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Anarchy Begins at Home: The Blog Series Part 4 – Having One’s Cake and Eating It Too

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This is a blog post rendition of my 1-hr presentation at The 21 Convention in Austin, TX in August, right after I gave a 20-minute abbreviated version of same at the Ancestral Health Symposium 2012, in Boston, at Harvard University School of Law.

The previous three parts here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Both the wolf is full, and the lamb is whole. – Bulgarian saying

Perhaps I should not have spent so much time in the last three posts on what I spent time on. Because, there’s this.

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Valid Authority Sighting

Yep, plain old reality is the ultimate authority; you can never escape it. You’re wholly captive to it, feel-good fantasies and delusions notwithstanding. In a presentation format, we’d have got to this point in about 10 minutes or so. In this format, however, I really needed the epistemological basis (quality knowledge vs. fantasy and delusion) to reference and pound home in forgoing posts and comment replies again and again, and again. It’s of utmost importance to highlight the  general idiocy that prevails unchecked—for the amusement of the few who already know and the exposure of the most who don’t—and who don’t care to confront it. So let’s work on that, this time. Most will turn their heads away to their ancient Teddy Bears.

People aren’t really much interested in having their comfort zones challenged. They want their cake, and they want to eat it too—the wolf full and the lamb whole. They don’t care to engage in debate over the intellectual equivalent of their Teddy Bears. It makes them uncomfortable. Why bother? Why not just leave everyone to their delusions? Well for one, there’s a certain joy of sport in ridiculing the ridiculous. But mostly, society still runs on force and domination and fantasies—and delusions are generally the basis of that force and domination. It’s gonna be a long road, but one hopes we someday evolve beyond it…someday.

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Shorter version: QUALITY KNOWLEDGE

If one would go back and review the previous posts, with my insistent emphasis on quality of knowledge, then, then, they just might begin to understand what I’m getting at. But, there’s those Teddy Bears. Such a comfort. …14th Century, dirt-scrathching Teddy Bears.

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What passes for “quality”

The latter balderdash in image not only offers absolutely nothing of value to the the former image in quotidian usage, but has myriad cheerleaders who’ve actually fought against it and killed millions throughout history and most—fucking MOST—people simply cannot find it in their indoctrinated selves to take a very simple accounting and conclude: fuck that ancient 3-14th century, dirt-scratching, superstitious bullshit!

Moronic.

“Thank God” for the other 10%? Otherwise, you’d be riding on donkeys, milking goats, living in adobe huts that collapse in the smallest of earthquakes—killing you and your children—and going to the town square to cheer for the latest crucifixion,  hanging, or beheading…to what? …assuage the failures of life? …directly or indirectly as a result of the ignorance that’s nurtured and celebrated above all?

…What’s weird to me is how damn proved efficient modern society is with its scientists, inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and the list goes on. Literally, the men and women of the mind are so damn right, so often, so effective that it literally breeds a comfortable, moron, parasite class—who go to church to bow and give credit to a fantasy being, or into a voting booth to sanction a brute like the State, all the while giving false credit for what is in reality the accomplishments and achievements of other regular men and women.

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Simple Pimple

Basically, this is what all quality knowledge must ultimately reduce to. There’s other ways to express it: A is A; 1>0>-1, etc. It all essentially means the same thing. The lesson here is that reality is simply what is. It’s not complicated, though it may be elusive to know. But owing to our big brains, I suppose, humans seem to have this obsession over having an “explanation,” when no explanation is possible in the context of existing knowledge of reality. The valuable and heroic few, for whom uncertainty or plain ignorance represents an insatiable mystery or challenge vs. the uncomfortable and fearful who are incapable of accepting the unknown.

So, instead of work and wait for the time when perhaps elusive bits of knowledge become quality, reducible to the simple, the axiomatic, the tautological, people just make shit up. And then what do they do? They defer to various forms of bogus authority in order to prop up the illusion—the “explanation” that explains nothing.

