Jim Goad is one of my favorite living cultural commentators. On par with a young P. J. O’Rourke, who died in 2022 at age 74. Last year Goad wrote a thoughtful and thought-provoking article on why women outlive men. A sample:
This disparity is not exclusive to the United States. In fact, it’s worse elsewhere. Worldwide, women outlive men by an average of seven years. According to a 2001 report, the only five countries on Earth where men outlived women were the flea-bitten open-air latrines we call Afghanistan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. But a report from 2017 says there’s no longer any country on the planet where men outlive women.
It wasn’t always this way.
According to data from developed countries, men lived longer than women throughout most of the 1800s, only for the longevity stats to tip in favor of females during the 1890s — an advantage that women have held ever since. Women are supposedly more vulnerable than men to infectious diseases, but once male scientists got a grip on the microbes and brought those pesky critters to heel, women started living longer than men.
As far as I know, women have never thanked men for it.
I’m increasingly distrustful of the mainstream (aka legacy) media. Ownership of it is in the hands of surprisingly few people. This makes reported news susceptible to manipulation by folks that have an agenda that may be at odds with your desire for “just the facts.”
In 1976, when the U.S had only three or four national over-the-air TV stations and no Internet, 72% of Americans trusted mass media. A Gallup poll found that in 2023, only 32% of Americans had a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in the mass media. A larger percentage—39%—had “none at all.” In view of AI or CGI-generated imaging, it’s getting hard to believe anything you don’t see with your own eyes.
Most of the mainstream media (aka legacy media) consumed in the U.S. originates from a handful of companies. From a 2021 essay by Helen Johnson:
In 1983 there were 50 dominant media corporations. Today there are five. These five conglomerates own about 90 percent of the media in the United States, including newspapers, magazines, book publishers, motion picture studios and radio and television stations. As of 2020, the five media giants are AT&T (Time Warner, CNN, HBO), Comcast (NBC Universal, Telemundo, Universal Pictures), Disney (ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel Studios), News Corp (Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Post) and ViacomCBS (CBS, Paramount Pictures).
Alternative Media for Your Consideration (not for local news, sports, weather)
By no means do I endorse or agree with everything you see or hear at these sites.
Tucker Carlson on X (news, opinion, politics, interviews)
RamzPaul on Rumble (news, cultural commentary, nationalism)
The Dan Bongino Show on Rumble (politics, news, opinion)
Michael Farris’ podcast “Coffee and a Mike” (interviews)
“Redacted” with Natali and Clayton Morris on Rumble (news, cultural commentary)
Jeffrey Prather’s “The Prather Point” on Rumble (preparedness, Deep State exposure, communitarianism)
The Epoch Times (U.S. and international news, lifestyle, health, Falun Gong)
The Unz Review (cultural commentary, economics, literature, politics, conspiracy)
Catherine Austin Fitts at Solari.com (for personal finance and investing, banking, government)
RT at RT.com (news and commentary from a Russian viewpoint)
O’Keefe Media Group (citizen journalism, expose wrongdoing)
This post has nothing to do with weight management, Mediterranean diet, or fitness. If that’s why you dropped by, merrily move along. You won’t hurt my feelings. Or better yet, check out the topics in the right-side column.
…..religious and traditionally conservative people outbreed irreligious and liberal people. Similarly, the very stupid and impulsive likewise outbreed irreligious and liberal people. Eventually there must be a political and social reckoning for these facts. This is a book that does what it can to tease all that it can from that reality while filling in the details of why societies and civilizations move as they do.
From the book directly:
There will be a ‘Great Escape’, whereby intelligent, conservative people flee apocalyptic chaos to establish refuges of civilization in which they weather the storm of the Dark Age. Those exiled will be conservative, middle class, and white (defined very broadly), set against ‘post-liberal’ areas of mixed ethnic minorities, with some white admixture. Today, the Woke will continue to induce guilt in the white or otherwise ‘privileged’ middle-class population, but tomorrow the underclass will be the frightening majority of the Western population, and too vast in size, and offensive in character, to sustain further sympathy. Lower IQ whites, reluctant or unable to move due to the associations between low IQ and conservatism and between high IQ and migration, will simply merge into the majority non-white populations; dissolving away into extinction like the Neanderthals.
