Yoga and Gas

Introduction

Gas is the major unspoken problem in yoga.  It is worse than sweat, because sweat you can’t help.  Gas you feel is voluntary, even though it’s not.  Why do you have it?  Is it really a faux-pas?  Can we admit that yoga helps release gas?  What’s the best way to release it?

Contrary to popular belief, gas is not unhealthy.  It’s a normal part of a healthy diet.  What is unhealthy is the buildup of gas that comes from eating too much food and/or too bad food.  This buildup of bad food and gas in the intestines is what distends your abdominal cavity.  This makes all sorts of poses and activity much more difficult.

The real tragedy about all this is, the need to cut one in the middle of class is a great indicator that your practice is improving.  So we don’t want to deny this basic urge.

But let’s get something else out of the way.  We’re not here to usher in an Aquarian age of open discussion of gas (even though Aquarius is, counter-intuitively, an air sign).  We feel like some things are worth being unspoken.  That’s what books are for.  Here, we can have a frank discussion about gas without ever having to break that third wall about it in public.

So that’s what we’re here for: to tell you, hey, pal.  You’re not alone.  We know you have this “problem”, we share your belief it’s not really a problem.  But we also know you want to impress the people around you, even though you may know that they all go through the same thing.  And hey, it’s okay.  Let’s work through this.

The release of gas is not unlike any other pose in yoga.  You will get better at it with mindful practice.

Basic Phsyiology

The major issue of gas is that a beginner generally comes into yoga with a distended gut.  Bad diets, bad habits, bad life, at some point one seeks the path of penitence and attrition, says they need to do something about this bad path, and shows up on the yoga mat.

And then they look at the yoga teacher.  Generally trim, fit, joyous, cheerfully getting in and out of the most complicated poses, while the beginner is generally gassy, sweaty, stiff, and well plain miserable.

It calls into mind the Ancient Greek paradox, that nothing ever changes.  That’s because in order for anything to change, it has to go from a state of being to not being, or vice versa.  That means at some point it has to both be and not be, simultaneously, a contradiction.

So yes, it does seem like you’ll never reach that point, it’s because with this mindset, you won’t.

But if one were to see the world as in a state of eternal flux, where nothing is in a state of being, and everything is in development, then the contradiction is resolved.  And that’s the attitude to have towards one’s yoga practice, and dealing with gas.

The basic development process we talk about here is what happens in your gut.  There’s a lot going on in there.  The abdominal muscles aren’t just in front – they surround your guts, forming a living corset.  It connects your lower body (hips down) to your upper body (chest up).  It is involved from any athletic movement to just picking up heavy objects.  An upright posture involves a core that is tightly wound around the guts, compacting them and resting your body weight on them.  This makes the spine virtually float.  If you have lower back pain, it’s usually a sign of abdominal muscles that have checked out, letting the guts spill everywhere.  Now you are relying on much smaller lower back muscles meant for balancing to do the work.

Side view of adbominal section - in good and bad posture.

Side view of adbominal section – in good and bad posture.

Engaging your core is not so much an issue of strengthening your abdominal muscles.  It’s an issue of “getting the gas out”.  For example, in a basic issue like a sit-up or a crunch, notice how someone with a distended gut does it from someone with a tight gut.  If you’re feeling a sit-up too much in your hip flexors or your neck rather than those delicious abs, it’s because you’re trying to get around that huge gut that’s in the way.  But if you feel like you want to poop or pass gas when you do a sit-up, congratulations.  You’re on the right track.

And as one’s yoga practice improves, one’s gut gets tighter.  That means a large process of muscles pushing in on the intestines, pushing large amounts of mass and gas through.  So, gas and … other digestive issues are a frequent side effect.  If pain is weakness leaving the body, gas is sloth leaving the body.

And this is the basic issue of yoga and gas.  It’s a faux-pas, yes.  But it’s also a sign that you’re making advances in the battle of the bulge.

A good pose to look at for help is “dog pooping pose”.  Notice how they stand.  They look like they’re squeezing on their abdominal muscles, like some toothpaste tube, pushing their tailbone and sphincter away from the body, until the filthy deed comes out.  This is basically what we’re looking to emulate in many of these poses.

You can find inspiration in darndest of places.

You can find inspiration in darndest of places.

Of course nothing exists without a proper foundation.  So we need to talk about leg alignment.

A classic position in all sorts of yoga poses is the bent leg stance.  This applies to all sorts of poses, and chair pose and warrior pose really get into it.  In a practitioner whose gut has checked out, they push down on the bent leg primarily from the quad.  This is not the proper way to go.  The quad gets tired really quickly, and you’ll see them straightening their leg out frequently.