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Separation?
You Bet
You Bet: Bedfellows through and through

As already discussed in reference to bogus authorities, the church & state form the bulwark of the whole delusion. Notice that churches and States don’t build cars, trains, planes, or anything else. They don’t really create anything. They just pretend, lie, manipulate…in order to prop up the illusion that such things could not be possible without the “grace” of a mythical being, or the “benevolence” of terrestrial thugs called “government.”

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The Domain

This is their domain, as contrasted from hard science, original research, discovery, entrepreneurship, wholly voluntary trade, live & let live, charity and goodwill to men, and all the other things that are the true root of human survival, advancement, prosperity, safety and security.

Some may balk at history being on that list, but there’s history you learn from true historical scholars—which ought always be viewed through a gimlet eye—and the sort the church-state complex would prefer you believe. As just a quick example, the history of Abraham Lincoln*, 16th President of the United States, so-called emancipator of black slaves in America. Children in America are taught that Lincoln engaged in national war (they like to call it “civil”)—a war that killed 620,000 Americans—as a just endeavor to “free the slaves.” How “noble.” Our hero. Hey, let’s have a holiday!

How many children are instructed as to his 1862 letter to Horace Greeley, then editor of the influential New York Tribune?

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Shorter Lincoln: Slavery? Meh. A Completely United Union of Authority with Me in Charge? Priceless. Two Thumbs Up! Way Up!

Others will say “it’s complicated.” …Industrial north, agrarian south, economics, labor costs, etc. etc. I say that the church-state complex regards human beings, their lives, loves, families…merely as expendable fodder in pursuit of their “greater” designs.

Fuck all of them.

[* From what I’ve seen in Teevee trailers for the Spielberg film Lincoln soon to be released, he’s taking the conventional wisdom route.]

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Power

Of course, power and authority are at the root of all this. But what is the underlying method, how do they tend to hold it, only shuffling shit around with conclaves and elections now and then?

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Fear & Trepidation

The big blank out—even if it were true that a human life is so very perilous—is that because life is to be so feared, enemies are always at the gates, and you’re just escaping either eternal damnation or domination through conquest (…or your prescription drug benefit is going away, or any of the myriad other “entitlements” once established, people lose sleep over, for fear they could go away) by the bare skin of your teeth.

