Reading 2025 MidYear

Jan 1 - Jul 1

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neill, Dan Piepenbring

Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson by Gabriel Kennedy

The Road to Sparta: Reliving the Ancient Battle and Epic Run That Inspired the World's Greatest Footrace

by Dean Karnazes 

Nobody's Hero: A Novel (Ben Koenig Book 2) by M. W. Craven 

Eleven Numbers: A Short Story by Lee Child 

Out on the Cutting Edge (Matthew Scudder Mysteries Book 7) by Lawrence Block 

Righteous Prey (A Prey Novel Book 32) by John Sandford 

Yourdrum by Kevin Stock 

The Hanged Man's Song (Kidd Book 4) by John Sandford 

Uncaged (The Singular Menace, 1) by John Sandford & Michele Cook  

Simple Self-Healing: The Magic of Autosuggestion by Emile Coue, Tim Grimes (Editor), Cyrus Harry Brooks (Introduction) 

Dark Angel (A Letty Davenport Novel Book 2) by John Sandford 

Judgment Prey (A Prey Novel Book 33) by John Sandford 

Toxic Prey (A Prey Novel Book 34) by John Sandford

Rising Sun: A Novel by Michael Crichton

Small Vices (Spenser Book 24) by Robert B. Parker

Cold Service (Spenser Book 32) by Robert B. Parker

Rough Weather (Spenser Book 36) by Robert B. Parker

Nemesis: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz

Sixkill (Spenser Book 39) by Robert B. Parker

Pirate Latitudes: A Novel by Michael Crichton 

The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder by Douglas Preston

Eruption: A Thriller by James Patterson and Michael Crichton 

Safe Enough: And Other Stories Paperback by Lee Child

Lethal Prey (A Prey Novel Book 35) by John Sandford 

The Complete Keys to Progress by John McCallum

The Boomerang: A Thriller by Robert Bailey

Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health by Casey Means and Calley Means

Travels by Michael Crichton

Slow Horses (Slough House Book 1) by Mick Herron

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Defenders: Indefensible by Keith Giffen, Marc Dematteis, Kevin Maguire 

Tales Of The Unnamed: The Blizzard by Geoff Johns and Andrea Mutti 

Training 2025 MidYear

was motoring along as well as my 52 year old body could manage until may and then - *boom* - perforated appendix/appendicitis/surgery. just today coming off 6 weeks no real weightlifting. looks like 2025 is gonna be a rebuilding year. yeesh.

Reading, Spring 2019.

The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

Yourdrum by Kevin Stock

The Rescue (Ryan Decker Book 1) by Steven Konkoly

Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman by Robert Updegraff

Destroy the Opposition: Programming for Powerlifting by Jamie Lewis

Sleep Like a Lion: How to Go From Average Sleep to Awesome Sleep with a Scientifically-Proven System of Sleep Tips, Tactics and Routines by Paul French

The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection by Michael Ruhlman

ALPHA: A Black Flagged Thriller (The Black Flagged Series Book 1) by Steven Konkoly

Monster Hunter International (Monster Hunters International Book 1) by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Vendetta (Monster Hunters International Book 2) by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Alpha (Monster Hunters International Book 3) by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Legion (Monster Hunters International Book 4) by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Nemesis (Monster Hunters International Book 5) by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Siege (Monster Hunters International Book 6) by Larry Correia

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The Wild Storm Vol. 3 Paperback by Warren Ellis, John Davis-Hunt

Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures: The Flying She-Devils in Raid on Marauder Island by Brian Clevinger, Lo Baker, Wook Jin Clark

Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures: The Nicodemus Job by Brian Clevinger, Meredith McClaren

Atomic Robo and the Spectre of Tomorrow by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures Volume 1 TP by Brian Clevinger, John Broglia, Ryan Cody, Scott Wegener, Jeff Powell

Kill or Be Killed Volume 1-4 by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Elizabeth Breitweiser