Bent-leg poses: It's all in the glutes

Bent-leg poses: It’s all in the glutes

If one activates their inner leg, though, all sorts of muscles start lighting up.  Namely, the glute, which pushes the leg down like pushing on a brake, and now bears the body’s weight.  Much more efficiently than the quad.  The glute lights up, then the groin, the hamstring, the psoas, the abdominal muscles … *POOT* ah there we go.  You can hold that pose for a few minutes now with just a little practice.

Poses and their effect on gas

All poses use the core to varying degrees.  Therefore all poses have their effect on the releasing of gas.  We’ll go over major poses that affect/release gas, and good strategies to cycle through them for minimum gas disruption.

Getting ready for class: basic and warmup poses

Showing up gassy in class is always an issue.  So there’s some poses you can do to start.

Mountain pose:  This is basically standing up straight.  And you can use this as a barometer too.  Stand up against a wall.  If you can get your feet, butt, shoulders and head to all touch the wall, you’re standing up straight.  If you have to crane your head back to reach it, you’re in a slouch.

 

How your abdomen affects mountain pose.

How your abdomen affects mountain pose.

The basic physic here is to push your feet into the floor by the heels, as if you’re hitting the brakes.  Shoulders back, push your hands down as if they’re on parallel bars.  If you’ve been doing this for a while, you can feel your abdominals tightening already.  But we don’t need to worry about that yet.

Happy Baby:  two basic movements here.  Pushing your tailbone back and down (dog pooping pose) and pushing your feet into your hands.

Downward Dog:  This is your basic gas-relief pose.  It’s indeed a relaxation pose, because your abdominals don’t have to clench to keep yourself upright.  The weight of your guts is taken off of them and rests into your chest cavity.  This is open to debate, but there’s also the fact that gas is lighter than mass, and in a downward dog (ass-up asana) physics gives it a good nudge out the door.  Indeed I’ve found my strongest passings come in this pose, especially after a long, gut-wrenching sequence.

So it’s good to get a couple of these in before the practice starts to get a feel for your guts.

Getting into your practice

Finally, we get to the center of the shrubbery maze.  You’ve prepared, warmed up, and now you’re in the middle of your yoga practice.  And it’s going great!  So great, that you need to cut one in the middle of a pose.  And we get back to the major point here – your need to release gas is a sign you’re doing the pose RIGHT.  You don’t want to back away from that pressure.

So let’s begin by looking at the various major poses, and how to go from a gas-retaining (unhealthy) to a gas-releasing (healthy) version.

Chair pose: this can really enlighten your use of gas.  Like with the situp, a distended gut chair pose is not very effective, and gets tiring quickly.  That’s because it relies on muscles that don’t push on the gut to maintain itself, like your quads or the lower back.

A proper chair pose involve stringent tightening of the core muscles, pushing down on the pelvis much like dog pooping pose.   A good chair pose also lights up the inner legs and feet like I said earlier.  So once you light up these areas, that burrito you ate four hours earlier suddenly makes itself quite apparent.  Again, that means you’re on the right track.

The pose however is right side up, so negotiating this pose might just result in gas shifting rather than releasing.  Still, it’s a great place to loosen up those pockets before you hit down dog.

Temple pose: this is an extension of Chair pose.  Bear down like that pooping dog, get out of your quads and into your glutes and groin, and gently clench the sphincter lest you think you were on a French toilet.  This is the closest pose to a full squat, which is how humanity has gone #2 for eons.  Really, your whole tailbone should feel a downward pressure like you’re hitting the toilet.

Temple Pose

Temple Pose

Note the figure on the left.  Trying to work around gut distention means your body has to rely overly on the quads, pushing the feet outward like a bent tripod.  So not only do your quads get tired, you better have a really skidproof mat or your feet are slipping all over the place.

But the figure on the right, that proper core engagement really frames your glutes to hold you up.  Your hamstrings can then keep your shins vertical, making your feet slip-free.  Meanwhile your whole spine gets a downward pressure which pushes everything out the tailbone.  It’s no secret that this and the squat are how humanity has done #2 since the dawn of time.

Forward bends:  Be careful of what you think you can or can’t do.  Usually if you can’t bend down too far, it’s because your gut is hanging out.  If it collapses inward like an accordion, as you bend over, you can get a lovely release in your spine and continue to release forward.  Keep pushing into your heels like you’re hitting the brakes, and *POOT* there you go!

Forward bending - good and bad.

Forward bending – good and bad.

For the figure on the left, you see the extra line approximating the spine.  This is because having to bend over a bloated gut generally means you also have to crane your neck up.  This is uncomfortable.  But if you can get your belly empty enough to really fold over your legs, you can really let your head loose and get a great thoracic/cervical spine (shoulders/neck) release.

