Perception

Sometimes mid-sentence something distracts me and I lose my train of thought. Often when I do, I can't remember what I was saying before. It annoys me but I move on to something else. By contrast, if a person interrupted me to the same effect, I'd get angry, even if what I were saying were no more important. That is, if while saying the same thing, I were interrupted or distracted, despite the outcome being the same, in one case I'd get angry, the other no problem. Funny how we do that, isn't it?

For at least 20 years, I always had ice cream in my freezer and pretzels or potato chips in my cupboard. Somewhere inside, I knew I didn't want them. I told myself I couldn't help buying and eating them, but I could. I didn't stop. When I bought them, I would tell myself why buying them was okay, even though I thought I shouldn't. Pile of Refined Sugar How addicts think Addicts tell themselves why something they consciously oppose is okay. When I tell people I avoid packaging or flying, they tell me why some type of packaging is actually okay or that the plane would fly anyway. I know the thinking because we all have it in us. It's not you or me that…

That addictive tug showed itself to me clearly for the first time the last time I ate ice cream. It was Thanksgiving, two or three Novembers ago. I rarely eat dairy and for years have avoided fiber-removed foods so I don't remember why I tried a taste then. Everyone was eating pie and ice cream, passing them around the table. I was probably sipping scotch for dessert, or maybe eating fruit. In any case, I tried a spoon of ice cream for my first time in years, probably Ben and Jerry's, maybe Haagen Dazs. Whatever brand or flavor it was, however it tasted, I immediately felt like I wanted more, like I could keep eating more. Not having eaten sweetened foods for a while, I…

My response to a popular social media post is below. I don't pretend it's the final word, but it expresses something missing. The post I responded to Guys ask why women are so pissed off. Even guys with wives and daughters. Jackson Katz, a prominent social researcher, illustrates why. He's done it with hundreds of audiences: "I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they've been asked a trick…

The past few days have seen many articles on the Philadelphia police arresting two black men in Starbucks. Let’s look at the New York Times article, Starbucks Arrests, Outrageous to Some, Are Everyday Life for Others, for example. It begins PHILADELPHIA — The video of the police arresting two black men in a Starbucks, viewed more than 10 million times online, quickly prompted a full-blown crisis: accusations of racism, protests both in and around the cafe, and a corporate apology on “Good Morning America.” In the context of cops arresting people, I certainly understand focusing in the words “black men” on “black.” According to Wikipedia’s article Incarceration in the United States, According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2013 black males accounted for 37%…