Shazam!: Origins by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank

Batman vs. Deathstroke by Christopher Priest, Diogenes Neves

Deathstroke Vol. 3-5 by Christopher Priest, Joe Bennett, Carlo Pagulayan, Diogenes Neves

Titans: The Lazarus Contract by Christopher Priest, Dan Abnett, Brett Booth

#thestruggle

Reading - Fall 2018

A Case of Need by Michael Crichton

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday

The Carnivore Diet Handbook by K. Suzanne

Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki

Hollywood Dead: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey

A Beautiful, Terrible Thing by Jen Waite

I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa by Charles Brandt

Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant

Follow You Home by Mark Edwards

Vanished by Joseph Finder

Buried Secrets by Joseph Finder

Guilty Minds by Joseph Finder

Levon Cade Series V1-5 by Chuck Dixon

The Total Money Makeover:  A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey

Past Tense: A Jack Reacher Nover by Lee Child

Mind's Eye by Douglas E. Richards

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Secret Six Vol. 2: The Gauntlet by Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham, Tom Derenick 

Wolverine by Daniel Way: The Complete Collection Vol. 2, 3 & 4 by Daniel Way, Jeph Loeb, Steve Dillon, Kaare Andrews, Simone Bianchi, Jon Proctor, Marjorie Liu, Doug Braithwaite, Scot Eaton, Will Conrad, Stephen Segovia, Antonio Fuso

Captain America: Operation Rebirth by Mark Waid and Ron Garney

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 6: Days of Anger by Ed Brisson and Mike Deodato

Jungle Girl Omnibus Paperback by Frank Cho, Doug Murray, Adriano Batista

Death of Wolverine: The Complete Collection Paperback by Charles Soule, Tim Seeley, Kyle Higgins, Marguerite Bennett, Steve McNiven, Salvador Larroca, Angel Unzueta, Iban Coello

Batman: The Dark Knight: Master Race Paperback by Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello, Andy Kubert, Klaus Janson

Deadpool Vs. Old Man Logan Paperback by Declan Shalvey, Mike Henderson

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 7: Scarlet Samurai by Ed Brisson, Mike Deodato

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 8: To Kill Forby Ed Brisson, Dalibor Talajic

Deadpool by Daniel Way: The Complete Collection - Volume 1
by Daniel Way, Andy Diggle, Steve Dillon, Paco Medina, Carlo Barberi, Bong Dazo

#TheStruggleIsReal

Reading - Summer 18 - "When done right, comics are a cognitive whetstone..."

"...providing two or three or more different but entangled streams of information in a single panel. Processing what you’re being shown, along with what’s being said, along with what you’re being told, in conjunction with the shifting multiple velocities of imaginary time, and the action of the space between panels that Scott McCloud defines as closure… Comics require a little more of your brain than other visual media. They should just hand them out to being to stave off Alzheimer’s." - Warren Ellis

Artemis by Andy Weir

Ali vs. Inoki: The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launched Sports Entertainment by Josh Gross

The Leangains Method: The Art of Getting Ripped. Researched, Practiced, Perfected by Martin Berkhan

Sayonara by James Michener

Malice by Keigo Higashino

Brief Cases: More Stories From the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher 

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Way of the Warrior Kid: From Wimpy to Warrior the Navy SEAL Way: A Novel by Jocko Willink and Jon Boza 

Time Slave by John Norman

The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote by Sharyl Attkisson

Gor Series, Vol 1-9 by John Norman

Lazarus: Sourcebook Collection Volume by Greg Rucka, Eric Trautmann, Michael Lark & others

The Wild Storm Vol. 1 & 2 by Warren Ellis and John Davis-Hunt

The Wild Storm: Michael Cray Vol. 1 by Bryan Hill and N. Stephen Harris  

"There's no such thing as one unit of healthcare."