Twists:  These can really shake the gas up… if you won’t release gas in this pose, it’ll likely get your next downward dog to expel.  I think it’s because they twist your abdominal cavity so intensely that the gas doesn’t get much of a chance to do anything.  You will notice though, that if you kept your core tight from previous poses, all of a sudden you can twist a lot more.  That’s because it’s much easier to twist when you don’t have to do it around a bowling ball.

You’ll also notice that if you keep that front leg bent from the gluteus muscle like in the above diagram, instead of from the quad, you can still get that gut pressure going.  That push in this twist can release gas in some troublesome pockets that other poses can’t reach.

Navasana (Boat Pose): one of the basic core activation poses, and I think one of the best sit-up style exercises out there.  This is an inevitable gas-releaser.  If you are to be forgiven for one major ass-trumpet, it’s in this pose.  But let’s dissect this a bit futher.  There’s two ways to do a sit-up: the wrong way, with the hip-flexors, and the right way, with the rectus abdominis i.e. six-pack abs.

Boat pose - good and bad.

Boat pose – good and bad.

If you do it with the hip-flexors, you’ll feel them burn-out pretty quickly.  This is because they’re not meant to do heavy lifting.  But, if you have a big gut in the way, your six-pack abs have to relax to give it space, so your body has no choice but to use the hip flexors.

But – get that gut down enough, and activate your six-pack, brace with your side abdominals to get that toothpaste tube pressure – and you’ll get a huge pressure in on your gut  *POOT* oh wow!  You feel light and airy!  You could hold this forever!  Ironic considering how much air you’ve let out.

Inversions:  Shoulder stands are the safest if you want to avoid gas.  Watch out for handstands, especially if you get a violent kick-up, because the jerk can involuntarily release gas.  Otherwise, these tend to be advanced poses.  You’re generally not going to get into most of these without your gut already tight in place.

Shavasana:  While this one isn’t so intuitive, often the deep relaxation of this pose really offers the intestines a chance to relax and let the gas pass through.

When/how to release?

Ultimately, you want to release when you can.  And you want to release in small doses, unless you’re in a friendly environment.  The two big no-nos are loud noises (this totally disrupts the class in a fit of laughter) and stinky gas.  The latter is easily dealt with – don’t eat junk food.  The former is a bit harder.

But then how do we do it discreetly?  Well, on a positive note, the need to release gas means you’re activating your core muscles – and this means you have control over how much they push.  The trick then is to use your core muscles to mindfully release the gas slowly.

The ideal release of gas involves a gentle opening, along with a slow controlled release of gas, which makes little to no noise.  Enough noise that the person next to you may hear it, but they’re not sure if it was their imagination, and they’re not sure where it came from.  We’re looking for plausible deniability here.

 

Off the mat: Where do we go from here?

Here we want to send off the reader with sound advice for how to manage their gas, along with the knowledge that it’s always going to be a thing.  The issue is being mindful of it.  We will also discuss diet, since we’ve established that this plays a major role in how effectively your abdominal muscles function.

Sitting

Why don’t we start with seated pose?  It seems like the simplest pose, but it’s actually one of the most complicated.  And when you try to maintain it for hours, it’s easy to see why the gut checks out and you slouch.

The slouch seems obvious, but for this we should actually start with the legs.  A sloucher generally lets his legs hang loose.  The feet should actually be firmly planted off the floor and handle some of your body weight.  If we go back to that diagram of the bent leg, the same applies here.  Your glutes should be engaged as if you’re trying to get up out of the chair.  Engaging these will tighten your core, push back your shoulders, and if you can get it going just right … *POOT*

Seated pose.

Seated pose.

There.  Now you’re sitting up straight.

Slouching

As implied from the picture above, a corollary of sitting is slouching.   And there’s no shortage of discussion about slouching.  The problem is that it takes none of what we discussed into account – people just assume you can just winch your joints around with enough willpower and FOOM you’re a model sitter.

bad slouch

Some people … can’t even slouch right.

This, here, is not a slouch.  This woman couldn’t slouch if her life depended on it.  She’s just bending forward.  Now compare this with a REAL sloucher.

good slouch

Now this guy is slouching like a champ!

Notice the difference?  Notice what makes someone slouch?  It’s that gut.  You think you could give this guy a quick tug on the shoulders and solve all his problems?  You would fare much better having him lay on his back and getting a small child to treat his belly like a trampoline until everything gets squashed out.

That’s because it all goes back to our basic gut diagram.  Distended belly leads to relaxed abdominals, leads to raised shoulders and head forward.  There’s no way around getting the gas out.

