i'll take your biden, and raise you a palin

i'm not going to pretend i am the most politically savvy person in the world. however, i have my basics down, and have been following the 2008 election with much interest. (frankly, i feel like if you're living in the united states and NOT following the election with interest, you are either really rich or really oblivious. no offense, but feel free to take some.)

so palin. can i just say how upset i am that people are comparing this woman to hillary clinton? i, as a former hillary supporter, am furious. hillary clinton is a prochoice, anti-off shore drilling, yale trained lawyer, and has made a life's work putting her money where her mouth is. this woman went out on a limb for universal health care before it was cool. she lost that bet BADLY, and became the butt of republican jokes til present day (a self-satisfied mitt romney comes to mind, telling his supporters, "we certainly don't need hillary care.") but she did it, and that takes, for lack of a better word, balls. hillary is a trooper, and an absolutely brilliant woman.

palin is a former beauty queen, mother of five, pro-lifer with limited experience. she supports off-shore drilling (gee, as governor of alaska, i wonder who stands to benefit from such a policy?), and though she has some admirable environmental stances, she's popular with conservative republicans for a REASON people.

do we really want to overturn roe v wade? as a woman and a public health professional, i can't believe this is even still an issue. if people forget, just 30 years ago, abortion WAS illegal. it didn't work. and i know republicans seem to be truly enamored of failed policies these days, but hear me out. a lot of women died before roe v wade, especially a lot of poor women who couldn't afford to go to canada or mexico to end their unwanted pregnancies. is this a more christian approach? condemning young, desperate mothers to coat hangers and toxic concoctions? pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

that is a long way of saying: palin is no subsistute for hillary. if you were supporting hillary, ideologically it makes no sense to support anyone but BARACK OBAMA. so do it. yes you can!

procrasturbation

I love to procrastinate. In fact, I pretty much prefer doing anything that is not what I'm supposed to be doing, even if that means doing laundry, cooking enough soup to last the whole week, calling the insurance company...you get the picture.

Why is this? I personally like the explanation of some obscure undiagnosed medical condition. Or perhaps genetics- I have noticed my mother has a peculiar talent for putting off both necessary and unpleasant tasks. I wouldn't be surprised if in my lifetime "chronic procrastination" makes the books as a legit biological disorder.

Much as a deaf person develops a hyper sharp sense of smell or sight, I have honed other talents to mask my chronic inefficiency. At the end of each working day, when my supervisor asks what I have accomplished that day, despite the pit of guilt and nerves in my belly, I make it sound good. Even if the entire day has been spent filing my nails, cleaning the bathroom, and making sure my tuition payment went through, I miraculously have a laundry list of accomplishments, along with insightful questions and ideas for "going forward." In other words, my bullshit gene sequence has picked up the slack for the "efficiency" one.

So I suppose this isn't the worst of conditions. The important thing is the work always gets done. Eventually.

Like a fat kid loves cake...

Loved this article in the NY Times today. I'm surprised how much I loved it, given that I have read articles exactly like it before. The finding that fat is not necessarily unhealthy is far from new. I think the difference is that now I have a year of obesophobic MPH education under my belt, equipping me with the harrowing statistics about fat America, and the tools to fight the *epidemic.* However, as this article points out, "fat" is not necessarily unhealthy, and our definition for "obese" is fairly arbitrary and not rooted strongly in any other measures of physical well-being.

So why so much attention and resources dedicated to fighting the alleged obesity epidemic???

The answer is simple: Our society hates fat people. Rather than admitting that everyone is different, and some individuals are naturally heavier than others, especially across different racial and ethnic lines, we must make overarching, black and white claims about obesity. I am not saying that obesity, especially childhood obesity, is not a problem. Obesity is associated with many chronic ailments, including certain cancers, asthma, sleep apnea, depression, and diabetes, among others. I'm also not disagreeing that the poor deal with this problem disproportionately, as fast food is often the cheapest and most available in underserved neighborhoods.

But the truth of the matter remains: not all fat people are unhealthy. Health is a state of mental and physical well-being, not a number on a scale. Not all fat people are lazy. Not all overweight people deserve the label fat. Maybe it's time we stopped making people feel bad about their bodies, and start giving them the tools they need to be healthy.

Back to the grind

After 1o days in well organized, clean European mountain towns the reality of New York is hitting me quite hard.

More photos will be featured in my next post to do the whole trip justice (after I have located the cable for my digital camera) , but I think the crux of my depression is as follows:

Why in heavens name can we not keep streets here clean???? Why do we not have towns that have proper centers and thus are not dependent on cars??? And why, WHY, are there rats the size of kangaroos in the New York City subway??? The Metro in Bilbao does not have any. To drive my point home, why don't you compare Bayonne, NJ to Bayonne, France (featured in the photo). Do you want to cry? You should!

My not so original theory is that Americans have lost any semblance of what might be a communitarian way of thinking. We'd rather spend our weekends cutting our lawns, making repairs on our enormous houses and cars, and watching our big ass tvs than socializing. We do not know our neighbors, and often don't care to. This is due in part to the fact that our towns and cities are simply not as conducive to a more community-based way of life. We don't have pretty parks and centers, or large pedestrian walkways. Our cities and towns favor cars and high way maintenance, and constantly building bigger and better houses, not cleaning garbage and dog doo off streets for people to walk and hang out.

Until we rearrange towns, especially suburban towns, to give folks more reason to walk and spend leisure time out with their neighbors, play in parks, and spend more time outside than inside, we can kiss cutting carbon emissions goodbye. We can always forget the possibility that the obesity epidemic will go away, or that depression rates will decrease.

But as I sigh and feel nostalgic about my visit, with the hope that Americans eventually realize the need to get off their Xbox and out on their bikes, I keep in mind that no place is perfect. At least in NYC, bars and restaurants are smoke free.

Free as a Bird

Today I did a courageous thing. In a feeble attempt to resurrect a floundering project I have been working on for the last 3 months, I volunteered to give up 2 days of my vacation (which begins today) to conduct some of the 30 interviews which should have been completed by the end of August. Bottom line: this project is utterly behind, and in need of all the help it can get.

But my noble offer is not the focus of this post. The courageous part happened five minutes later, when I marched right back to the clinic director and, taking great pains to control my quivering voice and still make eye contact, told her I had been looking forward to my vacation for a long time and needed to take it.

Much to my surprise, the director was delighted. She said she had thought it was absurd for me to work over vacation, and thought it was much better that I just shut off for a couple of weeks.

Sweet music to my jaded ears.

I suppose, to be perfectly honest, maybe part of me was a little disappointed. It appears that the world is not, after all, riding on my shoulders. But the bigger part of me realized that sometimes human beings will respect fellow human beings doing what they need to do. I need my vacation, and think that being upfront about that won me some respect points with someone who is probably 30 years worth of experience my senior.

My bronzed ass will be back in the hot seat in 2 weeks. But until then I can bask in my small victory against workaholism.