Tomorrow could be boring

Chemicals and mind-crushes

Isn't the picture Grant drew adorable? It makes more sense if you read my new column at Basenotes. This is the second in the series, entitled "A Very English Problem".

I've also got a new mind-crush in the form of Dara O'Briain. His rant about homeopathy and nutritionists is brilliant. Best quote: "Science knows it doesn't know everything or it would have stopped."

I brought back a toxic book from the library: "Toxic Beauty: How Hidden Chemicals in Cosmetics Harm You." It's written by a Reiki-healer who is convinced she knows what she's talking about, a bit like an astrologer might be convinced she knows better about heavenly bodies after talking to some people at NASA. I would despair, but luckily I've built up some resistance to this by now and my own chemistry studies are adding a whole new backbone to the way I view these scare-mongering messages nowadays. Once I finish my course I should really focus on the book I've been researching for the past few years and get it out there. It's time people stopped worrying about insignificant things and started worrying about stuff that could cause real harm instead. To themselves, to the environment and ultimately to the existence of human life itself. Trust me, whether we ingest a bit of lipstick isn't on that list.

I refuse to choose

The only thing I would change about how my world works is time. It's such a linear bugger; limited and irritating concept. Nevertheless, it's slightly less of a problem now I've worked out how to seemingly squeeze more out of it than most people. (Granted, this ability comes at some costs).

I want to challenge some assumptions. "People tend to be either good at art or science". I call bullshit. I want to be good at both. I'm still traumatised by my school-experiences of maths*, but I am now getting excited about mathematics, statistics, chemistry and science in general. Today I realised that I've already done two of the named courses for an analytical sciences foundation degree. I was looking for the timetable for the next course from the Open University. Not sure if I will be able to fit it in until I finish the IFEAT perfumery diploma, so it'll take a little while until I register. I have also earmarked OpenLearn for brushing up on study skills and for other useful bite-sized courses.

"One is either feminine or successful in business/work". Rubbish. You don't have to sweat testosterone to make your mark.

Someone (an area manager for a retail chain) once said to me: "Wow, you actually have a brain in that pretty little head of yours." Yes, I hope so. Thank you for the compliment (you cow). One can be considered attractive AND smart. Why do people assume intelligence has anything to do with looks, either way? Rhetorical question. Ironic, considering that my self-esteem is a bit wobbly in the looks-department. My mother was trying to toughen me up by calling me fat and various other things when I was growing up. Bless. She meant well, but it was a bit of a crap strategy.

When I was starting out as a make-up artist, my first agency appointment went like this: "You have both fashion and theatre in your portfolio. You have to pick one or the other; you can't do both." I told her that I liked working in both. Why should I limit myself? I didn't pursue agents after that and just went pure freelance. Since the make-up artist job, I worked for a fragrance distributor, for a software developer and in retail. Now, years later, I've finally found an organisation in which I've been able to (first tentatively and lately at full force) unleash my full Scanner-nature. It feels like unfurling scrunched-up parts of your body that you knew were there, but had gone numb. I've been allowed to - and even encouraged to - work in a way that suits me perfectly. I've been doggedly and persistently pursuing self-study "outside work" to enable some of this (outside work in quotation marks because that's an artificial concept for me. A few years ago I realised that I should stop even trying to separate work-head and me-head. I need to allow myself to get absorbed and work across all concepts, personal or professional in a mind-map-like way. Time and clockwatching doesn't come into it).

At first, yes, there were some questions: "...yes, but that's not a job description - which department would you like to work under?" Luckily they didn't last long. I suppose I had to take some risks, but in the end I am so glad I did - by showing that I could work cross-departments on various projects at the same time. I'm now so happy at work and with how things are going that the old "yikes, what's going to go wrong now?" -nerves are here. This is so great that every day I pause at some point simply to marvel. (Marvel is such a ridiculous word, but it's the only one that seemed just right. Perhaps I also wish to convey exactly how ridiculous this all still seems. I can't believe my luck and I'm nervous that I will now go a head and mess it up somehow. I've still got to learn how to stop worrying).

Meanwhile, I have just drawn up one of my re-focus plans. This time it's a mind-map with a stick figure-me in the middle with lines and boxes coming off it. I may have mentioned various planning tools before, but for as long as I can remember, I've periodically taken stock of where I am and what I am focusing on. Usually once a year, but sometimes more often. Turns out that under the "Strengths Finder" method of trying to fit us into some kind of classification system, one of my dominant strengths is "focus". (The others are "strategic", "ideation" and "activator").

There is a fair amount of writing on that focus page, quite a few projects, goals and categories, but it seems manageable. What Barbara's book "What do I do when I want to do everything?" helped me realise is that I don't have to choose, but that I needed to develop ways in which to focus on one thing at a time, then swivel the wheel of interests and activities 'round like a revolving spice rack and pick up the next flavour, focus on that for a while, rinse and repeat. Simple, but brilliant. When it works, you feel as if everyone else is scuttling around at normal speed and your time has just gone into Hollywood blockbuster slow-mo. They run the rat race; you do your thing... and another thing...and another...

*Being repeatedly humiliated in front of the class, called a fat cannonball, and having things thrown at you by your teacher tends to do that.

Things and how to use them, part 1*

I used to really love writing lists. Then I wrote so many of them about so many things that they started to feel strangulating. And the tool became the point. Luckily, I was able to go on a Time Manager International course (I don't work for them, no, really, I actually found a corporate-sounding course genuinely helpful) and decided to have a go at NOT writing lists (and using their methods instead). So I stopped writing lists for a bit.

When I say I used to write lists, I'm not sure if the extent to which this habit had been ingrained into every aspect of my life is clear from the deceptively simple word "list".

The course tutor didn't know how to arrange his face when I explained the system I had developed to cope with my juggling. (I really like having a variety of things on the go at once, but I do have an upper limit to how many plates I can spin. The older I get the better I get at noticing when I'm reaching that limit before I drop any plates).

The system went like this: Normal Word document with a 3-column (multi-row) table. Each type of task was categorised a little bit like one might categorise blog topics: "homelife", "reading list", "health & fitness", "project name blahblah", "project..." etc. Each of these categories had its own colour. I had matching colour set in mini pens too; so any notes I made after I'd printed the current list could be made in the same colour.