So, in a way, this is encouraging.  You now know what’s enforcing your slouch.  Your muscles would like to have you sit up straight but they just can’t compete with the mass of that gut.  So next time your mom tells you not to slouch, just tell her to shut up and stop feeding you so much.

Food

Now I’m not here to discuss diet.  Diet gives me a headache. I can tell you that I cut carbs (not entirely) and that’s reduced a lot of the bloating I had in my gut.  That’s because your body digest carbs by turning them into a soup.  And eating too much meat slowed me down, so I keep those servings to decent levels.

And the more I paid attention to my diet, and figured out what caused the bloating and got rid of it, the more my gut shrunk.  And the less I needed to eat to get full.  But what works for me will not work for everyone.  You have to figure out what works for you, you are a special snowflake and only you can figure that out.

All I can say is that diet is really important here – I dare say more important than exercise.  All the situps in the world aren’t gonna help you if your abdominal muscles keep trying to work around that basketball you have trapped in your belly.  On the other hand, though, get rid of that basketball, and you’ll find yourself WANTING to do situps.  Because all of a sudden you realize how good it feels when those core muscles can move freely.

And those intestines can pass gas freely.

A presidential apology

Fellow Americans,

Last week, a high school student named Ahmed Mohammed was briefly arrested for bringing to school what some thought was a bomb.  I invited Ahmed to come to the White House because I thought it was an innocent science project, and he was being unfairly targeted because he is Muslim.

Unfortunately, it turns out we at the White House were misled about the facts of this issue.  That clock wasn’t a science project.  There was no programming involved, no rewiring, Ahmed just took an ordinary consumer clock, gutted it, and put it in a pencil case, something frequently used as a bomb casing.  He then took it to school, unsolicited.  When confronted about the clock, he gave no information that could de-escalate the situation.

Make no mistake.  Creating a device that looks like a bomb, with intention of it looking like a bomb, and bringing it into a school, or any public building or area, is a crime.  Even if it isn’t actually a real bomb.  In these tense times where terrorists bomb public events and children shoot down their classmates in school, it is all the more important to realize this.  Creating a hoax just undermines the policies we have in place to prevent a future terrorist attack.  That’s what makes it a crime.

We now have enough evidence to believe Ahmed and his father deliberately staged a hoax, and we will begin working with State and Local authorities to press criminal charges against them.  Muslims should not be profiled or assumed to be terrorists, yes.  But neither are they above the law.  We will hold them fully accountable for their actions.

I deeply apologize to both the teachers and law enforcement in Irving for putting them in the spotlight for just doing their jobs correctly and professionally.  In these times when cops and public officials nationwide are coming under increasing scrutiny, it is important to remember the public liability they have.  Teachers are responsible for our children’s safety, day in, day out.  Cops are responsible for all our safety.  If something happens under their watch, we hold them responsible.

It is important that we give them the benefit of the doubt, when events like this arise.  And it is important to honor the sacrifices they make, dedicating their lives to the public good.  As I’ve said before, it is this kind of service to America that really makes America great.

Thank you and good night,

President Barack Obama

The dark side of community organizing

I’ve had a long simmering suspicion towards “community organizers”.  Might have been since college.  While I preferred to listen to people, I watched career minded organizers come in with their own agenda, rally people around it, and kick out anyone who disagreed.

Then came the Iraq War.  I was opposed to it – even though I’m not a pacifist, I didn’t like being lied and manipulated into a war.  I organized MoveOn movie nights because it was a great way to find like-minded people and try to amplify our opposition that way.  But MoveOn quickly became an organizing agent for the Democratic party, and when our discussions were replaced with “Bush as an Idiot” slogans, I backed off and dropped out.

Now, it seems, such “community organizing” has taken a toxic turn.  In the past few years I’ve seen first J-Street appear, and then Jewish Voice for Peace.  These groups have no organic connection with the Jewish community.  Their only real connection is with the Democratic apparatus, their only unifying factor a desire for Democrat coattails.

I’ll leave J-Street alone for another day, I’d like to focus on JVP for now.  The articles about them are damning, and yet I wonder how long they’re going to last.  Their own website looks like they’re a bunch of slick internet hacks.  First of all, it’s only available in HTTPS, which means you can’t track or verify any of their traffic.  But it looks like they’re disputing their Wikipedia page, which points out that their only claim to fame is giving the anti-Israel lobby some cover against the charge of anti-Semitism.

Of course, that doesn’t stop other groups from revealing who they are.  The ADL has a whole page devoted to their tactics.  Forward magazine also has a great article about them.

