Because today's been ridiculously crazy thanks to a heavily booked schedule, I found myself listening to Fresh Air during the first half of the 3 pm hour while making supper. On the menu was a pot of easy spicy chicken and rice--which entails browning some onions and rice, throwing in a can of Rotel, cream of chicken soup, some chicken broth, some cubed chicken breast and some black beans, bringing the whole mess to a boil then simmering it until the rice is cooked--that I figured would keep for the three of humans here at Chez Boeckman-Walker to eat a warm, filling meal as our schedules permitted.
At the time I was doing this work, Fresh Air was in the middle of a segment about the theory that the discovery of cooking--not language or other shocking discoveries--was what allowed cave dwellers to prosper and survive and flourish and become we modern homo sapiens. Writer Michael Pollan, who was presenting this theory, provided some interesting evidence about how cooking changed our ancestors' stomachs and how today, our by and large abdication from the cooking process--and, really, from the whole food production process--is (he theorized, as have so many other folks, myself included) driving us into gluttony, ill health and early death. Yet at the same time, he argues, TV programs about cooking and food preparation are highly popular.
So what gives? Are all those eyesballs watching the TV food programming indulging in some sort of nostalgia for the days, which weren't that long ago, when someone "slaved" over the stove all day to prepare a nourishing meal? Or are we collectively being bonked on the head by caveman urges to participate in the preparation of the food we eat, to go back to that process that makes us wait for gratification--urges we're doing our damnedest to ignore as we pop open another bag of chips and stuff our faces.
Of course, I'm listening to Pollan talk about the loss of from-scratch cooking to the "convenience" of packaged, prepared foods and packaged, prepared meals that have flooded the market after WWII as I'm ::gulp:: opening up a can of cream of chicken soup. I'm guilty, Mr. Pollan: I'm thinking that I'm cooking from scratch, but in truth I'm not.
(There's your irony, Alanis.)
If you want to listen to the segment, it's available both as a podcast and as a stream. The segment serves to draw eyeballs and brains to his lengthy piece on the topic published in The New York Times recently. If you have the time, Gentle Reader, I encourage you to both listen to and read the piece--and think about what Pollan says.
Cooking as fundamental to our identity as human beings--that's pretty paradigm-shifting stuff potentially.
In today's post, I'm going to attempt to explain my interest in bread machines and making the boys' bread, as I promised earlier, along with a few other things that have captured my attention. Bear with me, Gentle Reader, because this post will probably come off somewhere between high-minded, intellectual and rational pontificating and tinfoil hat-wearing ranting.
Let the fun begin, eh?
That Simple Message, Delivered Repeatedly, in the Chronicle of a Year As you probably well know, Gentle Reader, over the past year or more, I've learned to really pay close attention to what I put in my body to nourish it and what I offer my family to nourish them. Initially, that attention came as a result of my most recent weight loss success and my vow to keep the weight off without winding up on some silly eating routine that essentially starved my body of certain key nutrients.
However, as the weeks and months passed and my interests in the culinary arts really began to dovetail with my longstanding interest in health, fitness and health care, my reasons for being so fussy about what the family and I eat began to expand. For example, we hoped a more keen sense of the nutritional value of foods we offered the boy would help him behave better at school (not that we were feeding him shit in the first place). I began to see an alarming--yet not entirely surprising--uptick in the number of food product recall alerts from the FDA. Our addiction to fresh veggies, fruits and herbs, not to mention bread that didn't have high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient, didn't wane even when our bank balance began to decline.
Having been raised by parents who for many years had a fairly abundant garden, some of which was pickled, preserved, frozen or in some other fashioned canned for later use by Mum, and who for many years bought half a slaughtered cow's worth of meat for the deep freeze and who grew up on the farm and still had siblings farming, my instincts to try my hand at raising some of my own family's favorite items were spot-on. Of course, all my previous attempts to tend to anything green have largely failed, but I thought surely this time my interest in reducing our grocery bill and knowing better just how those produce items were cultivated would keep those growing greens healthy and alive and--dare I dream it?--fruitful.
