text:
I would be inclined to call this article the dumbest piece of writing ever writ. However, in the face of things like the Mississippi bill, can that still be considered true? Discuss.
(Thanks for the heads-up, Alison.)
I would be inclined to call this article the dumbest piece of writing ever writ. However, in the face of things like the Mississippi bill, can that still be considered true? Discuss.
(Thanks for the heads-up, Alison.)
Oh my god. I have to say second dumbest because of the MS thing, but I couldn't even read the whole thing. I seriously wonder if she didn't have a column ready, so she passed off her seventh-grade daughter's handwritten stream-of-consciousness essay on weight as her own. I am no writer, but that is a SERIOUSLY stupid "article." I won't get into how everything in it seems to be either 20-year-old pop psychology or based on some fallacy or another, because I assume others can do a better job of picking that apart than I can.
"the healthiest, cutest, mate" Are you KIDDING me??
There are articles that are so stupid that they are their own self-parody. This is one of them.
Is the author 14? Wow.
I had a more sophisticated writing style than this when I was 10. And I'm not exactly Proust.
I could have written circles around that article when I was twelve.
Oversimplified, outdated, low-grade pop-psychology mixed with a peurile vocabulary makes for an 'article' too stupid to exist.
Was this article produced by The Health Institute of Nutrition? Because there seems to be a lot of "good facts" in it! Perhaps I will have my suitors read it as well. I'm especially pleased by the way it avoids "bad facts." Yuck!
I glanced at it, but then I had to go vomit so I couldn't finish. I think it's at texture thing, I just can't consume something that feels like shit to my brain.
That didn't even make any sense… warning reading this article (looking at it?) makes you dUmmR
I am seriously rendered mute (er, finger-mute?) by the stupidity. Do yourselves a favor and don't read anything else that woman has written. It's all f'ed up.
I'm writing to Huffington Post. I read the site everyday (several times a day) for "news". This lady has got to go.
I hate articles that try to tell me how I feel about something…stupidness all around.
Blech. I don't want to spend too much time thinking about that awful piece of "writing," but the bit about the "No Muffins" reminded me of something:
A couple days ago I was in this awesome bakery that's around the corner from my house. (They have the best croissants I've ever had, and their oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are to DIE for.) This little old lady was in there at the same time, inspecting all the trays of muffins and asking the bakery staff what all the different types were and then making her selections. She pointed to a tray that was kind of off to the side and asked what they were.
Bakery employee: "Those are low-fat muffins."
Little old lady: "Oh, NO thank you."
Wait, I lied; this part was just too infuriating not to comment on:
What we tell little children who want to hit their buddies because they are angry at them is, "Use Your Words." I use this phrase all the time with my overweight clients who use weight as protection. They are using their bodies for fear they won't be able to say "No" when they need to.
First of all, the "weight as protection" idea makes me want to smash things. My mom tried to pull that on me a bunch of times (including at times when I wasn't even fat). Um, no. But what really gets my goat is her admission that she uses preschooler-appropriate language with ACTUAL ADULTS. How condescending can one woman be?
Like, OMG… I'm so scared to be thin because I'll totally get hit on.
Shut UP, lady.
I was most impressed by her modesty. Her fear of being followed around by men like she's Marilyn Monroe! ROTFLMAO!!!! Yeah, that happens to all thin woman, well, the ones who look like Marilyn Monroe anyway.
Groan, this might inspire me to sign up for an account there. So far the only post is one saying that she knows now that she's worth living in a thin body and she even once had an evil therapist try to sabatoge her weight loss efforts by saying fat was….gasp…a FEMINIST issue!
Ow! The stupid! It buuuuurns!!!!
Gah. I signed up for a username to comment, but I don't even think it's worth my time and pissiness.
I couldn't read it all, the beginning hurt my brain. Was there an editing problem? Maybe two articles were merged?
But (from reading comments here) I also hate the "fat as protection" bullshit. An aquaintence said that to me once (about herself) and I just ignored it because I couldn't think of anything nice to say. But the same friend now says she's fat because she tried to be vegan for awhile. Again, can't think of anything nice to say.
ACK! Teh STOOPID is too much!
You think that article's dumb? Look at her one called "Diets Work". I wish I'd looked at her archive before I THIN-blogged the first one.
use this phrase all the time with my overweight clients who use weight as protection. They are using their bodies for fear they won't be able to say "No" when they need to.
What does "fear they won't be able to say no" mean. Like they're sex addicts who can't say no to any man who asks, so they make themselves unattractive so nobody asks? Or are they afraid of being raped? Because if that's the case, teaching them to "use their words" is really not going to help anything… words don't usually do much to deter rapists.
The "Diets" one has a line that says: "What we know hasn't changed in a very long time." Argh… and here I thought I was being original with my "good facts" bit!
I vote for this one, if only because this woman is actually professionally in charge of helping support fat people:
Irene Rubaum-Keller is a licensed psychotherapist, writer and leader of the group, Motherless Daughters of Los Angeles. After graduating from UCLA, Irene pursued careers in acting and singing. She spent five years on the soap opera, General Hospital as Nurse Laurie White, and recorded and performed with her band The Wiseguys. With lots of down time on the set, Irene spent it getting her M.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University.
In l995 Irene met Hope Edelman, author of the book "Motherless Daughters, The Legacy of Loss", and discovered the need existed in Los Angeles for women who experienced early mother loss to gather, support and learn from each other. Motherless Daughters of Los Angeles was formed and is going strong today. http://www.motherlessdaughtersbiz.com
In addition to her work with Motherless Daughters, Irene maintains a private practice and is on staff at UCLA's Risk Factor Obesity clinic. She has published articles in Benning's Health and Fitness Journal, Strive Magazine and The Therapist. Her television appearances as an expert guest include: World News Tonight, Penn and Teller's Showtime Original Series, 9 on the Town, UPN, KTLA and NBC news.
That's frightening.
Wow, she's totally number two on the stages of perception/troll-ness, isn't she?
She's also number two in many other ways, I'm sure.
Wow. I've seen more cogent writing during a raid in World of Warcraft when the screen is full of "ZOMG PWNING U NUB!! Watch ur fukn AGGRO!" (Translation: you're an idiot.)
It looked like a really poorly written regurgitation of the pseudo-psychobabble notion that female sexual assault survivors gain stunning amounts of weight to make themselves less sexually desirable to predators
I believed that about myself for enough years to do myself some serious damage by putting all of my efforts into being "strong enough" to lose weight instead of working on the issues of setting healthy boundaries, making people earn my trust, and not putting up with anybody's shit for any reason.
I finally got my issues worked out. I am finally happy and healthy. I am also fat…and attractive as all get out.
Let's say we are friends with Megan and we used to have girls night out. She was the one that would be left sitting after everyone else hooked up. Now, you are still there sitting and Megan is out there dancing. Yuck. If you are her coworker and Megan used to work non-stop and now that she is dating, Megan works less and you have to work more. Yuck. If you are her sister and she was always the heavy one and you the pretty one and now Megan is also pretty and not only that but because of the big change in her, she is getting a lot of attention. Yuck. So, you can see that Megan might get some less than positive comments from these people that feel more comfortable with 250 lbs. Megan.
Whenever I hear a story like this, I wonder if thin!Megan has started preaching the Gospel of Weight Loss incessantly. I've never known anyone who started disliking a friend because she got skinny. I've known plenty of people who started disliking a friend because she got skinny and decided it was her job to save all her friends from the horror of TEH FATZ.
"Excuse me, but telling me that fat is a feminist issue is TOTALLY not helping me change myself to please a man!"
LOLZ. Seriously.
I want to go back to the "fat as protection" thing, because IMO it's one of the more insidious myths about fat people, especially fat women. It has this false front of sensitivity to it, like "Oh, the poor fatty, she's just SCARED of love/sex/whatever."
But, really, it's just another variation of "Fat people are unattractive," because the underlying assumption behind the idea of "fat as protection" is that fat is sufficient to make us unattractive to others. No one would make this argument if they didn't think that fat repels prospective romantic partners. So it's just another way for people to hate us "for our own good."
She's a psychotherapist? That's truly frightening. If I'm understanding the piece at all it looks like she's fallen right into that illogic hole known in the psycho-babble world as "projection."
And, yes, the writing sucks. Had one of my students written it, the piece would have so much red ink on it the original text would be obliterated.
The stupid, it burns. . .
Oooh, I bet Penn and Teller made her cry.
And did anyone notice that the only commenter on Teh Stoopid misspelled her username? Just sayin'.
UGH. I don't know about stupid – it's just scary and sad, what that psychotherapist wrote.
At least with the politician, fat people unversed in HAES can drop their jaws and go "stupid F*#%G politicians! That's discrimination!"