Obamacare? Trumpcare? Get Rid of it All | Mises Wire: "From a fundamental economics point of view, what is healthcare exactly? One of the things that's particularly frustrating for me as an economist is this notion that "healthcare" is some kind of a unique good or service, that everybody needs, everybody wants, but cannot be provided by the market the way the market provides shoes, or tomatoes, or automobiles, or any other good. But what is healthcare? Nobody consumes "healthcare". No one has a right to "healthcare," because healthcare is not a homogeneous thing. There's no such thing as one unit of healthcare.

Rather what we mean by healthcare is a discreet set of specific commodities, goods and services, that you can buy in combinations, or different quality levels. So open heart surgery is a service you can purchase on the market that contributes to your health. But so is taking an aspirin. In other words, there's no such thing as "healthcare." There's a heterogenous bundle of goods and services that different individuals will want to consume at different levels. Now when we think about it this way, it becomes far from obvious that these particular kinds of goods and services cannot be supplied on the market just like other goods and services. If we would just allow the free market to work, if we could eliminate the third party payer system, the government subsidies on the expenditure side that drive prices up, there's no reason why a truly free market in healthcare goods and services couldn't be just as effective in the U.S. as the market for computers, software, automobiles, or the market for anything else."

"Complex networks throughout the primary sensory and motor cortices are tied directly to our stress responses."

A New Understanding of How Movement Decreases Stress - The Atlantic: "In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Pittsburgh neuroscientists showed that they have discovered a discrete, elaborate network in the cerebral cortex that controls the adrenal medulla. It seems that the connections between the brain and the adrenal medulla are much more elaborate than previously understood. Complex networks throughout the primary sensory and motor cortices are tied directly to our stress responses. That discovery transformed Stricks’ understanding of how bodily movements influence our health. He’s starting pilates. “This is suggesting a much more decentralized process,” said Bruno of the findings...

“Something about axial control has an impact on stress responses,” Strick reasons. “There’s all this evidence that core strengthening has an impact on stress. And when you see somebody that's depressed or stressed out, you notice changes in their posture. When you stand up straight, it has an effect on how you project yourself and how you feel.  Well, lo and behold, core muscles have an impact on stress. And I suspect that if you activate core muscles inappropriately with poor posture, that’s going to have an impact on stress.” 

“These neural pathways might explain our intuitive sense for why there are many different strategies for coping with stress,” said Bruno. “I like the examples they give in the paper—that maybe this is why yoga and pilates are so successful. But there are lots of other things where people talk about mental imagery and all sorts of other ways that people deal with stress. I think having so many neural pathways having direct lines to the stress control system, that’s really interesting.” Strick focused on movement, but Bruno specializes in sensory neuroscience, so he read more into the findings in the primary somatosensory cortex. Some of these tactile areas in the brain seem to be providing as much input to the adrenal medulla as the cortical areas. 

“To me that's really new and interesting,” said Bruno. “It might explain why certain sensations we find very relaxing or stressful.” I thought of a good back scratch, or, for some reason, the calming sensation of putting your bare hand into a plate of fresh pasta. The idea that primary sensory and motor areas in the brain have a part in to modifying internal states in such a prominent way has caused Bruno to question the very nature of these areas of the brain. 

“It's not clear to me—from our work, and from their work—that what we call motor cortex is really motor cortex,” he said. “Maybe the primary sensory cortex is doing something more than we thought. When I see results like these, I go, hm, maybe these areas aren’t so simple.” With this come implications for what’s currently known as “psychosomatic illness”—how the mind has an impact over organ functions. The name tends to have a bad connotation. The notion that this mind-body connection isn’t really real; that psychosomatic illnesses are “all in your head.” 