The columns were: TASK (written in the appropriate colour, so I'd know by just looking at it whether it was work-stuff, my own stuff or other stuff), STARTED and FINISHED.

I would update the list about once a month. I'd print it off for the rest of the time and update things by hand (here's where the coloured pens became relevant) as I went along, so I always knew where I was with everything.

Obviously I still used a diary too, plus I had a year-planner where I could see at a glance what was going on.

What made that quite good is that it minimised post-it-notes and separate bits of paper. What made it quite clumsy is that updating it on my computer took too much time and it wasn't that easy to update on the go (despite the coloured pens). Plus, by the time I really started juggling (i.e., I started my current job and became even more of a plate-spinner), the list would get several pages long and it was beginning to seem like a millstone rather than a helpful tool.

Then there was the annual list. Now this, I'd been doing for years, at least for 10 years if not more - and it consists of just a simple A4 typed list of all the boxes I want to tick that year. It would include things like "finish X course" or "read X book" or "change address at X" and bigger things too; goals that might transfer from one year to the next.

I could also talk about cataloguing because it relates, but that's another topic. I have a feeling that all geeks like cataloguing things (and it's a really slippery slope - once you've catalogued your current reading list & written cute little book reviews for everything you read, then what's to stop you from cataloguing your entire book collection, or CDs or...).

Anyway, so after the Time Manager course, I put my lists to one side and really tried to survive without them. In the beginning I found it quite difficult, but not impossible. In fact, I had been expecting the transition to be harder. It would have been, but the new style of organiser was awesome - and completely suited to the whole plate-spinning way of life (working parents might enjoy this, or anyone running their own business, or working freelance on multiple projects): each main area of your life/work has its own numbered category. Each category has its own segment at the back of the organiser and what makes this superior to my list system is that you can react immediately if some new info becomes available. You can just put it in the right section - and the next time you are dealing with that topic/person/project, you just open at the right section and ta-dah, you pick up where you left off last time. No more trying to hold too much stuff in your head, or finding where you wrote that important bit of information.

It also has sections for "ideas" and "notes", which is lovely for those yet-to-be-categorised things on the run. The diary segments are awesome too; much more room to schedule your days and weeks than in any other organiser I've seen.

The downside? It's HUGE (I needed the larger size to fit everything in). But - you can just remove relevant bits (mini diary which is detachable & notepad) & take them with you on trips or to meetings. Though that then puts you back into the whole updating in one big chunk, rather than on the move. Still; small price to pay for the awesome tool. I now really rely on this and it almost feels like a Personal Assistant.

I've thought about electronic personal organisers, but so far, none have grabbed me. I also really hate the inability to "leaf through" stuff in a natural papery way. There is something necessary about paper in these for me.

The Annual List has stuck with me. I thought about what I was using it for and realised that it was still serving a purpose. It's a nice, reassuring, focusing, self-motivating, anti-flapping tool I will probably continue to use forever. I just tore up the 2008 list (only 4 things on it I didn't tick off; pretty good) and wrote up the 2009 list. The biggest item on the 2009 list is "Sell property/buy property/move house?". That's the aim, but who the hell knows what's going to happen. Luckily there are lots of other things on there that I can get done. The moving house thing might be a bit more complicated.

So now I'm friends with lists again, but in a new way. Our relationship has been re-defined. So far so good. And luckily, there's always Facebook and its list-writing-bandwagon for when I get cravings.

* This in no way implies there will be future parts to this series, though there may be, depending on circumstances and availability of loose thoughts in need of a home

Marie Claire Eco Issue review (or: bullshit bingo strikes again!)

Ahh, bullshit bingo. You may have played a game or two in a business meeting, but the language of cosmetics marketing has its own version. One of the biggest bloopers being "chemical free", used to often deliberately mislead consumers. When the word "chemical" is set up as the antonym to "natural" often enough, people will begin to think that way. The internet (yes, I realise the irony, shush) is partly to blame, as is our current state of fear-based marketing so prevalent in the food, cosmetics and politics messages.

The recent Eco Issue (June 2008) published by Marie Claire was such a nice idea. I happily buy glossies along with New Scientist and Interzone, why not - I'm not a one-dimensional creature and really like lipstick and pretty pictures. In fact, I've been happily buying Marie Claire for years.

And, yes, I know it's a women's glossy magazine, so expecting too much from it in the way of actual journalism is naive. On the other hand, Marie Claire has always stood out from the others for precisely its aim to cover issues that  might not be picked up by others, and for attempting to cover them in a way you might not find in other similar publications.

In this issue, they really veered off the mark in beauty journalism. The inconsistencies and misinformation in beauty journalism are so widespread that I'd never specifically screened Marie Claire for crimes against accuracy (all magazines seem to be as bad as one another in their tendency to more or less reprint beauty company press releases, without fact-checking or claim-checking). Unfortunately, when pitted against the worthy backdrop of the Marie Claire Eco issue, what might typically have floated past in the sewage of "general cosmetic blurbery", was instead very much highlighted as shockingly ill-informed.

Best of:

- Giving away a Body Shop product as the "ethical" freebie, whilst probably very well intended, was not a good choice, as The Body Shop famously sold out to L'Oreal (who in turn are part owned by Nestle). These companies are not lauded for their ethical credentials and TBS was considered a "greenwash" aquisition for L'Oreal.

- Liberal use of "chemical free" (p.32, 248, 250) when referring to "natural" cosmetics. Calling a cosmetic product - or, in fact calling anything - "chemical free" is idiotic. Everything is made of chemicals. Perhaps they meant to say that "many synthetic ingredients used in cosmetic products have had a bad press and these companies don't use some of them."

- On page 255, a beauty feature highlights an eyeliner that "claims to be the first one not to contain hydrogenated fats", but doesn't go on to explain why on earth hydrogenated fats would be bad in a make-up product (as far as I am aware, hydrogenated fats are only bad when eaten).

- The feature of "natural" haircare (p.262-269), used photographs of models coiffed and painted to illustrate these "natural" looks... but upon reading the small print, it turns out that the feature had in fact been styled using Kerastase (L'Oreal brand) and Chanel products! Direct and obvious adverts in magazines are one thing - because people can see them for what they are - but what they've done here is very misleading and untrustworthy.

Bingo!