But with the psychotherapist, there's more danger of people thinking, "Oh, she must know what she's talking about. She's an expert in the field, and she wants to help me because look – she tells me she wants me to succeed and tell her how I'm doing! She's compassionate! Maybe my body really IS a manifestation of fear!"
….too many….curse words….traffic….jam….in brain….
Seriously, I got to the part about fat being some sort of motherfucking defense mechanism to prevent dudes being attracted to me, and couldn't decide whether to look this woman up to go kick *her* ass, or laugh *my* ass off. I mean, I am so tired of that particular moronic storyline ('cause I heard too fucking much of that sort of pseudo-psychology bullshit growing up as a fat girl who'd been sexually abused UGH)….plus (as I'm reminded damn near every day, which is about how often I'm accosted by some dude hitting on me) it just plain isn't true.
I couldn't finish it. I may go back and try again with a view to feedback….the snow in Chicago put me in a bad mood this morning, and this moron seems like a good target for my rage.
Reminds me of the (quite thin) friend I have, who, when I tried to tell her a little about what it's like to be fat in this country said, I swear: "Well, at least you won't be raped."
Yeah. Cause fat women (and girls) are never raped. I found fat a great protection against that when…OH WAIT…it DIDN'T actually protect me from that. I must not have been quite fat ENOUGH.
Unfortunately, it's not a parody. Louise Hay, anyone? She's one author who champions that weight-as-protection crap (and far worse, for her, every ailment directly symbolizes and expresses a mental or emotional state – breast cancer connected to 'issues with nurturing', anyone?), but it's a very prevalent idea in New Age/self-help circles.
(I'm just intrigued as to in exactly what context this woman appeared as an expert on Penn and Teller. OK, I know she's a shrink, but I'm imagining all sorts of evil, painful and squishy scenarios.)
Huh. So somebody took all the Fat Bingo squares and cobbled them into a column. Or rather, something that looks sort of column-y.
Well, there's a point for the "dumb blonds" stereotype. Kate, I'm sorry but I think she cancels you out.
No, it's not a construct and it's not a defense mechanism, it is WHO I AM.
I wouldn't completely ridicule the "fear of being attractive." While the way she talks about it is pretty pathetic, some of us have talked about our fat being a "jerk filter" which is the same idea. And to be honest I have felt uncomfortable with the increased attention to my body when I have lost weight in the past. So it can be an issue for some people. The mistake here is in believing that our weight is controlled by psychological processes when it seems to be in fact almost entirely physiological.
But this is the most pathetic part of the article IMO:
She was the one that would be left sitting after everyone else hooked up. Now, you are still there sitting and Megan is out there dancing. Yuck. If you are her coworker and Megan used to work non-stop and now that she is dating, Megan works less and you have to work more. Yuck. If you are her sister and she was always the heavy one and you the pretty one and now Megan is also pretty and not only that but because of the big change in her, she is getting a lot of attention. Yuck.
That shows so much ugliness about the writer. It's all about competition, and she sees it as a zero-sum game. Anything Megan gets has been taken away from other people (which is such a ridiculous idea).
I'm very, very sad that she's a psychotherapist. My therapist has been nothing but supportive of my HAES efforts and size acceptance ideas, and I'm very grateful for that.
Like a few others here, I remember believing these very things, when I was still trying to lose (or keep off) the weight.
It was protective defense against sexual harrassment &/or made me feel invisible &/or made me Visible: it was hard to change due to stasis: that it was protection against commitment (particularly humorous given I've been single for 6 months in my life): and that I must be (insert psychological issue here) in order to WANT to be fat.
Yep. Bull. SHIT.
I think there was a self-help book… but I can't remember what it was.
fear of being followed around by men like she's Marilyn Monroe! ROTFLMAO!!!!.
Which, of course, didn't even happen to Marilyn Monroe who was lonely all her life.
Quick show of hands: how many of us comes from lone lines of women who, according to this idiot, were apparently hiding from love and sex? Uh-huh. Thought so.
Because the fat experience is actually not universal.
Thanks for the reminder, fj. After reading the posts following my last one I realized that I was making a generalization; seems I'm stuck in "stage 2" of perception.
I still can't get over how poorly-written that column is. It's like the book reports I wrote when I was in fifth grade.
I definitely wouldn't totally pooh-pooh the concept of fat as protection or to "become invisible" either, but it's more that she's a) presenting this as a novel concept, like "problem solved!" when I know every fat woman here has at least heard of the idea before, and b) telling fat readers that this is how we feel even if it doesn't seem right to us. It's the whole "thin people know what's best for fat people" thing.
Because the fat experience is actually not universal.
That's why one of the random tag lines at the top of my site says "Because thin people are unique snowflakes."
The thing is that it's really two separate issues. 1) How we feel about our body (psychological), and 2) What weight our body is programmed to be (physiological). It's interesting to explore #1, but no matter how much you think about it, it's not going to magically change #2.
Aside: I love this blog so much. I've only started commenting regularly in the past couple weeks, and already I feel so welcomed! This blog and the Fatosphere in general has seriously changed my life, no exaggeration. Thanks for all the thoughtful, intelligent, and hilarious conversation. I can't think of a better way to waste time at work!
I, personally, am one of those who is absolutely thrilled that my fat is fairly effective douchebag repellant, as I had a major problem with creepy guys bothering me when I was thin, probably because I look very young and innocent no matter what. But that's just me, and it has nothing to do with not wanting to be attractive in general, which I, and a pretty darn good supply of non-douchebags, think I am. It's just a side benefit that happens to take care of an annoyance, and that is awesome.
We are not all the same. We are not all the same. We are not all the same.
If only we could make this "therapist" write this 5,000 times on her office walls.
I think there's a closet somewhere labelled Old Retread Ideas, and when columnists have nothing to say, they go rummaging around in the back, shake off the dust, and retread it – thinking no one will notice.
Guess what, honey. We noticed.
The "fat as protection" meme is so useful, though – it provides so many multiple insults at once, with so little effort. That women can't handle their problems. That fat women are asexual and unloved. That any man who loves a fat woman is a freak. That fat is something you "choose" – thus it's ALL YOUR FAULT. That women need (the writer's) therapy to unscrew their heads.
Pretty economical, I'd say, and thoroughly deserving of a "bullsh** call."
I don't know why, but this line kills me: "At some point, even if this happened very young, you gained weight." Um…yeah. It's called GROWING. Last I checked, we all do it.
The rest of it makes me want to scream with rage.
Srsly effed up article.
No one f*cks you if you're fat? Really?? I see plenty of large ladies with babies, are they all getting the artificial insemination? I doubt it.
In my own experience, I have more sex now (as a fat woman) than I did 100 lbs. ago.
She also trotted out the old "Even if you are 400 lbs. and in physical danger, the people closest to you want you to stay the same old (insert your name here) that you have always been."
This is why I cannot discuss with my friend (whose lab-band surgery is scheduled for this month) why I think weight-loss surgery is a bad idea. *GRRRR*
Yeah the idea that fat girls don't get guys coming on to them? Really? Have you ever been in a bar at closing and see where all the skeezy bottom feeders go?
They think fat girls are easy so the slither right on up next to you.
ew. I'd much rather be intimidating because I'm too hott and out of his league. thanks.
oh mah gahhhhhhhhhhhh.
She's HILARIOUS!!! True facts abound!!
I bet she learned most of them during her five years as Nurse Laurie White on General Hospital.
p.s. not that that is a universal statement either… I'm just saying, being fat doesn't actually protect you from having to say no to sex… that's all.
If anybody registered an account to comment, how long did it take for the activation e-mail?
Well, I don't have an account there, but I just wrote to the huffingtonpost to tell them that this columnist is bringing down the tone of the whole site with her poor research and even worse writing. Who knows if it will have any effect, but it feels good to be doing something.
Text of email:
I like to think of the Huffington Post as a place to go for interesting, somewhat liberal analysis and punditry, but by keeping Irene Rubaum-Keller on staff, you're seriously interfering with that image. Her articles are condescending, poorly researched and so poorly written, it's difficult to believe the writer graduated from high school, let alone graduate school.
If diets work as she claims here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-rubaumkeller-/diets-work_b_82229.html why do studies show time and again that they don't: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20070411/diets-dont-work-long-term? If she truly believes they work, shouldn't she at least address all the studies that show they don't and show that when they don't, people's bodies are in worse shape, not better?
She's bringing down the level of your site, and she needs to go.
My own experience, so very contrary to hers, doesn't really matter.
Any therapist who understands their clients soley on the basis of their own personal experience is a very poor therapist indeed.