Back to Mr. Bernard:
It is strange to think of religiosity as a positive evolutionary trait but that is the argument. In fact, upon reflection, it makes perfect sense. The West became great because it was all of these — it was composed of pious, virtuous, and intelligent people who were tribally conscious. Without thinking of it in Darwinian terms, they were people who venerated the past (their ancestors) and made provision for the future (their children) — and the only people they did not think of were themselves. Today, it is all inverted: our age mocks the past, makes no provision for the future (because they have no children), and thinks only of themselves (as the narcissistic people that they are). In a few words, we are irreverent presentists.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the “spiteful mutants” theory of societal deterioration. Professor Dutton came up with that.
This is just here for my possible future reference. I’m tempted to get the book.
Steve Parker, M.D.
PS: ANFSCD = And Now For Something Completely Different
I’m facing multiple surgeries this year, and frankly I’ve been horrified by the deterioration in professionalism and competence that I’ve observed in the past couple of months, compared to what it was even five years ago. The bureaucracy and administrative orientation (rather than patient and health orientation) is mind-boggling – so much so that I’ve already refused to continue with one major medical practice, and asked to be referred to a different specialist for a forthcoming surgery. If things are that bad inside “the system”, we need to make ourselves as independent as possible of that system by improving our fitness and personal health, ceasing unhealthy habits, and….
A few months ago I heard fitness guru Mark Sisson mention during an interview that he was taking a collagen supplement for a painful hip condition that might need surgery, which he is trying to avoid. At the time, I had never heard of collagen supplementation. I used the google machine to find out it was indeed “a thing.” The popular trend may have been started after endorsement by a female celebrity (Jennifer Anniston?).
I have osteoarthritis (aka degenerative joint disease or DJD) in my knees, mainly manifested by very transient aching and stiffness if I sit for too long, and impaired range of motion. I cannot do a deep squat. I got my first inkling of arthritis awareness thirty years ago when I thought I’d start skipping rope because it’s such a great aerobic workout. After just a few jumps, my knees convinced me that was a bad idea.
Six months ago I developed a strange awareness of my left knee; it just didn’t feel like it was quite mine, like how I imagine it feels like to have a prosthetic knee joint. Plus some minimal aching while in bed, relieved by simply changing position. I walk around without any discomfort.
Does genetics play a role? My mother had knee replacement surgery for DJD at age 83. By that time her gait had become quite impaired.
I did a little Internet research and determined I had little to lose if I tried collagen, except for $. A family member was going to Costco so I asked them to get me some. I didn’t research various brands. Pictured is what they brought home. ~$40 for a month’s worth. I planned a two-month trial although WebMD suggested that 3-5 months may be needed for arthritis. (This is not a formal endorsement of the brand, nor am I being paid to feature it here.)
My two month trial of 20 grams daily ended yesterday. Did it work? I think maybe it did. The knee feels like it’s mine again, and sleep-time aching is less frequent. Could these be placebo effect? Yes. Was this a fair trial? Not entirely. In a totally legit experiment, you should only change one variable. Meaning: take this supplement but keep everything else exactly the same. In my experiment, I inadvertently added probiotics in addition to collagen (my shopper picked the product). I also significantly upped my exercise with more walking and weight training. Maybe my subjective improvement was due to those non-collagen factors. Heck, even the season of the year may have been an issue. A legitimate trial would involve hundreds of study subjects, a placebo group, before and after range of motion testing, a validated knee function questionaire, etc.
I was going to stop supplementation at this point but my wife already got me another cannister that lasts a month.
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria [paddy wagon often disguised as a delivery truck] sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur — what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
Dr. John Campbell is “totally convinced” that high-dose vitamin D supplementation would prevent many cases of dementia, particularly Alzheimer dementia, which is 75% of all dementia cases. He takes 4,000 IU of vitamin D/day plus 100 mcg of vitamin K2. Unclear to me if that’s year-round or only in fall and winter. I assume it’s oral vitamin D3 (there are several types of vitamin D). Dr. Campbell didn’t say why he takes the K2. Click for a brief review of K2. In contrast to his vitamin D dose of 4,000 IU/day, U.K. health authorities recommend a tenth of that — 400 IU — in autumn and winter.
Make your own vitamin D with adequate sun exposure
Several observational studies link higher risk of dementia with blood levels of vitamin D that are deficient or insufficient. Blood levels of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D under 25 mg/ml are particularly linked to dementia. Dr. Campbell admits that it’s difficult to prove that adequate vitamin D supplementation would prevent Alzheimer dementia.
Advanced Mediterranean Diet 