How toxic is this blog post? (Or: Television review for Beauty Addicts: How Toxic Are You?

The recent furore in UK over misleading television should not only focus on rigged phone-in contests and kittens called Socks; television programmes like Beauty Addicts: How Toxic Are You? (Channel 4) are an example of a new kind of highly irresponsible shock-schlock TV where the content is designed and edited for maximum tabloid value and can end up seriously misleading viewers and consumers.

Beauty Addicts: How Toxic Are You? aired on Channel 4 (UK) on Thursday 11th of October 2007 and was presented by Sarah Beeny. Sarah is a British television presenter who is best known for presenting Channel 4 property shows. 

The programme was interesting, but also incredibly frustrating to watch. This type of ill researched, scaremongering journalism (and I use the term journalism loosely) actually damages the cause of those who would wish the truth be known about benefits of using natural ingredients and safe synthetics. The truth, as it is, will evolve as new research is conducted and we learn more about the subject through experience and experimentation. Making any kind of categorical statements in this type of context is not helpful to anyone in the long run.

Two young girls were selected for a check-up on their cosmetic and cleaning product usage. Sarah examined the amount of products the girls were being exposed to, blood tests were conducted, and some alternative products offered. The girls in question were extreme product addicts, using ludicrous amounts of personal care products, colour cosmetics, and strong cleaning agents in their daily routines. They were not average consumers. In many ways, it would have been much more interesting to see an average example. It may not have made such great television though. Watching one of the girls admit to eating her toothpaste every day and the other to using up a can of hairspray in a week provided far more entertainment value. It's just a shame this programme appeared to pitch itself to us as a source of information rather than as car-crash TV.

The content also included a "natural hair colour test" performed in a hairdressing salon (in fact, none of the hair colours featured were totally natural; if we take natural to mean no synthetic ingredients). There were also some interviews of the general public on their perceptions of marketing and brand statements made by cosmetic companies. It was this section that left me especially frustrated, as I found it to be the closest to what this programme could have been — helping us all to get to the root of the issue and learn how to decode product labels and confusing advertising.

Indeed many sections left me wishing that more immediately useful information would have been on offer - instead we were served throwaway sound bites, unsupported vague claims, and scaremongering. In one particularly badly thought out scene, Sarah warned new mothers of the dangers of breast feeding as "chemicals will be passed to the baby".

It might have been better to stress the benefits that breast feeding has for both baby and mother (reduced risk of breast cancer for mother and huge immune system and emotional development benefits for baby) - and to help adequately educate people on what's likely to be genuinely toxic in their lives.

On the whole, I felt the terms "toxic" and "chemical" were thrown around far too freely without real explanation as to the programme makers' interpretation on what they wanted those terms to represent.

The language used in the programme appeared to have been designed to make viewers believe the following statements:

• Every man-made chemical is bad for you.
• Everything natural is good for you.

Just because something is a man-made chemical, doesn't automatically make it unsafe, or toxic.

If anything, sometimes it is entirely beneficial to produce something in a more controlled environment so that one ends up with a less volatile substance. The intended action and effects can be predicted to some extent, which can't always be said about natural materials. The trick is to get the balance, intended effects, formulations, dosages and usage instructions correct.

Just because something is natural, doesn't automatically make it safe. (Some of the most potent poisons in the world come from plants and animals: digitalis, deadly nightshade, belladonna, deathcap, black widow spiders, scorpions...). Natural ingredients are still made of chemicals. Yet the programme was fudging the issue by using "chemical" like a swearword.

Furthermore, the programme attempted to make the case that sodium laureth sulphate is bad for you. Sodium laureth sulphate is a coconut-derived surfactant used widely as a foaming agent in shampoos, bubble baths, and even toothpaste.

Now if you remember, one of the test subjects was a girl who actually ate quite a bit of toothpaste on a daily basis. Just because something is bad for you when used inappropriately doesn't make it a bad ingredient (cinnamon is lovely sprinkled on my best apple pie recipe, but if I asked you to down a bottle of it in one, you would probably get ill). The programme also failed to present examples of toothpastes without sodium laureth sulphate. They exist and there are some lovely ones out there. Instead the poor girl was given quite an extreme option to try — a traditional Japanese seaweed product that made her gag.

If you happen to be unable to use products with sodium laureth sulphate because you have an allergy, the good news is that there are now plenty of alternatives available. Making that ingredient out to be bad for everyone, because "it is used in higher concentrations in garage floor cleaners" (I suppose garage floors can get greasy, so why not use an effective surfactant?) or because sodium laureth sulphate can cause irritation in some people is silly.

People can be allergic to anything. Just because someone gets a rash when they eat strawberries (a person I would feel very sorry for), doesn't mean we all have to stop eating strawberries, or that strawberries should be removed from all food and cosmetics and declared evil and toxic. There are even people who are allergic to plain water.

There is a very virulent myth about sodium laureth sulphate out there. This myth has penetrated traditional and online media to such a degree that researchers now quote it as gospel. Those who dig a little deeper usually find out that it's a hoax, but the makers of this programme did not.

Sodium laureth sulphate is an effective de-greaser and very bubbly - lovely when used correctly - but not suitable for eating or for products that stay on your skin for a long time. I have seen it used in body lotions, which did not seem like a good idea, but when used in a shower gel, or any product that gets rinsed off, it's perfectly safe. It can be a skin irritant (but most people don't react to it) and if ingested, it can cause a stomach upset. That's about it. The "SLS-is-bad[sic]" myth started as an online hoax chain email some years ago. There is suspicion that the myth was started by a source intending to market "sodium laureth sulphate free" products.

Regurgitating other people's marketing messages, generating deliberate hoaxes for profits, badly researched publicity releases and repeating easily obtained anecdotal data makes things so much easier, not to mention has the added credibility of having been repeated via various sources to such a degree that when a consumer is exposed to it, they think "oh yes, I saw that mentioned somewhere else too, so it must be true."

One of the other main claims in the programme was that parabens are bad for you. (Even though when you closely listen to the script, the main statements are: "Parabens are preservatives used widely in food, cosmetics and toiletries. They are man-made chemicals. They can be found in your urine.")

Presence does not prove causality. Just because something can get into your system and can be found in your urine doesn't automatically make it a toxin. Vitamins? Minerals? Beneficial medications? Again, it can be about dosage and appropriate use.