Giving personal examples can be fine. My therapist shared some coping strategies she had developed with me, and they helped me to develop my own strategies that were relevant to my life. Having a therapist assume something about you that isn't remotely true is, to be blunt, sheer narcissistic incompetence.
(If anyone already said this stuff, sorry for the repetition. I was too annoyed to read comments… I would have commented on that article, but since I'm maligning the author's professional competence, it wouldn't be out of line for them to filter me out.)
I'm sure she's fine for people dealing with non weight related issues, or whose experience happens to mirror hers. But she could stand to question her assumptions.
Personally I use the fat in my boobies to protect myself in case my plane goes down – I fly with my own flotation devices.
fj! I didn't even think to check IMDB! I just took her huffington bio at face value… She was on 2 episodes in 3 years!! I guess I'm the putz.
Gah. What an idiot this woman is! It worries me that she's a psychotherapist and working in the UC system.
I think I need to get a t-shirt that says "YES, I'M FAT. COPE." and wear it the next time I visit UCLA…
Wait, this is interesting enough to get airtime on SP, but the big-tits-give-you-diabetes study a few days ago wasn't? Aww. I was so looking forward to you ripping apart that one. :(
She was on 2 episodes in 3 years!!
Really puts this line into perspective, hey: "With lots of down time on the set…"
Really puts this line into perspective, hey: "With lots of down time on the set…"
I was wondering about that. I'm currently getting an M.A. in counseling psychology, and it's a shitload of work and time and energy, with tons of set commitments. It's not like you can just pick up a book every now and then between takes.
Hey, I'm starting to get loads of trackback hits from the article… we may all be getting some interesting traffic!
Was she stoned when she wrote this? Even if the subject matter wasn't crap, the roundabout writing was like walking through a funhouse hall of mirrors during an earthquake.
It sounds like she got her M.A. from Dr.Phil U. Blech!
[quote]I hate to let malicious attacks stand in for cogent criticism — I like to have malicious attacks serve as a decorative enhancement to cogent criticism instead.[/quote]
Fillyjonk, this is pure gold. I hope you don't mind if I use it now and again; I'm in love with it :D
As to the huff-po blog thing; like many things I've read there, too dumb to comment on. 7th-grade stream-of-consciousness crap written by a 12 year old, except not as good. Bo-ring.
Stupid as can be. And yet, it was published.
Argh and Aieee.
Tante Terri
Although a thing or two that she claims to have thought has passed through my head in the past, I did NOT glom them all together nom nom nom into a vat of Patriarchal Apologist Soup.
Force feed this girl, who apparently did her clinical psych work at General Hospital, some Critical Thinking KoolAid.
They don't appear to be allowing comments over there. Hmmm.
"What does "fear they won't be able to say no" mean. Like they're sex addicts who can't say no to any man who asks, so they make themselves unattractive so nobody asks? Or are they afraid of being raped? Because if that's the case, teaching them to "use their words" is really not going to help anything… words don't usually do much to deter rapists."
Nonono, Becky, you're missing the point. Fat women aren't sexually attractive, so rapists don't rape them.* NOW do you see?
*Results not typical
OMFG, is she kidding? Seriously? I second (or third) the "was she stoned when she wrote this?" theory.
Men and women fucking hit on me all the time. Seriously? Is she really serious with this shit??
This person is a *therapist*? She gets *paid* to spout shit like that …?
Damn. I keep telling my husband we should've had scruple-ectomies in our youth.
WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, wait a minute! I have, on one hand, people telling me that I am fat because I am NOT SCARED ENOUGH (of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, hangnails, zits, common colds, and depression). I have, on the other hand, this new person telling me that I am fat because I am TOO SCARED to be thin?
I'm so confused. I need a kitten donut. My brain, she hurts.
I bought into crap like this for years and felt if I could 'just figure out what I was afraid of' I could lose weight. THANK YOU for introducing FA to me. I haven't felt this sane in such a long time!!!!!
PS I hate donuts.
Nonono, Becky, you're missing the point. Fat women aren't sexually attractive, so rapists don't rape them.* NOW do you see?
Rape as a compliment, yeah. But where does: "Use your words" come in? Once these women are all slim and sexy and unafraid, what happens when the men start lining up to rape them? They use their words to say: "Don't rape me" and the men back off?
I think they're supposed to sort of express their desires to the universe, just like they're doing by deliberately getting fat because that is the universal sign for "don't rape me." So they should request out loud to the universe that they not get raped, and then they ought to be covered.
Homegirl should go back to being a waitress. She clearly doesn't quite grasp the therapist thing.
Re: tits/diabetes
Not that I had anything to add to this one, but I thought people could have some fun with it.
Oh pretty please, do it! I mean, vesta44 ist awesome, but the Shapelings are an army. :-)
They are suggesting to follow up the study with a control for the positive effects of surgical breasts reductions on blood glucose. For god's sake!!!!! I can't sleep at nights over this one.
i got as far as the "afraid of being attractive " part and just couldn't read anymore.
Yes, that's why my diabetic friend is almost completely flat-chested. :P
The article? Oh dear. I can kindasorta see what she was trying to say (she probably feels it's like people with cerebral palsy who say they wouldn't want to be cured), but she fails. A lot. And any analogy between unable-to-lose-weight fat people and non-cure-desiring cerebral palsy people breaks down in approximately 8 million places, rendering it fairly useless.
Her credentials say she is an eating disorder therapist who specialises in compulsive overeating and body image issues.
I am so scared for her patients. She must make them feel like shit. They can take consolation in the fact they won't get raped I guess.
Beyond horrified.
sweetmachine, I can't say for sure what Margaret means, but there are a lot of deaf people who are very against the cochlear implants – they want their children to grow up in deaf culture, to be proud with their deafness, not to try to change and be "cured" because they say there's nothing wrong with them.
There are little people who are against the lengthening surgeries (that's a bit more extreme, though) for the same reasons.
As well as intersexed who say "leave our genitals alone" (especially at birth) and who don't want to be "fixed."
If the same holds true for CP people, I can see what they're getting at. It's not hard to understand – we don't want to be fixed either.
"Margaret, I'm not sure what you mean by this or where you see it in the article. Care to clarify?"
I know of people with CP who have said that, if there was a cure, they would not want it. The article brought to mind those people.
The writer probably thinks fat people are like that, albeit subconsciously (though she said nothing of the sort in the article). She may have been thinking of people who have an incurable condition who don't want a cure, or not. It just reminded me of that. But if you were to use that as an analogy, it would fail in so many ways.
Hopefully I explained myself a little better.
My first post on this blog!
Wow, what garbage. Where did she get her degree? Quack University? I feel for anybody she counsels, fat or thin.
Everywhere I go, I see fellow fat women who have men, and a lot of those men are thin. When I do get hit on, it's always thin guys, never ones my size or larger. As for big boobs, well I've got 'em and guess what? My blood sugar rarely goes above 100.
Firstly –Personally I use the fat in my boobies to protect myself in case my plane goes down – I fly with my own flotation devices. Corinna I now have a coffee soaked keyboard than k you very much :D
Secondly -So I am fat as a defense mechanism. Wonder what I had to defend against in the womb? Seeing as how I have been fat all my life. HMMMM
Oh wait I know what she would say " you knew in the womb that your mother was going to give you up for adoption and it was not going to be happy …" or something else equally woo woo and absolutely brain hurtingly ( is that even a word ? If not I just invented it) stupid.
It's worth thinking about the atmosphere in which she probably practices… she's a former soap opera "star" and she's in California? Her patients are probably as far removed from reality as she is.
The mistake is in giving her a blog under the idea that what she has to say about living in La-La Land somehow holds meaning across the spectrum.
"When you are obese, you are less sexually attractive. This makes biological sense because you are also less healthy"
I couldn't make it past that. And then I pushed through and read the whole damn thing. Now, I feel ignorant, and possibly glad to know that if I would just get over my fear of someone wanting to have TEH SECKS with me*gives side-eye to the bedroom door where the hubby's sleepin'*, I'd be all skinny! Yay!….
Dear gods. You know, there's a periodic conversation I have with a friend of mine. She's a fat girl too. I'm the bigger of the two of us(I'm clumsy, the padding is helpful, what can I say? /grin), and I am in a sane and happy relationship. She wouldn't know one if it socked her in her eye. So, sometimes she says to me, "How come if someone like YOU*eyeballs my flub* can get a guy like your man, I sit here with no one?"
And they never wanna hear the fact that their size has dick all to do with it. I don't even find that stuff offensive anymore, I would be offended all the damn time, otherwise. *shakes her fist at idiots*
All I can do, really, is try to be an example to every fat girl I know. And to talk to them, A lot. About self love, and how who really gives a shit what number's on the tag of your shirt? Really.
confession: I haven't read the 120+ comments yet
I gain(ed) weight as protection. I use(d) my fat as a buffer.
