As if being a tween is not hard enough, scientists now call the years between 9 and 12 a time when girls are especially at risk of getting fat. Girls are more likely to become overweight in those preteen years than when they are teenagers, researchers report Monday in The Journal of Pediatrics. The study did not say why that was and did not examine boys to know whether they face a similar risk. ... Parents should pay attention to creeping waistlines and poor dietary habits, particularly in this age group, said Dr. Denise Simons-Mortonof the National Institutes of Health, which funded the research. ... "It should be cool to be physically active, and attractive," [Simons-Mortonof] said. full article

There you have it. Dr. Denise Simons-Mortonof believes it's vitally important that 9-12 year old girls be "attractive". Apparently she thinks that the drive to meet the media's demented beauty standards simply isn't pushed hard enough on these girls. Surely, with a little effort, the rates of anorexia and bulimia can be doubled.

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life. The game, slated for release by October 2006 in advance of the Christmas shopping rush, has been previewed at video game exhibitions, and reviewed by major newspapers and magazines. But until now, no fan or critic has pointed out the controversial game's connection to Mr. Warren or his dominionist agenda. ... According to Mr. Warren, the establishment of this earthly kingdom requires "foot soldiers." As part of his plan, Mr. Warren said he would encourage laypeople to "adopt" needy villages overseas in order to plant churches, expand business opportunities, educate children, influence governments, and overthrow corrupt political leaders, whom he described as "little Saddams." Mr. Warren said his purpose is to enlist "one billion foot soldiers for the Kingdom of God" in the developing world. And the stadium crowd roared its approval. Celebrants included Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, a tiny east African country that lost hundreds of thousands of people when it suffered genocide in 1994. Catholic and Protestant clergy have been convicted in connection with that genocide. Yet Mr. Kagame announced that he would allow Mr. Warren to turn his country into the first purpose driven nation. The following month, 16 Rwandan religious leaders arrived in Orange County to begin religious training at Saddleback Church. Mr. Warren has said that his global initiative was developed "underground" and in "stealth". Presumably, this was done with the assistance of Mr. Carver, who directs the Purpose Driven Church in all its activities outside North America. full article

I hear time and time again the Islam is the religion of violence. Islam is the religion that endangers the world. The only reason the fundamentalist Christians have not resorted to terrorism more then they have (and, yes there have been plenty of terrorist attacks by fundamentalist Christians) is that they often have access to more "acceptable" avenues to pursue their agenda, as carpet bombing civilian populations with white phosphorus is deemed more acceptable than a suicide attack. If fundamentalist Christians lose their political prestige you can expect a series of terrorist attacks from their ranks. "Last Days Crusade" would be a likely organizational name.

I'm not saying all Christian are violent, the same as not all Muslims are violent. What I am saying is that Christianity holds no moral high ground over Islam. Both have factions that want to kill all the infidels. Fundamentalism is the problem, not any particular religion.

I had a terrible time getting off antipsychotics, the withdrawals were so nasty it would have been helpful to be in a rehab clinic for them except rehab clinics don't take patients addicted to antipsychotics.

Sedatives like Ativan or Klonopin can very tempting when experiencing antipsychotic withdrawals, and patients prescribed antipsychotics are often prescribed sedatives as well. However, I found that more often than not sedatives led to a state where I was so tired I was barely able to move but still could not sleep because of the withdrawals. This state was much worse than going through the withdrawals without the sedatives.

I've seen far too many people fall into this sedative trap while withdrawing from antipsychotics and what often ends up happening is they take more and more sedatives until they actually do fall asleep. But by that time they've taken a lot more sedatives than they should have and someone ends up finding them and calling an ambulance. In the emergency room labeled an "attempted suicide", given charcoal, and sent off to a psych hospital where they are readministered antipsychotics. While they attempt to explain to the staff that suicide was not the motivation in taking the sedatives, their explanations are inevitably dismissed. Sometimes they are actually manipulated into thinking they must have meant to kill themselves even though they don't remember wanting to.

My particular battle was with Geodon, but this scenario can play out with users of virtually any antipsychotic drugs including Abilify, Risperdal, Zyprexa, and Seroquel. Breaking antipsychotic addiction is not easy, but being armed with knowledge can help tremendously.

purpleglitter, iamacliche, and I set off yesterday afternoon for the Arlington Town Day festivities. When we arrived at Arlington Center we could see no tables or booths or crowds of people. purpleglitter and iamacliche stayed behind as I scouted ahead to see if things were set up a bit further up the Mass Ave this year. But no, they weren't. A nice old lady informed us that Arlington Town Day had been postponed until next week because of the weather. That is very disappointing, because Cindy Sheehan was supposed to be at Town Day. I doubt she'll be there when it actually occurs next week.

