intellectual properties

on the importance of the food movement

Besides drawing women into the work force, falling wages made fast food both cheap to produce and a welcome, if not indispensible, option for pinched and harried families. The picture of the food economy [Fast Food Nation author Eric] Schlosser painted resembles an upside-down version of the social compact sometimes referred to as “Fordism”: instead of paying workers well enough to allow them to buy things like cars, as Henry Ford proposed to do, companies like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s pay their workers so poorly that they can afford only the cheap, low-quality food these companies sell, creating a kind of nonvirtuous circle driving down both wages and the quality of food. The advent of fast food (and cheap food in general) has, in effect, subsidized the decline of family incomes in America.

–Michael Pollan, The Food Movement, Rising, New York Review of Books, June 2010

a food system overhaul is ever more important to the health of america, both physically and economically.  this is undeniable, and those who continue to argue for the “right” to “cheap food” have blinders on. see the link above for full articulation, and also Tom Philpott’s grist.org response for a bit of focus.

it does a body good

for the record, i rode my bicycle 104.9 miles this month, recorded 18:39:00 of total cardio time including the biking, and lifted 49,514 lbs in weights (only 5 weight sessions due to injury), logging activity on 23 out of 31 days. injury aside, body feels pretty good, but next month: more.

january fitness report

i did it. even with being sick all last week and not going to the gym even once, i still beat december.

i lifted fewer pounds than in december but scored more points because cardio gets more points than weight lifted (1 Point for every 100lbs lifted vs. 5 points for each cardio minute), so if it’s raining and i’m not riding my bike, that’s 60 minutes a day in cardio i probably won’t get, because when i go to the gym i’d rather lift weights than run on a treadmill.

now that i’m feeling 99% better with my back problem i feel like i can be much more active, and now that it’s getting lighter out every day, as soon as this rain goes away i look forward to really getting in shape for spring. yay!

“2010″ still seems unreal to me.

on tuesday i had my work desk retrofitted so that now i am standing while i work.  it’s not a fancy adjustable desk, and i haven’t bought a taller chair yet, so i am standing the entire time i’m working. yes, my legs and back get tired, but this causes me to move around, stretch, take breaks. which is what i need.  and voila!  yesterday was the first day in 8 WEEKS i woke up without any noticeable neck or upper back/shoulder pain. yay!  of course, my MRI was scheduled for today.  isn’t that how it always goes?  i’m going in for the MRI this afternoon anyway, as this is a recurring problem and still might well be one that i am just avoiding. and, it was sort of a pain in the ass to get approved, i might as well.  perhaps puts another blemish on my medical record, but at this point i don’t really care about that. i’m optimistically hoping that someday “pre-existing conditions” aren’t the bane of healthcare they are today. anyway, will report on the results as soon as i get them.

in other news, i rode my bike to work every day this week again, which was nice. riding the bus makes me feel so trapped by timing and schedules and routes and is just kind of a pain compared to the freedom of biking.  last weekend i went and got a rear basket so i don’t ride with my backpack on, and despite continuous rain warnings from the not-so-accurate “accuweather” forecasters, it hasn’t rained yet this week.  next week?  let’s hope.  3 drought years in a row ain’t good.

oh, what else. let’s see. no, i haven’t seen Avatar yet as the 3D IMAX version is continually SOLD OUT in SF.  i’m not too expectant wrt the ‘amazing inspiring worldview-shifting’ some have reported, as from what i’ve seen heard, it’s just a retrofit of your standard colonialist-learns-from-natives tale (SPOILER!). i’m too jaded for that anyway and besides, it’s the visuals i’m going for, which is why i’m holding out for the 3D IMAX. plus, while i acknowledge there are always elements of impracticality and plot holes in any utopian vs dystopian/good vs evil storyline and expect no less from this one, i find it amusing that some uber-conservatives are irked at the film’s supposed ‘anti-American liberal agenda’, or that others are calling it “nativist“, as though all environmentalists hate modernity and progress and wish we’d just go back to idyllic hunter/gatherer mode and want to totally dismantle our capitalist system. *eye roll*

i have seen a whole raft of other movies lately (netflix on demand RULES!), and will try to post some reviews/recs over the weekend, or soon-ish.