When I was molested at 7, I started hiding and sneaking food. When I was raped at 16, I started binging.
I wasn't aware that what I was doing was attempting to protect myself. I wasn't aware that I had disordered thinking about weight and sexual attractiveness. But that was the case for me.
And now here I am, at age 34 and 315 lb, happy as a motherf*cking clam.
I am adored by my husband of 8 years. I could have my choice of sexual partners (I choose my husband, not that it matters). I am a sexual being. My weight has little to do with that.
But that didn't keep 30 years of accepting society's bullshit from literally weighing me down. And even though I may want to lose weight (don't hate – I want the cute clothes that are available to thinner people), I also love who I am and how I look. I don't diet and try not to beat myself up for turning down a bloody banana because it was white.
That "article" was asinine to be sure. But there is some small truth to it. I thought I needed fat to protect me. I don't. Not that I can do anything about it even if I wanted to…
Sweetmachine and Margaret, that's what I'm realizing too. On junkfood science there was just those cards where they say that 10% of people said they would abort if they knew their child was predestined genetically to be fat. It's the same with people who would magically be given the foreknowledge to know their child would be gay.
Yet you ask people who are happily fat or gay (or deaf or anything else) whether they would accept a cure if there *were* one, and the answer is quite different.
In fact, I think this is a fascinating avenue for discussion. There are people who also answer questions like, "If you knew your unborn child would be gay/fat/deaf/etc. and were offered a 100% effective surgery/magic cure but it kills 20% of the babies who get it, would you do it?" It's kind of shocking how many people say yes to those things. And again, when you ask the people who are gay/fat/deaf/etc. the answers are different. At least in those who have learned to accept themselves. This movement is absolutely essential – how many people would STILL say they'd rather be dead than fat/gay/etc? What in hell is this culture doing to them?
I hope this isn't too dumb to add re: fat being a defense. I played along at home with Oprah in a visualization exercise (hey, it was a long time ago.) You imagined yourself standing face to face with your abuser (stepdad for me – er, not sexual in my case) and you then pictured your body going from where it was to the very absolute fattest you could possibly imagine it to be – 500 or 600 lbs I'd say in my case. Then you morphed that body down to the absolute utter limits of the skinniest you could possibly imagine it – skeletal for me. And I got a tremendous jolt when that imaginary self got skeletal. It scared the piss out of me – in front of him. I felt terrified, defenseless, etc.
For 16 fucking years (maybe more) that STUPID exercise has stayed with me – and I have actually internalized some idiotic new-age hocus belief that my fat really WAS a defense mechanism. Despite the clear evidence of my own senses that I most certainly did not want to be fat and that I got so through no real fault of my own.
Moral? Don't do stupid fucking new-age exercises with Oprah. And if you do, don't take the stupid results as meaning anything meaningful. Trust me, when I'm not hypnotizing myself and think rationally and objectively (even about my own subjective experience) I know that shit was not realistic at all. Because you know, when you *actually* face that person, if you're scared? You still feel skeletal (or whatever else scared you) even if you are 250 pounds. If you're not scared, you are not scared. Creative visualization? Pffft.
Meowser –
if you want to send your (edited) response directly to "Counselor" Rubaum-Keller, here is her site:
and here is her email address from the site (although it seems a bit interesting, like she may have
altered it in anticipation of the mail she expected to get):
You guys are my touchstone. My protection from doing anything insane. I want to scream at the snopes people and every other people but I know I mustn't. Must. check. first.
It's so fucking hard. How? How do you get that confident?
Oh, why can't I stop reading stupid things?
Here's another of her posts that is like the Bizarroworld vversion of intuitive eating.
Title: "Eat What You Love And The Weight Loss Will Follow." Sounds about a third of the way promising, doesn't it? Like, maybe she bought half a clue from the Clue Factory outlet store.
But you read it and… ugh. She turns the decision to eat half a serving of french fries to an epic battle within and concludes that it's okay to eat something you actually like, as long as you visualize both decisions and decide which one will make you less miserable… and of course, you have to remember to count the calories because that's all weight loss is, calorie counting.
Oh my goth. Half a serving of freaking french fries. I'm not trying to minimize the sort of very real food guilt that she's talking about… but she's portraying the endless agonizing as a good, healthy thing… a decision making process that you should train yourself to do.
It hurt my brain to read ( though, as a nice bonus, convinced me that my own writing isn't nearly as bad as I fear) but I'm going to respond to some of the finer details. It's raining. I don't want to leave the apartment.
Some of us put on weight because we didn't want to look too good and be sexually attractive
As Art3mis said above, some people do (consciously or unconsciously) view excess weight as protection. I've read/heard enough stories that I'm not willing to dismiss that out of hand. I don't think it's the majority of people but I do think it can be an issue.
Unfortunately general weight articles which put a great deal of emphasis on that notion (as opposed to articles devoted specifically to the topic) are the reason I have to put up with well-meaning family members worrying that a: I don't really like men or b: that something happened to me when I was a teenager. A lot of traumatic things happened to me in my teens but, as one of them was remaining a virgin until college, I'm fairly certain none of them had anything to do with unwanted sexual advances.
We have an inborn drive to perpetuate the species by choosing the healthiest, cutest, mate.
Not exactly true. If people only flirted based on the need to perpetuate the species then today's size zero movie starlets wouldn't get an ounce of attention. Sorry gals. You bring in the box office sales but you don't exactly have good birthing hips.
Also, what society views as attractive changes. Lillian Russell was one of the most the most famous (and lusted after) actresses and singers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, she'd be lucky to get cast as the quirky sidekick who sits at home eating ice cream. Think Russell is a fluke footnote in history? Try doing a Google image search on Titian or Rubens. Today, poor Titian's Venus would be doing crunches. And Rubens' Andromeda? She'd never leave the house in short-shorts.
An important point to keep in mind is that the people closest to you, do not want you to change. Even if you are 400 lbs. and in physical danger, the people closest to you want you to stay the same old (insert your name here) that you have always been.
The saboteurs. They're not a complete myth but, from experience, they're usually few and far between. This article is a little hysterical and paranoid in that it sounds like everyone will be out to get you. I once lost over 100lbs. I only had one person try to knock my off what she considered my "pedestal". Actually, the lengths she would go to were kind of amusing.
Hmmm. I vote for this article as the dumbest thing ever, if only because it was ridiculously poorly written. For the love of God, someone take away this woman's keyboard. That was just painful to read.
I feel sorry for her patients, to be honest. I'm REALLY hoping that she's just terrible at expressing herself on the Internet and she's not like that in person.
Oh . My . God!!! That writing was awful! My incoming freshmen students, turning in papers that they've written at 3am after partying all night, have better writing skills than hers. How on earth did she get through college and, I assume, graduate school with a teenager's writing abilities.
Not to mention her analytical or empathetic abilities. This woman is a psychiatrist? That seriously scares me, as she seems totally unable to conceive of anything outside her own experience (as others have determined, stage 2/projection). I'm sure her statements have a grain of truth in them for some people – at times in my life I have wanted to insulate myself from the world around me, and other friends and family members have gone through similar experiences. But that doesn't mean everyone does that.
The Diets Work!!! article was even worse: eat at 10x your desired weight, without exercise, and you will magically reach that weight? Really? Everyone's metabolism is the same, and it doesn't slow down? Well, all of us who've restricted our calories to 1200 or less and exercised hours a day must be big fat liars then, of course, otherwise we'd be skinny.
You know, I feel sorry for her – this woman obviously has a lot of issues with food and with acceptance. But I hate that she's going to be transferring these issues to people she's trying to "help"
That? My fat tummy is still hurting from laughing.
I wasn't aware that what I was doing was attempting to protect myself. I wasn't aware that I had disordered thinking about weight and sexual attractiveness. But that was the case for me.
Alyce: First, I would like to congratulate you on what sounds like a healed wound, and express my regrets that you had to go through sexual trauma in the first place. It is certainly not my place to validate or invalidate your perception of your experience. But one of the common mantras here at SP as well as at other FA/SA communities is that neither you, nor your parents, nor McDonalds, nor HFCS, nor a horrible psychological experience, can make you fat if you were not already genetically predisposed to being fat in the first place. To me, shifting the focus from traumatic experiences to body issues sounds like a ruse. I am definitely appreciative of the way our perception of our bodies affects our mental health, but if the real issue is sexual trauma then professionals should call a spade a spade. It's already hard enough to deal with the guilt, fear, and anger of enduring something like sexual trauma–why muddy the waters by an illegitimate distraction? So, yeah. Our fat, no matter what we think of it, is a natural event; the humiliation and violence perpetuated against us is wholly constructed by other humans.