But not only did I try to start some container gardening on the yoga patio (with a tremendous amount of starting-off help from Mum), I also got around to reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book had sat on my to-read pile for almost a year before I got around to reading it. I kept putting it off for other tomes, and I'll admit readily I was reluctant to read it because I wasn't in the mood for what I thought would be a crunchy-granola overgrown hippie diatribe on the orgasmic bliss of growing one's own food and devoting one's entire food budget to all things organic and to hell with everything else in a twisted, slavish devotion to the cause.
Thankfully, I was wrong.
The book is, I think, an even-handed look at one family's attempt to eat locally for one year by raising many of their own foods--including meat items--and acquiring what they could not make themselves from local sources. If memory serves, "local" for Kingsolver and her family meant raised within 100 miles of their Appalachian home. They take on this experiment not for any zealot-like principles per se. It's more common sense: Food that's grown elsewhere or processed elsewhere costs us all in many ways a lot of us consumers have yet to acknowledge. Economics, environmental conservation, good health and good old-fashioned self-sufficiency meld in a way that just, well, strikes me as good common sense.
Kingsolver, her husband (the bread-maker of the family, hence one of the key sparks of my interest in making bread) and her college-age daughter collaborate on the book. While Kingsolver the professional novelist records the family's year-long experiment, her husband Steven Hopp supplies sidebars that connect the family's activities to broader movements and "Hey, did you know?" topics, while the daughter supplements each chapter with recipes referenced within and meal planning ideas. None of the three ever get on a soap box and bash the reader over the head with their ideas, and the natural flow of raising food provides enough fodder for drama and just plain, good storytelling.
Of course, if you are somewhat conscious of issues with today's food production, then some of the stuff in the book, particularly in Hopp's sidebars, won't be as shocking as they might be to other, less-aware readers. For example, Hopp dedicates one sidebar to the nutritional differences that result from the different techniques for raising and processing animal flesh and byproducts, particularly bovine and poultry meat, bovine milk and poultry eggs, for human consumption. (Having covered international pharmaceutical and biotech firms for a number of years, I know a surprising lot about the origins of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, aka mad cow disease, and its human form, Jakob-Creutzfeld disease. It's disgusting how cheap agribusiness is when it comes to feeding fellow humans, and it's honestly a wonder how so many of us around the globe haven't dropped dead from terrible health problems related to the consumption of mass-produced meat.) He reveals that cows and chickens that are allowed to eat the way the design committee of the universe intended them to eat are not only less prone to infections and health issues that make them dangerous for human consumption, but their meats and byproducts (milk, eggs) also have better nutritional profiles and flavors. Eggs from free-range chickens have less "bad" fats and more "good" omega fatty acids than eggs from chickens raised in cages amongst their filth that are pumped full of antibiotics and feed that contains, among other things, slaughtered animal byproducts.
With this in mind, is it any wonder that (a) the number of salmonella contaminations have occurred lately and (b) the FDA recently announced new measures to curtail salmonella contamination?
But again, Gentle Reader, if you have any awareness of where your food really comes from and how it's produced and what kind of issues are being raised about our food supply, such revelations that Hopp makes are not shocking. I mean, some of the things I hadn't read before, but they were conclusions that I determined for myself made sense because of what I know.
And then there are the discussions about big agribusiness' quest to control through patents and IP and genetic engineering the world's crop production.... Gads, it's really quite frightening what people are driven to do for big money, and anyone who eats pays the price. I have uncles from both sides of my family who grow wheat (or at least try their hardest to do it), my dad still helps with harvest each year on the farm where he grew up, and one of my uncles manages (or at least I think he still does) the local mill. These are, by and large, honest men working hard and trying to do the right thing, but the "right thing" has become twisted and corrupted by agribusiness, which cheapens their work and cheapens our lives. Our health--hell, our very lives really do depend on changes taking place at these early stages, at this ground level of our food supply.
The Message Gets Animated Then there was that episode of King of the Hill....