And if they were recognized as such, that would be one thing.  But Democrats like Karen Bass are starting to give them an air of legitimacy.  And that’s what concerns me.  Note:  she originally posted this on her Facebook page, but once I commented with the ADL link, she took it down.  Luckily, the internet loves to archive pages.  And so do I.

Overall, my IT pro analysis is that they’re great at overinflating their numbers and influence, claiming to not only speak for Jews, but questioning whether established groups like AIPAC, ADL, etc. actually represent them.  This is what makes them valuable for the Democratic party, and why the Obama campaign has been really pushing them to the forefront as an alternative to those pesky established Jewish organizations with their pesky demand that Israel remain a safe haven for Jews.

And see, here’s the ultimate difference between a “community organizing” group like JVP and an established community group like ADL.  It’s the daily advocacy and work that groups like ADL, AIPAC, Hillel, Chabad, do on a daily basis for Jews.  Charity work, research work, going out of your way for other Jews, taking complaints about slurs and hate crimes against Jews, taking them seriously, advocating on different governmental levels.  The political programs are only an extension of this daily work.  And that’s why all these Jewish groups are tireless advocates for Israel.  They know how desperately Jews need a safe haven in this world that so quickly aligns against them.

I can tell you without any more than a peek at JVP that they do NONE of this.  That’s what makes them a fraud.  That’s what makes them toxic to this country, and why they need to be outed.

We don’t even need to make this about Jews, either.  I’m sure other races and people have similar issues.  Whereas the organic community has their own organizations and culture, ruling class representatives go in with foundation money, not to advocate for that community, but to push their own agenda on them.  The community is just a stepping stone to a political or intellectual career.

Appropriating #BlackLivesMatter

I’ll be honest.  Cultural appropriation and #BlackLivesMatter are two issues that, taken separately, I couldn’t care less about, or I at least can’t be bothered to debate on.  Both are issues that have nothing to do with me.

But a video crossed my feed that raised my eyebrows, as it was an interesting intersection of the two, and quite honestly, it marks the prime reason I got out of politics.  It was this latest video of a “harsh arrest” at the Ferguson protests (action starts around 0:32):

Now, let’s review.  It starts as an ordinary civil disobedience.  The cops uneventfully usher the kids off the freeway.  But a white kid breaks loose and runs around, provoking the cops.  By not following the cops’ orders, they now have to use force.  He gets body-slammed.

And the video gets passed around the internet as an example of police brutality.

I’m sorry, but exactly what is #BlackLivesMatter about here?  Is it about how you want cops to be nice to you when you provoke them?  Because I’ve seen quite a few videos trying to show police brutality, and they generally start with some kind of obvious provocation.

Because I can tell you, no.  No it is not.

#BlackLivesMatter , at least if it’s an issue that is anything serious, is about how black people face a different standard for cops than other people do.  I mean, if this is what it’s about, good luck.  But I think I’ve seen enough statements from well-spoken people like Kareem Abdul Jabbar that it’s about the racial divide.  Dave Chappelle also explains it really well.

And this is where cultural appropriation takes place.  You’ve got white kids running around acting out their anarchist fantasies and trying to speak for others.  You’ve got media channels picking up on these kinds of provocations like that’s what it’s about.

Well, is it?

 

I’ve written about this issue before in my gut review of 99 Homes.

Like I said, in the end I don’t really care about either of these issues.  So I’m not interested in a debate.  I just want to point out how this #BlackLivesMatter issue is going to be framed.  If it’s to be an issue where some people get treated much more roughly than others based on the color of their skin, great.  That’s an issue people could get behind.

But if this is an issue about wanting the cops to be nice to you when you provoke them?  Most of us, myself (and Chappelle) included, like the cops.  We think they fulfill a necessary function.  And if they get a pass, it’s because we know how rough a job they have dealing with punks like you.  In the end, people will take that video and enjoy watching you get bodyslammed on repeat.

And then it’s not just the pigs who are your enemy, but all mainstream society, blacks included.  So good luck with that, I’ll go get the popcorn.

Economist toys with Blood Libel

The blood libels keep pouring in.  I wrote this letter to The Economist based on their recent article on the Cracking down on Settlers:

——

DEAR SIR,

“Jew kills baby” is a tagline that should be raising red flags at any respected journal, as it provokes the medieval Blood Libel slur.  And yet, the number of times the press rallied around dead Arab children they hoped to pin on Jews in the past year is staggering.

Which is why I was quite disappointed to see you running the story “Cracking down on the settlers”.  It remains to be seen whether a Jewish settler even committed the arson – forensic evidence actually points to the contrary.  http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/198961#.VckfBSZVhBd

But to take a crime still under investigation, rush to pin it on Jews, and run with it to a criticism of Israeli policies in general, well it only delegitimizes any authority you have on the issue.