I believe that some people are disposed to being larger than others. Myself being one of them. I also believe that it is possible to force yourself above your natural set point through inactivity and diet (mostly, binging).
My body was meant to be in the overweight range. It was not meant to be in the morbidly obese category. Otherwise I would have moved into that range much sooner and not at the same time that I pretty much gave up any pretense of caring about my health – physical or emotional.
They have let through very few comments, granted, the majority are critical. I just commented as well, let's see if they let that one through.
I can't believe that a site I generally respect as much as the Huffington Post would allow this tripe on it.
In the "we are all different" vein I'll reveal that my adult weight has varied between about 175 and 275 pounds due to overeating/compulsive eating on the high end, and dieting on the low end (not starvation dieting–I've never done the 800 calories a day, exercise hours a day thing; it's more that I do something like 1200-1900 calories with about an hour a day of fairly vigorous exercise, and at some point I feel I'm not losing enough and start to get crazy and beat myself up, and then I start bingeing and we're off on the upward portion of the roller coaster again).
So for me only it is certainly not impossible to eat yourself above your setpoint (whatever that might be for me personally… I think size 14 or 16, maybe 200 lbs.). However, I don't really think my experience is that of the typical fat person. I know most people's setpoints are somewhat less fluid than mine, and most fat people don't eat compulsively or excessively in comparison with thinner people.
P.S. I still think dieting is not good for anyone. It certainly doesn't seem to be good for my mental health. Whether I can walk that talk at the moment is another question.
Yes, that makes sense. I still think my setpoint is somewhat more "forgiving" than others' (I have found it "easier," though not in terms of the mental anguish, to move my weight up and down over the years than I think other people have. And I'm sure there is a factor there of my setpoint happening to be somewhat lower/more socially acceptable than others', so it can appear that "diets work" for me moreso than other people) but it's a complicated issue and I definitely don't understand all of the biological stuff that goes on. Anyway my personal experience is sort of beside the point… I just wanted to make the point that we have all traveled a slightly different journey to get to wherever we are.
I know enough people that can barely manage maintain their weight on 1200 calories or less but can lose weight when they eat 2000 calories that I know calories in/out is bullshit.
Yeah, there is that too.
You know, when I was growing up I thought my fat was the reason I never got asked out and was treated like crap by guys; but that all changed when I went to college and started getting hit on on a regular basis. :)
This woman is a psychiatrist? That seriously scares me, as she seems totally unable to conceive of anything outside her own experience (as others have determined, stage 2/projection).
She's a therapist of some sort. I doubt if she has any qualifications beyond, perhaps, a degree or certificate from some shady institution or another. However, even if she is formally qualified, we all know that one can belong to a profession and still really suck at it. Look at the doctors in First, Do No Harm.
I'm sad to report (in case we didn't ALL know this already) that MOST psychotherapists are completely screwed up when it comes to fat clients. I'm a sex therapist and a licensed marriage and family therapist (and also a proudly fat, size-acceptance activist!). In graduate school, I took several courses and trainings which focused on the "epidemic" of obesity and have been so-called "trained" in how to craft interventions to dissuade us shapelings from our evil eating-disordered ways. Needless to say, I was not that popular in graduate school and nearly fell to blows with many of my peers over my fat-acceptance, HAES politics. We are few and far between, but there are some of us who don't tow the party line. Having this perspective doesn't always make me that popular with clients, particularly in the work I do with couples and I suspect I've lost more than a few folks because I don't support them in their attempts at weight-loss. Instead I prefer encouraging people to build the biggest, happiest damn life they can in the body they have. This woman is a twit. Unfortunately, she's a dangerous twit. Instead of becoming demoralized, I'm determined to do more to off-set her influence. Onward, Shapelings!
spacedcowgirl, my husband has fluctuated with 50 pounds all of our adult lives. Not through any conscious effort – his setpoint just seems to be that fluid. He loves to eat, to be sure, and sometimes he'll just bulk up for a while – and then the pounds will start falling off again (usually when he's too busy with work to eat much or eat properly.) I do agree that setpoints aren't set in *stone* they're set in the fluid medium of human bodies – and an individual can vary to differing degrees than others.
She reminds me of my step-mother. It appears she took a few community psych courses and now she thinks she's fucking Freud.
I'm really sorry to disappoint her or her FAT theory but men hit on me all the time. And I've never once met a person who was too terrified to lose weight because of increased male attention.
She's messed up.
She gives justification to the author's of the Mississippi's bill bigoted beliefs. And they to hers. They grow fat on their own self-satisfaction and self-righteousness while trying to starve others of self-esteem.
I hate to say it, but I think that one of the reasons I became overweight is to keep the men away. I had a lot of problems as a teenager and young adult, not knowing how to say no, and was really preyed upon. Of course, now I wouldn't put up with that shit, but the damage is already done.
Annie McPhee, how are you defining setpoint? What exactly does it mean to say that a setpoint is "fluid"?
I know this is really stupid. I can sort of relate to it though. I've been afraid to be thin, because I thought then I'd turn into a mindless, self-absorbed, fat-hating person.
I heard Fiona Apple had Anorexia because she didn't want to have any "bait" on her body, after she was raped at 13. So I guess it can go both ways.
Since FA is barely even alive in the UK, Fat Is A Feminist Issue was pretty much the only book available to me back in the pre-Amazon day when I started my journey. One of the reasons I couldn't read it all the way through was the fat-as-a-means-of-repelling-sexual-attention theory which surfaced very early on in the book. Even though I was completely new to the notion of self-acceptance at any weight the stench of bullshit was overwhelming. Here is a book that's supposed to make fat women feel better about themselves effectively saying fat works as a barrier to relationships because it is universally recognised as repulsive. (Gee, thanks, Susie Orbach, relationship counsellor, profoundly helpful of you to let that view go unchallenged). And comfort eating is the only thing that makes anybody fat. Ergo the only way to feel better about yourself is to let go of those (oh-so-easily-shed) little issues that make you comfort eat and – boom! – instant skinny! See it's not a diet. It's a lifestyle change. A magical lifestyle change. Too bad if society is disinclined to let you let go of those issues that specifically contribute to your disordered relationship with food in the first place.
Linda, I'm only saying that some bodies vary only a couple pounds in their weight and others seem to vary more, without really changing their eating habits or activity. My husband varies by 30-50 pounds over time with very little to explain it.
Buffpuff – oooh, nice burn. I didn't intend to read that one and sounds like that was a decent idea :D
To quote Adam Sandler:
"Mr. Madison, what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul."
It's like someboy read her "Fat is a Feminist Issue" while she was drunk or heavily drugged. Every now and then she touches on something that I've heard more sensible people talk about, but at about the level of a five year old.
"Linda, I'm only saying that some bodies vary only a couple pounds in their weight and others seem to vary more, without really changing their eating habits or activity. My husband varies by 30-50 pounds over time with very little to explain it."
Okay, that makes sense. :) That sounds different that what you were talking about before though (varying food intake accounting for weight loss/gain.) I do get confused because different people seem to mean different things by it.
@stephanie: "I think there's a closet somewhere labelled Old Retread Ideas, and when columnists have nothing to say, they go rummaging around in the back, shake off the dust, and retread it – thinking no one will notice."
I've had an idea in the back of my mind for a few years to dig through the archives of various popular women's magazines, look at the recommendations of all their diet articles (and the books they are based on), and see how many times the exact same advice is given under different names. Maybe I should have gone for a PhD in sociology or something instead.
There's so much stupid in this piece. And . . . if you're angry and pissed at a person becuase they're thin . . . you're *shallow.* Personally, I was always pushed by people in my family to change my weight and lose weight when I was a pre-teen. No one wanted me to stay 'good old' me. They wanted me to be a thinner me.
@Mandark – I totally did that with Cosmo's "2317 ways to please a man" or "645 ways to be better in bed" articles that they keep on printing. It was a few years ago, in college, and was…disheartening, to say the least. I imagine that the diet articles would be much the same: repetitive, horribly sexist and utterly repugnant to anyone with a shred of self-worth.
But yeah, this article had me swallowing bile.
She is in fantasy land with the idea that it is a biological mandate that people prefer thin sexual partners. I haven't heard that one trotted out in a long time. It's just so ridiculous on so many levels, as several people have pointed out already, such as the fact that fat is associated with fertility because *gasp* fat on the body is healthy, especially in pregnancy and birth (did you know that estrogen is stored in fat cells? And that estrogen intensifies the effects of oxytocin, which is a crucial hormone in the birth process? And speaking of estrogen, that it's theorized that heavier women have an easier time going through menopause because of the connection between estrogen and fat?) I'd like to know also what she'd make of the fact that my biological mandate was so strong that in spite of years of cultural conditioning to the contrary, I chose a fat partner (the fattest one of all my suitors, most of whom were not fat,) with crooked teeth, a receding hairline, and a weak chin. What's especially interesting is that whatever chemical exchanges were going on to draw me to him also overrode what I "knew" to be about his degree of visual attractiveness so that he was literally visually transformed in my eyes into a hunk. And? He turned out to have a hardy constitution and to be a natural athlete, which I never would have guessed by looking at him. And? We have made four stunningly beautiful children together. My body obviously knew something that our modern culture doesn't.
