While most Americans were planning for the annual ritual of overconsumption known as Thanksgiving, the good folks at the Heritage Foundation, America's leading architects of conservative thought for at least three decades, were doing their part to add to the holiday cheer. According to a November 13 Heritage article, well-off revelers could stuff their faces unhampered by guilt about the less fortunate, because there are no longer any hungry people in the United States. You have to hand it to Heritage for always being first out of the gate to exploit the latest event or finding to advance its aims-this is the same think tank that issued a comprehensive strategy, two weeks after Katrina hit shore, for using the hurricane as an excuse to slash federal social programs. This time, its thinkers found inspiration in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual report on Household Food Security in the United States, which is as close as the federal government comes to providing statistics on hunger among the nation's poor. The latest report states that 11 percent of Americans were "food insecure" for some part of 2006, and 4 percent-11.1 million people-experienced "very low food security."[..] But the Heritage folks are looking beyond semantic tweaks: Far from having too little to eat, they argue, poor people are eating too much. By the time the USDA report went public, Heritage had readied its own salvo, titled "Hunger Hysteria: Examining Food Security and Obesity in America." In recent years, the U.S. media and public have become increasingly obsessed with the "obesity epidemic." And what better way to attack the idea of deprivation among the poor than to note that they are getting fatter? Rightly or not, people still associate obesity with the sins of gluttony and sloth, which jives nicely with the concept that welfare recipients are lazy people who would rather feed at the public trough than get an honest job.
You have to hand it to Heritage for always being first out of the gate to exploit the latest event or finding to advance its aims-this is the same think tank that issued a comprehensive strategy, two weeks after Katrina hit shore, for using the hurricane as an excuse to slash federal social programs. This time, its thinkers found inspiration in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual report on Household Food Security in the United States, which is as close as the federal government comes to providing statistics on hunger among the nation's poor. The latest report states that 11 percent of Americans were "food insecure" for some part of 2006, and 4 percent-11.1 million people-experienced "very low food security."[..]
But the Heritage folks are looking beyond semantic tweaks: Far from having too little to eat, they argue, poor people are eating too much. By the time the USDA report went public, Heritage had readied its own salvo, titled "Hunger Hysteria: Examining Food Security and Obesity in America." In recent years, the U.S. media and public have become increasingly obsessed with the "obesity epidemic." And what better way to attack the idea of deprivation among the poor than to note that they are getting fatter? Rightly or not, people still associate obesity with the sins of gluttony and sloth, which jives nicely with the concept that welfare recipients are lazy people who would rather feed at the public trough than get an honest job.
or maybe you read it at the original - at mother Jones?
and where is the link to happiness, you are wondering? ah it is in Nicole's comment.
Must. Resist. Impulse. To. Bang. Head. Against. Keyboard. I've been doing some reading on scientific study of happiness (i.e., how psychology and brain physiology determines our emotional reactions) and I truly believe that the empathy portion of the brain stem must be damaged or missing on conservatives. That's the only way that I can see how they can ignore the facts in front of them to come up with such a condescending and hateful hypothesis like that. But it appears that the Heritage Foundation feels they are entitled to their own facts, much like the unintentionally hilarious Conservapedia. According to this BloggingHeads segment, Heritage is planning on starting their own version of Crooks&Liars, documenting examples of "liberal" media bias and when conservatives are shown in an unfairly bad light.
But it appears that the Heritage Foundation feels they are entitled to their own facts, much like the unintentionally hilarious Conservapedia. According to this BloggingHeads segment, Heritage is planning on starting their own version of Crooks&Liars, documenting examples of "liberal" media bias and when conservatives are shown in an unfairly bad light.
see all lazy - and slap on the wrist - stay here to discuss my laziness and go over there to discuss her article. (-:
I truly believe that the empathy portion of the brain stem must be damaged or missing on conservatives.
Conservatives don't do empathy.
Conservatives don't do cause and effect.
Conservatives lack a stable and adult sense of morality.
While we had a (very quiet) go at autistic savants last week, I'll propose - again - that this kind of conservatism should be considered a form of mental illness, every bit as real as other popular syndromes like ADHD.
No surprise: reductionism seems to be the point of science. But if there is a neurobiological [spelling changed by PeWi] basis for religion (Dawkins is a biologist), then there must also be a neurobiological basis for atheism: After donning a helmet wired with electromagnets, some subjects reported experiences they described as mystical, or at least misty. When Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, put on the hood, it only made him a little dizzy. Persinger was quick to note that Dawkins had scored way below average on a psychological questionnaire measuring temporal lobe sensitivity--hints of a neurobiological correlate for atheism. As Thomas Adams points out (for whom I must also credit the Slate link): Johnson's last line here is brilliant. After all, if theism is simply a product of neurochemistry, then so is atheism - something that the "explainers of religion" all too often forget. Perhaps, in the end, the neurotheologians will show that it is atheism, not theism, which is caused by a mental defect (this would be the logical conclusion, of course, since the vast majority of the world's current and past inhabitants have been theists). If so, will Slate.com then treat us to articles that attempt to explain the "atheism meme" and the "agnostic delusion"? (emphasis supplied) That parenthetical is, of course, exactly right. But whether or not Slate, or anyone else, ever attempts to explain the "atheism meme" or the "agnostic delusion" is really neither here nor there, because in the last analysis this entire discussion is not a discussion but is, as Bunting points out, the same old song, and it is only about power. Power, however, serves no one, and makes sure always that its own ends are served.
