Sanjay Gupta: ‘I Was Wrong On Pot, Sorry America’ Sunday Documentary on CNN

Finally. Some intelligent reporting on a controversial topic. Sunday night on CNN Dr. Sanjay Gupta's documentary "Weed: Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports" will offer what Erin Burnett on her CNN show said is, "amazing". It airs at 5PM Pacific Time on CNN.

Dr. Gupta says we have been duped by the government (no surprise there to many of us). His words as Erin Burnett quoted him on her show today while he listened and smiled, were:

"I think the government is reprehensible for not allowing pot."

He also said he has apologized for his previous held belief that pot was bad and that it should not be a "Schedule One" illegal drug as it has truly stupidly been for decades, along with, Heroin? I still shake my head at that one. It just made no sense. That was in part the beginning of my realizing how out of touch with reality our government was, or could be. I was disillusioned. I was a lot younger back then. But I still believe it. Nice to have corroboration, though. Finally.

There are two things I'd like to mention right up front. I've been saying for many, many years that minors shouldn't smoke pot. It's been reported in the documentary that your brain is still growing until you are around twenty-four years old. I've been saying I would like to see kids not use pot until they were at least twenty-one to twenty-five, so I was right in the ball park. The other issue is strength of weed. In the 60s it was aournd 1%. Now it is typically around 13% and there have been recorded instances of it at as high as 39% which is around a dangerous level, certainly with someone unused to that level of THC. I have been concerned about these high levels for some years now. So it's necessary for people to have regulations so they know what levels they are getting.

THC and CBD are the two primary components of pot that are of importance. The THC gets you high. The CBD supplies the body stone effect that can be important for patients with various diseases. So they are now growing high CBD levels and low THC levels. And they are seeing very good effects from this. It's starting to look like you would want to have a balance of these two components depending on what effect you are looking for, and not just the THC.

"The Controlled Substances Act provides a process for rescheduling controlled substances by petitioning the Drug Enforcement Administration. The first petition under this process was filed in 1972 to allow cannabis to be legally prescribed by physicians. The petition was ultimately denied after 22 years of court challenges, although a pill form of cannabis' psychoactive ingredient, THC, was rescheduled in 1985 to allow prescription under schedule II. In 1999 it was again rescheduled to allow prescription under schedule III. A second petition, based on claims related to clinical studies, was denied in 2001. The most recent rescheduling petition was filed by medical cannabis advocates in 2002, but was denied by the DEA in July 2011. Subsequently, medical cannabis advocacy group Americans for Safe Access filed an appeal in January 2012 with the D.C. Circuit, which was heard on October 16, 2012. As of August 2013, 20 states and Washington D.C. have legalized the use of medical marijuana." - Wikipedia

The Doctor said that all these thousands of research reports you hear about that say how bad pot is, had studied how it is bad. I could probably come up with a pretty good report on how bad penicillin is, for that matter.  But those reports did not look into just how much good it can do. He has also pointed out that the withdrawal from quitting long term excessive use of alcohol can and does kill people. Obviously, the same for Schedule One drugs like heroin.

But the worst you get off of quitting pot is maybe irritable for a few days at most. As for addictiveness, pot is as addictive as your personality will allow. It's "psychologically addictive", not "physically addictive" and anyone telling you otherwise is not only incorrectly informed (or a liar), they are fear-mongering. Psychologically addictive means that you have to believe you are addicted, but you are not "really" (physically, medically) addicted. Many heroin addicts would kill for that situation with their own addiction.

Regarding pot making people "stoners", a humorous euphemism for people who get high on pot, generally do nothing and are, according to popular films, complete idiots, albeit funny and endearing ones for the most part. That alone should also tell you something about pot. How are heroin, cocaine and alcohol addicts portrayed in popular media?

When I think of how things are going with pot now a days (finally) and how many have suffered beyond prison terms up to the ultimate sacrifice of being killed by police... for mere possession(!), I can only shake my head in dismay. I don't so much blame police who are just doing their jobs, though they could be intelligent and a little less aggressive sometimes, but I do blame the government and the medical arm of that government who should have stopped worrying about their jobs and performed their function and the truth sayers of the nation. When popular crap is the Zeitgeist we need someone (science? medicine?) to lead the way with fact and not politics and conjecture.

Then there is the numbers of deaths due to drug cartel actions, which are nearly uncountable. The south of the border drug cartels now, as it has been reported, are very unhappy about pot getting legalized in the US. Another nail in the coffin of not legalizing pot.