It's sad, because I STILL believe to this day that my fat shields me from unsavory men. Obviously, this woman is picking up clues from people like me.
However, my fat did not stop my best guy friend from hitting on me.
My fat did not stop the boy who signed in my year book, "To the prettiest girl in the school."
My fat did not stop my sister's boyfriend from saying I was one of the most attractive females he had seen in his life.
So, somebody tell Irene to STFU! As I get older, I have to keep telling myself that being fat does NOT automatically mean I am exempt from the human race. I have a right to make friends. I have a right to make and keep boyfriends!
Remember that one time? There was that diet? And those authors? Who made millions? Remember?
Interesting trivia I just found OTM:
http://www.worldometers.info/ over $3 trillion dollars spent on dieting in the US this year… is that a calendar year???
Fat didn't shield me from unsavory men when I was in grad school. The university was in the "combat zone", a place with open prostitution. When I would leave at night for the subway, wearing a parka almost to my knees, scruffy pants, a wool cap and a backpack, cars would honk at me. Apparently, I looked both desirable and like a prostitute, without showing any skin or wearing any makeup. At least I think that was what was going on- I never turned around to look.
I know I'm jumping into this terribly late, but I wanted to echo everyone else's general "WTF?!" about this article and about the attitude of fat that people have.
It was interesting, however, that she blamed her inability to lose weight on the fact that the two muffins were higher in calorie count rather than the fact that expecting your body to function on the nutritional value of ***two muffins*** a day is actually likely to put your body into starvation mode…..geeeez. That's a woman who should NOT be giving advice on health!!!
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national origin of Rosson
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Moderator: Mark
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national origin of Rosson
I am brand new to this site, having found it while trying to research my ancestors. My great grandmother was named Rosson, Rosin, or something like that. Little else is known of her except that she was a "Belfast Orangewoman", born in Belfast in the 19th century and came to the US and settled down here. I have been unable to find out anything about the name Rosson until today. So glad to have found your site ! I would like to know what nationality Rosson is - I see you have a poll about the origins, which suggests to me that it may not be a clear cut issue. Does anyone know what the consensus is about the national origin of this name? I am 1/8th Rosson and would like to know more about them. I have tried in the past to find an origin for it - usually I came up with Scandanavian or German origins, probably cause it was often spelled Rossen, Rosen, Rosson, etc. Can anyone help me solve this family mystery? I would greatly appreciate any and all info you could give me
Re: national origin of Rosson
Hello, this is very interesting as I have been researching my great great grandmother's line who is ROSSON for some time now. On her marraige certficate and census list she is always listed as irish and indeed married there. I have been unable to find a link to ireland and you are the first person whom I have seen on the message boards that has a link to ireland with the name ROSSON. I am from the UK and we do have old letters from the 1930s from John and Jane ROSSON who lived in Woodcliff Lake, Bergen County who we presume was gg grandmother's sister in law and brother. My grandmother 's name was ANNA MARIA ROSSON BORN 1863 . Her father is down as Thomas ROSSON. Anna married my grandfather in 1881 which is the same year Jane Rosson emigrated to America !
Re: national origin of Rosson
Although she was born in Ireland (actually Northern Ireland in Belfast), she was not of Irish nationality. She is listed as a "Belfast Orangewoman", which means she is the descendant of settlers who came to Ireland after Ireland was defeated by Cromwell. I am guessing she is possibly of Scots and/or English origin, with a distinct possiblity that she is of Scandanavian/Germanic origin (Rosson is similar to the Scandanavian names that end in -son or -sen). Any info on your ancestors' nationality? Any background information would be helpful.
Re: national origin of Rosson
Thank you for replying. Your post indeed makes the most sense that she is listed as irish nationality but not actually irish. As I said my link to Ameriuca is Jane Rosson who we have christmas cards from. The only other thing I know about the Rosson name is that the orgins in England are from Cheshire which you might already know about. I am also looking at the hugenaut origins of this name . What else would you like to know ?
Re: national origin of Rosson
Any info at all that you could give me would be greatly appreciated. I never heard of a Huegonot origin for Rosson, where did you hear this? Also wanted to know what you thought of the Scandanavian/German origin of the name? Whenever I try to look up Rosson, I usually get nothing, but it directs me to Rosin, Rosen, Rossin, Rossen, etc., which are usually identified as having a Scandanavian, Germanic or even Jewish origin. Any thoughts on this?
Re: national origin of Rosson
I just discovered a Thomas Rosson, born in Ireland, who is the father of Eliza Rosson, who are respectively my great, great grandfather and my great grandmother. Could this be the same as your Thomas Rosson and his daughter, Eliza's sister? Please let me know, as this has piqued my interest greatly.
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Foodies and wine lovers, Nov. 14-18 is going to be a good week for you. The 9th annual San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival will be bringing hundreds of fine wines and gourmet food to the waterfront for five days of gourmet experiences.
Those looking to try some new wines will have more than 700 options to sip from. It'll be tough to pick just one, since domestic and international wineries will be pouring their most luxurious crafts.
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Tickets can be purchased on the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival website. You won't want to miss out on this event – so make sure to get your spot early.
NBC 7 San Diego is a proud media sponsor of this event.


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I looked over and there was the first bannister finished . We were yarnbombing out on Oak street in front of The Oakland Museum of California . There were 4 skinny 15 ft long metal bannisters to yarnbomb and we were now up one . I had been waiting a long time to see how the knitting would look. There it was – and it looked sparkling , thrilling ! I got little electric jolts when I looked at it – it was fresh and lush and musical. Oh boy .
When I first had the idea to yarnbomb The OMG the idea was extremely exciting in my mind . It took some time and negotiating with The Oakland Standard to get it all set up and time tends to calm our enthusiasm . It was fun to tell people that I had a commission to yarnbomb The Oakland Museum and that it was probably the first museum to ever be yarnbombed inside.
Then after the joy of the idea and the romance of bragging came the 2 months of full time spinning and knitting .
Fortunately I love knitting and spinning .
I think with art it's best to first find something you adore doing . Then second figure out out to make something great with it .
So there I was -getting up every morning and spinning and plying on my spinning wheel all day . Taking breaks from spinning on my wheel to spin on my spindle. When I had 12o colors spun up I would wind off big soft balls of yarn and give them to my friends to knit up . This went on and on . Every day life is very lulling – I sort of forgot what we were doing this for .
Lots of my friends were knitting with me with great generosity . I have a pronounced tendency to drag people into my various projects with me whether it's knitting , weaving , bodywork , kayaking or yarnbombing . If I think something is fun I'm convinced that everyone will think it's fun too .
So the day came -today – it was time to start the installation . I packed up my car like I was leaving town and going car camping for a couple of weeks. I filled up every suitcase I had with bags of knitting . I had no sense at all that we were actually going to yarnbomb the Oakland Museum .
I drove over to the museum and met The Fibrarian , The Russian , Brenda Loreman and Nancy . Every one sewed like crazy . I ran the crew . I had my portrait taken by Oakland magazine . That was pretty interesting . How do you take a picture of an anonymous person ?
Brenda said " I'm done "
And I looked at the yarnbombing and I was startled by delight.
And I realized that this was the point of the whole undertaking – yarnbombing is beautiful . It lifts the spirits and gives you one of those simple single timeless moments of pleasure .
I've come to believe that these moments are the best part of being alive.Come to the Opening Friday Night Nov 4 from 6 to 8 . There will be a knitting circle and yarnbombing more here


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Do note, I haven't played the other IronRealms MUDs that they have...but Achaea is probably the most popular, anyway.
So, supposedly the game gets heavy on having to pay real money to advance. I haven't got to that point yet, so I'm not sure how true that is. But their cash shop is stupidely expensive, so I doubt I'll be buying anything from there...it makes the cash shop from Allods Online look like they are giving items away for free. However, I'm not sure if one is 100% required to pay for the stupidely expensive shop, or if people can earn through in-game what they can from the shop.
Having said that...this is probably one of my favorite MUDs I've tried. I tried a lot, but none have really hooked me in like Achaea has. The world is fairly large, community from what I've seen is friendly and helpful. The city and house I joined are great (I'm a Sentinel and joined the city Eleusis), and I've met quite a lot of roleplayers while I've been exploring in the city. This is probably my favorite aspect of Achaea, is how friendly everyone is. But really, most MUDs generally have a nice community.
