Imogen
-
Posts
59 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Posts posted by Imogen
-
-
Have you had your hormone levels checked?
Low testosterone symptoms for women
From the above article about low testosterone in women:
Research reveals that a woman's sexual health is greatly affected by low testosterone levels. The hormone is directly linked to libido, making it imperative to address immediate replenishment of testosterone.If you do have hormonal imbalances (that could be primary and therefore you would not notice the symptoms of onset, such as loss or gain of weight), while your libido may or may not be affected, not addressing them will result in other health and quality-of-life issues.
I agree with dropping the guy, but I strongly recommend investigating this further for yourself. It would be sad to end up in cardiac arrest at a young age because you didn't address what you assumed was an idiosyncratic disinterest in sex.
-
What is being addressed is the OP's post- in which he stated:
" As a consequence we should never force children to do anything against their will (this includes things like going to school or brushing their teeth."
Additionally on the link that was posted in the OP were several links to pieces about not imposing discipline of any sort on children.
I understood this, which is why I addressed definitions that would no doubt come into play, as has already happened. When unschooling without a qualifier is implicated in a rebuttal against the idea of not disciplining one's children, it has to made clear that it is a specific "unschooling" philosophy that fits with the philosophy of the authors of the linked TCS site, and not unschooling in general.
Specifically, proponents of the tenets of "Radical Unschooling" would agree wholeheartedly with TCS's philosophical and methodological tenets (since they are the same); whereas plain old unschoolers are no in any way beholden to such philosophies, and therefore discipline as they please- with or without force and without losing their status as unschoolers. An unschooler who refuses to use force when necessary with a child is a Radical Unschooler, so the unruly children that you mentioned earlier are not so owing to unschooling proper, but to a fringe movement within the 'world' of unschooling (which is also a fringe of homeschooling), but is really a philosophy for parenting/raising children (that I happen to think is nonsense) moreso than an educational model, such as is unschooling.
I have spent a little more than five years in discussion with people across the spectrum regarding this/these topic(s), and while making the distinction I did may not seem relevant to those who are not involved in the current social 'scene' that includes (but is not limited to) RU'ers and U/S'ers, it is relevant to those who are. TCS is part of that 'scene'. Lumping unschoolers in with the fringe radicals paints with too broad a stroke, in my opinion and experience.
I think the topic at hand is to do with the discipline of children within the context of TCS, and not limited to the OP's cursory explanation of it. Surely such a freedom is granted in a discussion forum. I didn't raise the subject of unschooling; it was already brought to the discussion, so I clarified, although perhaps not enough. Hopefully this and the following will suffice.
Unschooling families cannot use their academic educational methodology as an excuse for neglecting the social education of their children thereby resulting in them being poorly behaved, or to exonerate themselves from the sometimes grueling task of guiding their children as necessary. I am an unschooler of sorts, for now, because it works well in our family, and we have small children. Our 'model' will no doubt change as the needs of our family change; I am no activist for unschooling and will/would ditch it the moment it ceases to serve us excellently. I do know that the environment of our homelife is drastically different from what it is in other families, and as a direct result of how we live our life, my children don't run roughshod over other people's comfort and security. I am also unwilling to have lazy, rude, incompetent children, so while what we 'do' is unschooling, what my children learn daily, know concretely, and accomplish, is vast and is not properly represented by a negative term anyway.
While I absolutely agree that children ought to be treated with respect and compassion, and continuously stretched and guided into better use of their faculties, in my opinion, most parents shouldn't unschool in any form; it takes more discipline than most people have. "Taking children seriously" doesn't at all mean to completely forget that they need guidance and sometimes with deliberate, carefully considered (so obviously not violent) and meted out coercion.
I both take my children very seriously and also meet their needs whether or not they agree with how I choose to go about doing so. I don't wait for agreement from my two-year-olds to continue to hold my hand in parking lots; I grab their hands and employ my motherly death-grip until we're safely out of the way of vehicles, even when they obviously resist my forced cooperation. RU, and TCS would have me explaining this situation away until I had their consent because I apparently have all the time in the world to crouch down at eye-level and talk until my voice is raspy or the child concedes. I am happy to talk about it all the way home if necessary, but I won't chatter away in -40 degrees, outside the grocery store, to avoid coercing a small child into doing what is best for him, and that, incidentally, will become clear to him later anyway.