ok, now i’m just blabbing. have a great weekend, y’all. and good luck with those new years resolutions.

goal #1: beat december

i don’t really have any “resolutions”.  i mean, i do, but they are the same as every year: focus. be healthy.  travel. do more good.  accomplish stuff. take on something new. etc. etc. the calendar flip gives a good impetus to reexamine these things, but they aren’t new.

anyway, i am now in my 8th week of dealing with my neck/shoulder problem, and it is getting better.  or, at least, working short days and having two 4-day weekends in the last 2 weeks made it feel a lot better, but the problem is still there, i can feel it. am still waiting to see if i can get an MRI (HMO health insurance grumblegrumble).

as such, i am continuing “focus on my body” as my daily mantra, and i guess you could say that in the short term, i do have one resolution: Beat December.

at the Y, you can set up to have a computer system track all your weight lifted for machines that are linked to the computer, and then you log your own cardio, either at the gym or elsewhere. these are my workout reports for Dec 09.  22 workouts, 123,010 lbs lifted, 4,296 extra calories burned.

at the gym, they put up charts showing monthly rankings for people using this system.  i’m not sure if it’s competitive or just meant to inspire.  in November, i was 5th in my age bracket; in December i was 3rd.  what’s crazy is that the woman who was #1 had TEN TIMES the number of points i did.  she must work there or something.

so in January, i want to beat 5,690 points.  i’m behind to start, since i haven’t been to the gym yet this month, but i’m looking forward to catching up.

holding down the power button

have you tried turning it off and on again?

i need a reset button.  i realized a while ago, that for 2004-2008, i had a weeklong rebooting procedure that took place in the middle of the desert where i drank a gallon of water every day and ate very little and rode my bike for miles and danced for hours every day.  some people go to burning man and toxify themselves;  i was always detoxing.  some people go to yoga retreats in bali to do this kind of thing, to eat sparingly and meditate and flush and cleanse.  for 5 years i did it at burning man. and this year, i did not have that.  my mind was ok with it, the not going, because i had europe instead! but i don’t think my body was.  and traveling around europe for a month instead was the opposite, physically, drinking wine at all hours and smoking cigarettes and hookahs and eating all kinds of rich creamy fattening foods because there was nothing else and yes walking but not in the hot sun and not for all night and sleeping 10-12 hours a day is not exercise.  and i think that this is true, and if there’s anything i now regret about not going to burning man this year it is that i did not get this physical reboot.

and yes now, not to keep going on about it, but my body hurts. and i need TIME to find some other way to reboot.  and my boss, he is so kind, he today agreed that i should be at work less, sitting in my chair less, and that i can cut the number of hours my butt is in this chair and it will be fine.  and also that i can have someone build me a standing desk configuration, so that the hours i am here will be better.  and while it didn’t take the pain away, at least i think i’ll have more time to Focus On My Body now, more time for therapy appointments and yoga and walking and things, and less time sitting. this is good news.

on to other topics, for the rest of 2009 it looks like a lot of low-key hibernatory activities, although we are going to Tahoe for Christmas (yay!) and so i will actually see some snow this year. the chain of christmas holiday parties starts this friday night and lasts until around 1/1 (i don’t have any plans for NYE yet and i don’t plan on making any either). i haven’t had a drink in 9 days (i sound like an alcoholic but this is for cleansing/healing reasons, not addiction reasons, i swear) and i intend to stay sober until around sunset on 12/31. this makes holiday parties slightly less fun, but not a big deal. lack of hangovers makes up for it.

and while i’ve been bitching and moaning (literally) a lot these past few weeks (and to those of you who have had to put up with it IRL, please be kind enough to forgive any snappy retorts, evil eyes, or frustrated outbursts you may have been the recipient of or been witness to; i swear i am not really like this), today i feel optimistic, and am once again counting my blessings instead of curses. most of those blessings are people, and i am most thankful for the lot of wonderful humans in my life who make this whole l-i-v-i-n thing bearable.

carry on.

