In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office argued that restricting the caloric intake of terrorist suspects to 1000 calories a day was medically safe because people in the United States were dieting along those lines voluntarily.
“While detainees subject to dietary manipulation are obviously situated differently from individuals who voluntarily engage in commercial weight-loss programs, we note that widely available commercial weight-loss programs in the United States employ diets of 1000 kcal/day for sustain periods of weeks or longer without requiring medical supervision,” read the footnote. “While we do not equate commercial weight loss programs and this interrogation technique, the fact that these calorie levels are used in the weight-loss programs, in our view, is instructive in evaluating the medical safety of the interrogation technique.”
Another another friendly reminder that the Minnesota Starvation Experiment subjected adult men who were VOLUNTEERS to 1,560 calorie diets and the psychological effects were so profound that one volunteer cut three of his own fingers off and could not remember why.
These men were volunteers who knew exactly what they would be going through and when it would end, and who believed they were doing it for a good and moral reason (the research was used to help rehabilitate victims of starvation and famine at the end of WWII).
And these are the things we are expected to engage in FOREVER to stay at a “healthy” weight.
Reading about the Minnesota Starvation experiment was my wake-up call. It was what kicked me out of my eating disorder. The guy missing three fingers, whatever his name was, he was the last straw for me.
Scared me so fucking bad I stopped restricting my food that day, and never went back to it.
Just bringin’ this back around like I sometimes do.
Wow. This really hit me hard.
EAT
Fun fact– calorie restriction exacerbates symptoms of pretty much *every* mental illness.
Anorexia has ~16% mortality rate, slightly higher than acted upon suicidal ideation. It’s more lethal than actively trying to kill oneself and this is why.
An aesthetic that first appears to be pure and basic Heterosexuals Are At It Again, but becomes increasingly uncomfortable until you finally understand:
these babygrows (onesies) with parental professions on eBay.
An entrepreneurial sort, eBay user “justtheshirt” realized that for some people, the perfect gift for, say, the baby of a beekeeper is a onesie saying “Daddy’s Little Beekeeper.” In fact, the more obscure the profession, the more excited the customer will feel about the representation! So they took a list of All the Professions, and generated a listing for each one. If someone buys a onesie, they can stamp it with whatever the listing said – and make a rather enormous profit, on a £3 onesie, having made exactly one design and used one script. Genius!
The issue is, they didn’t curate the list. Not a single human appears to have overseen this process. So they have inadvertently created some uncomfortably themed babywear, like “Daddy’s Little Maid,” “Daddy’s Little Nightwalker,” and “Daddy’s Little Courtesan.”
The database also contained a massive proportion of obscure Medieval English professions, like “fulker” and “meader” and “whipcord maker.” (The auto-generated listing enthuses something like, “the perfect gift for a whipcord maker – or just for someone who wishes they were one!”)
There are onesies for babies whose daddies are herbalists, muleteers and sacristans.
I have come full circle in my feelings about this and now I am all in favor of dressing babies in these, as long as the profession is incredibly obscure, and the daddy in question refuses to explain anything.
Oh please tell me they had the sense not to make a “Daddy’s little proctologist…”
Keep an eye out for SERVICE EXTROVERT buttons at 221BCon. People wearing these buttons make friends by adopting introverts, and will assist with con-related interpersonal tasks that you might lack the spoons for. Feel free to sit near a Service Extrovert and/or ask them for a moment of their time.
Sherlock couldn’t remember at that exact moment why he was at the street fair. Something to do with a case, surely. But right then, his brain was short circuiting due to the picture in front of him.
A big sign with garish theater lights illuminating a pink, heart shaped sign that bore the phrase “Spanking Booth” glowed happily and enticing customers to step up to its booth. Behind that booth stood two grinning individuals holding paddles and plying people with the promise of a spanking for charity. The woman was aesthetically pleasing, all dark hair and bright red lipstick, but it was the man that had his undivided attention. Greying blond, shining blue eyes, a smile a mile wide, and dressed in army fatigues.
Good god, almighty, Sherlock cursed inwardly, swallowing thickly.
Then the man caught him staring and the phrase “cat that got the cream” came to mind. He called out to Sherlock, “hey there, gorgeous. I can see someone who’s in the charitable mood.” He gestured with his paddle, “come on over.”
“Oh John, careful with that. Poor boy looks like he’s about to swallow his tongue,” the woman said to him, humor evident in her voice.