I wouldn't force a child onto a roller-coaster though; coercion for me is a tool I use when it is absolutely necessary and I have made all other reasonable attempts to gain reasonably desired cooperation from my children. With hand holding, it's a kindly expressed, "Hold my hand now, sweetie." If no hand arrives in my opened one, I grip, and that's that. Other issues may/often require more discussion, or I give it because it's good for my children to know the reasons why we do things. My 4, 6 and 7 yr olds negotiate who will get to hold my hand, while the 2 yr old resists, just like the others used to at his age.
I think these complete-non-coercion parenting experiments are a mistake, and rooted in some very fantastical perspectives on human nature. But, if a parent has one particularly mild-mannered child and has an enormous amount of leisure time, then go for it if it seems reasonable to try it out. But for me, who has a lot of things to accomplish every day, including tending several children and who cannot afford the potential negative consequences of such a huge experiment on all 5 of my children, carefully considered, occasional coercion is what I will continue to employ, when necessary.
And even with this coercion, my children are daily striving to increase their awareness and reasoning abilities, and are successful in doing so; my coercion hasn't hindered them as is supposed to be the expected outcome according to philosophies like those of TCS and RU. These philosophies are also often tied in with zero-population-growth advocates, so they presume that I would only really want no more than one child and maybe two at the most anyway, so I should be able to keep up with this. That's not to say that I couldn't claim to follow their tenets even with many children, just that the whole ideology is (usually- depending on who's expressing it) premised on this apparently irrefutable thoery that we shouldn't make any more humans.
I take difference to the implication that to do as I do is to not take my children seriously. Raising them is my greatest pleasure and primary occupation and I don't hold back the absolute best of who I am and what I have to offer in mothering them. So saying, I take both my children and my raising of them utterly seriously.
p.s. SapereAude, I know that you were not addressing my thoughts on the subject, so I did not share them as a contention with your post, but rather to participate in the discussion while also justifying my initial post's presence in this thread. I think that we are in agreement that any parenting philosophy that lends itself to producing unruly, bratty children is ridiculous, and I would do the same as you in keeping those ones out.
-
To clarify for this discussion, there is a commonly accepted distinction made between "radical unschooling (RU)" and "unschooling (U/S)". The former is along the lines of total lack of enforcement such as not forcing children to wear mittens in the cold, whereas the latter doesn't involve itself in methods of discipline at all; it's strictly a philosophy of education that is so-titled to distinguish it from other models.
-
When the U.S. dollar does not circulate, it's value is nothing.
I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. Both Canada and the U.S. use a fiat money system; it isn't dollar-for-calculated-amount-of-gold-in-reserve anymore, so I don't think it could possibly matter how much paper money is held in vaults since the people continue to produce goods/services in excess of the value of all of this stored money.
I guess this might be a problem if every American just decided simultaneously to sit down on his hands, shut down his brain, and not produce anything ever again. I don't think that will happen.
Wealth produces wealth; this is a demonstrable reality. Wealth (itself- or as the author seems to define it: lack of circulation or refusal to spend all of one's holdings) has never been the cause of poverty...
I can vouch for what happens from ensuring that my money continues to circulate though, lol. I guess I'm just doing my part for the greater good.
-
Fair enough. Does that mean that if I opt out of this government program, and start trading in gold or a private currency, I become tax exempt? Just say the word, and I'll never touch another dollar again.
In Canada, according to the Canada Revenue Agency guidelines (taxation), that is "bartering", and it is taxable, unless it is an occasional action not related to commercial business.
A professor I knew had his home searched and his personal 'inventory' assessed, but because he had bartered for so much of his livelihood, the CRA dropped their investigation because what he had been trading (limited edition lithographs and other hand-pulled prints he'd created) was not easily appraised. To tax him, they'd have to have record of every transaction he made and then value the print he bartered at the price of the service/product he received, but he barters and the law doesn't require him to invoice or make out receipts unless he is making monetary exchanges. So, it was a stalemate. He continued to barter.
-
That was inspiring.
Thanks for posting this.