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In Part 5 I’ll discuss some of the real hobgoblins of real life, and how they get deal with by quality knowledge and valid authority.

~~~

Forgetting to Die

47 Comments

I’ve had this NYT article open in a browser tab for days and just couldn’t close it.

The Island Where People Forget to Die

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97 yr-old Stamatis Moraitis tending his vineyard and olive grove on Ikaria, Greece

It’s by Dan Buettner, the The Blue Zones guy. In spite of his clear bias for plant based and vegetarian-esqe diets, I think the importance of his work is in finding those populations or zones for whom longevity is clearly multi-factoral.

Nope, it’s probably not all about a paleo diet and Crossfit WODs.

I think I’ll leave it at that, for once. You really ought to just read the article and see how many likely factors for a nice long life you can uncover…other than a pretty reasonable diet of whole food, and in spite of the fact that it includes some “evil” things.

I’ve been to Greece a number of times, hit the countryside and have spent time on a small island. This all makes perfect sense to me.

I’m Deleting More and More Comments on a Whim. Why? Success, That’s Why.

37 Comments

I don’t give a fuck about a lot of commenters on this blog. Those I care a lot about? Lots. Why? They understand their place, as I understand mine. They know who they are. …And Sean called me butthurt, once, so my love is still begrudged.

I don’t have it nearly as bad as so many who are not much more than troll bait, because everyone knows I’m happy to tell you to go fuck yourself in comments; here; just as anywhere else. Face-to-face, too…as I recently relayed in a comment. You want to meet face to face over a dispute? Ask. I’ll be there: Los Gatos / San Jose. I recently gave out my home address and cell number to a bunch of morons on r/paleo on Reddit (ask them). I put up. Proven. …I actually got a call within minutes and it ended very cool. I mean no one real harm, at all, or ever—quite the contrary—and it’s uproariously funny how that plays out in an actual face-face or phone call. I’m just not a little man pussy, like so many clamor to be.

…All the anonymous sock puppets, showing up here and there in increasing frequency? I just adore clicking “Delete.” Not banning them. In fact, I hope they post again, because then I get to sit there in my liesure and click (or, really, just touch on the iPad) “Delete.”

Laf.

I mine minds. Yes. I’m a sometimes paleo blogger, food blogger, health blogger, social commentarial and everything I ever want to be doing in any moment, without fear or trepidation about what some fucking moron—or their collective of morons—is going to think about it. As I say: been at this for a long time. “Suck on it” (1st time I think I said that; overrated).

There are only a few million, maybe a few tens of millions of truly smart people in the entire world of billions. There are only a few thousand who have done the basic science and engineering—and overcome the billions of morons working against them—to give all the morons lots of shiny toys to be placated with, and to shut the fuck up so the smart people can go onto the next thing. Moron is the norm, perpetually relatively.

It’s what I’m all about. It’s all—and only—what I’m all about.

Then, there’s this: Someone willing to show his stuff, and who has never even been in comments, here.

Hi Richard,

Ive been lurking on your site since the beginning of the year (2012) after finding it linked from Martin Berkhan‘s site after I found his Lean Gains site.  I switched to real food and cut out all the processed crap and figured out the gas, bloating and explosive movements Ive had my entire life ceased.  Then I had some of those damn rolls at a steak house and before we left I made a visit and spackled their porcelain for them.  I guess at that point we had it figured out pretty well that I have a wheat allergy. Anyway I wound up on your site due to cholesterol research since my parents are both on drugs for high cholesterol.  I finally went to a doctor at my mother in-law‘s urging to get checked out a few months after changing my eating habits and all my numbers and my wife’s numbers came back great. The stories on your site have helped me feel better, and implementing eating real food has given a side effect of losing ~78 lbs over 10 months.

My wife and I escape to New Hampshire over the hot Florida summers, and it’s the best place I have ever been to eat natural whole food in my life. Every intersection of the state seems to have a farm stand, and there is local made sausage, vegetables and raw dairy within 20 minutes of our camp. We found the raw dairy just a couple of weeks ago, and holy shit if its not the best fucking milk I’ve ever had.  We drive by the cow barn on the way to the house to pick the milk and yogurt up, and the only thing we have seen going in is hay.  The rest of the farm is grass. They milk their 22 cows twice a day. Now I have to try and find this stuff down in florida, where raw milk will kill you and is for pet consumption only.

Attached is a shot of me in New Hampshire last year, and another shot from the same place a couple days ago.  I was ~285 last year in that shot, 220 in the shot from this year.

Thanks for the site and getting information out there for me to find. Without your site, Dr. Davis’ site and Berkhan’s site I’d probably still be 310 lbs like at the end of last year, feeling like shit and getting yelled at for noxious fumes emitted from my rear by my wife.

yearLater
One lesser year later

But this is impossible. I don’t have abs. Who in the world could possibly identify with my way of doing things?

Fresh Oyster Soup the Alton Brown Way

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Well, it’s time to get that massive burger & small bun off the top of the blog, before any more Shiite Paleos get the vapors over it.

Generally, here’s how I’ve always preferred my shellfish in terms of prepared dishes (not just broiled lobster or boiled / steamed crab):

  • Lobster or clam bisque
  • Raw oysters on the half shell with red wine vinegar and chopped shallot
  • Mussels, either in a white wine / chicken broth with shallot / garlic, or any of the Italian versions using tomatoes
