Gun control, pt 2

So, I've generally believed that the USA's problem with gun murder was that our society encouraged violence too much, not that we just needed less guns. However, I may have to reconsider.

We have far more (privately owned) guns per person than any other country IN THE WORLD...almost twice as many! See these stats from the Washington Post:



And see what Vox.com thinks: "...once you control for general crime rates and other confounding factors like poverty, "each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership translated to a 0.9 percent increase in homicides."

I know how to fire a handgun and I've practiced at a shooting range. I like having this ability. But, I don't carry a gun around in my daily life. Given all the shootings that have happened recently in our country, I think we need to change something. In the past week, I've heard of THREE shootings:

1) The Planned Parenthood terrorist attack (details)

2) A married couple shot social workers in San Bernadino, CA. (details)

3) Local hate crime in my city of Pittsburgh, PA. (details)

These people shouldn't have easy access to guns...there's got to be some kind of better screening process. And I guess 3 shootings in a week isn't even rare, since the USA currently has 1/day on average.

A Protest that Actually Helped People

Last January, low-income residents of San Francisco were REALLY MAD at the Google buses using their bus stops. Why? They viewed these buses as symbols of gentrification and displacement in a city where the rapid growth of the tech sector has driven up their rent. And Google wasn't paying anyone  anything to use the bus stops, but they were getting in the way of their regular buses, causing delays and overcrowding at the bus stops.  Imagine, seeing your own public transit cutback due to budget cuts, while some dude in a suit takes your spot in the bus shelter to wait for his fancy-pants Google shuttle that you can't even ride.

So, angry protestors began blocking the tech company's buses from leaving the stops. Google employees got so disturbed, some of them even called this a hate crime.

But, these protests actually produced a REAL BENEFIT:

On January 21, 2014, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (also known as MUNI)  imposed a fee of $1 per day for each public stop used by a private company. This fee was expected to raise $1.5 million a year and was the largest the agency could impose without a vote from San Francisco residents! Then in February, Google donated $6.8 million to the transit agency to provide free public transit for low-income children in San Francisco.

It's interesting that both the local government and Google here were influenced by the protestors, unlike other protests we've seen in the past, who get ignored or even fined.

UPDATE: All men have AIDS

UPitt warns us that any man you sleep with could have HIV--not just men who've slept with other

men!  In fact, bisexual men are no more likely to give HIV to their girlfriends than heterosexual men are, despite all the public hoopla regarding MSM (Men Sleeping With Men, this "handy" term coined by the CDC).

"The number of HIV positive men who have sex with both men and women is likely no higher than the number of HIV positive heterosexual men, according to a U.S.-based analysis by University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health researchers. The finding challenges a popular assumption that bisexual men are responsible for significant HIV transmission to their female partners."

"The analysis also estimates that there are approximately 1.2 million bisexual men in the U.S., of whom 121,800 are HIV-positive. That estimate aligns with CDC estimates for HIV infection in male heterosexuals and intravenous drug users."

(more from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health)

> So, yes. Maybe now we can end this harmful stereotype that queer men give everyone AIDS, and stop wasting blood donations...?

"“The HIV infection risk that bisexual men pose to their female partners has likely been overstated,” said Dr. Friedman. “However, that doesn’t mean that HIV-prevention campaigns targeting bisexual men and their male and female partners aren’t needed. HIV does exist in the bisexual community, and national, bisexual-specific data collection, research, and HIV prevention and care delivery are necessary to ameliorate this population’s HIV burden.”"

> Really? Why do we need targeted campaigns if all men who sleep with women are equally likely to have HIV?? Did I miss something??  It's not like reminding women that a subset of men are likely to have HIV with these "targeted campaigns" is especially stigmatizing, or anything...

For suggesting than we need HIV-prevention campaigns that "target" bisexual men, when we ALREADY HAVE THOSE, instead of suggesting that we need HIV-prevention campaigns that target straight men and their partners, you win a GOLD STAR AWARD, Dr. Mackey R. Friedman from the Pittsburgh School of Public Health.