-
Feltini, are you presupposing that there are different kinds of truth? Grames explained that the qualifiers that accord with truth are simply to indicate the method by which one comes to know what the truth is. Those qualifiers are not categorical headings for different kinds of truth. There is no 'kind' or 'type' of truth. There is truth, and there is falsity. There is nothing in between, except possibly deliberate evasion, or evasion due to incompetence, and potentially ignorance. But there are no degrees of truth, no categories of truth, and no versions of truth.
Truth is truth and reality is reality. There is no need to search for it; it is always there and available. What you can do to ascertain it is to sharpen your reasoning faculty, deliberately focus and stop indulging in evasion techniques such as supposing that truth requires a search, and to be found. It simply is: you may choose to recognise it, or not, but it is you and your actions that require qualification, not the other way around.
-
Thank you for that. It's simple enough, I know.
Perhaps my lack of courage should alert me to a lack of resolve, which would point me to a less-than-solid understanding, at a fundamental level, regarding value and self-esteem. Or maybe my emotions just haven't caught up with my intellect.
I'm am seriously annoyed at how difficult this is for me to do. Reasoning through it is no problem, but doing it is another thing altogether. Funny thing, in every other aspect of my life, the reasoning and doing are two steps side-by-side on a continuum. It's just this one issue with these people that I have such trouble with.
-
I have searched and read through the many threads about friendship, and as most people know, asking for advice is asking others to confirm what one already knows s/he ought to do, so here I am.
I have had a friendship that has puzzled and frustrated me for 8 years. I have until recently not been able to figure out what I want from friendship, and consequently, I have participated in this relationship without being fully honest- either to myself or to her. This was not malicious, but a remnant from my upbringing in which I was ordered by my parents to be friends with the least desirable people as an act of charity (rich coming from two addicts, but I digress). In the last year, I have been better able to align my actions with my values in relationships, but this one is trickier because it spans a longer period than my other current friendships do.
I am not speaking with my friend right now because she shares my info with her husband, which would be fine except that he thinks it's okay to then share it wherever he pleases, which is his choice, and so I have made mine too.
Another piece of the issue is that he is a complete moron. In the past, he has 'trumped' my arguments by asking me to prove that my table is really there, or by asserting that a chair is really a chair only in relation to the fact that nothing around it is. My partner and he had an argument that ended with my partner telling him that the discussion is over, and he's not to contact us again. He refused to accept that what my partner said about his own motivation was actually the case. He had no evidence to the contrary, but insisted that his intuition is a better indicator of reality than my partner's logical assessment of himself. I wish I were making this up.
The last conversation they had, this man told my partner that he now believes that everyone has disabilities, and that some people are just more functional than others. AAAAAAHHHHH!!!
So his wife, my friend, is a master evader as regards her husband's behaviour and usually agrees with him, and whatever crackpot idea he comes up with becomes her new lens for viewing life.
I am at my wit's end, but when I confront her with the absurdities she presents to me, she just agrees with me. If we're all together in a room, there can be completely opposing viewpoints presented, and if she absolutely must (and she has grasped the exclusivity of a claim, which seems rather rare), she will say that she sees both points, but carry on acting according to the absurd one.
For many years, we were separated by distance and our friendship carried on by phone. Last year, she and her family moved across the country to live near us. It is better for her family, so it was a good choice regardless of their initial intention to be closer to my family. Anyway, since she's been here, it has become apparent that all those years that we talked about things that I value, and with which she agreed, and I assumed it was because she was living according to similar values, she was not. It turns out that virtually nothing of what I thought about her is true.
She seems to be a chameleon, which is upsetting to a high degree to me.
For instance, I thought we viewed government the same way, based upon what she has said to me during many years of discussions, but last year, she lied about her income in order to receive a tax grant for purchasing bicycles for her children, and she was pleased with her actions! We have less than half their income, twice their family size, and we buy our own bicycles. I was floored. She regularly uses government hand-outs (intended for low income families) to buy things she can easily afford. She participates in lobbies for more hand-outs because she wants to get more stuff for "free". Am I wrong to find this deplorable?
We used to talk about raising children all the time, and when they moved here, I discovered that to the contrary of our discussions about raising reasoning, thinking, happy, healthy children, she employs hitting, time-outs for x minutes, and then when her children do things that actually warrant serious discussion, she pretends like they've done nothing and ignores it. Her husband is worse in that he gives explanations that are ludicrous such as, "Don't jump on [my 2 yr old]'s back. He doesn't walk so good." This after their older, larger child jumped on my child's back while he was walking down the stairs! Nevermind that my 2 yr old is actually physically very capable and comparably advanced at his age- hardly in the category of not walking well.