For example certain apparently benign over-the-counter health supplements can cause liver damage and serious medical complications if used inappropriately.

I went to the Channel 4 website to check what they'd written about their own programme. I found this [emphasis added]:

Parabens are related to a chemical called benzoic acid which was discovered in the 16th century, and subsequently used to preserve products against moulds, yeasts and some bacteria. The most commonly used parabens have been methylparaben (E number, E218), ethylparaben (E214), propylparaben (E216), and butylparaben. But E216 is one of two parabens (the other being sodium propylparaben, E217) which have recently been withdrawn under revised EC regulations on food additives. While some parabens are found naturally in plants, those used as preservatives are made in the laboratory.

Recent worries about parabens are based on a series of British studies linking the chemicals to breast cancer. In one study, laboratory tests showed that parabens weakly mimic the activity of the natural female hormone, oestrogen. While all women need oestrogen, the hormone is known to help some breast tumours to grow, and part of breast cancer treatment aims to stop the effects of oestrogen.

In another study, parabens, especially methylparaben (E218), were found in 18 out of 20 samples from breast tumours. While there is no proof, it has been suggested that parabens contained in deodorant products may be absorbed through the skin under the arm and be involved in development of cancer in nearby breast tissue.

Neither of two leading cancer charities, Cancer Research UK and Breakthrough Breast Cancer, support this theory. Instead, they point out that it was a very small study, and it did not compare parabens levels in breast tissue from women who did not get breast cancer. Instead, they quote a large

US study which failed to show that women who use deodorants or antiperspirants were more likely to get breast cancer.

Cancer Research UK points out that over 90% of today's deodorants and antiperspirants don't contain parabens. So if you are worried about a possible link with breast cancer, you should be able to find products which are parabens-free.

I found it interesting that the content on Channel 4's own microsite presented the subject with a different slant. The above text was not included in the script of the TV show. Instead the programme was almost devoid of real content. A good addition to the television show, for example, would have been to report that The European Commission had planned a technical hearing on behalf of the Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP) on the safety evaluation of "Parabens in cosmetic products", in order to follow-up the SCCP opinions on the subject. The hearing was on 23 October 2007 in Brussels.

Telling the truth about matters, whether you're a business representative or a journalist, or a medical professional, or an aromatherapist should be on everyone's top agenda.

It most certainly isn't. Why? Because telling the truth requires patience, knowledge, the ability to be objective, and real effort on all sides. It also requires continuous further study and is often not the most immediately profitable option for businesses or anyone with something to sell or promote. And it doesn't always make for very exciting television.

The consumer is left out of the loop in terms of easily available unbiased information on cosmetics. There press releases from beauty companies that beauty writers use as their primary source of material are a closed circle. Most beauty scoops and articles are almost exact reprints of a patchwork of press releases; nothing more. I have spoken to beauty journalists off record and they tell me how frustrating it is for them to be effectively pushing product rather than to actually report on anything. The mutually beneficial relationship between the beauty PR and the beauty journalist is unlikely to change in a hurry, if ever. It is in neither side's best interest to break the deal.

I feel that this television programme was such a huge wasted opportunity.

My advice? Don't blindly buy into any lovely marketing stories, brand names, press releases, beauty articles, or any of that jazz. It is all subjective and often heavily tainted. The best thing we should all campaign for — as consumers and as business people — is a case for CLEAR, HONEST and EASY TO UNDERSTAND labelling. If you know what's in your product and what it's supposed to do for you, you'll have all the information you need to make your own decision.

There are some real poisons that we are exposed to; some of them can indeed be found in commonly used cosmetic products. Now we just need proper exposure on these issues.

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This was first seen at BlogCritics

Soy or not to Soy, that is the question

First, a small aside: I was listening to Radio 4 yesterday on the way to work (as I always do when I drive in; it's the sort of thing that seems right in the mornings) and the decline of "traditional newspapers" was being discussed. Apparently newspapers, in their frenzy to halt the declining circulation figures, have given away more DVDs in UK this year than the UK consumers bought from shops. That definitely smacks of desperation.

However, I don't think the newspaper will die entirely. There may be some form of the "paper" left, even if the best part does happen online. Take The Guardian. A little while back, one of the supplements in the Guardian newspaper published an article entitled "Should we worry about Soya in our food?". It was a well articulated and effective article. As someone who has been lactose intolerant from birth and always hated the taste of neat cow's milk, I've been a mass consumer of soy milk products for years. And here, in this article, a reputable newspaper was saying that, actually...

...soya contains toxins and plant oestrogens powerful enough to disrupt women's menstrual cycles in experiments. It also appeared damaging to the thyroid." James's lobbying eventually forced governments to investigate. In 2002, the British government's expert committee on the toxicity of food (CoT) published the results of its inquiry into the safety of plant oestrogens, mainly from soya proteins, in modern food. It concluded that in general the health benefits claimed for soya were not supported by clear evidence and judged that there could be risks from high levels of consumption for certain age groups. Yet little has happened to curb soya's growth since.

That was uncomfortable reading, but the article had more in store:

...raw mature soya beans contain phytates that prevent mineral absorption and enzyme inhibitors that block the key enzymes we need to digest protein. They are also famous for inducing flatulence.

Christopher Dawson, who owns the Clearspring brand of organic soy sauces, agrees. He lived in Japan for 18 years and his Japanese wife, Setsuko, is a cookery teacher. "I never saw soy beans on the table in Japan - they're indigestible."

Dawson describes the traditional craft method of transforming the soya bean through fermentation, so that its valuable amino acids become available but its antinutrients are tamed. The process involves cooking whole soya beans, complete with their oil, for several hours, then adding the spores of a mould to the mix, and leaving it to ferment for three days to begin the long process of breaking down the proteins and starches. This initial brew is then mixed with salt water and left to ferment for a further 18 months, during which time the temperature will vary with the seasons. The end result is an intensely flavoured condiment in which the soya's chemical composition has been radically altered. Traditional miso is similarly made with natural whole ingredients, slowly aged.

The article presents quite a few alarming points for consideration. That the soy bean was not even considered fit for animal feed in its natural form; that the isoflavones (supposedly famed for their health benefits) may actually be doing us harm, and so on and so on. Reading through it, I felt fairly convinced. I would have to cut out soy milk and find an alternative that wasn't cow's milk. Fermented Tofu, Miso and Soy sauce would still be okay to eat.