Elaborate connections like this would explain that, yes, it is all in your head. The fact that cortical areas in the brain that have multi-synaptic connections that control organ function could strip the negative connotations. The Pitt team has previously injected the heart and seen cortical areas that are involved in controlling its rhythm. They believe that may explain cases of sudden unexpected death—from epilepsy, from brain injury, even from strong emotional stimuli (positive and negative) leading to heart attacks. There is also the emerging field of neuro-immunology, which is looking at the effects of stress on the immune system. All of this lends some credence to people who may once have been dismissed by people like Strick himself, who are skeptical of anything that isn’t borne out by a concrete mechanism. As he put it, “How we move, think, and feel have an impact on the stress response through real neural connections.”"

"Vegetable oil is liquid age."

Fat-Burning Man: "...it is that toxic; it is that unhealthy. The kind of toxic effect it has is called “oxidative stress.” That’s what it promotes. It’s got to do with free radicals. Smoking causes oxidative stress, and we know smoking has effects on the skin and the lungs that essentially accelerate your aging. Well, vegetable oil doesn’t just affect your skin and your lungs; you take it into your body and it becomes you. It becomes every part of your body and every tissue in your body. So every tissue in your body is essentially going to be subject to an accelerated aging process. And how exactly that manifests is different in every genetically unique individual, somewhat defined by family history. So exactly what will happen is somewhat unpredictable, but it is predictable that something bad will happen, and conversely, when you get it out of your diet. So I think of this now as though 60 years ago, Americans entered unknowingly into a massive medical experiment where we started eating the cheapest possible food. Vegetable oils are very cheap to produce, cheap to manufacture, long shelf life. They make everything you put them in have a long shelf life. So they’re used in every processed food and lots of blood sugar-raising food, and carbohydrates, and high-fructose corn syrup, and all this. And this was an experiment. Actually, it was a literal experiment called the Minnesota Coronary Experiment that started in Minnesota in the late 1950s by a man named Ancel Keys."

"Need a self-esteem boost? Do something worthy of esteem. Do work."

4 Politically Correct Fitness Lies | T Nation: 

"PC Lie: Body love is crucial. You should praise yourself every time you look in the mirror. 

Do this instead: Love effort, love achievement, and stop being so self absorbed. 

 "Body love" is a term used mainly by people who fixate on their bodies, feel like crap about their bodies, and then broadcast to the world the exact opposite. They want you to believe that THEY believe every dimple and crevice of their flesh is attractive, so they've created a movement to make it socially acceptable to shove their belly rolls in our faces. 

 But talking about how much you love your body means you're probably trying to convince yourself of something you really don't believe. The problem isn't a lack of self-love; it's a lack of effort, action, progress, and achievement... and overwhelming self-obsession. "Body love" is code for this self-obsession. It's forced narcissism, which is now encouraged and applauded these days. What ever happened to humility? And when did body love become a greater virtue? 

C.S. Lewis once said, "Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." Yet it's seemingly more important to put yourself on a pedestal for no reason than it is to place your focus on things outside yourself. 

 If you think about it, insecurity and narcissism aren't really opposites. They're both the result of fixating on yourself too much. Body love is how people rationalize that fixation. Incidentally, whenever people broadcast their love for their bodies, I'm always reminded of the guy or gal who gushes all over Facebook about how much he or she loves their significant other when their relationship is on the rocks. Is it denial? Compensation? Or maybe they're doing the reverse of what's expected (overkill, really) to try and "be positive" about a bad situation. 

 The Alternative to Pretend Body Love: Achievement 

Need a self-esteem boost? Do something worthy of esteem. Do work. Choose something hard, uncomfortable, and outside your current skill set. Put yourself in a situation where you have to suck for a while because it's that difficult. This is especially valuable for those with body image issues. Why? Because when you try something for the first time you're going to have to focus on the craft rather than yourself. This will give your mind a reboot. 

As you become more competent, you'll develop REAL satisfaction, not the contrived, "I love myself for being me" bullshit. That stuff is a facade, plus nobody believes you when you say it. Achievement always trumps words. And learning to do a new skill when you're surrounded by people better than you is a reminder of what you CAN achieve with the right work ethic. Just get your mind off yourself. Connect. Make actual friends, and not the kind who are also insecure narcissists because they'll convince you that body love is good, but only because they're in the same situation – totally compensating for a belief that's not there."

