Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Blue and Yellow and Purple Pills

I tend to avoid questioning people, at least those I'm not close to. I try to avoid shoving my views, my morality, down other people throats. However, there are days, and topics, that just piss me off.

It's irrational, I know, it doesn't make anything better, but some days I simply have to say what's in my head to stay sane. I hate pills. I frankly hate modern medicine.

I've been depressed, on and off for years. I've even been called "clinically depressed" whatever the hell that means. I'm still not sure. I've had anger issues, and I've most certainly got a temper. However, the one thing I've avoided, that holy grail of modern medicine, pills.

Sure, I'll take an Advil, and I've taken antibiotics, I'm not against curing disease, I'm against the all out crusade to "fix" everyone. No, your child does not have ADHD, your child is a normal kid who doesn't get enough exercise between school, and coming home to sit in front of the TV. No, your child is not autistic, and most likely doesn't have Asperger's either. You've just neglected to tell them it's not ok to act out in public, or you've ignored them to the point where they will do anything for attention, even negative attention.

Ok, you're depressed, that's great, stop taking pills, and go for a run. Get in shape, move, lift something heavy, put it down, rinse and repeat. If you can't sleep then make sure you're plenty tired, get up the same time every day, establish a rhythm, and stick to it.

It's not rocket science.

Now, let's be clear, I'm not saying there is never a call for a pill, or a medical treatment. However, there doesn't need to be a pill for everything. Something not right? I'd bet good money it's diet, or lifestyle that at the least aggravates the problem, and fixing that would fix whatever issue you're choking down pills to repress.

That's the big issue, in my mind. A pill doesn't fix, at least not usually, a pill represses, controls, manages. Pills don't fix. If you got fixed by a pill, then you wouldn't still need the pill, and that's bad for business. It's one of the reasons I don't ever think we will find a cure for cancer, or the common cold, or AIDS. Not for a lack of desire, but simply because treating is so much more profitable then curing.

Back to me. I've been having a bad time, depression, lack of motivation, the usual. Guess what? I got up, and dragged my ass to the gym, and I lifted heavy things, then went home. It took me roughly half an hour from changing into my shorts, to being back in my car. Now, a week and three workouts later, I feel much better, I'm sleeping better, I'm feeling better, and I'm eating better.

Guess what I'm not doing? I didn't take one single pill.

Monday, January 16, 2012

It's a "Holiday"

No, I don't have work off.

It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day. There's an image floating around, with a number of flesh-tone crayons, of all the usual colors, pink, cream, tan, brown, etc. with the caption "Not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character"

At first I thought it was a cute, if somewhat cliched picture. All the colors of human skin, represented by crayons, all with the title "flesh" as if to say we're all human. Which, I guess we are.

But as the picture kept popping up on my news feed, over and over, I realized that it bothered me. It wasn't the image that bothered me, it was the fact that the subtext at least in my mind was that we're all the same, and that if everybody would just get along everything would be just fine. That bothers me, because, if we look at the quote in it's entirety Martin Luther King Jr. stressed that people should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Emphasis mine.

Yet this image, that keeps being shared on Facebook gets it wrong. Nothing in the image mentions, or evokes a feeling of character. It simply mentions the color or skin, or crayon, in this metaphor. The issue is that we haven't yet gotten over the issue of color.

I've been called racist, and maybe I am. But I'm willing to look past color, creed, religion, orientation, and culture. I'm willing to see past the clothes, and the skin, and the materialistic trappings, if the character is there.

I don't care if you're black, white, or blue. I care that you're a decent human being and no spread of crayons with a cute caption is going to change the fact that if you're weak morally, if you lack the force of character, then nobody has anything to judge you on then the color of your skin.

Let's see if by next year at this time we can find an image macro for that.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Cookies

Now, I have a fairly liberal bent when it comes to people being left well enough alone. But I also feel, rather strongly, that people should generally be treated decently.

It was recently brought to my attention that a Girl Scout, I will hesitate to call her misguided, in California is looking to start a "Cookie Boycott" in response to a Colorado Girl Scout council, allowing one transgender youth into the program. The horror!

Huff Post does the article some justice here

Now, as I stated before, I like to see people generally being left well enough alone. If you're a council member, and you don't want your children to associate with any other member of the organization be it a question of race, color, sexual orientation, or shoe size, fine, you don't have to participate. That's your choice. The point being, you can chose your level of involvement. You don't get to determine anyone else's level of involvement. That's not right, and it's not fair.

As a rule the GSA (Girl Scouts of America) don't have a hard and fast rule on the inclusion of GLBT youth, or volunteers in the org. Fine, what they do have is a stated policy to not discriminate. Great! I'm not looking for a list of what you do, and don't allow, a simple statement that you keep an open mind is leaps and bounds ahead of other, less enlightened, scouting organizations.

The Boy Scouts have a codified policy of discrimination, both in terms of religion (no atheists) and sexual orientation, and I frankly don't support them, ever, in any way.

If my son, should I ever have one, were to show an interest in scouting I'd rather take him camping myself, then expose him to an organization that in 2012 feels that it's acceptable to codify discrimination.