It's a big mack. Get it?

One of the things I haven’t talked about on this blog is that I’m trying to lose weight. Technically, I’m on a diet; what I’m really trying to do is change the way I eat. It’s harder than it seems. Part of this means that when I’m out with friends and they want to go to McDonalds, I need to find something on that menu…

So: last night I ordered a hamburger, medium fries and a medium drink (Total calories: ~680). The woman then suggested I could get a McDouble Meal for less money (total Calories: 770). I said that no, I’d prefer just the regular burger. Oh! Perhaps I mean the 2 cheeseburger? (Total Calories: ~1000).

The weirdest part of the experience is this: the woman taking my order was trying her hardest to give me a positive experience. What I wanted to do was more costly— and less filling– than what she wanted me to do.

This is the result of a bizarre food scheme we have where consumers are looking to maximize not their health, but rather their total caloric intake– for the least amount of money. The net result is that we get fatter. Not only that: because its the poorest of us who are unable to afford healthier food, fat becomes a class issue. Fun times all around.

Thing is, everyone I’ve talked with about this does the same.

Now, take this confusion and multiply it by everything on your grocery list. Think of all the healthy eating fads America has seen come and go. Eat carbs, don’t eat carbs, drink wine, eat only grapefruit… These are the basic tools by which Americans transmit information about product choices. That’s a lot of information, and most of it is either bad or misinformed or half transmitted. But researching every item that goes into your grocery basket is time consuming and boring. The FDA would yank anything harmful from the shelves, so the hippocratic oath we make to ourselves won’t be violated.

I can’t even imagine researching the factory of every product I put into my body, and then suing if the company is lying about what they’re producing. It sounds like a boring sort of job I’m more than willing to pay someone else to do.

There is a political philosophy that holds life I’ve just described as the highest, freest, ideal. They have a child-like belief that the market’s ability to perfectly transmit information is so stupendous that simply by lifting all government oversight, producers wouldn’t dare lie to, cheat, or steal from their customers. After all– Firestone tires was destroyed after they (knowingly!) killed scores of people. They certainly didn’t change their name and move on.

Of course– of course!– government oversight isn’t perfect. Regulatory capture happens, sometimes government regulators simply aren’t up to doing their jobs, etc. That’s why we have other forms of protection, like the aforementioned lawsuits. Libertarianism is the only political philosophy I’ve ever heard of to agree with Hobbes that life is “Nasty, Brutish, and Short”, but then turn around and say that we should keep fighting anyway. Cooperation for mutual benefit is a sucker’s game.

Happy birthday, baby.

It was a simple note laid under some flowers at the AIDS memorial. Here, in one of the most beautiful places in the Golden Gate park, laid a simple reminder of those left behind after an AIDS victim dies. His partner, or parent, or friend. Someone who misses him on his birthday, who celebrates the times they had together, after a life is taken.

AIDS is a preventable disease, but once you have it, you’ll find yourself in a slow spiral that ends your life earlier. There are other diseases like this. And suicide is one of them.

I am an avid reader of Post Secret. Mostly, because I hope to find my secrets among the ones posted. I have never sent in a postcard, but that doesn’t keep me from hoping.

Post Secret helps to support 1-800-SUICIDE, a non-profit hotline that takes calls from suicidal people. It is not government-run, which is very important. Government-run suicide organizations bring in the police, and other non-sensitive personnel, while this organization provides confidential crisis counseling that is more appropriate for the situation.

1-800-SUICIDE needs to pay a very large phone bill. The federal government, frustrated by their inability to take over the non-profit organization, has charged 1-800-SUICIDE with a huge fee to keep their phone number and use a different phone service. You can see a video here explaining the situation in more detail.

“July 19, 2008: Celebrating 3 years since I didn’t kill myself”.  Suicide is preventable.  And you can help prevent it.

Every 84 seconds someone calls the hotline. If you are so inspired, you can donate to the organization here. They are an amazing organization, and it’s important they can continue to exist.

The thing about healthcare is that there are many, many ways of doing it. Ours is about the worst. I mean, maybe not the worst possible, but certainly the worst we’re likely to see and still have a whole ton of very competent doctors. (In order to get worse, you pretty much have to be Cuba.)

How do we improve? Well, you’d want minimum care standards. And a dedicated funding stream. The idea is that it should be paid for by the government so that it’s not paid for by an employer– and so that you don’t lose care if you lose your job. After all, in this country, cancer is the number on cause of bankruptcy.

What would make the system perfect? Well, I’m not wild about the idea of the government running the health care system– I do like the idea of private actors competing for customers. Ezra Klein has more: part 1, part 2, and part 3

Maniakes: I’d love to get your take on this…

Before today, the President reserved to himself the right to declare an individual an “Enemy Combatant”, and for those classes of people, he opined that they could be held– forever– without charges being filed.

The court today held that a plain reading of “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” means that Congress must find that either a state is seceding, or has been invaded, or else Habeas Corpus cannot be suspended.

Let’s be clear: if we think someone is a terrorist, we can still hold them long enough to put them on trial, and if they are convicted we can treat them– fairly harshly under military law. If they’re innocent, however, we’ll let them go.

It’s only just.

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This summer, to decide whether I should really take the extra time and effort to be pre-med, I am volunteering at the hospital. My first couple of weeks have been particularly surreal. From the initiation, where I talked to a fellow who spoke ill of the hospital we were volunteering for and explained that they stick the volunteers in a closet to file papers, to the next week where I was hiding in the corner of a big white room filled with a few doctors and a whole hell of a lot of nurses praying that I don’t faint at the sight of blood.

To say the least, I wasn’t filing papers. Though, I didn’t see much. I could see a bit of skull sticking out of his head, and contusions on his face. I could definitely hear him screaming expletives as the nurses pulled his mangled body into a recognizable human position. I told myself I could hide behind the curtain if I got too scared and felt like I was going to faint, but I didn’t.

I do believe that it is necessary to look straight into the horrors of life in order to become a better person. Whether or not I want to be a doctor, I keep telling myself, it is a good experience to have.

I was late getting home. I rode home on my bicycle, shaky, but alert, and sat down in my chair to play some World of Warcraft.

The first thing I thought was that it was ironic that I decided to play a video game to escape violence and fear of death, but honestly I couldn’t find anything more fitting. In World of Warcraft, you are in a world which is free of death (at least death is very temporary, and as such not really death), and even pain is a bandage away from perfect health. As many kodos might barrel over my tiny, undead body, I am never smushed or hurt. I never end up in a level 1 trauma center.

Granted, Grand Theft Auto, or (lest I sound old) Carmageddon *might* have been a little more harrowing (yes, said trauma described above was a car accident), but the idea is the same. Video games are not about death and violence, because there isn’t any, really. And while I might be completely not accustomed to pain and death in real life, I am plenty desensitized to video game violence.

I really wonder what the video-game-playing members of the US Armed Forces think about all of this, especially since the horror of medicine is nothing compared to the horror of war.