So my issue is that I don't know how to air this or end my relationship with these people because talking to them is like trying to hold onto jell-o. They will ask "why" incessantly, and then continuously agree, when it is obvious that they don't know what they're agreeing with, OR, they will attempt to counsel us on our premises based on the "reality" that we are all one (and disabled, I guess
).Ugh.
How do you end friendships? I understand and agree with the reason for having friendships, and this one doesn't fit. We don't share values, and my 'friends' seriously lack virtue. I am disgusted by their behaviours and floating perspectives.
Personal relationships (besides my children) are the aspect of my self-development that have been the most out-of-line with my intellectual understanding. It has just become plain to me that it is necessary for me to align them this past year. Any suggestion would be better than what I have now, which is just not answering the phone and hoping they don't show up at my doorstep.
-
I agree with your perspective: the argument from desire is absurd when applied to the mind of a human being.
It can be made if the only consideration is primarily physiological and/or pertains to the natural/material reality such as that mammal infants are born with sucking reflexes in anticipation of milk. But a desire and therefore correlating acquisition of the supernatural? No. Fairy-tales should (to the reasoning mind) elucidate the reason why assuming this is absurd.
It would strengthen your argument to use an example of an individual's unrequited pleas for his own personal end to suffering, because the christian faced with your example will simply retort that god doesn't force the hand of the unwilling, or that to do so contravenes free-will, or some such switcheroo nonsense.
-
Based on very well documented and in depth scientific research, lactose intolerance in adults is caused by a genetic trait in some races of people (pretty much everyone except Northern Europeans and their descendants in North America and Australia), that prevents the creation of the enzyme which helps metabolize lactose, after childhood.
Pasteurization isn't what makes people lactose intolerant. If whole milk doesn't make you bloated, that's because you're not lactose intolerant.
Over two thirds of the global adult population is lactose intolerant. It's not that difficult for a doctor to realize that bloating and cramping comes from undigested lactose, not "dirty milk".
How many people drink whole milk in industrialised nations? Homogenised milk, even if called 'whole' is not whole milk.
An interesting scientifically understood fact is that human babies who receive a disproportionate amount of foremilk from their mothers, also bloat because they are receiving too much lactose without an adequate amount of fat to properly digest the milk. This happens from improper feeding by switching the child from one breast to the other at every feeding, thereby preventing the child from obtaining the fatty hindmilk that is supposed to be consumed at the end of the feeding (a trend started by misinformed yet insistent doctors).
It is likely that people get bloat from drinking high lactose, low fat milk, and just like their non-lactose intolerant babies, experience the negative effects of doing that. If the milk is absent of its fat, there is a disproportionate amount of lactose by volume. The ensuing illness could be from too much lactose because of that, or from the introduction of pathogenic bacteria to milk post-pasteurisation. Whole, raw milk doesn't go bad; it goes sour, then turns to curds and whey and finally dehydrates (yet remains edible throughout this process); it doesn't turn into slimy, nasty-smelling poison; that only happens to 'dirty,' pasteurized milk.
Natural, raw, whole milk from pastured dairy cows is alive with bacteria that keeps it from going 'bad.' This is how milk works. It's a whole food responsible for colonizing the entire gut of an infant with the necessary enzymes and flora for both present digestion of said milk, and future digestion of grass in the case of bovids, and table food in the case of humans. It's very important that it is raw and full-fat.
I'm aware of your list of foods that are supposedly good or bad. I'm also aware of a few other hundred people's lists, which contradict yours and each other. So now what, am I supposed to flip a coin to figure out which one of you is right, or are you going to prove you're right with something more than claims of what is "real food" and what is "dirty food", based on information that was lost two generations go and miraculously found by you?Well, it was no miracle that I found it: I happened to have a direct line through my grandmother. In any case, I meant lost to most western people, in a practical way. Obviously there are millions of people who do adhere to their traditional diets and where their ancestors adapted generally determines what their traditional diet looks like. My ancestry is European, and I haven't any trouble with raw milk and milk products.