“Hush, Irene,” the man –John– said.
Bugger the case. There were more pressing matters at hand. Or, rather, in his trousers. As if on autopilot, Sherlock walked over to the booth, eyeing the operations with curiosity and excitement.
“What’s spanking got to do with charity,” he heard himself say harshly.
John shrugged and Irene answered. “It’s a bit more fun, than the “pie in the face” or dunking tank, don’t you think?”
Sherlock asked, “what’s the charity?”
“It’s for veterans returning from war,” John explained. “Give them a little help while they acclimate to civilian life.”
“Like yourself, then,” Sherlock blurted without thinking. John stiffened and Sherlock’s eyes went wide. Buggering shit, Sherlock swore inside his head.
John soon relaxed and asked, “what makes you think I’m still acclimating?”
Sherlock spouted off his deductions, listing the length of his hair, barely visible tan lines, the still ingrained dirt on his standard issue boots, ending with the fact that he was in fatigues and manning a booth for veterans affairs, it wasn’t a large leap to make.
John stared open mouthed at him for about ten seconds before his mouth spread into a grin. “That was extraordinary.”
Sherlock’s brain went offline for a split second. “I’m sorry?”
“Simply extraordinary.”
“You think so?”
John leaned on the booth, holding his paddle in both hands, grinning cheekily. “Now, don’t go fishing. You know that was brilliant. Why? What do people normally say when you do,” he gestured at Sherlock’s person, “that?”
“Piss off.”
They both laughed, only to be interrupted by Irene. “Okay chaps, is someone bending over the table for Queen and Country, or what?”
Sherlock blushed and John ducked his head, hiding his smile. “Who does the…that?” Sherlock asked, gesturing to the paddle.
“Depends on how much you donate, there, big boy,” she told him. “One pound earns one swat. We cap the swats at fifteen, no matter how large the donation. You get the choice of John or myself, and we’ll administer them ourselves. Donate more than fifty and you get to spank one of us,” Irene explained. “Say stop at any time, the spankings stop and your lush behind is saved for another day.”
Sherlock blinked fiercely for a moment at how matter-of-factly she spoke before daring to ask, “has anyone actually donated over fifty quid today?”
Irene’s smile turned predatory. “Why?”
Sherlock’s blush flushed deeper. “N-no reason.”
Irene laughed and went off to entice more customers to the booth. Sherlock slowly met John’s eyes, measuring the man before him. John was undeniably attractive, good humored, and confident. He was a man of action, clearly bored with his newfound civilian life. There was no way he’d have signed up for a spanking booth, otherwise, Sherlock was reasonably sure. Without breaking eye contact, Sherlock slid his hand into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. He pulled out a crisp fifty note and held it out for John to take. John wrapped his hand around Sherlock’s hand and drew him forward until the front of Sherlock’s body was pressed against the booth.
Then he bent forward and whispered in Sherlock’s ear, “forgive me if I seem too forward, but my shift is over in half an hour. How about we reward your donation somewhere a little more private. Say, your place?”
Sherlock shivered at John’s voice in his ear, his breath against his neck. “Yes,” he huskily answered.
John drew back and deliberately dropped Sherlock’s donation into the large jar on the table, already filled near to bursting. Then he said, “see you in thirty, gorgeous.”
Sherlock nodded, resisting the urge to adjust himself in his trousers and thanking every god listening that his Belstaff was an excellent concealer. “Thirty minutes,” he confirmed with a nod and strode off to find some peace, itching with anticipation.
He never had been very good at waiting. But he was more sure of anything else in his life that John would be worth the wait.
I just realized that John already has the initial for “Holmes” in his name. John H. Watson. John Holmes Watson. Thank you grandad ACD
“And you must be Doctor John Watson, I presume?” “That’d be Doctor John H. Watson.”, I rectified, shaking the man’s hand.
I dared a playful glance at my companion. Holmes never failed to flush up with pleasure at my correction, and the queerly boastful way in which I always uttered it.
The worst trick a childhood anxiety disorder pulls is, you spend your early years being applauded for being so much more mature than your peers, because you aren’t disruptive, you don’t want any kind of attention, you don’t express yourself, you keep yourself to yourself – this makes you a pleasure to have in class, etc etc – and you start to believe it’s virtue. But you’re actually way behind your peers in normal social development, and who knows if you can ever catch up.
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 