Reading - Feb through Jun '17.

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

Kettlebell Simple & Sinister by Pavel Tsatsouline

Keto Clarity: Your Definitive Guide to the Benefits of a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet by Eric Westman MD, Jimmy Moore

Unsettled Matters: the Life and Death of Bruce Lee by Tom Bleecker

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss

Wired to Eat: Turn Off Cravings, Rewire Your Appetite for Weight Loss, and Determine the Foods That Work for You by Robb Wolf

Next by Michael Crichton

Star Wars: Guardians of the Whills by Greg Rucka 

The John Matherson Series: One Second After, One Year After, The Final Day by William R. Forstchen

Star Wars: Thrawn by Timothy Zahn 

Winner Lose All--A Lando Calrissian Tale: Star Wars Legends by Timothy Zahn

5/3/1 Forever by Jim Wendler

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton 

Omega Men: The End Is Here by Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda

Wolverine: Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith

Deadpool Minibus by Cullen Bunn & Others

Colonial Comics: New England, 1620 – 1750 edited by Jason Rodriguez

"This is where I keep my genetics."

"When is it okay to lie?"

Reading Sep 16 - Jan 17. "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time."

"What you end up doing,” the mechanic says, "is you spend your life searching for a father and God.” "What you have to consider,” he says, "is the possibility that God doesn’t like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that can happen.”

Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story by Steve Kamb

Fight Club: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk
The House of Secrets by Brad Meltzer and Tod Goldberg 
Livia Lone by Barry Eisler
The Pussy by Delicious Tacos
No, They Can't: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed by John Stossel
The Felix Castor Series - The Devil You Know, Vicious Circle, Dead Men's Boots, Thicker Than Water, and The Naming of the Beasts by Mike Carey

Fight Club 2 by Chuck Palahniuk, Cameron Stewart, and David Mack
Atomic Robo Volume 10: Atomic Robo and the Ring of Fire Paperback by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener 
Jacked by Eric Kripke
Think Tank Volume 4 by Matt Hawkins and Rahsan Ekedal 

Wolverine: Old Man Logan by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven

"I mostly ate burgers covered in cheese, mayonnaise, bacon, and mustard."

Nice.  My Zero-Carb Update--and a Call for Your Stories | My Zero Carb Life: "My recent eating habits have included eating at around eight quarter-pound beef patties every day, and if I’m still hungry, I’ll have some eggs, bacon, roast beef, or whatever meat I have on hand. If I ever start craving fat again, I’ll go back to adding it, but my body just doesn’t want extra fat at the moment. I think adding fat is a very meal-by-meal and person-by-person decision. If I desire more fat, I have it!  If leaner meats appeal to me, then lean it is. I don’t calculate micros or try to force anything.  As long as I’m just eating from the animal kingdom (mostly meat with some eggs and a little dairy), I know I’ll be fine.   Yes, I was zero-carb during my third pregnancy. I’ve written about my first two pregnancies before, but wanted to share that my third pregnancy was a smooth one. I had some food aversions and nausea in my first trimester, but I just ate the meats that appealed to me and avoided the ones that made me gag.  (Chicken wings. *barf* What was wrong with me?) I mostly ate burgers covered in cheese, mayonnaise, bacon, and mustard. My favorite pregnancy meal was a bunless Monster Thickburger from Hardee’s, which is why you may have noticed an increase in their stock prices. (The Hardee’s drive-thru people recognized my minivan and knew my order by heart. At three locations.)   So I kinda eat at McDonald’s every day.  Life with three kids is super-busy, and since ThickBurgers are pricey, these days I mostly eat burger patties from McDonald’s. Every day I order eight quarter pound beef patties, just the meat. That gives me two pounds of beef for $8.00 (prices vary from store to store; I live in North Carolina), meaning that I can get my patties for $4/pound. I can barely get raw meat in the grocery store for less than that! I also love hitting the drive-thru daily because my kids take naps in the minivan while I’m fixing my breakfast/lunch/dinner.  Multitasking at its finest."

