About

I used to blog over here at Anglachel’s Journal until about 2 years ago. There’s close to 9 years of posts there. It’s mostly about the sad state of politics in America, particularly how wretched the Left is in this country.

In January 2011, I got sick and it just got worse from there. The summary of that fucked up year is here. I also did a radical divestment of Google and Google related services in my life starting in early 2012, so blogging using their platform is no longer acceptable to me.

In the two years of radio silence, I’ve had a lot happen. I’ve changed jobs a few times. I’ve dealt with the loss of a parent and I’m watching the decline of another. I’ve finished another round of improvements to the property. Mostly, I’ve tackled my various health issues.

At the start of 2011, I was morbidly obese, having joint and back pain, suffering from a recurring compressed nerve in my shoulder, and a plethora of other lesser ailments. After visiting family when Mom died, I discovered that both of my brothers had developed Type 2 diabetes. Starting in March of that year, I decided to change this state of affairs. Mostly, I’ve succeeded. I’m a lot lighter, the joint pain and compressed nerve are not problematic (though I won’t say they are entirely gone), my vital signs are all improved, and, aside from a false alarm for breast cancer, I have not developed any new health problems. I’m still middle-aged, overweight, with failing eyesight and creaky joints.

What I also have done over the last two years is focus my analytic attention on the public debates about obesity, food, and health, and have found myself in somewhat familiar territory. The female form is, as always, the irreducibly public battleground for our collective terrors and phobias. Food provides another avenue for demonizing the poor. Morality is so much more fun than sensible public policy. Whole Foods Nation continues to be clueless, elitist and useless. Our privacy erodes in the face of aggressive mining of our personal data.

This new blog, if I can get it off the ground, is about the obesity psychosis currently claiming the nation, using my own health as a lens. It will range from what I’m eating and how I’m exercising to current trends in fat shaming, new lows in public policy, and how “health” claims are used to discipline and punish.

Anglachel