I actually bought into the idea that milk is for babies and that adults shouldn't consume it, a long time ago. I was milk-and-grain-free at different and overlapping times within seven years- so plenty of time to adapt if it was going to happen. Through that experience, I discovered that I need little, but still some grain to feel energetic. I also discovered that I need raw milk in some form every day to be in the best state of health possible for me. If my ancestors were Asian, I would have a greater need for grain and no or little need for milk.
In answer to your question, it is neither here nor there to me how you eat, but if your diet doesn't consist of the traditional foods of your ancestry, it is the wrong diet for you.
I am surprised at how a lot of very ingeniously designed machinery by very creative individuals could have been the catalyst for such a widespread eating disorder as is epidemic in the western world. Somehow, learning to mass produce has meant forgetting how to eat. It's like billions of people suddenly developed pica, so they just eat whatever fits in their mouths and tastes good to their ill-developed palates.
Human beings need food from its sources. It will yet be a long while before we can adapt to the nutrient-vacant food-like products that most people eat, and maintain a state of actually good health- as in free of disease. So perhaps I am doing a disservice to future generations by not feeding my children crap, but I am happiest having well-developed, strong, truly healthy, intelligent and capable children, and not spending my time at a doctor's office and force-feeding my children antibiotics as a matter of course.
Of note (to me anyway), because of the easily observable contrast between my children and others, my children are fawned over in public because they are remarkably vibrant, intelligent, well-mannered, pleasant to look at, and strong- unusually so- and these are the compliments we regularly receive. Both my partner and I were not fed well by our parents, and we suffered the tell-tale results of that- especially improperly formed jaws and teeth that caused crowding and misalignment; that's not poor genetics- it's poor food.
So in answer to your challenge to 'prove it,' I will skip the lab (though if you are interested, there are myriad sources of such information confirming the veracity both of what I have written and my own anecdotal experience), and just accept that some people refuse to/cannot understand that what we put into our human bodies provides the material for preserving and building the cells that make those bodies, so like anything, if it's made of crap, it's going to look like, and function like crap.
You get what you pay for. You are what you eat.
-
I have my doubts about much of any of the mutations we're seeing as foils to modern disease as evidence of human evolution, except in the grossest sense. This is not adequate time for more than obvious cause and effect, which I'm not aware of being considered evolution of the species any more than the loss of squatting burrs on peoples' feet who don't spend sufficient time in that position.
The vast majority of reported disease is directly caused by or allowed to proliferate as a result of poor diet. I have spent ten years reading, researching and otherwise subjecting my family to experiments related to relieving disease/illness and at the end of every trail, no matter how convoluted the journey, has been the reality that our diet to a major extent, dictates our state of health. The further we deviate from real food prepared properly, the sicker we are. Sleep, another oft-neglected aspect of western life, is another indicator.
How many people seek proper testing to arrive at the diagnoses of lactose intolerance? Everyone I know of has simply told the doctor that he feels bloated and ill after consuming milk products. I guess I am surprised that anyone would expect to feel any other way after eating pasteurised, dirty milk, usually with mineral-depleting sugary cereal products or some other non-food. I only eat cultured milk products- raw cheese, homemade yogurt, etc... and I have none of the physical problems that I do if I consume pasteurised uncultured milk.
One problem among many is that with so much convenient technology in the kitchen, people have forgotten how to eat. Grains should be soaked, milk should be cultured, fermented veggies should be consumed every day and better- at every meal. Bones should be boiled for 12-24 hrs and the stock consumed every day if possible. Meats should be eaten with the fat, and some raw meat prepared with a culture should be taken regularly, as well as organ meats. Unrefined salt and oils are good! Raw fermented drinks should be part of every day- beer, wine, kvass, rejuvelac, kefir, kombucha, etc... There are many from which to choose, but they must be prepared with live culture and then left alive for consumption.
This information is hardly more than a few generations lost.
Then again, maybe this is a period of selection for aware eaters...
-
I agree with you, Jay.
I felt genuinely sad and disgusted by most of the comments, but that feeling was obliterated by the horror that replaced it when I read the linked "Billionnaire's Pledge." It doesn't even seem real; it's so absurd. I would have hoped that such people- those who have successfully amassed enormous wealth- would be the first to understand that there is no obligation to give one's profits away! Clearly that principle didn't apply before they had so much that they suddenly feel guilty about having it. The comments from this linked article were even worse... give their wealth to the poor, needy, and destitute because they will use it wisely??? If that were so, why are they poor, needy and destitute? Ugh.
