The crazy lady strikes again

Pizza has long been considered junk food. In fact, in my posttransplant anorexic phase (when I was down to a starving 94 pounds, extremely thin even on my then-five-foot-two frame), I was advised by the transplant team at the University of Chicago to eat plenty of junk food. And the transplant nurse practitioner actually used pizza as an example of the type of junk food I was supposed to eat. There's a problem with that. The nurse practitioner was probably thinking in terms of a double-cheese,... Sign in to see full entry.

I always used to blow this one off when I was a child. I learned the wisdom of this momily, however, when I started watching Animal Planet's Emergency Vets. On one Emergency Vets episode, Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald talked of his clinical experiences treating dogs who had ingested chocolate. He mentioned that he'd even had a dog die - a dog who had eaten unsweetened baking chocolate. Apparently, unsweetened baking chocolate is the most dangerous type of chocolate to ingest, at least for dogs. It has... Sign in to see full entry.

Originally, this post was to be about the victims of female sexual abuse - the young boys Oprah talks about on her website, boys who were victimized by female teachers. However, while waiting for the toolbar to download, I thought of another group of male victims: those abused by priests, who told their stories during the recent sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. I feel there is a distinct difference between the two groups. Those who have come forward during the recent sex-abuse scandals... Sign in to see full entry.

I've been leafing through Oprah's message board since I made my last entry, and I was gratified to see the sheer amount of disapproval there is on the message board of female teachers who molest adolescent male students. I am so grateful to see this reaction! Finally, we may be done with the days when such encounters were romanticized. If I were treated the way Oprah's male guests were treated - thank God I wasn't, but if I were - believe me, Mom and Dad would be at school, very angry with the... Sign in to see full entry.

In my last entry, I talked about the difference between the way in which female victims of sexual abuse are treated, and the way in which male victims have traditionally been treated. However, if President Bush hadn't had that press conference - which is still going on even as I write (at 9:39 AM Central Daylight Time) - my focus would have been different. What spurred my interest in Oprah's topic was a brief comment on the False Memory Syndrome Foundation website. (I believe I read this comment... Sign in to see full entry.

I've got ABC on right now. I wanted to watch Oprah this morning; she's doing a show on what I feel is an important topic - the sexual abuse of adolescent boys by female teachers. I've talked about this in other contexts, most notably when I was talking about sexual addiction. There is a distinct gender difference here between boys and girls. If a male teacher molests a young girl, even a barely-legal teen, people get very upset. The teacher's reputation is destroyed; he cannot ever get a job... Sign in to see full entry.

I've noticed one other thing in alternative medicine - an aspect which seems almost universal. These alternative providers are far more likely to promise extended life than are conventional providers. Specifically, they promise at least an extended life span if you but follow their dietary prescriptions - and they promise that you can avoid certain diseases entirely by doing so, as well. Those of us who know our Bibles, even minimally, recognize this as the other lie of the serpent in the Garden... Sign in to see full entry.

Several years ago, when my daughter was little, I read a book by a Protestant physician about the New Age influence on health care. I wanted to talk about that topic, because I felt that her observations were valid. Many Protestant fundamentalists use health-care providers who prescribe what is known as alternative or complementary medicine, as opposed to the conventional medical philosophy. (By the way, note the spelling - it's "complEmentary," not "complImentary." If one is complimentary, one... Sign in to see full entry.

In his book On Writing, Stephen King mentions that while writing Carrie (his first big bestseller, and the third manuscript he'd written), he found that he'd landed on Planet Female. I shamelessly adapted my title from him. What makes a man different from a woman? Up until very recently, most branches of Christianity recognized implicitly that the man was considered the leader. St. Paul, in one of his epistles, prohibited women from speaking in church services and performing ordained leadership... Sign in to see full entry.

I know I've covered a similar topic before, but I thought it bears repeating. In an earlier entry in this blog, I talked about the Duggars, a family of eighteen people (mom Michelle, dad Jim Bob, and sixteen children - yes, you read right: sixteen children). In that earlier post, I mentioned that one of the things I worried about was their relative isolation - specifically, the fact that they didn't see many outsiders other than journalists and Discovery Health Channel people who were filming... Sign in to see full entry.