  • Clams in a butter / garlicy deal, or in a chowder

But yesterday I went to a market a few minutes from home and obtained fresh oysters from the beds up at Pt. Reyes, local.

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Oysters in their own “liquor”

Every now and then we do a family camping trip up in Olema, just a mile away from Pt. Reyes Station, and here’s how that goes in pictures, once we hit the oyster beds. I’ve had oyster stew a number of times but I wanted to do a soup, analogous to a lobster or crab bisque.

I found Alton Brown’s rendition. From much experience, you can’t go wrong with Alton, even if it’s just to get a few pointers for your own creation. He’s sciency, too.

Ingredients

  • 4 cups heavy cream
  • 1 pint oysters and liquor, separated
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped celery
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
  • 1 teaspoon celery seed
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley leaves, chervil, or chives
  • Salt and pepper

Obviously, I have more than a pint, so I winged it in about 1 1/2 recipe proportion.

Directions

  1. In a heavy 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, bring the heavy cream and oyster liquor from the oysters to a simmer. Remove from the heat.
  2. Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the celery and a pinch of the salt and sweat for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the onion and continue cooking until translucent, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add celery seed, hot pepper sauce, and oysters and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the edges of the oysters start to curl.
  3. Transfer the oysters to the carafe of a blender and add enough of the cream just to cover.
  4. Puree until the mixture is smooth. Return the remaining cream to medium heat, add the pureed mixture, and cook until heated through.
  5. Just before serving, add the lemon juice, chopped herbs, and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Pretty damn simple, but creates one hellava gawd awful mess in the kitchen.

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This is the point at which you’re heating up the heavy cream and liquor from the oysters (seriously, I have no idea why their juice is call liquor), and sautéing the onions and celery (along with the 4 chopped porcini mushrooms I added in my own style).

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Then come the oysters, and then that whole thing goes into the processor or blender to be pureed, and yes, along with all the grit in the oysters (and in the oyster juice as well). Personally, I like my oysters on the half shell to not be drained. I like the grit—in clam chowder as well—which signals to me that is has not been processed to the lowest common idiot denominator.

Once that’s done, it goes in with the cream and juice, and a shot while later, is served.

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Another variation beyond the mushrooms is that I sliced up a small stock of leek and added that into the cooking portion. Then, for garnish, it was fresh leek, fresh celery and fresh parsley.

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As always, all images can be clicker for higher-res versions.

In the end, I think I’ll primarily stick with fresh raw oysters on the half shell. It was good, but very, very heavy. Perhaps using half-&-half would have been a bit better, or, it’s just a small cup as an app prior to dinner. It just felt way too heavy and substantial to me, in the end, though very tasty.

I have a bottle of clam juice, so I intend to cut the leftovers with that when I have some this afternoon.

…Alright, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go clean up ce bordel that used to be my kitchen. World Series got in the way. But wow. Giants have prevailed in six straight games, giving up only 4 runs in 54 innings. The last time there was a back-to-back shutout in the the WS was 1966, Baltimore against LA.

Sin Boldly: An Amazing Burger from The Counter

70 Comments

I’ve become very “stay home and cook,” lately—with quite a few foods posts lately to show for it. …And tonight will either be a clam chowder or oyster stew, depending upon what I can source fresh when I head out in a bit.

I think it’s been over 2 weeks since I darkened the door of a restaurant, and I’d recently been hearing a lot about The Counter, a gourmet burger joint where you fill out what you want on a clipboard and they come deliver it to you (locations). While you can get your burger in a bowl with greens, I can do that at home any time. So, this is a bit of a grain indulgence. Good thing is, when it’s as infrequent as this, it really doesn’t cause any adverse feeling.

You can get these burgers with a 1/3, 2/3, or full 1 pound patty. I opted for the 2/3, cooked to medium, which to me means pink on the inside.

While I was waiting for the burger, the server asked if I wanted anything like fries or rings. I asked how they do their rings, i.e., the proper way or with some sort of batter or breading (the improper way). I was in luck. All images can be clicked for the larger, hi-res versions (all photos via iPhone 5).

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Thin sliced, lightly dusted in seasoned flour, and quickly fried

The difference between a modest portion size like that with a mere dusting of flour and one of those monstrosities they serve in some restaurants with slimy, greasy worms inside of a huge layer of batter or breading is huge. You feel just fine after these—least I did.

While I like produce on a burger too, I opted this time to go the pure route. 2/3 pound burger (after cooking), gruyère cheese, dill pickles and red onion. That’s it. No mayo, mustard, ketchup.

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Wait until you see inside

One option is to get a sauce with it, which they serve on the side (ketchup and mustard don’t count as sauces). I opted for the “au jus,” (which literally means “with juice,” which is a funny way to ask for a consommé, demi-glace, or beef stock based sauce).

At any rate, I tuned it into a burger / french dip sort of deal.

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Told ya