Some points I’d like to make:

Settlements aren’t “illegal”.  People like to claim it is so, but the area was never a country, and continues to be under dispute.

Gaza 2014 drove the point, at least materially, that evacuating disputed terriroties to Arab rule only exacerbates this situation.  Old dogmas die hard, but the fact is the best hope for peace isn’t a Judenrein West Bank – it’s making Arabs and Jews live among each other.

Despite your massaging your wording to even out the casualties, one dead Arab baby makes world headlines, while Jews are quite unceremoniously under constant Arab attack.  And it doesn’t matter whether Jews live in disputed territories or well within the confines of Israel.  If an Arab is killed, it’s soldiers stopping them from a murderous terrorist rampage, not any sort of Jew vigilante murder.

Finally, suppose the attack were actually caused by Jews.  A more rational mindset would understand that, under such a tense situation, blowback is inevitable.  Some certainly use it to justify the World Trade Center attacks.

Making hay in a drought

In response to the ongoing drought in California, our esteemed politicians have closed down beach showers.  This is a classic PR Stunt, as beach showers aren’t even a drop in the bucket of our water usage.  Nay, it effectively INCREASES water use, since everyone will just have to take (much more wasteful) showers at home.

PR stunts abound in our current water crisis, whether from Democrats using cheap stunts to pretend we’re saving water, or visiting Republicans telling us we need to relax environmental regulations and destroy even more of our natural rivers to feed our thirst.

Ironic that such PR stunts are making political hay out of this crisis.  When making literal hay is a big part of it.  I’ve been saying this for years.  Alfalfa – i.e. hay – is one of California’s main crops, and to my knowledge it requires about three YARDS of water a year.

It barely gets any mention in the press, but occasionally it does leak out, like in last week’s TED Radio Hour.

And yet, even the title “Will Our Demand For Food Threaten Our Supply of Water?” is misleading.  Here, let me quote them: “…the biggest consumer of water in California is alfalfa. Alfalfa alone uses more water than all of the humans in California combined, and most of it is shipped overseas.”  So this isn’t about us needing food, it’s about allowing completely wasteful crops to be grown, and not even for domestic consumption.

The more you delve into the statistics, the worse it gets.  Unfortunately I’m not a paid researcher, so you can look this up yourself, but I read it costs about $500 worth of water to grow about $100 worth of hay.  So we’re even SUBSIDIZING this wasteful crop.

And I’m not even gonna bother talking about rice.

When it comes to water usage, only 20% is urban, and about 80% is agricultural.  And when you subdivide urban use further – set up some kind of ladder of necessity – you’ll find we need even less.  Drinking, bathing, washing – these take nothing.  Irrigation of lawns starts taking more water.  Heck, even growing decent crops doesn’t take much water if you do it properly.  Eating meat takes water to grow the hay, but hey, let’s make some hay here and stop subsidizing hay production!

The answers are plenty.  Israel has much more of a water shortage than California, they even thought they could only support 2 million people with their water resources.  They now are a population of 9 million, and you know what?  Their public beach showers are AMAZING.  They don’t even have flow restrictors on their faucets, you know why?  Because it’s BULLSHIT.

It’s been the implicit thrust of this blog for a long time now.  The main issue in America is people are more interested in feel-good solutions than asking hard questions and looking at the big picture.  Maybe that’s the doom of America, that clinging such a philosophy as a symptom of our well-being will send us right out the other end of an apocalypse.

But I’d like to think there’s an alternative.

What you need to know about carbs

Paleo. Glycemic Index. Low-Carb diets. Gluten-free diets.  We’ve been hearing a lot about these for the past few years.  What’s up with all that?  Is it worth it?  Is there any merit?

Traditional nutritionalists have frowned upon most of these diets as fads, and to be frank I’m inclined to agree.  But before I throw my hat in with these guys, I do want to say there’s a grain of truth in all of these new diets.  And I say this from personal experience.

When I was 35, I went to a company called Phase IV which did a full analysis and overhaul of my lifestyle – both diet and exercise.  Among other things, they put me on a calorie restricted diet.  I could eat what I wanted so long as I met the daily calorie goal.  I had to document what I ate, and honestly, I recommend everybody do a 3-7 day diet journal and give it to someone who could give them some advice.

Well that kind of diet makes you really appreciate what you’re eating.  First of all, with only a limited amount of calories to work with, you quickly realize what satisfies you and what doesn’t.  And I quickly found that all the classic carbs in my diet – bread, pasta, cookies, etc – had a ton of calories in them that didn’t satisfy me at all.  So long as I kept my diet focused on meat, fruits and veggies, tubers, and just pepper it with reasonable portions of carbs, I could meet my calorie goals without hunger or cravings.

