Some thoughts mulled over this weekend.

Okay, first of all--and people are probably going to think I'm nitpicking, but I don't care--really, is the iPhone that important? You would think that the release of this product was some sort of cure for cancer, or something. It's another fucking consumer item that will be obsolete within a year because Apple will rush out a newer, "better" version within six months...c'mon, people, get your priorities in perspective. When the long lines to purchase it makes the second news story of the evening, I realize we're hurtling even further into (notice I say "into," not "toward") the decline of western civilization. Soldiers are dying every day by the dozens, and we just wanna tune out and bliss over a new fucking gadget. Jesus.

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This NutraSweet purge has become my new soapbox issue. I'm still going through serious physical and emotional withdrawal, but every day of abstinence gives me more courage to continue. That, and really delving into the history of this product. I just finished a book by Janet Starr Hull, called Sweet Poison, and while the title's kind of lame and her writing isn't always the greatest, it's damned informative. NutraSweet's hands have always been deep in the pockets of Washington (did you know Donald Rumsfeld was once the head of G.D. Searle, NutraSweet's parent company? Gee, from the drug industry to war games--that's not disconcerting), and it appears that a number of early tests conducted by independent scientists showed that aspartame had the ability to:

a.) cause holes in the brains of mice
b.) give brain tumors and/or cause death in primates
c.) create fetal abnormalities

but, of course, money and power talks, so the "food additive" (originally designed as a drug for ulcers), was pushed through.

I wonder, along with Hull, if many modern diseases--like fibromyalgia (of which I'm a sufferer)--are the result of years of aspartame consumption. I'm furious at the industry and at myself for 25+ years of ingesting this stuff. I'm done.

Read Hull's book if you're interested. The meat of the book--her research into the development of aspartame and the suppression and lies that led to its release; its potentially devastating side-effects (did I mention people have gone blind from methanol poisoning in extreme cases?--methyl alcohol comprises 1/3 of the product)--is riveting.

Fuck aspartame. I want to have a healthy body and mind.

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I started a garden this weekend, in my buddy Kenn's backyard. You never learn how out of shape you are until you spend several hours digging up Kentucky soil during a drought. I'm eaten up with mosquito bites, too--but there's a certain satisfaction in rolling around in the dirt and planting tiny seeds, hoping they'll grow into something worthwhile. It's so late in the season, I fully expect nothing to happen, but so much of my life has been a shot in the dark--I say, "why not?" Current things I'm waiting on: squash, okra, tomatoes, "wild" onions (meaning the long kind), basil and catnip. I want to add tiny pumpkins in the corner of his yard, maybe this weekend. He's going to hate me when they start taking over, but I'll love it. Every day is Halloween for Alexandra.