After finding there was no town day, we all popped into the Chai Café for lunch. I had a Limca and chole kulcha with naan and bought some cheap microwavable Indian meals. I have yet to try them, but purpleglitter says they're delicious.

Back at purpleglitter's apartment, recoiling joined the three of us to make a four of us. We watched Monsters, Inc.. While I very much enjoyed the short film For The Birds that came before the movie on the tape, but the movie bothered me. They did have some innovative ideas and some parts would have been quite funny if I could have gotten my mind past the heavy-handed sexism and gender role enforcement. The Monsters, Inc. factory has only two female employees that appear in the film as opposed to countless male employees. Out of those two employees, one is the cute, ditzy, and braindead receptionist whom everyone loves, and the ugly, pushy, and hoarse-voiced filing clerk whom everyone hates. It was like watching a film from the fifties, only this was set in a bizarre form of modern times. And this crap is for the children of the 21^st century.

Patriarchy brainwashing please, extra sudsy.

I've noticed similar problems with rolls for women in a many of cgi movies. While other mediums are far from perfect, cgi movies are decades behind live action movies and even other forms of animation in terms of feminism. Granted, I haven't seen every full length cgi film there is, but I've seen enough to know that the problem is a very pervasive one in the industry, even though it is possible there is an exception or two that I have not seen. I guess these films are free from being politically advanced because they are technologically advanced.

My psychiatrist told me geodon didn't cause weight gain. However according to Pfizer's own prescribing information, it does. When she prescribed me 240mg a day of geodon, I questioned the high dose. She told me that it was a pretty standard dose now. But, again, Pfizer's prescribing information states "The safety of doses above 100mg BID [twice a day] has not been systematically evaluated in clinical trials.". Furthermore, when I complained about withdrawals from geodon when I'd miss a dose, she told me Geodon has no withdrawals. She told me that's how I am normally without Geodon. However from my own experience and the experiences of many many others I have now read about online, I know that is complete bullshit. Geodon has severe withdrawals. Here are enough horror stories to make your head spin. And that's only on small message board people are talking in. If I hadn't bought what my psychiatrist was saying, I would have been off of it a long time before I finally quit. I was truly afraid that the withdrawals were just my normal state of being. Furthermore, she insisted that I was wrong about 60mg of Celexa being a "high dose", she insisted that it was a small dose. Low and behold the prescribing information for Celexa not only lists the maximum dose as 60mg, but goes on to state "Although certain patients may require a dose of 60mg/day, the only study pertinent to dose response for effectiveness did not demonstrate an advantage for the 60mg/day dose over the 40mg/day dose; doses above 40mg are therefore not ordinarily recommended". Either my psychiatrist is a liar or an idiot. Either way I have no inclination to see her again. She can shove her meds up her ass.

they gave me an addictive drug
told me that it's not addictive
told me that the withdrawals were how i normally would feel without the drug
convinced me of this
i've tried to quit this damn drug for some time
but the withdrawals are so bad i end up taking it again
but this time i'm through with it
and i'm pissed the fuck off

i miss playing with the strobe light
i'm just not alone in the evenings anymore
and those i'm with don't like the strobe
maybe sometime soon i'll set aside an evening to run the strobe, smoke up, and write
set it to alpha
that's what i need to do
i get a nice acid effect that way
and not knowing where to get acid, it's the closest i seem to be able to come
i know
i know
i shouldn't be doing acid, or other hallucinogens
not with my mental health history
i should stay very far away from such things
but i feel a unsurpessable desire to try them
curiosity
curiosity is a dangerous thing
there are things i'm better off not knowing
but i'm still curious
i can't help it
it's in my nature

some asshole is flagging the free pet ads on craigslist
saying that it is unethical to not charge an adoption fee because satan worshipers may adopt the pet
they also stated that if someone who can't afford an adoption fee can't afford vet bills
what they are really arguing is poor people shouldn't have pets
i guess she feels it better for an animal to have no home (and probably end up euthanized) than to go to a poor one
grrrr.... snobbish little nere-do-wells
still living in the mindset that poor=immoral
this is 2004 for luna's sake
why are the conservatives in power
is this the last stand of the right
or are they going to grip the children
that is there hope
that's why school vouchers are so important to them
get the kids going to a school they can really brainwash them in
they know christian brainwashing academies are more likely to turn out dutiful mindless drones than public schools

my stream of consciousness posts can tangent very easily
they are also often self-referential
i guess that's it for now
good bye