And that’s the grain of truth behind the Paleo / low carb diet.  Say you have what I would call a classic diet – 800 calories of meat and veggies and 2200 calories of carbs.  That’s a 3000 calorie diet – the classic diet of someone overweight.  But if you keep the meat/veggie intake the same and just cut the carbs to 1200 calories – all of a sudden you’re in a nice, healthy 2000 calorie zone.  You probably won’t feel any more hungry.  And if you feel ashamed about “going Paleo”, then rest assured I and any worthwhile nutritionist would give you a thumbs up.

This is where the gluten-free diet comes in.  The whole gluten craze, in itself, is just a fad, sure.  Especially if you’re eating all the same foods you’ve been eating and just replacing them with “gluten-free” packaging.  The problem with gluten isn’t the gluten itself but all those high-glycemic carbs it’s attached to.  So if you take it to heart and cut down the amount of bread and pasta in your diet, and replace it with salads and such, or with nothing at all (also a healthy choice), then more power to you.

Oh, and what is high-glycemic?  It means carbs that absorb really quickly into your system.  Sugar is higher glycemic than fruit juice (not by much) which is higher than bread which is higher than fruit.  Something like that.

 

 

Review of 99 Homes – or, on Ruling Class Radicalism

On a rare following of the advice of others, I went to see Fury Road.  I hate reviews so much that I usually show up late just so I can miss them.  But one review caught my eye: for 99 Homes.  I’ll save you the description.

Even though it was the preview I’d be most likely to see, it still bothered me.  As I watched the family get kicked out of their home, I wondered: oh, is this a movie about how banks use shady legal tactics to foreclose on people who are actually paying their mortgages?  No … well, is it a movie about how banks ignore the laws and just kick people out without notice?  Is it about how people get mortgages they can’t afford and are stuck in an untenable situation?

No … well, what is wrong here?

And then it dawned on me.  The problem the movie is addressing isn’t any of these.  The problem is people have rules they have to follow.  Rules themselves have become unjust.

Here’s the deal.  And everyone who signs a mortgage understands it – or, they sign about 100 pages claiming they understand it.  When you get a mortgage on your home, it is not YOUR home.  The bank paid most of the money for it, and it is only your home provided you fulfill your end of the deal to pay them back their money according to a certain schedule.

If you don’t, and I fully understand there are plenty of people who don’t – there’s a whole legal framework the bank needs to follow before they can A) foreclose on the home B) evict you for living in what is now their home C) get a sheriff to come in and force you out of the house along with your furnishings.

Every one of those steps involves plenty of notification, and after the crash of 2008 there’s even more notification, and aid for those who face foreclosure.

The very fact that when the sheriff showed up, and none of them had any idea what was happening, well that just blew my mind with BS.  Did they not read their mail for the last year or two?  Did they not notice in their checkbooks that no debit was made to the bank once a month?

But I speak in vain here.  Because, see, this reveals a greater problem with politics in America.  I’ve been involved in the left when I was younger on a deeper level than I would ever care to discuss here.  But I was also well read about it.  And my idea of being on the left was to actually go into working class neighborhoods and listen to their concerns.

But time and again I saw people who came in and said all the fancy words to make themselves look cool.  At first I thought I could have a discussion with people like that, but then I realized they were really speaking from a different perspective – that of the well-off, who only sees the world from their well-off perspective, and has no intention of risking that privilege.

Marjane Satrapi echoed a similar concern in her book Persepolis.  Hanging out with a bunch of anarchists, they told her they were going to some Anarchist event.  Coming from an Iranian background of revolutionary communists and atheists, she thought she was going to some passionate demonstration against the injustices of the time.  Instead, it was a bunch of kids playing in the woods.

And that sums up the politics today – kids playing in the woods and fighting for a world where they have no duties or responsibilities.

The police brutality issue is an interesting one.  Remember Rodney King?  That was police brutality.  What are actual black people talking about?  Actual police brutality.  But what gets shown in the media?  Somebody hassling a cop, giving cops a hard time, and then getting their ass kicked.

This is not a fight for justice, it’s a fight for not having consequences for your actions.  And it’s baiting blacks to be the rebel anarchists well off white people want them to be, to fulfill their rebel fantasies.  Now, I’d like to think I’ve talked to enough black people in my life to know they’re for law and order, just like anybody in shitty neighborhoods do.  You meet a cop, they tell you what to do, do it.  If you want to break a law you feel is unjust, don’t resist arrest.

Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle can chime in a bit.