"Junk food is engineered to be addictive."

motiveweight:

"Show me a man or woman that is 100 pounds overweight who says they love their body and I will show you a liar."

People deserve compassion and love.  Bad ideas, like "fat acceptance," deserve the harshest criticism you're able to give. 

 The Real “Body Love” – MAX SHANK: "Body Love is the latest hot topic to hit the fitness industry. I like the idea, really I do. However, I have seen this idea portrayed in two ways.The first, which I like, is about not striving for the myth of perfection. The second, which I don’t, is about excusing people who completely disrespect their bodies with what they do. Show me a man or woman that is 100 pounds overweight who says they love their body and I will show you a liar. This is a classic example of people saying one thing and doing another. It’s fairly similar to a husband who beats his wife but says, “I love you.” Imagine you spend your day eating garbage and sitting on your ass and then look in the mirror and say, “I love you.” What is the real message? Instead, show your love by how much of your time and energy you are willing to dedicate to the continued health of your body and mind. If you really love your body, give it your time and care...

When I see a person who is 100 pounds overweight giving speeches about body love at colleges, It makes me shake my head, and wonder what the world is coming to. Whether you are in the shape of your life, or just starting out on a fitness journey from a long hiatus, it really doesn’t matter. What matters, are your actions. What do you do every day that slowly kills you, or helps you thrive and grow? With your body, it’s exactly the same damn thing, you don’t love your body if you treat it like (and fill it with) garbage. In a certain sense, body love isn’t about “mindset” at all. It’s about what you do–actions speak much, much louder than words. If I have a point to make, it is this: We all have a body They all look different Be happy with what you got Try to get a little better every day Get some skills, and become more ninja-like I am 100% behind body love. Let’s be sure it lifts us up emotionally and psychologically without tearing us down physically."

Jessie Graff = Awesome.

What Regular People Can Learn From a Stuntwoman and Ninja Warrior: "Jessie Graff’s perspective: It’s not about “staying in shape” It’s about being strong enough to do the stunts she needs to do Injury prevention: “Armor” to withstand the kind of physical punishment she’s going to take doing stunts 

Though I’m just beginning to learn what it means to be a role model for women, I really want to share one message: being strong doesn’t make you manly or unfeminine. It just means you can do more things.  It builds confidence and self reliance and opens all kinds of pathways and opportunities. —Jessie told the Los Angeles Times 

 What you can take away Dan John has used the metaphor of muscle as “armor” in contact sports like football before.  It sounds like stunts are pretty similar: Jessie needs both the kinds of exercises to prevent injury and the muscle to withstand all of the falls and throws and punishment of doing stunts in movies and TV. 

 There’s nothing wrong with having a perspective where you want to work out to look better.  The danger is when that’s the only perspective that you have for working out.  Or worse, when you use working out as a punishment for food.  That’s not what working out is for. Taking a look at Self-Determination Theory, we find people have different kinds of motivation they use for working out: 

 Working out as punishment for “eating bad” or “looking bad” 

Working out because you feel guilty if you don’t 

Working out because you value being strong, or value moving well and being able to do cool stuff, or value looking good 

Working out because you’ve integrated working out with all of your values, like being strong, looking good, being a good parent, being effective at work, and so on 

Working out because you enjoy movement 

What we find is that the people who are the least successful at their fitness and enjoy it the least, are the ones who always use the first two. People who are the most successful with their fitness, actually use all of them.  They use the top one much less often, because they use the bottom  three a lot. 