(aside: for the full first episode of The IT Crowd, quoted and linked in the first line, click here. awesome sauce.)

december readjustment

if you don’t follow my twitter feed or aren’t my friend on facebook, it might seem like not a lot has been happening in my online world, but i am here.  it seems i’m less inclined to write here than in those two places, and so this blog is left for the things that don’t go there.

i’ll not repeat too much, but the most dominant recent personal item is that i declared December “Focus on My Body Month”, as it is now going on 4 straight weeks that i’ve been experiencing non-stop back, neck and shoulder pain, and i’m doing everything i can to a) soothe (saunas, hottubs, massages), b) correct (chiro) and c) prevent (cleaner living, more exercise, etc).  and it’s not so much that these are huge adjustments for me in my life, i’m already a pretty healthy person who eats well and exercises and all that, but the mental space it has been taking up to ACTIVELY observe and correct my physical posture and habits has been incredibly unexpected.  it’s also been hard to gather and weigh all the advice, online and offline, from friends and doctors, as on paper it SEEMS to me that i am already doing all of the things anyone might suggest to correct such a problem, yet it is not going away.  chiro. massage. exercise. ergonomic adjustments. supplements. therapies. doing them. ALL.  and so then there’s the mental space taken up by depressed thoughts that this might be a condition i suffer for the rest of my life, although everyone assures me it is reversible/curable, but as i said, i have been DOING ALL THE RIGHT THINGS and not a lot is changing, so this is hard to accept and sometimes i will admit i am despondent. and then this leads to more chain linked thoughts about aging, etc. and the mood just spirals from there.

so for the past 10 days or more i’ve upped all my physical regimens and i’ve been getting deep massages and seeing the chiro and making doctor appointments and going to the gym daily and eating an almost perfectly vegan whole food diet and abstaining from alcohol etc., and all of these things, combined with the aforementioned mental energy just THINKING about all of these things, has left very little room to think or do much else, not to mention that i have been irritable, grumpy, and not in the best of moods because of the constant chronic pain, lack of sleep due to pain/discomfort, and oh also THE DARKNESS outside.  and i am tired of it.  tired of thinking about it, talking about it, doing things about it. so i am focusing as best as i can at resolving this for 1 month. i can take this for one month.  but if i spend all this time and energy focusing on this and nothing changes i don’t know what the hell i’m going to do in 2010.

back to the land & a reporter’s eyes

i love the way this writer writes so visually, and i think you will enjoy it too.
http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/back-to-the-land/#

also, in other NYT related bits, tonight i went to see an advance screening of the upcoming HBO documentary on Nicholas Kristof, “Reporter“.  i would recommend it when it comes out if you have HBO.

the Whole Foods-Healthcare debate

the topic is a little dusty now, but Food Democracy Now has a poll on whether you got riled up enough about the CEO of Whole Foods’ editorial on healthcare to boycott WF:

__I am boycotting but would reconsider if Mackey resigned.
__I’m not boycotting, but Mackey should resign.
__I am done with Whole Foods.
__Mackey’s entitled to his views; I am not boycotting.

also, read the Food Democracy Now argument about why boycotting won’t help health care reform.

i am well aware that many food democracy advocates already hated WF before this happened (not to even mention all those who think they’re just making bank off of rich yuppie types susceptible to greensumerism/greenwashing) and don’t really actually care about justice issues - it’s all just savvy, savvy marketing). i myself only shop there when i am in need of certain organic items that can’t be found elsewhere, or during times when i’m hungry or need something and it’s the only non-Safeway grocer open within 20 minutes of my house (HELLO BERKELEY BOWL AND YOUR EARLY CLOSING HOURS.)

i know that while WF is expensive and their clientele is about as bourgeois as you can get, but their buying practices and messages are well-intentioned and they support a lot of small farmers.

as for this particular instance, i basically agreed with Mackey’s 8 points for reform, but what got the boycott started and where he lost his followers were his statements after the 8 points on the moral arguments for public healthcare, such as this:

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

and then goes on to say:

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

i pretty much agree with this taken at face value. i think we need to invest way more money in preventative healthcare and food and nutrition eduction, but for many of the liberal shoppers of whole foods, this sort of statement was unacceptable, with millions crying foul about how poor people don’t have the same kinds of access and choices that WF shoppers and employees have and so blaming them for their health problems and denying them access to public healthcare is unfair.