That’s cooked perfectly in my book. Very impressed, especially with the uniformity. That was pure sinful delight, eating that. If I end up sining once per week, I just may be boldly going to that same place over and over.

Anarchy Begins at Home: The Blog Series Part 3 – The Problem With Authority

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This is a blog post rendition of my 1-hr presentation at The 21 Convention in Austin, TX in August, right after I gave a 20-minute abbreviated version of same at the Ancestral Health Symposium 2012, in Boston, at Harvard University School of Law.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it. – Albert Einstein

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it. – George Carlin

The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual’s own reason and critical analysis. – Dalai Lama

Just as I contrasted valid, quality knowledge of reality in the Paleolithic with superstition-based “knowledge” for so many in the Neolithic in parts 1 and 2, it’s time to do essentially the same thing concerning authority: the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine (reference). Alright: power, determination, adjudication, jurisdiction, control, command. All valid, descriptive constructs covering the sorts of things that must take place in an overall context of human action and volition, in order to see to proper or better actions with respect to one’s knowledge of reality (hopefully, knowledge of high quality). The purpose of getting it right—or better than plain wrong—is, of course, to advance one’s prospects for survival, happiness, and prosperity in life.

Let’s tackle the makeup of what passes for authority for so many, now.

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When you come right down to it, human beings live their entire lives subject to authority in one form or another. This is wholly natural. Unless we ourselves have worked out every single constraint to living a human life, we have to default to some form of authority, often—probably daily.

This is the given. This is part and parcel of why we’re social animals and not the sort that lives a singular existence with all knowledge for survival in a specific niche environment, inbred. We’re generalists, both in terms of food and in terms of environment and climate: equator to arctic, sea level to 16,000 feet. Moreover, unlike any other animal I’m aware of, we have the capacity via concepts (perceptual tags) and the way we symbolize them (writing), to pass on knowledge far beyond our physical years. This is a form of authority, particularly when the knowledge represented is of proven worth and high quality (i.e., it has a certain correspondence with reality that has stood the test of time).

…But just as there are qualitative differences in terms of knowledge and “knowledge,” as outlined in parts 1 and 2, there are qualitative differences in various forms of authority.

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Mostly, as adults, we are our own authority in any accounting of every action taken every day (when to wake, eat, shower, shave, what route to take to work, in what order to and priority perform various tasks, etc.). The question is, in which cases ought individuals defer to authorities outside of themselves, external authorities?

We learn to defer to external authority as children when in general, the authority of our parents, grandparents, older siblings, guardians, and teachers supersedes our own on a practical level, and that’s because the quality of the underlying knowledge and experience possessed by those external authorities is greater than our own.

So in principle, not only is there nothing wrong with deferring to external authority, but doing so in many, many ways is part & parcel to our very existence, to our success as social animals. We rely upon one-another and often, the sum of such reliance is greater than the worth of the constituent parts.

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It’s really not about “nobody tells me what to do…or, you’re not my mom,” but rather: valid authority vs. false authority.

Valid external authority can come from anywhere—even a stranger on the street: “LOOK OUT!” …as a fast moving bus or slow moving, flesh eating zombie approaches you from behind. False authority can come from anywhere as well: “SINNER REPENT, OR FACE ETERNAL DAMNATION!” Or, “we all need to sacrifice more.” Or, “this is the most important election of our time!” (aren’t they always?). How about: lower your cholesterol, avoid saturated fat, hearthealthywholegrains, take this drug, bore yourself to tears in cardio, I’m the doctor…and the list goes on.

What’s weird is that so many take these forms of authority for gospel, and most usually, without a thought given to the underlying quality of knowledge being represented.

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In retrospect, I ought to have added non-sequitur to that list. Perhaps even at the top, because one of the cleverest ways to command authority is to first be authoritative in some matter that’s pretty obvious, so as to establish an aura of authority; then come in with edicts that don’t follow.

“We have deep economic problems. The debt is out of control, jobs are being lost, industries are in decline. We need an “economic stimulus package” and you need to be taxed more. Vote for me.”

“Life is a mystery. From where did we come? What gives rise to a human sense of conscience? …A superman in the sky, and I’m in contact.”

If you can get another human being to feel guilt in matters for which he has no culpability or blame, you have established authority over him.

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In case you missed it the last time, here, The Story of Your Enslavement. Just understand: you can only be enslaved in this manner by your own volition, and that always begins by deferring to an external authority. Problems begin when that authority has no quality basis in reality from which to assert any authority whatsoever. For some additional thoughts and ideas on how we became so susceptible to the diktats of false authorities, see this post from nearly a year ago: Of The Beast and The Bi-Cameral Mind.

In Part 4 I’ll go more into what constitutes valid external authority and why they always play second fiddle to all the false authorities, i.e., the ones “in charge.”