Now another aspect I like is you can walk to various landmarks...now for someone that enters an inn in an MMO and gets lost inside the inn...this is a great feature. As generally (in MUDs) I take 5 steps in some direction and then start going in circles and can never find how to get back. Kind of sad I know. :P Probably sadder I get lost inside inns. :P Though I haven't seen any in-game map like some MUDs have, but their are maps online that are good enough. You can also use a teleport portal system from level 1-20, but I personally don't use it...I don't want to get to level 21 and go "okay I have no idea where anything is"...better to me, to explore without using the portals.
Later you can also buy and customize your own house...I don't know much about this feature though, or if it is a cash shop thing or not...someone can go into more detail in that. But having a house is always awesome, I enjoy housing in various games and MMOs.
The only thing that seems a con so far, is it seems kind of grindy. But there are various tasks to do, like catching butterflies or giving corpses to the imp king or pixie queen...but combat is fun, some MUDs have an automated combat system...but Achaea you input different moves in for your character to do. I like that better.
Really, I think it is the community that I like a lot...plus for a MUD, it is a fairly large game (player wise)...since a lot of MUDs aren't as active. But even if it is large, most people I've met are great. But my biggest worry really is if one needs to use the crazy expensive cash shop to get ahead...especially since Achaea is PvP focused.
Really, there are a lot cheaper MUDs out there (some which are totally free)...that probably have more features than Achaea or a better world. But I like Achaea's dynamic aspect to the game. Many MUDs feel quite static to me. But even players in Achaea can change the game, story wise at least. I like that.
Other MUDs I like or tried are Discworld (best MUD in terms of world design) and Medievia and Materia Magicka have tons of features and an ascii based map. Discworld is totally free, and probably offers a better exploration than Achaea...but it is very grindy, a lot more so than Achaea. It doesn't seem to be very dynamic either, like Achaea is. Though the whole Discworld MUD is custom made, along with all the descriptions of each room. And as for the other two, I personally never could get into Medievia or Magicka, I don't know...lots of features, but the world didn't bring me in at all. However, I forgot which one...think it was Materia Magicka, does have a custom weather system that has different effects. That is a neat feature.
And for those who are curious to see...
Here is the link to their cash shop, look at it and lol really hard
They have various deals. 5 dollars for 10 credits (cheapest, but useless, since 10 credits is barely any at all), or 25 dollars a month or their most expensive in premium packaging is almost 600 dollars.
People say Achaea is pay to win, and it could be later on...as I said, I haven't got that far yet. But their cash shop is lol worthy. At least the game is good...but their cash shop is stupid.
Hey, it's you again.
The game itself is okay. I just have mixed feelings about the whole microtransaction deal.
IRE isn't a group of volunteers and hobbyists. They have decided to pay their employees, just like Simutronics, but much smaller. They treat maintaining the MUD like a job - most staff don't because it's a hobby for them - so it's not unreasonable for them to find some way to make money. I'm more than happy to support people who have made it their job to keep MUDs alive. That's really cool and I can get behind that.
My problem? It's too expensive to play if you want to be viable in any type of pvp. Want to have scripts that aren't bad and are supported by their maker? You have to go and buy a combat system for $20 or more. If you don't buy a script, you might notice that the other players you fight are REALLY, REALLY good at cleansing, using items, attack really quick, etc.. because they are using a combat system. I think that to preserve balance, scripts shouldn't be allowed to play the game for you. Plus, who would want to let the game client do everything for you? In real MMOs, developers would call this botting and you'd get banned!
Most MUDs do donations, but IRE (as well as games like New Worlds and Threshold) have turned to mt.
Yeah, a 1000 dollars is a lot of money. Achaea isn't that much, but their cash shop and pay to win kind of ruins the game. I don't know any people that would throw that kind of money at a game...maybe there are, I don't know.
I ended up playing Discworld MUD, the world pulls me in a lot more than Achaea and I find it fun. But I guess that is for another topic.
Personally I like Achaea and I've been playing it for about 10+ years (if you can't tell from my other posts). I started playing at an early age so I guess MUDs kind of spoiled the MMO experience for me. I've tried other MUDs, there was one I really liked before I started playing Achaea but they wanted $10 a month to play and I was just a kid at the time so I had to keep creating free trial characters.
I've spent about $600 or more on about 3 characters over the years and I'm decent at PvP. There are people who spend thousands of dollars in the cash shop and can steamroll you in like 15 seconds but lately the game has been gearing itself more towards team-based PvP where having cash shop items helps your team but not dramatically because both sides will have players with cash shop items.
I would say that getting into one-versus-one PvP and duelling people is very hard for a new person, but getting into team-based PvP like city versus city raids is pretty easy. And they've been doing a lot of promotions lately that give away free credits.
Combat systems are a little bit of a problem right now because they're becoming so dang smart. Back in the day a combat system was just a basic set of triggers that helped you cure a little bit better but there are public combat systems that block illusions from specific people, get your pipes out of your pack if you're forced to put them away, etc. I think we always knew that more and more advanced systems were going to be a problem as more advanced clients like Mudlet are released. But I also think the producers are starting to notice. There was a big thread on the Achaea forums about it.
I don't know who any of you play (or played) in Achaea but I hope you try a character in Shallam! Tis fun lately.
I'm a very big fan of Achaea, have been playing now for about 5 years across one character or another. I've never been really PVP heavy but I'm pasable, managed to get to dragon in fact on my current character. In total, I've spent about $30 US on Achaea, I've bashed up enough credits to buy 2 curing systems in game, and some small time artefacts. IRE run plenty of promotions in game, so that if you don't have the moolah to dump into the MUD you can earn your high end shinies in other ways.
Sure it takes a bit longer, and I'd love to have the means to support my habit, but don't look at the prices per credit and run screaming.
Buying credits isn't necessary to succeed in Achaea at all. In my five years or so playing the game and now being an established player and PvPer there, I've only spent a minimal amount of money. As Lianca mentioned above, there are many ways to earn credits in game, or even through the writing and art contests hosted monthly by the game if you're into that sort of thing. I've personally earned most of mine through drawing.
Furthermore, combat isn't the only thing you can do. A lot of my friends and many established, famous players focus on politics or other general roleplay, which doesn't require any money or grinding at all. I'd recommend giving the game a try despite the seemingly high credit prices -- they're pricey, maybe, but not a big deal. Look into the game for the game itself!
If someone goes into the game and decides to spend $5000 on it, that's their decision. Fact is, there is no "winning" Achaea, or any sort of MMO. There is only the series of small victories that lead to the fact that you have too much money and free time. I play for the interaction with others, to flex my writing muscles and to stir up IC trouble whenever I can. You don't have to spend anything to do that.
If being a top combatant is your goal and you don't want to spend money, make some gold and buy your artefacts. It takes a good, long while, but isn't that more rewarding? If you have the cash to buy artefacts, and it's really that important to you, go ahead. No one's forcing your hand here.
If you play to win, you'll always lose in the end. Play for the fun of it and enjoy yourself, for crying out loud.
"For he who can be, and therefore is, another's and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature."


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1999 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage 38K 38' Class A Diesel Motorhome
1999 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage 38K 38' Class A Motorhome. CAT 300 HP Diesel Engine. Slide Out, Patio Awning, Sleeps 8, Dual A/C Units, Leveling Jacks.
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Step inside and take a look back at all of the convenient features that would make any journey enjoyable. The kitchen area features everything you need to prepare great meals on the go including a sink, a three burner range with microwave, and a refrigerator/freezer. There is also plenty of storage for all of your dry and canned goods. Have a seat at the comfortable dinette, where you can enjoy meals with your family.
The living area includes a sofa so you can relax during the daytime, and even take in a little television with surround sound. At night the sofa can transform into sleeping space for family or overnight guests.
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Summer 2013
Profile: La Mesure de l'Amour
Yves Brunet has been to hell and back. Here, he reveals how, after a seemingly endless string of hardships, he still has room for gratitude, humour and love.
I limp out of the dermatologist's office, where I just received two less-than-encouraging pieces of news. First, the doctor confirmed that I likely have metabolic syndrome. My psoriasis, which has made a comeback after a 10-year hiatus, is common in people with the syndrome. And, like many people with HIV who took antiretroviral drugs during the late '90s, I have a number of symptoms that, together, define it—an accumulation of fat in the belly area, high triglycerides, low HDL (good cholesterol) and high blood pressure. I also learned that the pain in my foot and knee is likely due to a persistent condition called psoriatic arthritis, for which my treatment options (as a person with HIV and cardiovascular problems) are limited.