And consider the cost. Check this out:

This is How Much Marijuana Prohibition Costs You, the Taxpayer

Even if you don't know much about pot, you should know it is just not in the same category as heroin.

Do I think heroin should be legalized? Well, I know it's dangerous, but I just don't know. Maybe. But it worries me. It worries me because, if you overdose "reasonably" on heroin, you die. It's that simple. If you overdose "reasonably" on pot, you don't even get close to dying (we're talking adults, of course all drugs should be kept from children). So what's reasonable? An amount the size of which is easy to accidentally take with the ability to stop in order to back off to achieve a safer level, before dying. Cocaine is like that too, dangerous. But nothing like heroin and pot is nothing like cocaine. Alcohol is.

So why is pot illegal and alcohol isn't? Because alcohol has a much bigger group of fans and it can literally be made almost anywhere from a large variety of things. With pot, you need at very least a seed from which to grow it from. And then there is that proven issue of Prohibition and how that went south so quickly. Consider that sixty-seven percent of U.S. adults drink alcohol according to Gallup. But in 2011, there were 18.1 million current (past-month) users—about 7.0 percent of people aged 12 or older according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) as conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Consider too that the so called and poorly named,"War on Drugs" or simply "The Drug War" was started by one of, if not the most corrupt President in the history of the United States: Richard Nixon. He set up a commission to study the drug issue coming out of the 1960s free love and drug culture. But when he was told they had decided it wasn't as bad as thought, and actually suggested solutions diametrically opposed to what Nixon wanted with his anti-crime platform, he went against his own commission's conclusions and began to wage a war on the America people. He had already broken many laws to maintain his regime. This was merely a natural and understandable extension of that. His paranoia had finally turned itself from only being against his political enemies to the entire American public in general.

It was later supported and reinforced in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan at a time when "crack" cocaine was first coming onto the scene. A drug that had been used in that way for some time by the rich and famous, once crack was put into the hands of people as a cheap and easily attained street drug by those of lower income, it started scaring people. Crack was an addictive and crime associated street drug and rightly should be targeted. But not as a war because a war quickly turns into actions against citizens rather than actions against dangerous drugs. It became a rallying point; not crack, but the "War on Drugs". As a more widely used illegal drug pot then became, as it had been for years, the rallying point in the "War on Drugs". It was just easier to go after, more available, not to mention pot users are less dangerous than crack users. It was a soft target.

Over the years, pot has gained a status in governments like religion. Hands off. Don't think. Just keep it at a distance and do nothing other than victimize its users. Why? Because it's the kind of drug when taken that let's you sit back, relax, but actually see your life, your world, if not as it is, then in a way different than what the current regime is pushing on its citizens. Sound funny? Not really. There have been many countries who feared it in large part for that reason alone. They don't want their people thinking too much. Alcohol also helps you relax, is legal and easily available. But it numbs you out and makes you stupid and at times, aggressive. Pot simply doesn't in its normal dosage levels for entertainment purposes. Instead it leads one to thinking outside the box. And that is anathema especially to dictatorial leaders, fascist regimes and right wing ruled governments and administrations.

Yes there are many other issues involved here and I could certainly give you a long list of the politics and history of pot, but really here I only wanted to let you know about the documentary on Sunday (8/11/2013).

Check it out. It sounds like it just might be worth watching. Perhaps finally we are getting the right information to the right people. Everyone.

Land of Free Speech?

A while back there was an attempt to keep a Miss America contestant to shut up about her Pro-Life views.

I can see avoiding politicizing the pageant. 

But then if it's historically been allowed, why stop now? Times do change however and things are pretty weird right now. I'm kind of on the fence on this one, though. But if I had to make a decision right now about it, I'd say let her speak. 

You know, Miss America? Free, America? American Free Speech? 

Does Trump own this now? Wouldn't he be on her side on this? Curious what the deal is behind the scenes on this thing though. Basically I'm overall of a Pro-Life nature, but that issue has been subverted to mean making abortion illegal. It's proBaby, not proWoman. Which sounds great at first, until you dig into it. And frankly, the woman is here now and kind of has precedence over the rights of her body. It's been that way since, well, before written history.