~~~

Massaman Wild Elk Curry; Slow Crock Pot Version

9 Comments

Here’s the kill.

Kill
Elk Kill

Not quite a year ago (that’s my brother Dave, who spent the night here Tuesday, on business), and I still have some in the freezer. This is the very last of the steaks—it’s ground meat and sausage from here out. I’ve done sous vide and a few other ways, but I’m using the last of the steaks for Massaman Curry. He’s headed to Montana next week, and so hopefully I’ll be replenished.

First, you need massaman curry paste. I get mine from local Asian markets, like 99 Ranch. But what the hell, Matt Stone makes his own and that’s a value you can tap into no matter what. Or, you can get it online, and that product is basically the same as I get at the market.

I’ve blogged about numerous massaman dishes over the years—it being about my favorite taste in the world—but this is the first time I’ve done it in a crock pot. I have, in the past, added a dollop of massaman paste to something like a pot roast just to get un certain je’ ne sais quoi sort of deal, but this is full blown. After you have secured the curry paste, you need meat. While this is wild elk, you can also use beef, lamb, probably even goat.

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Wild Elk, Henckels Cut

You’re best off browning it and my preferred method of browning is with ghee, lard / bacon drippings, or coconut oil in a wok, which facilitates tossing, so you don’t have to turn.

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Browning wild elk in coconut oil, in a wok

Works great; no mess, done in a couple of minutes.

OK, so never having done it this way, I was looking primarily for meat that’s spoon tender. Beatrice and I go to Thai restaurants now and then and massaman beef is almost always one of the dishes we have. We are very, very particular about the tenderness of the meat and if we get a tough batch—no matter how tasty the sauce—we won’t be back.

So to make sure the meat is going to be very tender, the crock pot is ideal. The browned meat went in, along with about 1-2 cups of beef stock, 2 cans of coconut milk, and 2 whopping, heaping tablespoons of curry paste. Oh, and yea, 2 small handfulls of “blister” peanuts from Trader Joe‘s. Massaman is simply not complete without the peanuts, but TJ’s has this brand made in the old fashioned way: soaked for a long time before roasting, the better way to ancestrally prepare legumes.

That spent an hour on high, and then from about 1pm until dinner at 7, on low.

The other things you need: onion sliced into wedges, white sweet potato, and carrots. You can add a bit of Thai fish sauce too, but I never bother. However, these things don’t need to be added until the final hour of cooking. That way, they will still be firm, but tender.

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Click for Hi-Res

Oh, yea, I had a smidgen of red bell pepper from the liver recipe the other day, so I chopped finely and put that in for some added color.

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Artsy-Fartsy version-iPhone 5

The rice is jasmine, i.e., Thai rice. For the 2 cups of dry rice, I used 2 cups of beef stock and 2 cups of water in the rice cooker.

…Well, it’s just about time for lunch leftovers, as the rice cooker is still keeping the rice warm & ready and hot massaman curry is only a nuking away. So, if you’ll excuse me…

Another post on Anarchy “at home and in your spare time” is coming up later this afternoon, and I’m having a very fun time putting these together. …Incidentally, no State was involved in the making of this dish.

Dr. Doug McGuff on Fitness, Health and Liberty

49 Comments

Back in August I had the great opportunity to present at The 21 Convention alongside longtime friends Keith Norris, Skyler Tanner, Greg Swann and…Dr. Doug McGuff. After Doug’s presentation, we headed over to Skyler’s house for a meal just hours before I was to fly out.