i don’t think that’s what he was saying though. i’m ALL FOR A PUBLIC HEALTHCARE OPTION (no matter how you cut it, it’s better than none), but i also think the American people need to be more responsible for their own well-being, and also that our food system needs some serious changes. i mean, did you see this, how that green “Smart Choice” label food companies have started putting on their processed foods somehow applies to things like Coco Puffs and Fruit Loops? (they’re made with whole grains!)

also, overall, while i am a huge proponent of voting with your dollars, and thus boycotts make sense to me, i generally find the ones that go around the internet to be baseless and ineffective (boycotting X gas company while filling your car up at Y does nothing to bring down gas prices, for example), and i’m also really not into armchair internet activism where you post some standard message to your Facebook status about healthcare (DO SOMETHING INSTEAD) or send around emails about how Barack Obama is a socialist while sitting there on your ass collecting social security and welfare checks.

anyway, i digress. no, i have not boycotted Whole Foods.

bike effects

as noted, since August 1 i have not had a car for commuting to work, and though i got lazy last week and rode the bus a few days, i try to ride my bike as much as possible during this season of Light and Dryness and relative Warmth. once autumn darkness and rains come, i think the bus will be ridden most of the time.

i’ve got my commute path down and it’s nice and easy, but i’m trying not to become too
complacent or overconfident riding the bike. i have a tendency to space out, and do things like write draft blog posts in my head. not recommended. currently, there is construction around one block of my usual route, and yesterday morning, taking the detour i almost bit it on some non-functional-but-still-embedded-in-the-cement train tracks. i mean, i came really close to wiping out, and THANK SOMEONE i didn’t, because there was a taco truck right behind me and a semi coming the other way. yeesh. i know - hit the tracks at 90 degrees.  but when they just randomly appear from out of the pavement right in front of you, you don’t have a choice about the angle. you just have to quickly recalibrate to not wipe out.

anyway, onto the taboo blogging subject: weight! since i started biking, at least 8 miles a day if i just go to work and back, sometimes 10-12 if i have appts/errands, i’ve gained 10 lbs. i am not making this up or exaggerating. i stepped on the scale this morning - it does not lie, and neither do the pants i brought to wear at work that are now so tight through the thighs they are uncomfortable. i’d like to think it’s all muscle, but i know it’s not, because i am not getting SMALLER/leaner, i am getting bigger. and i got a belly. and a concerning number of my clothes are not fitting well or looking good. and since people are always insisting that women don’t “bulk up” from traditional exercise, i can only assume that my increased dimensions are not muscle. it’s fat.

i’m not looking for advice here, i know what the problem is and how to fix it. first, biking makes me hungrier than i usually am, and then i eat more calories than i burn because by the end of the day i am STARVING. so i need to eat more regularly and front load so i don’t eat such huge dinners. second, going to the gym is now way out of the way via bike, and i am no longer doing all the strength training and seriously sweaty cardio sessions i was before, and i just need to suck it up and get back to the gym again. i also know i’m not alone and this is a common problem with people trying to manage their weight. in fact, this problem was just discussed again in the paper yesterday: Experts: For losing weight, diet beats exercise.

before y’all start kvetching about how i’m “thin enough already”, i was not necessarily *trying* to lose weight with the bike commuting, although i might have been hoping to, but i was CERTAINLY not expecting to gain it either. it’s just sort of weird and counter-intuitive to think that once i became carless and started riding my bike all over the place, i gained weight. and no matter what anyone else thinks about my body-image, that i do not like. i am definitely not going to stop riding my bike (or eating when i’m hungry), but riding my bike AND going to the gym is just….kind of a pain in the ass. and time. and right now (until after labor day anyway), my calendar is BOOKED. so for now, until i find a way to make this all work, the biking and eating and the gym and the commuting and the time, i’m just trying to adjust to and accept my slightly bigger self (and adjust my wardrobe as well). i’m not-so-secretly hoping that this is just a short period of physical adjustment - that my increased appetite v. metabolism will eventually level out and if i get back to the gym 2-3 days a week for extra weight/cardio, by the time we go to europe (21 days!!) i’ll be able to fit back into my pants again.