How the USA Shutdown Effects Food Safety

Warning! You will probably need to check your groceries extra-carefully before purchasing and eating for the next month or so.  And forget about eating in restaurants where you can't see the rare food before they cook it.  Since the FDA shutdown, no one is checking imported food, to turn away the "filthy, putrid, or decomposed substances" in food imports that normally get rejected hundreds of times per month!

The situation is "pretty bleak for consumers, most of whom aren’t in the habit of asking questions about where their food comes from and don’t realize that they might suddenly need to start self-regulating their groceries when the government stops doing it for them."

Normally, only 1% of incoming food is inspected (at random) but that check means any importer risks losing product if they send something unacceptable.  Now that news of our shutdown has had plenty of time to spread around the globe, I can only imagine how food exporters are responding.

Safety Tips:

• avoid imported seafood, leafy greens, tomatoes, and cantaloupe, as these are the most likely to be contaminated. 
• Thinking of eating local produce instead ? Check this guide out: 

• And DON'T read THIS, unless you want to hear about even more nightmarish USA food problems. 
• And look out for the Food Safety Modernization Act, which will impose more proactive food safety checks for imported foods. This will start in November, if our government can get its act back together.

Healthcare Update

ACTUAL Liberal Propaganda: "Huge profits and the high administrative and marketing costs associated with a for-profit health insurance industry (31 cents out of every dollar!!!) make privatized health care in the U.S. the most expensive health care system in the world."

From OccuCards.com, a "non-profit" making educational materials to support the Occupy Movement.

And they even have a SOLUTION: "A solution to this problem is a universal health care system that eliminates the private insurance industry entirely (often referred to as a “single-payer” system). “By replacing the private insurers with a streamlined system of public financing,” writes PNHP, “our nation could save $400 billion annually in unnecessary, wasteful administrative costs. That’s enough to cover all the uninsured and to upgrade everyone else’s coverage without having to increase overall U.S. health spending.” Single-payer health care is supported by over 60% of the American people—including a majority of physicians—yet President Obama and the congressional leadership are silent on the issue, and the corporate media ignores or ridicules single-payer advocates."

Still not sure? "The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not provide universal health care for all of its citizens. Despite this, Americans pay on average twice as much for health care ($7,129 per capita annually) as do citizens of other industrialized nations, and tax-financed health spending is higher in the U.S. than any other country."

So, not only would it be cheaper on a personal level to get healthcare if we had single-payer, we'd also save on taxes.  What's to lose by switching?  Only tons and tons of paid lobbyists and for-profit business leaders would lose their income...and that's nothing to sneeze at.  Especially when you can't afford to get that sneeze checked out by a doctor!

Daylight Slavings Time

Do you hate waking up in the dark even when the days start getting longer, or do you just dread that lost Sunday hour when you're forced to turn your clocks forward every year? Either way, you'll probably appreciate these facts about Daylight Savings Time:

1. The Germans in World War I were the first to use Daylight Savings Time. Pushing daylight hours forward meant more hours that working troops didn't need lights, so the army saved on energy costs. After Germany enacted it, Britain and other European nations quickly followed suit.

2. Car accidents and heart attacks increase the Monday after DST goes into effect. Scientists explain that "the sleep deprivation on the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time in the spring results in a small increase in fatal accidents."

3. Even though DST is supposed to save energy, it no longer seems to do so. A 2008 paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the time switch actually increases electricity usage. "Consistent with Benjamin Franklin's original conjecture, DST is found to save on electricity used for illumination, but there are increases in electricity used for heating and cooling."

4. So if it doesn't actually save energy, why do it? Daylight savings supports capitalism. Longer light in the evening hours encourages people to shop and spend money after work, and was estimated to boost the European leisure economy by as much as 3%.