There is a reason abortion was originally made legal and people forget about that back alley situation. This is really about a woman's body first and foremost, and ignorant old white men (mostly from the South) need to shut the hell up about it. I think it is dangerous to start dictating to people what their rights are inside their body on their side of their skin. like with suicide. It's illegal? Really? Isn't that about the stupid thing ever? IF you have rights over anything in this world, in life, it's when you want to die, you can die. Why are we continuing to fight battles we shouldn't even be involved in?

Here's another one, the drug war needs to stop. Everyone knows it, we just need to do it. 

Sane and informed suicide is a personal choice, like drugs (especially ones that are less harmful than legal drugs like alcohol), and abortion. If the rest of your life is going to be nothing but pain, it should be your option to speed up the end. 

Pregnancy is a very unique, special and personal issue that others shouldn't be allowed to dictate about. We have many other options for people, for Pro-Lifers, to get their way and from what I'm seeing, it's working and trending toward Pro-Life. But it takes time, generations even for these things to happen. Even then, abortion should be legal. I think people who are against abortion really don't think it out. Sure they think about it, but not all aspects of it. They just lecture others that they haven't thought about all aspects of it.

Sorry if these pro-lifer people can't have their way right now (foot stamp). But we need to hang on to what America stands for. We've already lost enough recently. 

Getting back to the original thought, that was a pretty weird case with Miss America. If we can't stay out of women's bodies, if we're going to continually tell women what to do with their own bodies, what is the harm in their speaking their mind in a public forum? I think then it becomes even more important. Transparency is a good thing. Talking, is a good thing. Using your mind and critical thinking, is a good thing. 

Then again, maybe we should go back to a time when women do what they are told, who have to possibly die to get an abortion, who will go to jail for smoking some Cannabis, and who could also go to jail for wanting to commit suicide. 

Look, it's up to you. It's up to all of us. It's up to people speaking out against those who want control over the life and dreams of others. It's up to the voters. But not just voters, it's up to just people.

I think it will happen. Those who want control over more than just their own twisted views will eventually fade away and be replaced by a younger group of people who actually can think clearly, have a sense of freedom and fair play, and will refuse to put up with the insanity that is today, our national Zeitgeist.

I just hope I live to see it.

Evil in the Writings of JZ Murdock

Evil. You know what it is, we all do. Right? Everyone knows. It's...bad people, doing bad things. Or, it's an evil beast, or a supernatural force. Or something. Right? But, just what is, evil? Is it Pol Pot? Saddam Hussein? Bin Laden? Your neighbor? Your brother or your sister?

I wrote Death of Heaven with the intent I've had since I started writing. To bring surprise and affect to the reader. To effect and infect them with a shudder, a scare, a roller coaster ride. But also to write in a way that is an event that includes a journey and not just a destination. Apparently, according to this review, I may have succeeded. But that's not really why we're here.

Death of Heaven was my attempt to give readers another way to view the World as well as our History as a whole, in a completely new and before unconsidered way. In my first book, a collection of my short stories called, Anthology of Evil, my orientation was to exhibit evil in ways other than what we see evil personified as now a days; and to make it interesting. Mostly anymore we see simple slash and gash stories, especially in the cinema. Albeit perhaps a little more complex than in years previous.

Still and all, I do like gory movies and stories as much as the next Horror aficionado. But evil exists in many forms, not few. Not just in the most gross and immediately horrible ones. Perhaps part of the problem now a days is that we tend only to recognize evil at it's most base, that of murders or cannibalism. But evil exists mostly in this world in far more common forms. Forms in fiction that are still entertaining and something to be explored. These forms have taken the backseat for far too long, and they are finally clawing their way back.

For a quick example of what I'm talking about, perhaps a summary of the stories in "Anthology of Evil" would help.

In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear - In the near future, a world famous surgeon is called upon save a life. A simple thing for him in many cases but in this case, he faces a bizarre condition and a genius with his own remedy. And so he meets up with his late son's best friend. Through the course of the story the surgeon does his Hippocratical best to help save his his son's friend. Through his actions and with the best of intentions, slowly the country and the world begin to change. In its way it is a far more horrible story of social horror than any slasher film or zombie story. The evil in this story is in the social change that takes place, how good intentions can end up with evil endings and how easy it can be sometimes, to find yourself thinking in ways you would have considered insane not that long ago.