While I wish I could share with you the entire "Raise the Steaks" episode, just know that Hank resorts to shopping at--and "volunteering" at--the local food co-op because he's tired of buying tough, tasteless steaks at the Mega-Lo Mart, which eventually takes over the co-op, forcing Hank to rescue the cows the co-op farm was raising for its meat market. Hilarious episode and I swear lines of dialogue were lifted from Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, especially when one of the characters (I think it was Hank) gushes over his slice of tomato have ::gasp:: flavor!
Here's a fun clip:
Airing as it did as I was in the final chapters of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and contemplating the acquisition of a bread machine and lamenting that farmers' markets in the area are held at times that are not convenient for me and feeling so frustrated that all my herbs had died and that my bell pepper plants would not be bearing fruit, I couldn't help but see this episode as just another bap on the head from the universe to do more.
Reality...and Reality I recognize the truth in Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and in the PRs I revise and upload to dailyrx.com about food recalls and in "Raise the Steaks." I would dearly love to live that truth--to have a much more intimate knowledge and awareness of the foods I prepare and eat.
But here's another reality, one that Kingsolver also acknowledges to some degree: Making choices that promote environmentally responsible and healthful food production and consumption is tough, requires some degree of sacrifice a lot of us aren't willing to make and can seem awfully expensive, especially when money is tight. And here's another reality that she doesn't acknowledge to much extent: Not all people and not all geographic areas are well-suited now for food production that could sustain a person in some meaningful way.
I'm one of those people. I don't have the patience, the knowledge, the knack, the intuition and all that other stuff that it really does take to grow food. As I was reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, I found myself at times longing to live back home in Bumblefuck where the soil isn't hard, inhospitable clay and where there is space to raise a respectable garden and where the culture is a tad more connected to the cultivation of food. I found myself envious of my mother's knack for growing things successfully and knowing when to water and when not to water and when to prune and how to prune and where to plant and where not to plant. In a word, I can't grow shit--not even cilantro in a pot, which any idiot should be able to do--so self-sufficiency to any degree is out for me!
Compounding my incompetence is the local weather. Spring here starts in late January, early February. Summer starts in late April. Summer ends in late October. While that's great weather, for the most part, for outdoor enthusiasts, folks who have health conditions that can be exacerbated by cold weather and summer fun-lovin' fools, it really does suck for trying to grow anything. A plant doesn't really do well when the temperatures go from the pleasant 80s one week to the blazing triple digits the next. Yeah, sure, Gentle Reader, you can preach all you want about xeriscaping and native plants, but I would dare to say that thanks to climate change, even plants that once were native have a hard time thriving because their natural habitat has changed.
Which leads me to another point: No matter how much you work to use healthful, environmentally responsible techniques for cultivating your food, you're still doing it in a global climate that is hardly free of pollution. As a highly respected Ayurveda practitioner once counseled a group of yoga teachers, people today are hard-pressed to benefit from the techniques and advice contained in ancient texts because our world is polluted, and not just with environmental pollutants. Do you understand what I'm trying to say, Gentle Reader? It's sort of like living in Europe in the years after the Chernobyl disaster and trying to claim that your mountain retreat offers pure, unpolluted air, water and land. Uh-uh, it's just not possible. Hell, I recall reading just a few years ago how the radiation contamination from Chernobyl is still polluting Europe. It's not like that stuff just goes away!
So what's a person to do? For me, the only way I can rectify things is to make conscious decisions whenever I can. I'll try to buy local produce when I can, but I'm not going to burn up a tank of gas trying to get it from the really nice farmers' market in South Austin. I'd love to buy local, free-range chicken, but doing so would get me whole chickens that would largely be wasted--and being wasteful in my mind is a big, big crime that ought to be avoided as much as possible.
Just as I've gone to extremes in the past to keep my weight at a certain point, only to mistreat my body, I'm not going to go to far-flung extremes to keep in line with certain ideologies. I'll do more to choose fresh produce that's in season; I'll be more conscious about choosing produce that's had to travel a long way to get to me and has had to undergone some really nasty stuff to reach me in a visually appealing state. I'll try my hand at making the boys' bread so the high fructose corn syrup stays out and more whole grains--from organic sources, if I can afford it--go in. And the entire time, I'll be berating myself for not doing more.