5.  A better alternative might be permanent DST, increasing daylight hours without causing heart attacks and car crashes...Check out this radical proposal and write your senators if you like it.

Until then, you can blame German soldiers and capitalism for messing with your clocks. And in case you still doubted that imperialist capitalist powers were the main force behind DST, check out this map of who's using it today:

Fish Fraud

Fish is commonly mislabeled in the USA, sometimes more than 50% of the time!

Fish is mislabeled so that unhealthy fish sells as healthier types...or threatened fish species are sold under the name of a sustainable fish species.  This means people trying to make purchasing choices based on their health or environmental concerns are not able to make accurate choices and fish sellers are profiting from trickery.

A group of 500 professional chefs has petitioned the federal government to enact stricter labeling rules so that they can actually buy the fish that they want.  Apparently the free market needs a bit of regulation;  consumer choice kinda fails to regulate things when people can't make accurate choices!  Remember this, the next time someone tells you that government regulation hurts the "free" market.

These results were found by Oceana, an international ocean advocacy group, who tested fish in stores and restauraunts across the nation from 2010 to 2012.

Health Benefits of Protesting

I haven't been writing much here lately, but I have been visiting and helping out with the Occupy movement in Pittsburgh, PA. It's come a LONG way since the first week when the NYC protesters were being ignored by mainstream media.

Last month, while I was working at Occupy Pittsburgh, a reporter asked me about my views on the protest as a health psychologist. "Do you think it's healthy for these people to be protesting, out here in the cold weather?" she asked. I was pretty amazed by this question, since I have never been consulted as a scientist at a political event before. Well, not since my work on climate change anyway; this was the first time I've been consulted as a psycho-physiologist.

So, do I think it's healthy for the occupiers to be protesting out in the cold? There's a lot of levels to this question, but I would answer yes on most counts:

1. Socially: Protesters are angry about our government, and the protests give them a public forum to express that discontent. It's very important to be able to express anger in a constructive fashion, otherwise it can raise blood pressure, contribute to negative emotions and cause chronic stress. So yes, it's much healthier emotionally for the protestors to do their thing. Just think, if you could make signs and march around with a group of people shouting about what most upsets you in life, wouldn't you feel better?

2. Biologically: Protestors "out there in the cold" usually take care to prepare for the weather. Medic tents at most Occupy sites distribute blankets and warm clothes as needed, and can protect against other health crises that come up. If you wear warm clothes and stay active, being in cold weather is actually good for you. It raises your energy levels and the fresh air is good for your mood as well. A researcher who used to work in my office at Pittsburgh (Jeanette Garcia), actually reported that fresh air gives people "increased mental clarity, helps strengthen the immune system and helps your body establish its circadian rhythm," along with increasing metabolism, and being good for your skin!

Back in October, I would have said protesting was healthy for the mind and body of the Occupiers. But now, given the police brutality doled out with pepper-spray, evictions and tear-gases, I would say the protesters are taking a health risk. Not all the Occupy sites have experienced such a violent response; but Oakland, Seattle and NYC have reported the worst, and it looks like the trend may continue to spread. So overall, peaceful protesting is a healthy way to express your opinion, until the police attack protestors.

Tanorexia and Tanning: It's Bad!

Tanning releases opiods, the same addictive chemicals in morphine and heroin. Frequent tanners experience withdrawl when they don't get these opioids, just like drug users!
Most tanners report mood enhancement, relaxation and socialization while soaking up the sun. But tanorexics become very competitive about tanning, and may actually hate their skin and view it as untolerably pale, in the same way anorexics view themselves as hatefully fat even when they're starving. Tanorexics experience the most serious withdrawl symptoms, which include intense anxiety, nausea, and jitters. Since UV light from the sun and tanning beds creates a feeling of euphoria in the brain, it's also likely tanners feel depressed when they are removed from their lights for too long.