And I'm not in any ivory tower; I've worked my way out from my parents' lazy welfare lifestyle to one that is still admittedly 'poor', but my quality of life is fantastic, and my wealth is increasing as I learn how to manage what I have, and amass more through the work of my own hands. I would be completely horrified to be in reciept of a sizeable donation from a wealthy merchant because he thought that because I am poor, I am owed the fruit of his labour!!! Wow. Yuck. Especially if it is was his supposed, "...God-given responsibility to alleviate the suffering of the most disadvantaged..."
I'm not suffering; I'm learning! Pity me if I refuse to learn, but don't pay me for it!
Of course, I do hope that they are giving their money to enhance their lives and not as penance for their success, but at least a few of them seem to be doing the latter.
-
Thank you, Kainscalia.
My ignorance shall be remedied.
It's fun for me to discover through learning how much I didn't even have a clue about, and how much there is yet to learn. I have thus far focused my arts education in the visual arts, so in music, I am an early (but eager) beginner.Thank you for the listen too. It ended up being a whole family affair as our children have shown a great interest in opera lately and we've been listening to pieces from many operas for sometimes 12 hours each day.
This has all been very illuminating. Perhaps once I have a voice teacher, I will post my vocal progress.
-
Kainscalia, that Brett Manning tutorial is really terrible! I hadn't seen it before.
The dramatic improvements in my voice came from doing some of the warm-ups such as holding the cheeks up and toward the lips and making that 'raspberry' sound through scales, and singing 'nay-nay' through scales as well. There are some others that I've done, but I'm glad I haven't spent the money on his program, or used any of the vocal techniques such as the one above.
I also benefited from the lesson on how to relax my voice while singing, and to never force notes at the ends of my range (rather, sing them gently) or force volume from my voice, but instead to do it effortlessly by projecting like in speech, which I somehow figured out through the warm-up exercises.
I have long wanted to have a vocal coach, but I want to wait until doing so doesn't interfere with my present occupations.
Also, low thyroid reduces the quality of my voice substantially. It is one of the ways that I know that I am due to take some dessicated thyroid. Low thyroid can tighten the whole throat and vocal apparatus. Bizarre, but true.
Do you know of any excellent coaching available online? Or as a program that I can follow at home? Obviously an in-person coach is the way to go, but there must be ways to learn and improve in preparation for when I will seek a coach. It would be helpful to know how to determine an excellent coach from a poor one, too.
Thanks for 'coaching' here! And for the recording; I'll have to listen when the littles are in bed. I can't hear it well enough presently.
-
Well I definitely want to see a video of that! Lol
-
Kainscalia, I can definitely hear and see what you've written about on the videos. I was wincing while watching, because I read your explanations and then watched the videos in sequence. The hissing sound is very apparent, as well as the widened mouth compensation, and the fake vibrato with the jaw/chin shake.
I noticed too that the first girl was singing as if she had a golf ball in her mouth, like she was deliberately pulling her soft palate way up while keeping her lips open only slightly, so that again, as you explained, an enormous amount of pressure would be exerted against the whole instrument, like back pressure on a hose that causes it to blow out eventually.
What is your understanding of speech-tone singing? I've studied a bit here and there, found dramatic improvement in my voice through some of the explanations given by Brett Manning, and I don't want to end up wrecking my voice. He and his coaches definitely insist that the larynx should be relaxed and not move up and down while singing, though I now will be scrutinizing with what you've provided. Given your explanations, I am going to revisit Manning's tutorials, but perhaps you have more knowledge you would be willing to share.
Do you have a video of yourself singing?
-
Personal meatzas on the grill would be an interesting experiment.
I hope you like it. This is one of our favorite meals, up there with bacon-topped lamb meatloaf, and prosciutto-wrapped lamb burgers topped with tomato and pesto. Can you tell we like lamb?
I can't make myself enjoy lamb, sadly. The texture of the fat grosses me out. It's pasty, or seems that way to me. I love meat from many different animals, but lamb (and elk) I've not found a way to enjoy. Part of the problem is that I rarely eat a meal hot since having children, so the fat congeals before I can eat my lukewarm meal since it does so very quickly (unlike bison, pork, or beef). Not tasty. When I have had bites of it hot, the meat was very tasty- but it's been nearly a decade since then. And it'll likely be another decade before I eat a hot meal, lol.