Donating plasma is an easy way to make a little spare change, right? It's a step up, I suppose, from making yourself a human guinea pig in phase 1 or phase 2 clinical trials if you happen to live near a CRO (contract research organization) because, hey, if you get that new drug candidate and not the placebo and said drug candidate happens to have some wicked side effects--side effects coming to light thanks to human guinea pigs--boy does that money you make not seem like such relatively easy money.
Well, for those of us with small veins--or maybe just for me--donating plasma isn't exactly an easy way to make a little spare change I discovered. (Moreover, I don't think donating really is the appropriate verb to describe the transaction. Donating implies a certain level of altruism, doesn't it, Gentle Reader? And while some folks do donate because they're more interested in the health care and medical needs their donations help fill, a lot of plasma givers do it for the money. But selling seems so cheap and tawdry, like selling your kid for a crack rock.)
In as Little as Two Hours My Arse! When I made my intake appointment, I was told I'd be needed for about three hours. Since I have an obligation to pick up the boy from school at 2:45, I chose a time that would get me in and out with a modicum of time to spare. And while I waited (and waited and waited some more) in the lobby, the continuously looping "All About Donating Plasma" presentation droned on and on about how donors earn good money for their donations each week "in as little as two hours" of "me" time they can spend reading, listening to music or catching up on work.
Yeah, right. What the person on the phone making my appointment didn't tell me is that apparently first-time donors aren't exactly a high priority at the center, or else the facility is understaffed to process efficiently first-time donors along with returning donors.
How do I draw these conclusions? My 11:30 appointment really sort of started around 12:30, when I had my first interaction with an alleged nurse. In 15 minutes or so, my file was in the system and I'd filled out the primary paperwork. Then I had to wait another 30 minutes to see another health care person (an EMT, I think) to get a quick physical exam and to answer the exact same questions I'd answered as part of my initial intake. Then I had to wait for an open plasmaphoresis machine and then wait some more to be hooked up to it, so I think it was shortly before 2 p.m. when blood started flowing out of my body.
And therein was a problem. I'd asked the EMT physical provider a little after 1 p.m. how long the donation itself would take, explaining that I had somewhere to be at 2:45 and that I'd been told the appointment would only take about 3 hours. He assured me I'd be able to make my 845 (cc, I guess) donation target before then. Of course, he didn't count on the phlebotomist (or whatever certification the face shield-wearing folks working the plasmaphoresis machines are) having an extremely difficult time finding a vein then getting the needle set into the vein for the blood to flow. Nor did that EMT count on my assigned health care assistant futzing repeatedly with the needle until the seal around it in my vein broke, leading to me starting to bleed out and develop a hematoma. This was around 2:10 p.m.
Fun times, Gentle Reader. Fun times.
At that point, I told the tech that I had to be somewhere at 2:45. He started mumbling about policies, and I told him that I'd been told when I made my appointment a few weeks ago that I'd be finished before 2:45. So at that point, he wisely decided to put a new needle in my left arm to give me back my red blood cells, but I wouldn't be allowed to leave the facility until I'd waited 15 minutes in the lobby so the staff could make sure I wouldn't have any adverse reactions to my donation. That would get me out of the building at 2:55.
Argh! And here I'd left my cell phone in the car.
After I was all bandaged up and sent out to wait, I raced out to my car (feeling perfectly fine, by the way) to grab my cell phone to call the husband to ask him to call the school. Heh, as usual, I can't get ahold of the husband on his cell--which he'd specifically asked me to call should I need him that day. Lovely. So I wound up calling 411 to get the school's number (I've never added it to my cell because I hate my cell phone and avoid using it as much as possible) and then frantically explaining to the secretary what was going on.