And here's the bit where my aside from the beginning becomes relevant. I decided to look the article up on the Guardian Unlimited website, just in case there had been any further discussion on the topic. A rebuttal was posted and entertaining comments added. Too right there had been discussion! This is the bit where the Internet wins hands down. I've touched on this subject in my own posts before (about how the "article" - be it a blog post or a newspaper article - is only the beginning, where the Internet is concerned, whereas in a dead tree publication you may get a few letters to the editor, or may not, but there is unlikely to be instant and comprehensive two-way dialogue about the subject).

Sadly, the quality of the rebuttal in the case of the Soy argument was not particularly high - it really did seem more Ad Hominem attack than a proper counter-point that would have attacked the original article's research instead of attacking the people behind the article. Nevertheless, it is always good to have more than one viewpoint, particularly since most people have an agenda to promote something or another.

One of the most amusing comments posted as a reply to the rebuttal, comes from someone calling themselves "germanvegan":

I find it rather silly that the motivation of vegans to oppose or support a view is projected onto the same level as commercial interest, thus greed. People seem to either deny, forget or ignore that vegans are ETHICISTS. Like, hello?

Secondly, and to increase the silliness, one should know that the defamation of soy started the second it was clear that it contained all essential amino acids. You know, like meat. This sent all the people with their claws hacked into the glass of the meat counter into a panic frenzy. In their mind, this was a threat to their beloved meat. This continued even when common nutritional scientists backpeddled on their antivegan stance claiming plant proteins are inferior, when in reality all one had to do is eat two different plants at different times with different protein contend to have a complete dietary protein ratio.

Germanvegan makes some good points there. His comment goes on beyond the bits I quoted. He fails to consider that promoting a vegan lifestyle could still be considered a business interest. Nothing is ever that black and white. Sadly. Life would be so much easier if that weren't the case.

It's usually best to take everything with a pinch of salt (or should that be with a pinch of soy sauce?) and do your own research if you are truly concerned about something. So my question "to Soy or not to Soy" has therefore not yet been answered to my satisfaction.

One of my biggest pet hates about people, is the frequency with which you bump into single-minded blinkerdness (sorry, I just made up that word; hope you don't mind). People with such need to be right about something that they willfully ignore evidence, or don't even realise they're ignoring it, or interpreting it to suit their agenda. Having said that, it's almost impossible for any human being to be wholly objective, but that's another blog post's worth of material, so I'll leave that there for now.

Homeopathy hocus pocus

It's lovely to have alternatives available for "conventional", Western medicine. It's nice to have an "open mind". I make these statements with only a touch of wryness; I do sincerely try to keep an open mind. Nevertheless, I am really rather relieved to read news reports about a group of leading British doctors who have directly challenged the way many NHS trusts use their funds.

A GROUP of Britain’s leading doctors has urged every NHS trust to stop paying for alternative medicine and to use the money for conventional treatments. Their appeal is a direct challenge to the Prince of Wales’s outspoken campaign to widen access to complementary therapies. Public funding of “unproven or disproved treatments” such as homoeopathy and reflexology, which are promoted by the Prince, is unacceptable while huge NHS deficits are forcing trusts to sack nurses and limit access to life-saving drugs, the doctors say. As reported by The Times Online

I have very little faith in the NHS, as some of you may already know, but, rather ironically, the aforementioned doctors' lack of faith towards unproven alternative therapies is increasing my faith towards the doctors.

Some alternative therapies may form a solid support mechanism for suffering patients, but I do think they should be an optional extra; a luxury in a way; not something that the taxpayers pay for. If any of the alternative therapies would be scientifically proven to be consistently effective in treating serious conditions, I'd be saying different things.

If I have a tension headache, or if I am feeling the pressure of stress, aromatherapy might help. But I wouldn't dream of making someone else pay for my treatment.

If I have an incurable disease for which I am receiving conventional treatment, I might also wish to use some additional therapies. But the additional therapies should be a choice, an extra and entirely at the expense of the private individual.

Some alternative therapies seem to hover between the line of "conventional" and "alternative". That's when this whole thing becomes very messy and it's hard to hold on to a hard line on either side of the argument. The BBC website has a wonderful set of resources, examining these very issues:

Research conducted by the BBC has shown that alternative medicines are becoming increasingly popular. Yet their effectiveness is yet to be proven to the majority of medical practitioners in the UK and there are concerns over safety as many of the treatments remain untested. BBC News Online's health team examines the issues.

Paris, 20e arrondissement
Originally uploaded by mainblanche.

My biggest beef is with Homeopathy. You see, it's utter bollocks. Well, apart from the - sometimes, admittedly, very vividly experienced - Placebo effect.

Let me elaborate (although the above statement sums it all up quite tidily). The original concept of Homeopathy, when explained to a person to whom metaphysical matters are of interest, will sound inviting, promising and even plausible.

To treat the patient with a little bit of what might be making them unwell.

Classical homeopathy is generally defined as a system of medical treatment based on the use of minute quantities of remedies that in larger doses produce effects similar to those of the disease being treated. Hahnemann believed that very small doses of a medication could have very powerful healing effects because their potency could be affected by vigorous and methodical shaking (succussion). Hahnemann referred to this alleged increase in potency by vigorous shaking as dynamization. Hahnemann thought succussion could release "immaterial and spiritual powers," thereby making substances more active. "Tapping on a leather pad or the heel of the hand was alleged to double the dilution" (ibid.). From (the utterly scrumptious) The Sceptic's Dictionary.

So, the original concept seemed to have a little bit of potential, well, to gullible sorts anyway, but good grief. Basing the entire treatment on how much, and through which very specific methods it has been diluted?

Let me put this in other terms. Let's say we start with a few drops of a plant extract. All well and good. I actually DO believe that plant-based medicine and treatments can be incredibly effective. After all, much of the now so-called conventional medicine started that way.

However, in Hocus-pocus-pathy, you take the plant extracts, dilute, shake... then take the diluted mixture, add a few drops of that to a new batch of water and dilute, shake... then take the diluted mixture, add a few drops of that... well, so on and so forth, until the final "remedy" has as many molecules of the original plant as you would randomly find by chance in, say, sea water.