After donning a helmet wired with electromagnets, some subjects reported experiences they described as mystical, or at least misty. When Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, put on the hood, it only made him a little dizzy. Persinger was quick to note that Dawkins had scored way below average on a psychological questionnaire measuring temporal lobe sensitivity--hints of a neurobiological correlate for atheism.
Johnson's last line here is brilliant. After all, if theism is simply a product of neurochemistry, then so is atheism - something that the "explainers of religion" all too often forget. Perhaps, in the end, the neurotheologians will show that it is atheism, not theism, which is caused by a mental defect (this would be the logical conclusion, of course, since the vast majority of the world's current and past inhabitants have been theists). If so, will Slate.com then treat us to articles that attempt to explain the "atheism meme" and the "agnostic delusion"? (emphasis supplied)
all from Mr Madison
My tongue is firmly planted in my cheek whenever I quote this. Afterall, what IS normal.
heh.
you are the media you consume.
having said that - while at the same time not believing that I really said it - part of what makes us function as human is the ability to forget - I read this somewhere, but simply cannot recall where that was....
Since when is reduction in ability evolutionary development?
now the remaining question is, is a reduction necessarily a limiter, or something than can enable. Again this probably depends.
Please do not forget that my initial comment is snark. I am neither particularly bothered, if there is a genetic, or brain marker, that enables theism - or if there is a not.
In the question of nurture v. nature, I am firmly exactly nowhere. While it is interesting to ask the question, the assumption that there is a NEED to answer the question at all, is something that I would question.
For me the question of nurture v nature is one of responsibility and acceptance of ones own action. Now this is not a universal statement, but one that is only valid for me.
I don't find his analytical skills very impressive - although I do admire the way he communicates.
Also Susan Bordo's book Unbearable Weight, which tackles the feminist/gendered issues raised by the anti-fat crusade.
It's interesting how markers of wealth and poverty shift or do not shift over time; being tanned was once a dead giveaway of one's inferior status as an outdoor labourer, and well-bred gents and ladies cultivated a ghastly pallor to substantiate their wealth and rank. Now ghastly pallor is the sign of the factory worker or office drone and people pay big bucks and risk skin cancer to get an "instant tan" under UV lamps so that they can look like a sunbathing Person of Leisure.
At one point, as recently as Dickens if not earlier, plumpness was a sign of affluence and health, and hence plump people were described as "jolly," comfortable, and attractive. Now it is often a sign of malnutrition due to low income that restricts an industrial-worldista to a diet of corn products and other greases and sugars. However, as pointed out above, for complex reasons (despite social "tells" such as "you can never be too rich or too thin" we hang onto a perception of "fat" as overnourished, greedy, lazy, wealthy, as in "fat cat"). Fat is also, of course, considered Unmanly (bodily softness, eeee-yew!). So there's all kind of cultural whammy riding on the BS spewed by the poison-pens at Heritage Foundation... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
However, as pointed out above, for complex reasons (despite social "tells" such as "you can never be too rich or too thin") we hang onto a perception of "fat" as overnourished, greedy, lazy, wealthy, as in "fat cat". The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
At one point, as recently as Dickens if not earlier, plumpness was a sign of affluence and health, and hence plump people were described as "jolly," comfortable, and attractive. Now it is often a sign of malnutrition due to low income that restricts an industrial-worldista to a diet of corn products and other greases and sugars. However, as pointed out above, for complex reasons (despite social "tells" such as "you can never be too rich or too thin") we hang onto a perception of "fat" as overnourished, greedy, lazy, wealthy, as in "fat cat". Fat is also, of course, considered Unmanly (bodily softness, eeee-yew!). So there's all kind of cultural whammy riding on the BS spewed by the poison-pens at Heritage Foundation...
Visiting poorer parts of Africa with a group of westerners is revealing. Suddenly the more corpulent members of the group are viewed as richer, having higher status. Fat is wealth, which in men is very manly indeed. Thin is poor, sickly. Sounds kind of feminine.
I write with a group because then you carry your internal status system with you all that more clearly. The clash is enlightening as it illuminates your own prejudices and internalised values.
You just have to look at early modern European painting to see the same pattern in action. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