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R-L: Skyler, Keith, Michelle, Sarah, Doug

A few days later I blogged about Doug’s presentation in detail: Dr. Doug McGuff’s The 21 Convention Presentation in 2 Words: You’re Fucked. Lot’s of good comments on that post expounding upon the problem.

So just today, the video of his full presentation has been released on YouTube. His previous 21 Convention presentation a few years back stands at nearly 190,000 views, so that’s an indication of the quality, depth and insight Doug always brings. Of course, those who have read his co-authored book, Body by Science, already know the kind of knowledge and experience Doug brings to the table.

So here you go. Make yourself some available time and watch this, and then spread it around, especially in a time when everyone’s going on and on about who’s gonna pay for there health care besides themselves. Here’s a true look, from the inside and in the trenches.

If I’ve ever met a nicer guy than Doug, I just don’t remember it. Here’s a guy who has practiced as an ER doc for 23 years—a place where seconds count and there’s never a second chance. He cares deeply for people, yet is no willy-nilly bleeding heart. He knows what it really takes to provide real medical care competently.

Unfortunately, guys like him will never have a seat at the healthcare policy table, when in reality, guys like him are the only ones who ought to have such a seat.

Anarchy Begins at Home: The Blog Series Part 2 – The Quality of Neolithic Knowledge

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This is a blog post rendition of my 1-hr presentation at The 21 Convention in Austin, TX in August, right after I gave a 20-minute abbreviated version of same at the Ancestral Health Symposium, 2012, in Boston, at Harvard University School of Law.

Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear. – Marquis de Sade

Part 1 of the series: Anarchy Begins at Home: The Blog Series Part 1 – The Quality of Paleo Knowledge.

In part 1, I covered the introductory topics of epistemology, sociology and social epistemology, focussing first on the quality of knowledge in a Palolithic context. Inasmuch as knowledge is knowledge of reality, it stands up to reason that the more one is integrated with their sense perceptions of what’s really real, the higher quality will be their knowledge. To demonstrate that, I showed images of various things Paleoman would have likely encountered in his environment, and my argument is that this is why he ultimately survived to flourish and migrate to all corners of the globe. While simple and basic—”primitive,” even—the raw quality of his knowledge was unassailable. Were it was not—probably through no real fault of his own—he perished. We survived to be here because of actions based generally upon quality knowledge of reality.

Now let’s contrast that with what passes for “knowledge” for most people in the Neolithic. This is not an all inclusive list, but it does cover the biggies.

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Church & State Institutions

Church & State or, fantastical delusions and agent of force bedfellows. At root, there’s really little to no difference between them and even though direct main force via the Church is an aspect of life only in many Muslim countries today, it was certainly like that in the West centuries ago. Now, the Church works through the State, and vice versa. They need each other to promote various delusions, fantasies, baseless fears, foist unearned guilt, etc., all for the purpose of propping up their “authority.”

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Mass Delusion

I can accept that prayer holds some value for some people in the realm of their own personal issues. But so does plain old meditation. So does plain old thinking. The point is, paying conscious attention to your own problems or challenges in any way whatsoever is very likely better than doing nothing—though prayer often comes with that stupid “Jesus Take the Wheel” balderdash, a vicious circle. But who meditates or thinks over the problems of others or society, unless it is for the purpose of working out how to actually do something real to help or cause some effect?

So beyond the personal meditative aspect of it, payer is really just a cheap con, a cop out too. Oh, you’re praying for the poor and starving? How about write a check, or go out and feed them? Praying your team wins the football game? Get over yourself. Praying that God will cure a loved one of an awful disease? If he existed and could, what kind of evil monster wouldn’t do it anyway, without your prayers?

In essence, prayer is a lazy ass way to pretend you’re doing something by doing absolutely nothing. …I heard they had a “Prayer Room” at the recent Republican National Convention. I think people ought to have been up in arms that there wasn’t also a “Rain Dance Room.”