Just think about that quietly for a moment.

Various tincture-based elements are then added (alcohol, grapeseed oil, or perhaps something else to give the remedy a medicinal consistency) and abracadabra, a cure-all is ready!

Homeopathy is based on the notion that water has a memory. That its molecules can remember the presence of a substance that, for all intents and purposes is no longer there.

Did I mention the word BOLLOCKS yet?

What homeopathic practitioners do very effectively, is provide consultative, holistic treatment to their patients, complete with such apparent (or quite possibly very sincere) care for the wellbeing of the patients that the experience in itself must be very healing. And I don't dispute that. I just so wish that people weren't being told, well, bollocks.

I wish that if a practitioner were to set up a councelling and spiritual support service, they'd just set up one of those; not a charlatan outfit designed to exploit the weak and vulnerable. Homeopathy is the Scientology of alternative therapies and I really don't think it's fair to charge people horrid amounts for so-called remedies and therapies when it's all a bit of a con, really.

It's been bugging me for some time to know that in this country, my tax money has gone towards paying for someone's homeopathy treatment - I would certainly let out a little whoop of delight if NHS dropped that form of alternative therapy from their list of funded services. It is none of my business if people wish to pay for this kind of stuff privately (it doesn't harm me; and I know lots of people get something very real out of it), but I don't think it has any place whatsoever standing shoulder-to-shoulder with therapies that have been scientifically proven to be effective.

Cross-posted to: Blogcritics.org
EDIT 30/05/06: This entry was chosen as one of the "Editors' Picks" at BlogCritics.

The Zombie Shop?

The Body Shop is dead, declare several naturewatch and anti-animal cruelty organisations after the much-publicised L'Oreal aquisition of TBS has sent activists over the edge. The Body Shop went from the "good guys" side on many of these organisations' ethical shopping guides to the "bad guys" side - pretty much overnight.

Today, on 1st of April 2006, some had even planned a Day Of Action event to publicly protest about the sell-out. An international Day of Action is planned for the 29th of April.

This is not the first time The Body Shop has come under scrutiny, however, unlike the 90s leaflet and boycott campaigns attempting to dig deeper behind the marketing strategies and public image, this time, the big question remains: will all this hoopla around L'Oreal and TBS actually deter the average customer? It's one thing to end up putting off a hardcore set of followers (that's what TBS used to inspire) - for quite some time now, TBS has gone after the "average customer" instead and various activism-heavy campaigns have been replaced by the sort of 3 for 2 promotions that you might spot at any typical UK High Street retailer.

Back in the day, particularly during TBS' golden era in the 80s, there was nothing average about the campaigns, stores or products. Anita Roddick started her business in Brighton in the 70s, with just one small store, then opened a second one with a £4000 loan from a former garage owner (now TBS' biggest single shareholder) - but it could be argued that the influence of Mark Constantine and his creative team helped to lift her business to superstar status. The marketing concepts of ethical consumerism were already brewing, but when Mark introduced the anti animal testing slant to the business - and produced most of TBS' best selling products for a decade or so to boot - things went from quirky to global at breakneck speed.

When the Roddicks brought all manufacturing in-house and parted ways with Mr. Constantine, many consumers didn't notice an immediate difference, as The Body Shop had purchased the recipes and continued to make at least some of the best selling items. This did not last. Dubious new products were introduced (dubious, in the sense that they did not seem all that "natural" after all) and by the mid 90s, as consumer awareness of cosmetic ingredients and business issues increased, The Body Shop started to lose credibility with the original customer base it had worked so hard to develop. Add to that, the extreme mistakes made in their business model (franchising and over-expanding beyond what their infrastructure could handle), by the late 90s, the value of the company had actually drastically declined, despite its inflated size.

What's particularly depressing is that once upon a time TBS actually had a genuine positive influence - on individuals' lives and on the entire legistlative jungle surrounding animal testing on cosmetics. Now money spent at TBS will go to the pockets of the biggest cosmetics giant in the world - not inherently bad per se, business is business - but sadly, since L'Oreal do not share the principles that really made a difference, this aquisition has effectively removed the biggest single "pro ethical cosmetics" voice from the marketplace. I suppose it could be stated that TBS has been washing its ideals off bit by bit for quite some time in the lead up to this, so the unholy marriage with L'Oreal is not really as unholy as it seems on the surface.

That voice had long since left the building.

It will be very interesting to watch what happens next. I would like to put forward my thoughts on this: The Body Shop is not dead; it's a zombie. It's been dead for quite some time, but still seems to be able to potter around. L'Oreal has the funds to turbo-charge this walking dead of a company, so we could soon witness the Thriller of the century. It's also worth noting that not all anti-animal cruelty organisations have whipped TBS off their ethical shopping lists. This might, of course, have something to do with the fact that some ethical shopping guide producers charge the companies for inclusion on the lists, thereby effectively selling endorsement (and making a business of it).

The whole world of various animal testing policies is somewhat bewildering. Fixed cut off dates and whole host of confusing mission statements often leave the consumer so confused that when making choices about products, they just naturally gravitate towards convenience and pleasure rather than to the company whose morals and ethics most closely match with their own. I'm certainly guilty of this; choosing a product because it was there, or because I liked the way it felt, rather than because I knew what the company's stance was on, say, recycling. I wouldn't say such basic behaviour was to be categorically condemned, but I would say that the biggest mistake TBS made wasn't the sale to L'Oreal; it was their drop in product quality, which inevitably led to consumers not being quite so drawn in by these very basic shopping behaviours. Enter a period of declining profits, ripen for takeover; we know the rest.

The genius of TBS in the 80s was that by attracting the customers in by providing new and innovative products that not only felt good, but provided nice benefits, the average customer was reeled in by those things first; the education about ethical consumerism happened as part of the process. It was the perfect combination: buy something that you like and feel good about buying it.

Today, when more so-called ethical companies get bought out by the not so ethical ones, it is getting harder to decide whether something labelled as "fair trade" or "not tested on animals" really means what you think it means. Add to that, the premium price you often pay for such products and one day soon you might find that consumers will increasingly be characterised by apathy rather than activism.

There may very well be a backlash in the wings for many big corporations who either buy takeaway ethics to go (like L'Oreal just did), or develop special "Fair Trade" brands in house to cash in on the lucrative ethical-consumer market. Unless the products are actually better than the alternatives, people might not care.

