apartment, my mother has offered to let me plant something of a garden in her back yard. Somehow I'm not thinking it'll be too much of a sacrifice on her part. . . I don't know a thing about gardening and I cringe a little at being 'that girl' who has a kid, grows her own food, and worries about chemicals in everything, but I love the idea of being self-sustainable. Not that a 6x6 plot of land could sustain anyone for more than a couple days.
Regular Grocery Stores: Although many organic items cannot be found in a conventional grocery store at all, other items can be far cheaper. Jack's diapers and wipes, our toilet paper, and paper plates are all cheaper for the exact brands we used to get at Whole Foods.

What does it all mean? Well, for our family it means that even with Will in school full time and working part time, and me at work full time, and a baby boy more than full time, we have to go to several different places to get reasonable prices. So far it's been worth it.

Resources for Makeup, Cleansers, and Hygenics

2008-10-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Completely accidentally, I stumbled upon Skin Deep's Cosmetic Database a few weeks ago (1). Apparently I'm really behind the times, as everyone seems to be aware of this already, but this has been my number one resource in finding out the facts about many of the ingredients in many of our household items, including shampoo, deodorant, makeup, toothpaste, and mouthwash (along with tons of other stuff).

There seem to be some errors here and there in the database - wrong ingredient list information, or pages that haven't been updated recently enough, but the real gem here is the research. Any time a product is viewed (or an ingredient), the ingredients are listed at the bottom along with findings from research studies. And that certainly wouldn't be all that great if they stopped there - they could say "linked to cancer" on every compound known to man, and it wouldn't mean a whole lot. But they don't stop there, they go two steps further:

They commonly include statements like "been shown to cause mutations in mammalian cells in extremely small doses" - which is helpful, because even I would know that gulping down 6 gallons of bleach would be harmful to my constitution and could probably guess that it would lead to some sort of cancer, somehow.

But the thing that really makes this site my favorite resource for cosmetics information is the links that they give to the peer-reviewed articles from which they derived their research. And to make everything even more delicious, they give the % uncertainty, or the level to which some compound is understood. Water is the safest compound out there, go figure. Something like Human Placenta, yes, you read that right, which is found in many hair products, is much more dangerous, and chemical fragrances (in just about every thing a person could possibly think of) are some of the most dangerous compounds we've got out there.

So go look something up that you try at home - Suave conditioner, Axe body spray, Neutrogena healthy (haha) skin. If it doesn't scare you, then you're ignoring something.

Frustrations

2008-10-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Try googling Organic Food and I dare you to find something useful. I have recently become fed up with the whole 'safe, organic, green' debate, and started looking to see if I could find a definitive answer. Unfortunately, companies and individuals and federal agencies make completely unsupported statements that completely contradict each other.

The National Dairy Council says that "In terms of quality, safety and nutrition, there’s no difference between organic and regular milk. Both contain the same combination of nutrients that make dairy foods an important part of a healthy diet". They also say that "Pesticides are not a health concern in any U.S. milk products". They add (among other things) that "The U.S. dairy industry tests all milk entering dairy plants to ensure that antibiotics are kept out of the milk supply" (1).

Some person on their blog says "As it turns out, antibiotics were never added to milk or were ever present in milk. According to the USDA, all milk must be tested to ensure any antibiotics used to treat milk cows are not present in the end product. So, this cannot be a claim as it fundamentally untrue anyway. In fact, the terms ‘antibiotic free’ and ‘no-antibiotic’ are false claims that the USDA is trying to crack down on (2)."

And yet, Organic Valley Family of Farms says "Much uncertainty remains regarding the safety of currently used pesticides. Studies have implicated many of these substances in numerous serious health disorders, ranging from premature births to behavioral disorders to cancers (3)."

Many websites and pediatricians claim that antibiotic use - whether it gets into milk or not - is highly dangerous as it promotes (and has caused, according to my local hospital, which I'll find a source for later) resistance (4). This is often claimed as common knowledge.

NC State University published an article saying that the only reason some antibiotics weren't found in some studies, is because they were only looking for penicillin and similar drugs - other tests have shown the presence of an array of other antibiotics.

And frew of them cite their sources, at least not in any reasonable way (a CNN article does not count as citing your sources). So which is right? I've found some good resources for some of these answers, but many remain entirely unexplored. To my great vexation, as I am rather prone to experience, the information (if it is present at all) is scattered to the far reaches of the internet universe. And it looks as though no one has been interested enough to collect it.