To the extent that prayer is the equivalent of well wishes, I can Grok, but it’s simply nothing more than that.

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Primitive Screeds

I looked for an image that included the Quran, Holy Bible and The Collected Works of Mother Goose, but couldn’t find any. There is this, though.

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Other than the outright evil the Bible is chock full of (and I’m sure the Quran as well), I don’t care much that people hold and cherish their fairy tale books. But for the purpose of this exercise, go back and review the sorts of things Paleoman relied upon for knowledge of reality. Next, realize that not a single one of our way-back ancestors would have had the slightest use for a holy book in any respect whatsoever, except to perhaps help start a fire. They would have scoffed at the idea that it contained any knowledge whatsoever. This is because they knew they had quality knowledge and it was tested in survival under the brutish elements every day of their lives. Finally, realize that today, this very day, there are hundreds of millions, probably billions, in the world who actually regard their holy books as the epitome of quality of knowledge!

That’s how fucking bad it is, folks. That is the state of mass delusion. …And it’s not just that their holy-book-based “knowledge” is of poor or poorer quality than that of our paleo ancestors: it’s that it’s not knowledge of reality at all!

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The Nomenclatura

How much of your “knowledge” is based upon the preachings, admonishments, warnings, promises, lies and plain old stinking dogshit spewed by all of the above?

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And these are the folks who carry their water day in, day out. Liberal media? Of course. It’s what works best to keep the general antagonism propped up. They are the best at creating the general smoke screen where one never looks to the element I’ve been talking about—quality of knowledge—but only to fighting over out-of-context points about this or that minutiae. In other words: which is the better lie, the better delusion?

….Which false narrative best reflects all the regurgitate I’ve subsisted upon all of my life?

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These Too

It never ceases to amaze me that people generally think these media institutions are mostly about a free press, and not about profits for shareholders trading their public stock. It’s the latter—free press being a ruse mostly, of marginal value generally, given the Internet. And the way they keep you tuning in so they can sell 30-second spots to the food and drug conglomerates for millions of dollars is by means of keeping you constantly worked up, in fear, in doubt, angry, stressed out over things you can’t control…and the list goes on.

They are not your friends. They aren’t looking out for you. They’re not here to help.

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The Ivory Tower Menace

How could this be complete without including the most sacred of institutions, those that “educate” the parasites who seek to suck the life from you day in, day out, masked by an aura of authority?

Did I just write “authority?” Yep, I did, and as it turns out, that’s the focus of Part 3, tomorrow. (Those wondering about the Neolithic outliers, the ones with valid knowledge of reality, that’s Part 4, so be patient.)

~~~

Pork Carnitas with Persimmons, Butter and Cinnamon

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It’s great to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes. Beatrice got a bag full of ripe, freshly picked persimmons from someone so I decided to do a dish I fist did almost 4 years ago: Carnitas & Persimmon with Cinnamon. I’ve since done a couple of other dishes using pork and fruit (Carnitas with Sweet Potato and Cinnamon Apples / Pork & Fruit: Good Together). One great thing about doing food blogging is it’s like my own personal recipe book. I can just look things up and do them again.

This is where laughing at myself comes in. Every now and then I look something up and I’m like, “I did what!?” Same here. I made that way more complicated than it needed to be by doing the persimmons separately, boiling it in stock.

So here’s how it’s done today.

Ingredients

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Carnitas (Trader Joe’s in this case), persimmons, butter, cinnamon

If you can’t get ready made carnitas, you could do it yourself or, roast pork will do (crock pot with nothing but the pork—no liquids, no herbs or spices—works great).

Instructions

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Chop up the pork (1 lb) and the two persimmons, 8 skinny pats of butter, and I sprinkled the cinnamon through a wire mesh in order to distribute evenly.

400F oven, 20 minutes, turning at the halfway point (and I added a bit more cinnamon, too).

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All done: Too easy

It’s so damn easy, so damn good. Beatrice and I ate the whole thing save for just a tiny bit I’ll finish off at lunch.

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With an extra pat of butter

Enjoy. All the images can be clicked for the larger and higher resolution versions. Pass it around if you like it.