Further reading: Compassionate shopping guide (by Naturewatch)

Cross-posted to: Blogcritics.org

Pedantic rage: response-ability? Oh please.

So, I've been reading the anniversary edition of "The 7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey. Once upon a time someone recommended the book to me, but I didn't want to give it a go at the time (on the account of who was doing the recommending, let's just say) - but now, yes, I've decided to read it through.

I'm barely past the intro and into the first chapter and already getting irritated. Why? Because besides containing some admittedly insightful observations and various bits and pieces derived from meditative and philosophical texts of old... there are smatterings of, how shall I put this, turds here and there. Their effect is to stink up the rest of the material so that I can't concentrate on the good bits because at the back of my mind, I'm wondering:

"If I spotted that turd, how many am I not spotting?"

And that sort of takes the trust away a little.

I'll write about it more when I've read it through. Not looking entirely promising so far. Which is a shame because I really wanted to like this book.

Here's an example stinker:

Look at the word responsibility - "response-ability" - the ability to choose your response.

Excuse me? What? You can't just decide that an established word with real meaning and history behind it now derives from something that it does not, just because you fancy using it as a tool in your argument!

I was hoping that he'd quickly explain why he's chosen to pretend that the word responsibility derives from the words response and ability (which, just in case you were wondering, it certainly does not). Then I realised (to my horror) that he was being serious. He then bases an entire chapter on the various conclusions that lead from this statement. It made me really irritable.

I guess I chose to be irritated. Just like I chose to read this book. Silly me!

In another section, he mentions genetic determinism and then goes on to summarise that this, along with situational/environmental determinism can be summed up as a "Pavlovian conditioning response". Again, what? We can certainly control how we handle ourselves once fully constructed, but we can't (at least not in the current state of affairs) alter the building blocks all that much. If he meant to say that the way in which people go on to use "bad genes" as an excuse for bad behaviour, then he should have said so. What he actually said was quite different.

There are actually three social maps - three theories of determinism widely accepted, independently or in combination, to explain the nature of man. Genetic determinism basically says your grand-parents did it to you. That's why you have such a temper. Your grandparents had short tempers and it's in your DNA. In addition, you're Irish and that's the nature of Irish people. [SNIP] Each of these maps is based on the stimulus/response theory we most often think of in connection with Pavlov's experiments with dogs. The basic idea is that we are conditioned to respond in a particular way to a particular stimulus.

How is the way we are constructed based on our DNA's instructions in any way connected to a stimulus/response action/reaction? Again, if he wanted to further stipulate that the stimulus/response he was referring to in this instance was the conditioning that a person may have received (from society, parents, whomever) to use one's DNA as an excuse, or a reason for a specific behavioural pattern, then he should have said so. And if he had said that, he'd have been correct, except that that type of conditioning would of course fall under one of his other listed types of determinism (the environmental kind). As it stands, his logic makes no sense.

I will finish this book, even just for the entertainment value provided by outbreaks of pedantic rage.

Gimme some of that pie! Or: how newspaper columnists resort to trolling bloggers in order to get more readers

I find it very entertaining that something like this pops out (thank you, Tony, for being the popper-outer) just as we'd finished discussing the topic of "On the nature of arrogance in blogging". Here's an excerpt from the article:

Bloggers live for response to their lives Published September 11, 2005

The future is The Blog. There are millions of bloggers out there, typing away on their keyboards, living for that glorious day of recognition when someone finally comments on their blogs. You can blog, too. For the uninformed, a blog is any thought posted on a Web site that is not good enough to be printed in a newspaper.

Mike Thomas has started his blog now, which, presumably, means that he will be getting dumber by the minute until at some point, circa Thanksgiving, he'll only be capable of the writing equivalent of Chopsticks.

This guy reckons that's about Mike's current level.

I left a comment at the blog:

I was hoping that your article was at best, an attempt at humour, and at worst, an attempt at "web trolling" (trolling: engaging in irritating, attention-seeking and provocative activities in order to gain as much attention as possible). If it was former, I didn't laugh. I hardly smirked. You weren't funny enough. It wasn't whimsical. I didn't see the twinkle in your eye. You engineered something that sounded much more like the latter. By ignoring the obvious (that there are capable writers and journalists among "those who blog" and that the presence of the great illiterati does not and will not drown the good quality material out there) and by taking a deliberately ill-researched and inflammatory stance in your article, aren't you just showing up your own flaws as a journalist? You left yourself looking po-faced and defensive. Stating that all blogs consist of material that isn't good enough to be published in a newspaper is patently wrong, because not all newspapers are equal. Some would gladly publish the kind of garbage that comes out of the keyboard of a narrow-minded jerk. I admire your effort to stir things up (playing Devil's advocate can be fun and satisfying), but I'm dissapointed that the effort was so flat. "There are millions of writers out there, typing away on their keyboards, living for that glorious day of recognition when someone finally comments on their articles."

It gets better, of course, when lots of blogs, including the quoted Bulldog Manifesto, respond.

This whole thing is quite delicious. Both because a) Mike tried to be funny, failed, and now defensively harumpfs "bloggers have no sense of humor[sic]" and b) because some bloggers really don't have sense of humour (sorry, I spell all UK-like) and are getting rather steamed up about the article.

Vittu Saatana Perkele

If any one person suddenly became genuinely aware of every hardship and tragedy faced by humans daily all over the world, I wonder what'd happen. If even a glimpse of realisation can feel like strangulation.

So what's left for us to do? Life can't just stop. People will still eat and sleep and go to work and blog. They'll be born and die. They'll shit and they'll fuck. They'll become marketeers.

Or get editing jobs at the BBC and select the one illustrative comment on the hurricane tragedy from a survivor to be by one of such stupefying idiocy that it truly mocks those who have suffered in the USA storm: "It [the storm] may have won a battle, but we've won the war."

You sure did show that storm.

Banality of life is overwhelming.

I had a friend called Katrina once. She was from New Zealand. We worked together for 2 years and got on really well. We were just starting to get quite close when she had to go back home. She left me a little bit of her accent. I still miss her and wonder what became of her. It's sad how, despite exchanged addresses and good intentions, some friendships just need that daily interaction to survive.