 I wish I could tell you that there is some magical world where you can graduate to always using enjoying movement for every workout, but research doesn’t back that up.  Even pro athletes and personal trainers, sometimes workout just because they’ll feel guilty if they don’t. Research indicates that a healthy relationship with a workout motivation is all of the above.  What makes it healthy is using your values a lot of the time.  The goal is to notice what you value about working out, why it matters to you. And then, if you can find some movements or workouts you do just for the fun of it (like rock climbing or boxing!) Bringing it back to Jessie — for her, it all comes down to being directly related to her job.  A job that she clearly loves!  So, you could say that all of it — from the stunt practice to the strength training to the injury prevention is all completely integrated with her values."

Cult ideology and greed over nature and reality.

Great read. Bloomberg.com:

Shaming works.

See also anti-smoking and drunk driving campaigns.  This mum lost 10 stone after her son drew her as a BLOB at school - Wales Online: "But the turning point came in February 2014 when her son Thomas proudly came home with a picture he had drawn at school. The picture that Thomas drew at school of his family Meryem added: “It was a family portrait with all members as stick figures except for me who he’d drawn as a round blob. “It really upset me when I saw it but I didn’t have the heart to tell Thomas, I just went upstairs and cried.” That, combined with an incident on holiday when Meryem couldn’t take part in activities because she was too out of breath, inspired a change. She said: “My children called me ‘fat’ because they couldn’t fit their arms around me when giving me hugs. It was very upsetting."

"The new findings challenge the “food desert” hypothesis..."

Fat Head » Food Deserts and Grand Plans: "An analysis of a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults reveals that access to healthy foods in a supermarket does not hinder Americans’ consumption of empty calories. In fact, the study found, U.S. adults buy the bulk of their sugar-sweetened beverages and nutrient-poor discretionary foods at supermarkets and grocery stores. The new findings challenge the “food desert” hypothesis, which posits that a lack of access to supermarkets and grocery stores in some communities worsens the obesity crisis by restricting people’s access to healthy foods...

As part of their never-ending quest to create a better society by spending other people’s money and/or restricting other people’s freedoms, The Anointed decided to take on the (ahem) “problem” of food deserts some years ago.  And boy, the Grand Plan they came up with to fix it is such a fine example of The Anointed in action, I decided to write a full post on the topic. I haven’t discussed The Anointed for a while, so I’ll start with a brief review of how they operate.  This is my crib-sheet version of Thomas Sowell’s terrific book The Vision of The Anointed: The Anointed identify a problem in society. The Anointed propose a Grand Plan to fix the problem.  Strangely, the Grand Plan nearly always requires spending other people’s money and/or restricting other people’s freedom to make their own decisions. Because they are so supremely confident in their ideas, The Anointed don’t bother with proof or evidence that the Grand Plan will actually work.  In fact, they cheerfully ignore any evidence that the Grand Plan won’t work. If possible, The Anointed will use government coercion to impose the Grand Plan on other people (for their own good, of course). Because the problem they’ve identified is The Bad, The Anointed assume whatever Grand Plan they design to fix it is The Good.  Therefore, anyone who opposes the Grand Plan is opposing Good itself … which can only mean those people are either evil or stupid. If the Grand Plan fails (which it usually does), The Anointed will never, ever, ever admit the Grand Plan was wrong.  They will instead conclude that 1) the plan was good, but was undermined by people who are evil or stupid, or 2) the plan didn’t go far enough … which means we need to do the same thing again, ONLY BIGGER...

In other words, the Grand Plan isn’t working for the same reason those wunnerful, wunnerful fruits and vegetables weren’t available in “food deserts” in the first place:  THE LOCALS AREN’T INTERESTED IN BUYING THEM.  HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THIS COMING A HALF-BILLION DOLLARS AGO, YOU @#$%ING MORONS?! Here’s the really fun part:  The USDA is aware of research negating the hypothesis that people don’t buy fruits and vegetables because they “struggle” to find them. "