Elk (from up here) has fat that, left to congeal, is like hard wax- similar to carnauba. Also not yummy, and has to be hacked off my cast iron skillet.
Anyway, the (very yummy-looking) meatza is on the list for the end of this week.
Thanks for sharing your recipe! -
Wow, that looks delicious! I'll be incorporating (or persuasively suggesting, lol) that into the meals that my partner can prepare for us when it's his turn. :)I think we'll try 'personal meatzas' so that the meat juice issue can be resolved without me having to leave my studio prematurely.
-
I make traditional European foods for my family, and I have a few tips for you in this endeavour.
1) Use home-rendered lard or goose fat or if not available to you, use butter to fry the onion, celery, bell pepper and jalapeno, but don't burn the butter. Do not fry in olive oil- ever. When the onions are translucent, do the following:
2)Add your powdered spices into the fried veggies and let them froth up while stirring constantly, but do not burn. They should become much more fragrant and a bit 'nutty' smelling. Take this off the heat immediately as the spices froth up in the oil or they will burn and taste bad.
Then add this wet mixture to your stock pot with the browned meat and one small can of tomato paste (or homemade equivalent), one or two cups of reduced beef bone broth, and chopped fresh tomatoes, salt and pepper.
The flavour will be greatly improved with these changes. Also, brown your meat in a heavy skillet (I use cast iron) and don't be afraid to let some of it develop a bit of 'char'-like darkness. It gives the chili a bit of smoky flavour that is delicious. I do this for browning stewing meats for stews well.
ETA: I use a lot of garlic- much more than in the recipe: half of a bulb that fits in my palm- and I never use hot sauce, so I didn't address that, but what SapereAude wrote makes sense. I also second the recommendations about the beef. I haven't had store-bought meat in years and forgot that it is largely flavourless. I use pastured bison where most people use beef. I do recall that the grocery store sold ground sirloin which was an improvement over standard ground beef.
Bones make all the difference in stews/soups/chili. I prepare and store bone broth and add it to foods rather than adding bones to the cooking, but I am cooking for a large family and my pots are too small presently to cook enough food if I have the amount of bones that I otherwise use for stock/broth in there as well. That and I simmer bones for 12-24 hrs to make stock.
-
I love Stephen Fry. I haven't parsed his commentary for collectivist tendencies (but now I will...); I just really enjoy his personality.
Oh, and I'm married to an englishman, and we have five half-englishlings-- and they are all faaaabulous!
-
Absolutely, if those professors believe there is no objective truth. To do otherwise would not only waste her money, but also her time.
Why pursue a good grade in the course (an objective truth) when a poor grade is just as likely? The OP stated the professor grants merit based on gender. Based on the evidence the OP has provided, I can see no other way of looking at this than whatever grade one receives in this class is a complete crap shoot. In such case, any rational person would question the value of gaining the arbitrary (a grade in the class, which may require re-taking the class) in exchange for the objectively verifiable value of time and treasure. The OP knows what her time is worth, she knows how much money she's spending on the class. What she doesn't know, and can have no way of knowing, is what grade she will get in the class. Excelling in the class is no guarantee of a passing grade because there is no objective truth. She can't guarantee her own success, because there is no objective way of determining success in that class.
Your suggestion is a perfectly valid way of dealing with the situation, but my points hang on the assumption that the O.P. has endeavoured to complete the program, and has also already encountered a good number of collectivist/socialist/subjectivist professors, given that she is a philosophy major and there is just no shortage of these types of mentalities amongst the faculties of the Humanities. This one seems extreme, no doubt, but this is not an insurmountable problem. If the course can be switched and still satisfy the requirements of the program, then I would agree that switching to another course may be the best option.
I have had little experience with objectively assessed and given grades. Most of the time, the criteria are loosely stated if at all, so from a student's perspective it is at least somewhat arbitrarily determined by the instructor. I've never met a person who could give evidence for the merit of 92% as distinct from 91% or 93%. It could be done with a one-by-one break-down of the criteria, but I have never seen a professor surrender leeway to this degree. Usually, there is an abstract common understanding of what quality of work merits 90% as a grade as opposed to 30%, and usually there are enough given criteria to objectively distinguish between the two (and even with closer numbers, but not within more than 10, say), but in general, a significant proportion of a grade is 'determined' arbitrarily (ie: subjectively, or worse- collective, a.k.a. 'the curve').