Tuulia applied to work as a Finnish language teacher for a Finnish prison. I haven't asked why she applied, or why the inmates of a Finnish prison would need to learn Finnish, but perhaps this will all become clear. She said: "I don't even know if I want all kinds of gangsters to learn my language in the first place." This implies that the Finnish prisons are full of foreign gangsters. The Russian Mafia?

Timo finally started his Finnish course today. I bought him a course book for Christmas. It comes with some sort of CD-rom too. He wants to learn the language before we have any children (if/when such a thing happens). I think that's a good idea, or we'll plot all kinds of things right under his nose.

On a day like this, I feel the Karma of life is pointing towards a Very Important Finnish Lesson. It's called Vittu Saatana Perkele.

Swearing is good for you, I swear. (Oiih, that was bad, but I couldn't resist).

According to the CITY magazine's research, Finns swear much, much more than their Northern or Central European counterparts. I'm not sure whether that's true, but I do know that Finnish is the best language to swear in. All those hard consonants and rolled Rs.

Apparently the late arrival of Christianity had something to do with Finnish love of profanity. We've only recently been filthy pagans. I'm proud of that.

In fact, someone (I forget who) was quoted saying that if life gets too hard, don't whine, remember that you're a FINN, VITTU PERKELE SAATANA.

Shit and leeches

There is a wonderful thunderstorm out there, watering my garden for me. Well, it won't get the containers very well and I'll have to do them myself later. It is just such a relief to have the back of the unbearable heat finally broken by soothing rain. The air feels more breathable already and once the lightning will subside the world will seem livable-in again.

Something else has come to its storm before the calm. I've had to squeeze, what appear finally to have been the last reserves of mental energy I had left, to fight with my GP and get him to refer me privately. More specifically, my last few medical visits went like this:

Few weeks ago, I'd once again spent several nights in a row with debilitating "attacks" and despite having gone to work as normal, I felt that things were heading the wrong way again.

I begun to seriously worry that nobody would listen to me and that both my doctors (both the GP and the GI specialist at the hospital) had now written me off as an IBS/psychosomatic or even a hypochondriac patient. Nevertheless, going to the GP after a bad time was really the only thing I could do, especially since the emergency services had also failed to investigate my attacks any further, so off I went, to the GP. Once again.

Other than being able to obtain more painkillers (without which functioning normally would have been out of the question for the last few months), I didn't honestly know in what way going to see my doctor would actually help.

I had, however, figured out, by a process of elimination, that I had one last straw - to try the abdominal ultrasound again; after all, that had been the one diagnostic test that I'd been really unhappy with and had told so to my GP so immediately after, pleading for it to be redone. At the time he had refused to re-refer me, putting his entire trust on the competency of the NHS hospital staff and choosing to ignore his patient's instincts and accounts.

Timo came along. He has been with me during several key tests and visits, which is wonderful for two reasons. He's provided so much loving support that many of the uncomfortable or distressing experiences I've had to go through haven't seemed half as bad, but even more importantly, he has acted as a witness for what has been said to me and for how I have been treated.

So we sat there. I had decided to draw a detailed chart of where my pain occurred, how it travelled through my torso and into the mid- and upper back and I'd also written a step-by-step account of what happens during an attack and a description of the cycle of pain and symptoms at other times.

My GP glanced at this paper, but didn't read it. He pushed it towards me a little; a frustrated gesture of rejection. It then lay on his desk as his hands motioned in tandem with his lecture: "Look, you have had blood tests, an ultrasound, x-rays, Barium swallow CT scan, Gastroscopy, Colonoscopy and so on. So many tests! How many more tests do you want? Do you want a big needle poked into your liver? We haven't found anything physically wrong with you. Your hospital consultant has written to me and together we have concluded that this looks like IBS. We can't find anything physically wrong."

I responded: "I hate hospitals. Hospitals make me anxious if anything - they are the last place in the world I'd want to be in. I hate tests. Of course I don't want any more tests and of course I don't want a needle in my liver. All I am saying is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I know that I have something physically wrong with me, but it's just that nobody has found it yet. Please could you refer me privately to have an abdominal ultrasound, since that is the one diagnostic test that I feel was very poorly performed and I just need to have it done again, if anything, just to put my mind at rest. I fully accept that I may have developed a stress-related condition on top of what is actually wrong with me, since my body and my mind have gone through enormous amounts of stress in the last 10-11 months this has gone on. But if I have IBS, it is not the main issue. I am stressed because I am ill, not ill because I am stressed. I am definitely not depressed about anything except about being ill. In every other way, I am in fact happiest than I have ever been in my life in every other aspect; in love, looking forward to the future, full of enthusiasm for our plans and hoping to have an interesting career. But being debilitated and in constant pain is ruining my life."

He looked frustrated and wore one of those expressions that people wear when they are not really listening to you and are just waiting for you to finish so that they themselves may speak once more.

He said: "You are convinced that you have something physically wrong with you. But you have not. In my experience and in all my years as a doctor, I have never seen a case with the severity of the symptoms staying more or less the same with no significant move to better or worse - and then to have gone through all these tests and with them coming back clear.... that wouldn't have turned out to be psychosomatic. You are putting yourself through this stress; you create the stress for yourself and your condition is psychosomatic. You could perhaps try Homeopathy, or some other kind of treatment. But the medical science does not have all the answers. Have you thought of what your life will be like if you spend the rest of it convinced that there is something physically wrong with you, looking for the answers, wasting money on painful and expensive tests - when instead, if you accepted that you didn't have anything physically wrong with you, you could get on with your life. You are doing this to yourself. Until you accept that this is psychosomatic, there is nothing more I can do to help you."

Timo and I looked at each other in horror. His expression was restrained, but angry. Timo doesn't usually get involved, but he spoke up: "I think what she is saying that would it be possible... I mean could you entertain the possibility, that perhaps one of those tests had been wrong?"

"Of course one of the tests could have been wrong, but she has had so many, I mean, really, if you want to go private, sure, but as long as you are out there, convinced that there is something wrong with you and offering your money to people, there will always be those who will be more than willing to take it away from you. You will be throwing money away."

I re-iterated that I was not prepared to back down on this. That I was utterly conviced that my problem was not psychosomatic. That I wanted to put my mind at rest and have the abdominal ultrasound re-done.