Foreign Dispatches

Man the Runner, turned Couch Potato

A few months ago, I had the chance to view the BBC documentary series "Human Planet". As stunning as the cinematography for the series was, what made the most lasting impression on me was the sheer amount of physical exertion required to eke out a living by people residing in pre-agricultural societies: hunter-gatherers routinely engage in sustained bouts of walking and running that would put the most fervent joggers in the Western world to shame, and it isn't as if they consider themselves to be doing anything out of the ordinary in the process.

How Often Do You Wash Your Hands?

If you're washing your mitts less than 8-12 times a day, you're probably not washing them enough (and as the article indicates, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are no substitute); if what passes for "hand-washing" in your mind is dabbing your hands under the tap for 1-2 seconds, you're doing it wrong. Hand-washing is just about the single most effective thing one could do to improve one's health - arguably even more so than giving up smoking - and yet it's shocking how few people know or care enough to carry it out properly or sufficiently often. To think that the majority of people even in the "developed" world continue to neglect so simple and effective a preventive measure frankly makes me furious: we are only living some 160+ years after Ignaz Semmelweis first discovered the importance of this practice ...

Death of an AIDS Denier

It's been a little over 3 years since I touched upon the words and deeds of Christine Maggiore, and the only reason I'm bothering to do so again today is because the inevitable has happened: the notorious AIDS-denying crank has finally died - of AIDS. Shocking, isn't it?

I know it's supposedly in bad taste to adopt a mocking tone towards the recently deceased, but I refuse to abide by such rules when it comes to people who were murderers, and that is what Ms. Maggiore most certainly was. Not only did her advocacy against the use of AZT by pregnant HIV-positive women encourage others to insanely irresponsible behavior, but by taking her own utterly stupid advice, she needlessly condemned her own daughter to a brutally short life ending in what must have been a painful, lingering death - and now, the son who survives her passing has been condemned to growing up without a mother who would almost certainly still be alive for at least two more decades if only her ignorant pride and delusional confidence in new-age nonsense like "holistic cleansing" hadn't gotten in the way of getting on a cocktail programme.

Ultimately, in a certain twisted way Christine Maggiore was right: there are things in this world even more lethal than HIV, not least of which is pig-headed irrationalism and a preference for escapist fantasies over science. One cannot wish facts away simply by vehemently denying them (what becomes of Maggiore's "Alive and Well" website now that she no longer is either?).

PS: If only there really were a "God" I could invoke to strike down every cowardly chickenshit journalist who insists on bestowing a spurious air of legitimacy upon Maggiore by calling her a "skeptic" rather than what she actually was - a dangerous crackpot.

Why I Hate Shaking Hands

I've long considered handshaking a barbaric Germanic relic which ought to have been done away with alongside trial by ordeal, and once you read this BBC article you'll see why I feel the way I do. From reading research surveys and watching how others behave in public facilities, I've come to understand that most people either have no idea what proper handwashing technique entails*, or else they're simply too lazy and slovenly to act on this knowledge; as such, whenever possible I'd rather just give a friendly wave and say "Hi" rather than grab anyone else's grubby mitts. As far as I'm concerned the Japanese have the right idea - a simple bow ought to suffice to acknowledge someone else without having to share the person's faecal, respiratory and skin pathogens - and that is precisely what the disgusting habit of handshaking entails. To think that the vast majority of people compound such filthy habits with a reluctance to wash their hands before eating turns my stomach.

*Hint: If you take less than 10 seconds to "wash" [sic] your hands, you're not doing much more than engaging in meaningless ritualistic activity, as it is the mechanical action of actually using soap to scrub the germs away which counts, and that takes time to do properly: soap does not actually kill many bacteria and viruses, and what it does is simply detach the germs from one's skin so that the water can wash them away. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see someone wash his or her hands properly, and I say "surprised" because it happens so rarely!