Gumdrop City - Falling back on the serial murderer trope (as in a common or overused theme, or trope), what would be a parent's worse nightmare? In a story that would lend itself to visuals of horrific things being done to murder victims, my goal was to horror in a completely different way. This story is actually based on a true crime event and the main elements in the story are true. I only fictionalized a drama out of it by using a neighbor to put the reader into what that might be like. The problem in writing this story was in the age of the victims as they were children. How do you tell the story without horrifying people to the point of not even finishing the story? Sometimes the horror is too direct and too hard to experience. It took a long time to work out that fine line. The evil in this story is obvious. Evil intent, and actions.

Quantum History - In this story about a physics experiment gone awry, a man is changed in ways inexplicable and humorous in this comedic take on the standard science fiction experiment gone wrong trope. The evil in this story comes from who the protagonist changes into and how that is affecting his wife. And others. The evil in this story is very indirect and comes from the character and history involved in the story with a kind of Mel Brooks slant on things.

The London Mea Culpa Document - A found document is briefly discussed. It talks like a report on something and about what had been found, its history, who found it and how it affected his professional career. The evil in this is how the man was treated over confusion and misauthenticion in a scientific, academic community. Offered next is the document itself. As a side note, the story of the man who "found" the document is told in my book, "Death of Heaven" as "Vaughan’s Theorem".

The Mea Culpa Document - In a found document in England as described in the previous story, we learn from a Medieval witch hunter and Judge of the Inquisition about the single most important event in his life. That might be enough evil right there considering his professional standing, but he then ruminates in the document about his late Master and role model, as he finds himself unbelievably to be in a similar situation to the one that killed his mentor. The evil here is in one's own ignorance (especially where it is opted for) and self-involvement.

Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer (To A Question He Knever Knew") - In another story set in Medieval times, a Lord has been tasked to take a sword to the enemy of his family as a pay off and acknowledgment of subservience. What ensues is a mixture of insanity, time travel and a splitting of a man and history. The evil here is in society and how individuals can suffer for their merely being human.

Sarah - An old woman has Alzheimer's Disease. Though she lives with her daughter's family, she is pushed aside because of her illness and "reality". It is a disease that takes your mind, twists it and in some cases, the worst cases, can lead to horrible things. The evil in this is in how her disease keeps her family from treating her like the strong minded women she once was, and in how her mind is broken by the disease in bizarre ways. Evil is not always done by a person, a God, or Nature. It is at times done by something else. It is sometimes done by things we cannot understand and never will.

The Fall - Love just forces us to be crazy sometimes. Crazy forces us to love sometimes. In a very short story about love and love lost, the evil here is in one's attachment to one's desires. And some extra crazy.

Japheth, Ishvi and The Light - Exploring the Zombie trope in this story, one of the elders of a self-sufficient religious commune clashes with his relationship with God, just as the Zombie Apocalypse hits the world. A team of military specialists in this kind of scenario (zombies that is) stumbles upon the situation and what you would expect to happen, happens. But then again, not in the way you might expect. The evil in this is obvious, but also not. Zombies are obviously evil, but so is the protagonist's views on life and what sets him up for what happens next.

Andrew - This is the final story in the book, paranormal in nature, and a novella. It also sets the stage for my book, "Death of Heaven". It is the story of a young child, five years old, who suffers and survives a horrific car accident. His good minded Aunt and Uncle take him in, but he is silent in his world now, having trouble even realizing anyone else is there. But he is not alone. All the other characters in the story want something from him. What they want is beyond anything we see in life. Powers that are beyond imagination are involved leading to unimaginable consequences; some in this novella, some continued in "Death of Heaven". The distance between these two stories is vast, so you'll be surprised if you read "Andrew" and then minutes later start "Death of Heaven".

Those are the stories in "Anthology of Evil". Those are the forms of evil in those stories. I've begun a second book on this theme in a similarly titled book. One of these days, I'll release it. But there are many forms of evil. And some are silent, no one ever knows of them, except we do. In our life. We may have to recognize it, and perhaps no one else will see them, or understand them. And if that is the case, then we will have to live with it ourselves, alone, and suffer to bear it until the day we die.

Consider that the person next to you also holds secret one of these evil things from their past. We all do. We may try to forget them, but they are there. We may not have recognized them. But they were there. It may be an evil secret not even about them, but their own personal tiny or immense horror that they have to pull all through life with them in privacy, perhaps painful privacy. Perhaps, not so painful privacy. Some of those people, perhaps sitting right next to you, may not only have one of those evil secrets from their past, but it may continue on right now, and far into the future. Because after all, only mere seconds ago, is our past.