Since any tan at all is evidence of sun damage, and tanners continue to ignore medical risks, this has led many dermatologists to push that UV light tanning addiction be recognized as a substance abuse disorder. And just like any substance abuse order, we already have celebrity posterchildren. Wikipedia says "notable figures known to have suffered from tanorexia are Christine Swanson, Jordan Cohen, the British celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal and the cast of the MTV reality show Jersey Shore."

Bridalplasty Wins A Gold Star

America, the land of opportunity, freedom and...free plastic surgery? Well, only if you defeat your rival brides-to-be on public TV! Keeping the same body you got engaged with is for losers! For teaching us this, the show Bridalplasty wins a Gold Star straight from my heart.

Bridalplasty also wins because it encourages women to run with syringes and uses the phrase "injectable party!" That sounds fun for all the wrong reasons.

Major Kudos to Modern Lady for effectively mocking this show. I can't give any better feedback than what she says here:


Cosmetic surgery compared to an angel's voice? Great, now I have to worry about this movie becoming a reality, too.

Eating Meat Makes you Smarter (Kinda)

The next time someone tells you you shouldn't eat meat, tell them you're just protecting your brain.

NPR writes that when ancient people began eating meat, the calorie rich food allowed their brains to grow bigger while letting their stomachs grow smaller. The need to develop tools to hunt and butcher meat also caused our brain to grow smarter.

Cooking our food saves the most time of all. Raw meat could take as much as 6 times longer to chew and digest. (Cooking vegetables also makes more calories available and digestion easier.) Our brain requires constant calories to run and it can only use food that has been completely digested into pure glucose. So, having a rich source of calories that can be digested quickly is beneficial to our brain.

This means that humans became the great thinkers they are today by cooking and eating MEAT. Which means, if we had never eaten other animals, we probably wouldn't have the time nor mental capacity to protest moral wrongs like...eating animals?

Hah, try hitting a vegetarian with that paradox.

Warning: Eating a moderate amount of meat keeps your brain functioning at top capacity. Eating huge amounts of meat will not actually make you smarter and only runs the risk of making you look like THIS GUY --->

Alli, Weight Loss via Suffering

I normally hate watching TV and last night I was reminded why. The worst of consumer culture swarmed the airwaves around 12am in a cacophony of diet commercials. I was surprised to see one for the diet pill Alli because I heard it was removed from the market due to bad side affects, so I Googled it and the results were acutely disturbing:

Alli is still on the market but it causes you to loose weight in a punishing way; if you eat fatty foods your anal sphincter becomes useless. Yes, you will poo your pants and it will be greasy, noisy and possibly explosive. And even if you stick to a diet plan, there is a period of adjustment where you will experience "treatment effects" including

» Gas with an oily anal discharge
» Loose stools or diarrhea
» More-frequent bowel movements
» Hard-to-control bowel movements

I'm not exaggerating, this list is quoted directly from the Alli review at mayoclinic.com . The reason Alli produces such awful effects is that it works by preventing your body from absorbing part of the fat you consume, so that fat just zooms through your body as oily sludge instead. The less calories from fat you consume, the less painful your "treatment effects" will be.

And how much weight can you expect to lose while on Alli? It only works when combined with a restricted diet and exercise plan, and the website says it will not cause any weight loss on its own, merely increase the effectiveness of your diet plan by 50%. So if your own, non-diaper demanding diet plan would net you 10 pounds lost, Alli will make that 15.

How could this possibly be worth it?

Bacon Flavor: for Adults Only

You might have heard how America has an obesity epidemic, and how restaurants adding bacon to everything is only one of the ways the problem is getting worse. Apparently even bacon-flavor is dangerous now, as schools ban junk food like bacon-flavored potato chips.

Tsk tsk, children. You can't eat bacon-flavored junk food instead of your healthy lunch! You'll have to wait until you're 21, and then you can indulge in hedonistic delicacies like this bacon-flavored Vodka.