I personally think that it would make much more sense to have students grade their own work and then to explain and defend their assessments. I have always figured out my instructors' blind spots, and used them to my benefit when necessary, but I am harshly critical of my own work- far, far moreso than any instructor ever has been. But I digress...
-
Beer on screen, thanks Brian.
I get that myself all the time.
Hahahaha!
-
I'm going to go against the common advice here and recommend you abandon the class. If your professor doesn't believe there is an objective truth, then how can she possibly grade you? Your grade is completely arbitrary, and therefore a complete waste of your time.
If you can't change to a different class, just don't go, don't take any exams, don't take any quizzes - in short, put no effort at all into the class. If she gives you a failing grade, confront her with the fact that there is no objective truth. She might claim you never showed up, never took any exams, never did anything, but that claim has no validity since there is no objective truth. You can claim with as much authority that you deserve an A+ since you did everything you were supposed to do, scored 100% on every test, and even did extra credit.
Would you suggest that she do the same each time she encounters a collectivist/socialist/subjectivist professor (in the humanities!), because as far as my experience has been, that would mean not bothering with any program at all, and just taking 'continued learning' courses after interviewing professors to determine which, if any, courses I could take.
That, and she'd be making a very pricey point to do as you suggest. Tuition where I am isn't free, so I'd opt to take the required courses and make sure that I learned something valuable from the experience while assuring my own success foremost. Remember that as a volitional being, she has the opportunity to develop her own criteria or curriculum for the time she's there. The course doesn't seem very academically challenging, at least from the little that she shared, so there's likely room for her to do as pleases her with or in addition to what's being 'taught.'
Unless the requirement for a passing grade is that she sign a document or overtly express her agreement that all reality is subjective, I see no reason why she couldn't use her creativity to make this class personally productive.
If I can make my time changing diapers personally productive, surely a less deterministic occupation, such as taking a class in women's studies, could provide at least as much fodder for learning and success, no?
Why do people have children?
in Questions about Objectivism
Posted
Since this thread began, and I have been reading it, I have done some serious introspection to answer the question honestly, even if I would end up finding my own answer repulsive (then I'd have to work on the underlying issues to fix it).
It turns out that I actually really enjoy my reasons for having children. The greatest reason I have is that I truly enjoy putting my work and effort into their process and seeing its fruition, sort of like Dr. Frankenstein in a sense. That so-called 'god complex' may be the closest thing to describe my intentions and feelings about and toward the 'products' of my continual labour. This is a glorious occupation, I think, specifically because my efforts are honest and authentic, my intentions and the actions that fulfil them are wholesome, deliberate and loving, benevolent, sincere, and joyful.
I put my creative energy into tweaking and perfecting (as well as I am able) my children through my mothering. Had I no children, there is no doubt that this creative love and concern would go into my artwork. I am, in a way, a sculptor of my children, but the medium is unpredictable in some ways and each one different than the others, requiring different techniques, but the same deliberate assessment and care.
I hope this is taken with an assumption that I am not a control-freak, because I am very much not, and also that given in my mothering is my recognition of the necessity for an enormous amount of latitude and patience for my children and myself, within reason.
Given this, I have children because I enjoy making beautiful things, and my children are those. It's an interactive "making", for sure. Also, the same intense internal drive to create permeates my mothering the way it permeates my artwork (though with far less frequency and intensity since it is mostly- though not completely- satisfied in the raising of my children).
I indeed have children for entirely selfish reasons, and we're obviously all the better for it.
p.s. Natdavi, I have enjoyed your perspective very much. Thank you for sharing it. I think there is a definite necessity for recognition of a dichotomy in the choice regarding raising children. Either you do it because it is entirely enjoyable to you, or it repulses you (so you shouldn't do it). Anything in between seems too easily subject to a bad outcome, given that children require so much of their parents, because to raise them unhappily/grudgingly would no doubt end up being a sacrificial act. So saying, it's probably best to make efforts to know what you are getting into before choosing either way.
I also know many people who now agonize over having made the (flippant and/or uninformed)choice to not have children when they were younger, so figuring it out in either direction seems prudent.