As an example of a different kind of evil, there is a story I published on PerihelionSF.com called, Expedition of the Arcturus (also available as an audiobook), which connects with a certain kind of political evil. [By the way, there are bad links for this story going to PerihelionSF.com from when the story was first published there. These links actually go to the current story for the current month in the magazine. Next month will have a new short story in that position. My story there has been archived as the March 2013 issue.]

Expedition of the Arcturus is a story about Earth's first generational space ship. It is sent on a seventy-five year mission with families to populate another planet. Things behind the scenes are in motion and the evil truly is in that. There is no violence in this story, but in the end, the truth leaves you with a realization of what we do to others in the hope of serving the better good. How our concern for the masses can leave us with little concern for the few. Is it right? Or not?

Evil comes in many forms. It is not always in the actions of the mugger, the murderer, or the corporate swindler. There are a lot of good stories out there and to always seek the most violent, the grossest, or the most disturbing stories all the time is to inure oneself to a wide variety of drama, moments most poignant and well, seriously messed up, fear invoking. But a steady diet of the overt and obvious will keep you from enjoying the finer nuances in the realm of Horror.

Typically this is the purview of the younger viewer or reader seeking the bigger, the wilder. And surely that is fun for all of us in various ways, especially as a fun change. But it's too easy to fall into the trap. Much as Hollywood does in its films. Always having to be bigger (but better?), louder, wilder, it leads to eventually a genre becoming a parody of itself. It also "dumbs" us down. It spoon feeds you your horror. So once in a while we need to jump ship and experience the darker side. Which ever side that would then put you on.

As for Death of Heaven, I believe I have succeeded in my original intent, backed up by this review, as I mentioned earlier. The evil in this book is intense, mostly obvious and everywhere. Literally. If the stories in Anthology of Evil seemed at times tame to some, Death of Heaven will not (read the review for more color on that). In this book, there is nowhere to hide. The Horror is everywhere. But I tried to run the gamut from obvious to subtle, as I wanted to write something that would affect anyone, on various levels and with various intensities.

And so I continue to write stories in an attempt to always try and slip the knife in slowly, pressing in with precision, sneaking it into just that specific point in the body that will do the most appropriate damage for whatever is the present sick situation.

Quick death or slow pain? It's whatever the moment calls for.

Death Throws of Theistic Nations

When your government starts talking about there needing to be a new leader of the Nation's morality, you KNOW the government is in trouble. Because whenever they are in trouble, they always start going back to the basics we all thought we had evolved beyond: morality and religion.

We've been hearing this from the conservative right for a long time now. And look how they are doing. It's been killing the GOP. And in their current incarnation, good riddance.

The real issues are almost hands down that the government, the politicians, the legislators, the leaders have yet to catch up with the morality of the Nation as a whole. We have been held captive but a sad conglomeration of conservative, theist group of Fascists.

As a people we are evolving, but leaders usually do not. They are always slow to change and tend to get old and stuck in the ways they believe work to keep them in office. It's not that the Nation has lost it's way and that the leaders need to draw the Nation back into the folds of those "Holy Know Betters". It's that the leaders need to lead the direction the Nation is headed and show the best way to go in order to achieve that. Yet, they almost always fail in that task, even though that really is the task they were hired to do in the first place. To Lead.

So when you consider the few Nations left in the world that aren't secular, you can be pretty sure they are on the way out and it's only a matter of time. Iran is on the way out. Islam is on the way out, it just doesn't seem like it because of the violent temperament of those hardliners in those Gangs of God. But we also see this in Nations like North Korea, right, some of you might say. And they are secular. Not really. They are a kind of Earthbound theism. A twisted form of the ancient ancestor worship traditionally common in that area of the world. They worship their leaders, who remain in power even after death.

The counter intuitive thing about a secular government is that it allows for more freedom of religion / morality. The problem there being that it also allows for the other kinds of thought, of belief, to prosper. Which is the problem those leaders are having in going that direction. That it isn't JUST THEIR morality or religion that would prosper, but that of others who also live in their Nation.

The problem with the world's few surviving theistic Nations that are now in their religious / morality death throws (and yes these could take decades to finally die), is that during this period of their Nation's Phoenix rising (which many leaders will do anything to avoid acknowledging), they become a very, very ugly thing indeed. Why?