Go to a poor neighborhood, and see how well behaved people generally are in front of cops.  Yes, they know what happens if they don’t, but it’s also to distinguish themselves from the scum in their neighborhoods who so desperately need a baton shower.   Contrast that with somebody in a college town who gets pulled over, and they turn into Malcolm X.  Of course the cop has to sit there and take it or he gets disciplined.

I could keep on going – bitcoin, vaccines, Occupy, gay marriage, the Middle East …  behind every one of these issues of the day is the shadow of an actual issue.  But look more closely and what you’ll see is well off people wanting to escape the laws of society, even the laws of nature.

It’s the disease of every decadent ruling class since those ancient times when they were looking for the secret to eternal life.  And if you’ve actually read your Marx – it is a class problem, not a rules problem.

 

 

The philosophical flaw in Bitcoin

I woke up this morning to another hacker’s ransom scam – they would continue to ramp up attacks on our network unless we paid them a bunch of bitcoin.  I forget how much, but I looked up the conversion value.  $250/BTC.  “Hey,” I muttered, “it went down from over $500/BTC, so that’s good.”

“Yeah,” said a co-worker.  “Sure wish I’d sold mine when it was $1000/BTC.  Heck, I coulda bought when it was $1/BTC”

Bitcoin has gotten a lot of press lately as some kind of anarchist’s answer to the oppression of the dollar and state-sponsored currency.  What is money, anyway?  What is the value we ascribe to it, but another fiction?

So without repeating a history of money here, I’d like to address the issue with Bitcoin.  It’s the problem I posted at the beginning.  Since there is no controlling it, there is no idea what its value will be, even a week from now.  That makes it worthless as a currency.

Yes, it is true, money is a fiction.  But it is a good fiction, enforced by professionals who make it worthwhile, and enforced with life-and-death measures.

Feel free to test the fiction of this money.

Feel free to test the fiction of this money.

For money to work, it needs to be a consistent barometer of value.  In areas where no government can back up a “fictional” currency with force, people turn to different commodies which approximate a stable worth, measured in general by how hard you have to work to get it: gold, cigarettes, liquor, ammunition.

This process, as you can see, is inefficient.  If someone manages to build a tobacco plantation, for example, they would either have a monopoly on the economy, or people would stop using cigarettes.  And so on.

But where there is a government which has proper authority, all they need to do is create something that’s hard to reproduce, control its supply, and assure the population that they can count on its value being constant over time.

This is what is known as “backed by the full faith of the government.”  It’s why some governments have more valuable currency than others, and why the dollar is so popular for people to hold on to.

This is where the Fed comes in.  Don’t let the likes of Ron Paul or Lyndon LaRouche fool you – the Federal Reserve does an AMAZING job of assuring the consistency of the dollar.  You know that every day between now and next year, the dollar will be worth exactly around what it is now and maybe 2% less than its current value.  And the only thing that can break that reliability is a collapse in the US government.  You can worry about that, I won’t.

And I know that people like to post scary charts about how it’s worth half what it was worth 20 years ago, and you should see by now why it’s a silly debate.  Instead, compare that to the rise and fall of the Bitcoin.  Would you want to be paid in that kind of currency, not knowing whether you can pay rent or buy a loaf of bread with it in a month?  It’s a serious question – billions of people around the world have dealt with the question of what currency they prefer.  It’s not just bitcoin that has this issue – plenty of countries have helplessly watched their currency spiral out of control.

It’s just that, in the USA, we have this bonehead choice.  We can have a currency that’s under control, that has the promise of very intelligent and powerful groups of people tied to it, or we can have a currency that’s controlled by nothing.  Which would you rather be paid in?

It’s the question of government versus anarchy.  And in the end I feel it is the same trend in our society that believes such thing as police, vaccines, technology and agriculture are all oppressive scams to thwart us from freely achieving our natural selves.  And that, in itself, is a degenerate trend that has become senile to the benefits of organized society.  But maybe that’s the reason I want to address the problem with Bitcoin, because I hope I can do something to thwart this greater downward spiral in our society.

And with that, I’ll let Ted Rall take us home:

Ted Rall visits Afghanistan and gets a practical lesson in Anarchy.

Ted Rall visits Afghanistan and gets a practical lesson in Anarchy.

This is why we draw Mohammed

I THINK this is the winner of Pamela Geller’s Draw Mohammed competition.  I wouldn’t know though, since apparently the American press has sworn fealty to Sharia Law and is refusing to publish it.

News flash guys – you can pretend to CHOOSE not to offend Islam.  Just like all those women CHOOSE to wear the Burka.

But we all know exactly why you don’t.

UPDATE: It’s confirmed this was indeed the winner, via enough evidence from GatewayPundit for me.

mohammed