"Do I really need this?" I think to myself. I take a deep breath as I open the door of the taxi waiting to take me from Ottawa, where I live, across the river to Collège Saint-Alexandre, in Gatineau, Quebec, where I have been asked to tell my story. I have given personal testimonials many times before, but I take this time in the cab to review which anecdotes I will share today. I may be feeling low now but I know that speaking will lift my spirits, as it often does. I decide to start at the beginning.
IN OCTOBER 1986, at the age of 27, my then new partner suggested we get tested for HIV before engaging in riskier sex. I was sure my test result would be negative. Three weeks later, my family doctor told me that I had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS and that he had no idea how long I had to live, as there was no treatment available. "But you know," he said, "I could cross the street, get hit by a bus and die before you." Though that might have been true, it offered me little comfort. But it was what he said next that floored me: "And I will refer you to a psychiatrist to change your sexual orientation, as it is the cause of your infection."
Once home, I told a few friends, my parents and one of my three siblings. Then I went into isolation, though I continued to work every day as a human resources specialist with the now-defunct federal Department of Communications. I was petrified that people at work would find out.
Three years later, I was brushing my teeth one day and noticed on the side of my tongue some white stuff, which didn't go away when I tried to brush it off. I went to see my new doctor, who by then treated many people with HIV. He looked at it and said: "Oh, that's hairy leukoplakia." As a francophone, the only thing I heard was "hairy" and I certainly didn't want anything hairy on my tongue! He continued as if he was talking about the weather: "Oh, that's something that happens when one's immune system is compromised." That sentence burst the bubble in which I had been moving around with crossed fingers, hoping I would not develop AIDS. Taking his diagnosis as evidence to the contrary, I took the money I had saved to buy a house, bought a round-the-world ticket and took off with a friend for three months.
UPON MY RETURN, I attended the funerals of nine friends over a three-year period. Not only was I losing people I cared about, I was going to the funerals of people who had died of the same thing I had, for which there was no effective treatment and no cure. It was emotionally draining, to say the least.
When my CD4 count hit 200, I decided to leave my job. I announced to my 88 colleagues, 21 of whom I managed, that I was HIV positive and approaching the AIDS stage of the disease and that I was going home to take care of myself.
Never mind Freedom 55, I was now retired at 34. That's fun for about three months, but I needed to find what I was meant to do if my time was limited.
Shortly after retiring, I began to feel stomach pain, and though I told my physicians, my complaints went nowhere. This is when I realized that doctors did not manage my health—I did! So I insisted on getting tests and was diagnosed with cytomegalovirus (CMV) gastritis on December 15, 1995. I was put on intravenous treatment (Ganciclovir), on an outpatient basis, for 14 days. I asked my doctor innocently, "And then it will be gone?"
"No," he said. "Afterwards, you will continue with the same treatment three times a week."
"For what, a month?" I asked.
"No, for the rest of your life."
"That raises an obvious question," I said. "How long do people normally live with this condition?" I needed to know.
"Patients with your condition, on the medication we have now, live on average two years." I thanked him for being frank.
A FEW MONTHS LATER, during a routine dental appointment, my dentist noticed a lump in my hard palate and suggested I show it to my HIV specialist. One week later they told me that I had Kaposi's sarcoma (a kind of cancer that causes patches to grow on the skin, in the mouth or elsewhere in the bodies of people living with HIV who have very weakened immune systems). After 11 days of radiation treatment, I lost one-third of my moustache on one side. For the sake of symmetry, I shaved a third off the other side and ended up with a Hitler moustache for about three weeks. Other tumours sprang up on my neck and shoulders, but I chose to leave those alone for the time being and had them treated later.
Roughly two years after my diagnosis of CMV gastritis and AIDS, an ophthalmologist informed me that the virus in my stomach had decided to manifest itself in my eyes. He suggested I go for injections in the eyes to prevent CMV retinitis from doing more damage and causing blindness.
What choice did I have but to undergo the treatment, one for which sedation is not given lest the eye get scratched in the process? He told me that there was an experimental treatment in the U.S. where they put the patient to sleep (that sounded good already!), opened the eye and inserted a bag that released medication over a six-month period. "What happens at the end of the six months? Do they replace the bag, like with a vacuum cleaner?" The eye doctor hesitated and said: "We don't know, we haven't had a patient live that long."
BY MARCH 1997, I had been on two protease inhibitors for over six months and my viral load was very high: over 721,000 copies. Not good. I tried a third one and—eureka!—my viral load plummeted. After four and a half months of weekly injections in the eyes, I no longer needed them. The IV treatments I received three times weekly over the course of two years also stopped. But instead of celebrating, I sank into a depression. My multiple losses—my job, my network of friends, my looks and some of my abilities—and my largely unacknowledged grief were all catching up with me.
Three years later, my retinas became detached and, after eight surgeries, the eye doctor informed me that I was legally blind, that nothing more could be done. I was given a form to get my white cane and another to be declared disabled according to the Income Tax Act.
For the first time in my life, I considered suicide. I asked Rob, my partner of 11 years, to help me do it. He said he would help me but that he needed some time. For me, time was equal to suffering, but I loved him and wanted to give him the time he needed. While waiting, I got used to my low vision and to the many tools that help people with it (my white cane, magnifiers, special software, colour-coded measuring cups and spoons, among others).
Since then, I have had a heart attack and a stent put in. I am a poster boy for lipodystrophy. I also have DILS (diffuse infiltrative lymphocytosis syndrome), which involves the swelling of the parotid glands, giving me a chipmunk look for which I had unsuccessful radiation treatments.
BUT, SOMEHOW, LIFE WENT ON. Looking back, you could say that I had to reinvent my life. How? There was no sign from the sky above that told me what my new mission should be, but eventually, during my darkest days, I developed a tool I call la mesure de l'amour, which I used as a guide. Before doing something, I would ask myself, "Is there love in this activity?" If there was, I would do it, and if not, I would move on. I needed to know that whatever I was doing was either loving or helping somebody. I pictured digging a hole in the ground: I could either focus on the hole (what was missing) or concentrate on the mound of earth and what I could plant there.
When I have felt bad, I have tried to help others. There is nothing like it to make me feel better. So, I began facilitating support groups and organizing information sessions for other people living with HIV; I have also served on local and national boards (I've been on CATIE's for the last seven years). Yes, I continue to deal with pain in my body and I take 18 different medications, but my health is generally much better. And when I sit down every night with Rob, now my husband, to enjoy a meal, I feel truly happy. My goal is to appreciate what I have and feel gratitude for every day.
As I pay the taxi driver, I feel ready to do my testimonial, to encourage people I have not yet met to open their hearts, and I realize it is not such a bad day after all. ✚
To get in touch with Yves, you can email him at yvesbrunet59 (at) gmail.com


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Tooling Update
Metal-Cutting Technology e-Learning Program
Sandvik Coromant, Fair Lawn, NJ, has launched an interactive Metal Cutting Technology (MCT) e-Learning program. This comprehensive online program comprises a 75-course curriculum packed with information and expertise about the metal-cutting process. Designed for engineers, programmers, operators and students, the unique training and education program explains the fundamentals of metal cutting and specifically teaches about internal and external turning, parting and grooving, milling, drilling, threading, boring and tool holding.
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Designed to allow users to work at their own pace on their own schedule, the MCT e-Learning program can be accessed at www.metalcuttingknowledge.com through the Sandvik Coromant Academy portal. The program combines multiple learning formats including video, animation and question and narration. Users can test their knowledge and receive a Certificate of Completion.Sandvik Coromant: 201/794-5257; www.sandvik.coromant.com
See also: Sandvik Coromant Company
Related Enterprise Zones: Tool & Die, Training


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1217 Tamarack Trail, Nordegg, AB - MLS # CA0077170
Quick Summary
- Price
- $87,713
- Type:
- Residential Acreage
- Sub Type:
- Vacant Lot(s)/Land
- Title:
- 1217 Tamarack Trail
- Possession:
- Immediate
Lot Summary
- Lot Units:
- 1 Acres
Property Description
- County / Parish: Clearwater County, Alberta
- Zoning: NLR
Are you looking for an affordable piece of paradise that you can enjoy seasonally? Well then you have chosen the right spot. Build your own cottage with spectacular views near Historic Nordegg. Located in the North subdivision, this area offers walking trails, hiking trails, quadding trails, golf and fishing nearby. The subdivision located at the base of both Mount Baldy and Coliseum have much to offer and is awaiting your dreams to be recognized. There are a limited amount of lots left to be built on so be the first to chose which one best suits your needs. Any applicable GST will added to the purchase price.
- Listed By Royal Lepage Tamarack Trail Realty