“…she stopped paying close attention to his words and when at red lights, examined the rain drops spattering on the windshield so intently that she almost stared right through them. Each drop seemed stuck on the glass, until another drop landed on it and they rolled down the window together, ending in a climactic splash.”
353 days to go. A horrible day at work. An old grandma who looked as if she wouldn’t harm a fly called me a pencil-pushing capitalist dupe. But then I came home and cooked chicken with cream, mushrooms and port, and it was total bliss.
In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office argued that restricting the caloric intake of terrorist suspects to 1000 calories a day was medically safe because people in the United States were dieting along those lines voluntarily.
“While detainees subject to dietary manipulation are obviously situated differently from individuals who voluntarily engage in commercial weight-loss programs, we note that widely available commercial weight-loss programs in the United States employ diets of 1000 kcal/day for sustain periods of weeks or longer without requiring medical supervision,” read the footnote. “While we do not equate commercial weight loss programs and this interrogation technique, the fact that these calorie levels are used in the weight-loss programs, in our view, is instructive in evaluating the medical safety of the interrogation technique.”
Another another friendly reminder that the Minnesota Starvation Experiment subjected adult men who were VOLUNTEERS to 1,560 calorie diets and the psychological effects were so profound that one volunteer cut three of his own fingers off and could not remember why.
These men were volunteers who knew exactly what they would be going through and when it would end, and who believed they were doing it for a good and moral reason (the research was used to help rehabilitate victims of starvation and famine at the end of WWII).
And these are the things we are expected to engage in FOREVER to stay at a “healthy” weight.
Reading about the Minnesota Starvation experiment was my wake-up call. It was what kicked me out of my eating disorder. The guy missing three fingers, whatever his name was, he was the last straw for me.
Scared me so fucking bad I stopped restricting my food that day, and never went back to it.
Just bringin’ this back around like I sometimes do.
Wow. This really hit me hard.
EAT
Fun fact– calorie restriction exacerbates symptoms of pretty much *every* mental illness.
Anorexia has ~16% mortality rate, slightly higher than acted upon suicidal ideation. It’s more lethal than actively trying to kill oneself and this is why.
Even better, the comments to this Twitter post were an absolute FIRESTORM of mostly dudes explaining to her that dials can’t only have 2 positions (not true) and that it wasn’t a very good piece (not true) that she was being disrespectful to her teacher (don’t care) and that it was a sign of her stupidity/rabid feminism/intellectual laziness/misandry/etc. that she couldn’t see any “middle ground.”
It became, in its way, a performance piece. I was absolutely mesmerised, even as I wished I could cock-punch people through the internet.
“Dials have more than one settimg” is the most hilarious response to this piece, because the implication of that statement is “just be a scootch more implicit in your own dehumanization. Not ALL the way. But like… a little more.”
Dulé Hill is just one of the most special human beings… I didn’t get to work with him that much. I adore that man, and more so now than I did then. I just want to say that he’s incredible. – Richard Schiff
Watching my toddler figure out how to language is fascinating. Yesterday we were stumped when he kept insisting there was a “Lego winner” behind his bookshelf - it turned out to be a little Lego trophy cup. Not knowing the word for “trophy”, he’d extrapolated a word for “thing you can win”. And then, just now, he held up his empty milk container and said, “Mummy? It’s not rubbish. It’s allowed to be a bottle.” - meaning, effectively, “I want this. Don’t throw it away.” But to an adult ear, there’s something quite lovely about “it’s allowed to be a bottle,” as if we’re acknowledging that the object is entitled to keep its title even in the absence of the original function.
Another good post to read for those writing small human characters.
My son was about three when he came to me in the middle of the day and said, “Mommy, there’s a knight behind the bush.” I thought he meant a toy knight or something. So I follow him outside and he goes, “Listen. Do you hear it? It’s night behind the bush.” It was a cricket. A cricket was standing in the little patch of shade under the bush, chirping. So, my son saw this dark area with accompanying nighttime sounds and decided, okay, well, that is a night right there. Their brains are incredible.
My little bean knows she’s two, constantly saying proudly ‘I’m two!’ And the other day she saw this very frail old lady who looked one foot in the grave, pulled a face and said ‘oh shiiiit. She’s three.’ I almost screamed.
I live in Korea and have a lot of international friends, and the same is true with language barriers in adults.
*Looking at a bowl of pears* “Can you please pass me the… apple’s friend?”
Holy shit I just witnessed Colin murder the entire movie industry.
I just saw a new episode of Who’s Line is it Anyway? in which other cast members made a transphobic joke where the punchline was “that woman has a penis.” Colin, who has a trans daughter, stood there and just repeatedly said “Really?” Until they apologized and redid their joke. Very small thing, but I appreciate the man.
Colin is sunshine.
And to think, I didn’t believe Colin Mochrie could earn more respect from me.
You have to understand. Improv comedy has rules you follow. And rule number one, the Golden Rule: NEVER CONTRADICT. You never take what someone suggests and say “no, not that, this instead!” You never reply to a joke with “No, I don’t want to do that!” You roll with it. You ALWAYS roll with it. The ridiculousness added on top of ridiculousness peaks into a primo superdense ball of hilarity incarnate.
And his reply to something offensive was “Nope. Stop the bit. Nope. Nope. Nope. You fucked up.”
I’ll bet you money Wayne Brady would do the same if a white person on the show dropped an N-Bomb, and people would be understanding. Colin stood up for an oft-maligned group, whose members include one very personal to him, and completely ground that show to a grinding halt by saying “No. That’s not fucking funny.” and ruined the joke. This is a man who builds his entire career off of making jokes, and he /ruined another’s/.
I’m sorry, Colin isn’t just a god amongst improv comics. He’s not just funny as all get-out and witty as hell. He’s a stone-cold badass, and he deserves recognition.
Props, Mr. Mochrie. You, sir, are deserving of respect.
I’ve worked with him (just briefly) and can confirm: he is just as excellent in real life as he seems here.