Try holding someone's head under water and see how hard THEY struggle for that last, final gasp. Still, it is the people of their Nation who truly suffer, and far more than the Leaders usually ever do. Except for those few leaders who do pay the ultimate price for their selfishness, greed and narrow-mindedness, who at times allow their Nation its truly sad, yet fresh air to breathe. How long will this world have to suffer the death throws of those like Assad in Syria? Or the twisted government of Iran? Or that of the government of North Korea that also seems now to be on the way out.

It will happen. It's only a matter of time.

The only hope at this time that the people of these Nations have (and the World in general) is to know that one day, all the sooner for the harder they work and sacrifice for it, these theistic nations will one day go the way of the dinosaur and perhaps exist only in History as a kind of intellectual fuel for our descendants of how not to run a Nation and put down the masses for the benefit of only the egos of those few in power.

Review of Death Of Heaven - Horror on an Epic Scale

My blog for this week is admittedly self serving and fully selfish on my part. I've also had a rough week, last week with eighteen hour days and I'm exhausted. But, I received some great news and I'm here to share it with you.

My Horror book, Death of Heaven, became available back in early 2012. I've tried to get a reviewer to review it and today I received notice that a Lynn Worton has reviewed it, posted the review on Amazon and so it is now available to the public.

Good or bad, there it is.

So, please feel free to take a look and please feel free to act accordingly.

Whatever that may be.

Cheers!

So what if you're fat? Isn't it more important to feel good about whoever you are instead?

First off, my ebook giveaway lasts thought today so if you haven't yet downloaded these stories of Horror and (okay, one of) Comedy, jump in and grab what you like. See my July 4th blog for details.

I was just watching "Branded" (2012), a curious film that points out a few things and gives an interesting visualization of it in the last half of the film. I won't go into it so as not to give spoilers, but suffice to say that an individual's activities feed the bigger picture, and that feeds the desires of the individual in a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. There's too much going on to discuss it all here, but it evokes some questions. Here's one.

There is a push now a days for us to not follow marketing campaigns about our looks, to accept who we are, how we look. I've always felt a need to be very careful about being satisfied with oneself. To accept, to be satisfied with oneself is to settle for mediocrity when you could achieve more if you weren't satisfied with how one is. We need not be obsessive about our need to be more than we are, but we also do not need to be fully satisfied. I understand the argument that we can be satisfied without being fully satisfied but we tend to always go too far with things. We need an instability in our nature to maintain an equilibrium. To be satisfied, then not satisfied as we and things in our lives, change. Acceptance leads to easily to complacency.

We've heard for a while now that being thin is Wall Street's way to make us spend money on products to make us look "their kind of beautiful". I'm sure there's some truth in that. Actually I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that.

Still, it's more okay now to be overweight because our mental feelings have become more important than our "physical feelings". Should we feel okay that we're overweight? Should we allow ourselves to think that it's okay to be obese? Should we try to be unrealistically thin? Or should we just try to be, thin? Is thin more beautiful than fat? What's the decision point in that? By accepting people as who they are (in the case of being fat), aren't we simply accepting them as fat? IS that okay? For them, or for us, or for our society? Surely we shouldn't be mean toward overweight people, but should we allow it to be something we accept as "okay"? Isn't that kind of like "throwing in the towel" and surrendering? Isn't that even more unhealthy than accepting it as okay?

I guess a lot of the question here is, is it now bad to openly hold a position against something that is bad for us, and allow others to know that is their situation? Or, have we become so politically correct that this is no longer acceptable, or possible?

This is like another well known situation concerning children. Once long ago, if a child was alone in a store acting badly, an adult could chastise them, could "straighten them out". Try that now and that adult could land up in jail, or a fist fight. As a young kid one in the 1960s, I got "read the riot act" at a store for my doing something I shouldn't have been. My mom walked up, heard from the old lady what the situation was and she THANKED HER for basically doing her job, as she said to the woman. Then when the woman walked away, it was as if both her and my mother, and likely any adult nearby us, seemed like a cohesive band of authority figures.

But getting back to America's weight problem, who does the situation reward anyway? Are we healthier when we are being overly concerned to be thin, or in being unconcerned about being overweight? That is, did we spend more money on healthcare say maybe in the 1960s for thin related issues when women were so concerned about their looks, or now where apparently many aren't concerned enough about their looks and America is overweight? The question there is, which is REALLY worse for us? It would be interesting to see a real accounting of which was worse financially. And of course we'd have to include the mental health issues on both.

