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Food & Drink, Health

Here’s one side benefit from the emergence of Ozempic et al.:

For a very long time, bariatric surgery, in which doctors removed a portion of the stomach, was the standard procedure for helping patients lose weight and manage obesity, alongside metabolic disorders such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. However, ever since GLP-1 medications like Ozempic became available on the market, there has been a shift in how people seek to lose weight.

I just wish this stuff had been around all those years ago, before I had my bariatric (gastric band) surgery.  I don’t often regret my important decisions, mostly because I’ve given them a considerable amount of thought before making them;  but having a plastic sphincter installed at the top of my stomach — thus reducing the amount of food one can swallow — was easily the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

Executive summary:  it took away one of my few pleasures in life.  And yes, I could probably have had the thing removed (probably not now, it’s been too long), but at the time I had no health insurance (and the removal probably wouldn’t have been covered anyway) so here I am, some eighteen years later, still stuck with the damn thing.

And still unable to swallow a decent mouthful of delicious food.

And yes, I’m back on Ozempic, because (as I discovered) it did change my attitude towards food and the quantities thereof while I was taking it.  I thought this attitude would persist after I stopped taking it, but it didn’t:  in the year after losing some fifty pounds, I put about ten pounds back on.  And so here I am, back to the weekly prick in the stomach, at about $50 a pop for the 0.25mg privilege.

Fach.

Just don’t expect me to feel any sympathy for the bariatric surgeons as they see their income shrink.

No Authority

Immigration, Legal Stuff

I’m getting really sick of the judiciary usurping the Constitutional power of the POTUS.  Here’s the latest little tick on the hide of our republic:

A federal judge, appointed by former President Barack Obama, has blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from halting legal immigration and asylum applications from nearly 40 countries deemed “high-risk” by officials.

“Each of the Challenged Policies — the Global Asylum Hold Policy, the Benefits Hold Policy, the Comprehensive Re-Review Policy, and the Country-Specific Factors Policy — are declared unlawful and are hereby VACATED and SET ASIDE,” McConnell wrote in his ruling.

See, I thought that we Americans — and most especially the President — could absolutely decide who and who not to allow into the country.

Needless to say, the aforementioned judge is not only an Obama pustule, but also resident in Rhode Island (as if we needed any more proof of his Leftism).

I’m curious as to what grounds this creep used to classify all those policies as “illegal” — I’m hoping that one of my Powdered Wig Readers will be sufficiently interested to cast an eye on the actual ruling and decipher it for us.

Also just out of curiosity:  how many federal judges has Trump appointed in the past eighteen months?  Because that seems to be the only (legal) way we can overwhelm assholes like this from subverting the Executive.

Note that I’m not advocating this:

… although some might.

On The Reading Shelf This Week

Books & Movies

(links in pics, if you want to dive in with me)


“The First Hero of World War II and How the FBI Outwitted and Destroyed a Nazi Spy Ring” — who could resist reading about the FBI, back when they were an actual counter-espionage force rather than somewhere for  Aldrich Ames  Robert Hanssen to sell out his country?


I’ve never dived into the Italian campaign in any depth before;  it’s time.  And Holland is one of my favorite WWII historians.


Let’s see what real climate change was all about.

Classic Modern Beauty: Ingrid Boulting

Classic Beauty

She started off as a ballet dancer, but during the Swinging Sixties Ingrid Boulting found her niche as one of the miniskirted models in the Twiggy/Jean Shrimpton genre:

Note the period’s dramatic style:

 

She’s often described as “South African”, but that’s just an accident of birth. Her parents were both Brits, and went back to Britishland soon after she was born.

Apparently, she’s now a yoga teacher in Southern California.

Difficult Problem, Horrible Solution

Deep Thoughts

This sad tale is quite thought-provoking:

Internet stars Jesse Ridgway, 33, and Ashley Ridgway, 31, announced that they had made the ‘difficult decision’ to terminate their pregnancy earlier this week, two months after learning their unborn child had Down syndrome. 

“As for us, we made a difficult decision that we believe in the long-run will be beneficial for our family,” Jesse wrote in a series of Instagram Story. “Thankfully, we had a choice. “It will take a little time to move on, but we are excited to try again in the future and hopefully have a better outcome,” he added.

Just a week earlier, the pair had shared a YouTube video showing the results of an amniocentesis test, which screens for birth defects and chromosomal conditions. In the clip, the couple sat on the floor and viewed the test results in real time, which revealed markers consistent with Trisomy 21, medically known as Down syndrome. 

Ashley broke into tears as Jesse explained that the couple had previously discussed terminating the pregnancy if faced with such a scenario, a decision they later confirmed on Wednesday.

Jesse, posted a series of emotional Instagram stories saying the couple had decided to have an abortion, describing the decision as “not made lightly” and “extremely traumatic.” 

I’ll say it is.  I can’t actually think of anything more gut-wrenching than this one, but when all is said and done, given what they were going to face, I can’t say I disagree with what they did.

And before I start getting screamed at, I note the many similarities between this decision and the decision to turn off life support for a terminally-ill relative — the latter of which does not seem to engender much of a response from the All Life Is Precious Brigade.

Remember too that I am a bitter foe of abortion-on-demand, except in cases like this.

I once knew a guy — back in South Africa, where abortion was very much illegal — whose wife had had a Downs Syndrome baby.  The poor little tyke lived until age 10, and then died from the usual issues associated with this unhappy circumstance.  Several years later, I asked him about his feelings on the topic, and his response was blunt and to the point.

“It was hell,” he stated bluntly.  “Absolute bloody hell:  for my wife, for me, and for little Eric.  Ten years of exhausting hell.  As much as we tried to put a cheerful face on it, I think my wife cried herself to sleep every night for five years.  And when Eric finally went into the hospital for the last time — we knew his condition was terminal — we crucified ourselves with our guilt because we were feeling nothing but relief that his, hers and my hell were finally coming to an end.”

Of course, in the case of our unhappy couple in New Jersey, there have been the usual issues from the lunatics:

The news immediately triggered a wave of online backlash. A day later, the pair revealed that their inboxes were being flooded with ‘hate and vitriol’ over their ‘impossible decision.’ 

Jesse, known online as McJuggerNuggets, said that since sharing their abortion, they have been exposed to a “deeply disturbing” side of humanity.  One comment left under their YouTube video read: “Genuinely the most dystopian and disturbing video I’ve seen on YouTube. Truly evil. Four months.”  Another said, “Hitler thought those with disabilities didn’t deserve to live either!!! You should be sterilized.”

All those comments, of course, are coming from people who’ve never had to face anything like the choice — if it can be called that — that these poor kids have had to deal with.

If I can fault the Ridgways with anything, it’s for putting the whole ghastly episode on the Internet.  Had they just had the thing done, then put up a brief, sorrowful post that they had lost the unborn baby, nobody would have been any the wiser and everyone could just have carried on.

But this unhealthy urge to share with strangers the most intimate details of one’s life is total poison — as Jesse and Ashley Ridgway have discovered.  I only hope that he never has to use the gun he keeps next to his bed, because that would just add to the tragedy;  although getting rid of some screeching fanatic would not be that bad an outcome, because they live in Noo Joizee the consequences of ending that asshole’s life would be more punitive than ending the life of their unborn, unhealthy baby.

There are no winners in this horrible story, and the maniacs who insist on piling on are just adding to the tragedy.