Remember that many anorexic behaviors are attributed to a strict religious upraising, or certain types of jobs as that with models and actresses. It would appear that on the former way of thinking, the cosmetic industry is rewarded while on the latter, the healthcare industry is. But should we aspire to being thin, or fat? Or is a mediocrity best of being semi overweight? What is even meant by "overweight" has also changed with the Zeitgeist. Should "overweight" be having more fat than is necessary, or more fat than is healthy? Surely we have the right in this county to be fat, or not, but as an indicator what is really best for everyone?

What direction are we really headed in now? This all seems to be a mere "glance at" by our government and our population. As I recently mentioned elsewhere, back in the early 20th century you almost had to pay to see a "Fat Man" in a Circus sideshow. Now, who would pay to see what  is all around us, on the streets of all of our cities? What happened?

Here is another important thing to consider and one that we do not consider quite enough. Some of us try "hard" to lose weight yet we don't put any real effort into it. Not effective effort, just, effort. But putting "just effort" into things that do not really do much other than cause us a lot of effort, simply gets us us nowhere. In fact, it may get us less than nowhere as we eventually want to give up.

Typically we want to maintain our life as it is, yet still lose weight to get in shape. For some of us, it's like that old adage where you do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. It's just, crazy. To change you really have to make changes. Really, the best time for this change is when you are young, just starting out, maybe starting a family. Don't get caught up in that "American Dream" fiasco that can make you in the end, fat and sedentary, and too rushed to LIVE Life. Because before you know it, you will find you truly ARE trapped.

To be honest, fat really isn't necessary in a modern society. Not as it was in the times of prehistory when it truly had a purpose. Being healthy is about a lifestyle, not an "effort". It's not about being fat or thin, though I would argue that thinner is better than fatter, too thin is not, too fat is not. It's what you can live with and what is simply physically healthy and best for you. And it's different for everyone, only you can decide that, with help from those who know and don't simply make guesses or wishes about it.

But as Humans tend to be OCD about things, latching on and over doing, or obsessing about what we choose to do, we do need to be reasonable about our choices. But we need to make these choices, on considered thought, on educated thought and on motivated thought. We need to monitor ourselves and our choices and adjust every so often. A little paranoia is healthy, too much is easily unhealthy. There is no easy, pat answer in life. It's in ongoing process of continuing existence. And that's too much for some people and they find solace in eating, or drinking, or whatever.

We also need to consider how over our entire history as Humans, we have developed and how we live now. Being "healthy" isn't about feeling good about being fat, nor obsessing to be completely thin, or not even a happy medium therein. But in having the right amount of fat on our bodies as we need, which frankly is nowhere near as much as most of us carry around with us. Something that as a collective whole, wears on our national infrastructure and our pocketbooks.

With all of our time being sucked out of our lives by jobs and families, we need to get back to the basics, and design our lives to begin with from the start, to allow us to be healthy, to have the time to live that way, and to live like we want to live. Eating and exercising to be healthy. Eating (and moving) to live, rather than living to eat. And to finish out that reference to moving, sadly we're not living to move.

Which just might make a lot of this a non issue.

Happy 4th of July! How About A Horror eBook Giveaway!

Happy Fourth of July, Independence Day Celebration and Holiday weekend (for some of us) eBook Giveaway!

Andrew - Horror novella with paranormal overtones
As I mentioned, "Andrew" led to "Death of Heaven"
Book Video Trailer

Gumdrop City - Serial Murder Horror
This is also published in The Undead Nation Anthology and is being worked on as a screenplay
Book Video Trailer

Japheth, Ishvi and The Light - Zombies & Religion
Also published in my Anthology of Evil
Book Video Trailer

In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear - Sci Fi Social Horror
Book Video Trailer

Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer to a Question... - Medieval Surreal Horror
Book Video Trailer

Sarah - Surreal Horror with Geographical overtones
Book Video Trailer

Quantum History - Comedy/Sci Fi
Book Video Trailer

These are the ebooks I'm giving away over the next five days on Amazon.com starting tomorrow for Independence Day (Browncoats, don't cringe....). These will be free through all day Monday.

All are weird little short stories except for Andrew which is a novella and a kind of foundation for my book, Death of Heaven. The novella and the book at least to me, are very different kinds of animals, yet one grew from the other.

Have a great Holiday!
:)
Cheers!