At 2:55, I grabbed my debit card with my $30 (woo-woo) from the front desk, dashed out of the building, raced over to the school, parked, ran inside and found the boy waiting with one of the kindergarten teachers. I apologized profusely to him and the teacher, got him out to the car, drove around the building to where we'd parked his bike that morning (because I'd figured I'd be able to ride down to pick him up because, hey, the appointment was only to take about 3 hours), stuffed it into my trusty Fit then hauled ass home.
How Much Misery Will 30 Bucks Buy? I didn't follow the hematoma after-care instructions the tech gave me, and I don't think I'm the worse for it. The puncture on my left arm looks worse than the one on the right, although the right elbow bend is a little sore from all the jabbing and twisting and "readjusting" the techs did on the original needle.
As I pondered my first attempt at selling plasma, I asked myself, Will I go back? Immediately afterwards, I was undecided. After all, once the tech got a decent needle placement, the stuff started to come out like it should. I think part of the problem was that I'd been still for so long, thus my blood began to pool a little. And the facility was chilly, which also discourages blood flow to the extremities. I determined that if I made another appointment, I wouldn't go dressed in running capris and a sleeveless top, and maybe I'd try running around the parking lot while waiting my turn to bleed for money.
Second Verse, Same as the First I bit the bullet and scheduled a second selling session with high hopes that since I wouldn't have to go through the rigmarole of donor intake, I wouldn't get as chilly just sitting around. Plus I decided I would indeed wear long pants and a shirt with sleeves and would bring along with palm-sized neon pink squeezy-foam brain my elder sister had given me years ago that she'd picked up at some lawyers' conference (because palm-sized neon pink squeezy-foam brains make great schwag for lawyers and biotech writers) to help encourage the blood to flow in my beneedled arm.
The first tech I saw had some concern about my eligibility to donate since my first donation had left me with a bruise on each arm. However, I showed them the unbruised, undamaged vein on my right arm from which I'd had drawn most of the blood samples I've ever had to give. She and her supervisor agreed it was a good candidate, so I scored a bleeding bed and was eventually hooked up.
All things seemed good to go this time: The blood started to flow without a lot of futzing around with the needle, and I watched hopefully as my bag of plasma began to fill. But when said bag was about a quarter filled, the machine began feeding me back my red blood cells, and again that's when I had a problem. Needless to say, I wasn't able to donate my full amount, but luckily I didn't have to have a second puncture to complete the blood cell return. However, I did have to wait 30 minutes in the lobby before being released. But I got five bucks more for my misery, so I guess that's some token conciliation, right?
I suppose I need to research how the plasmaphoresis machines work because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to start getting my red blood cells back so quickly into the donation process. I mean, are the machines designed to take some, then give back then take more then give back again so they don't drain donors dry or put them at risk for shock or some other adverse reaction? Or is something about my body's output trigger the machine to automatically stop the donation process and start up the red blood return process? Because it strikes me that it's at that point--about 15 or 20 minutes into the donation when the RBCs start coming back--that I have the issue.
Hmm...
Again, I have to ask myself if I'll go back for a third try. I'll probably have to wait a week since my right arm is surely out of commission until Wednesday's hematoma and today's new one heal. Also, I'm not sure if I can get a second good vein to pop out in my left arm because the one used Wednesday was classified as bruised by the tech today. I mean, I did get enough money between the two donations to pay for groceries and still have a little left over, which is nice. But will the center eventually rule me out as an eligible candidate because I keep having these problems? I dunno.
I've edited more than my fair share of summaries for books about ADHD, ADD, "high needs" children (all kids are high-needs kids, really), "out of sync" children (see previous) and kids tagged with every other label attached to young ones who are not easily trained to sit still and sit silently for prolonged periods. Imagine my delight, Gentle Reader, when I found the following PR during my morning med news trolling.
History of Hyperactivity Off-base, Says Researcher Educators do children and parents a disservice by claiming Mozart and others had ADHD
A Canadian researcher working in the U.K. says doctors, authors and educators are doing hyperactive children a disservice by claiming that hyperactivity as we understand it today has always existed.
Matthew Smith says not only is that notion wrong, it misleads patients, their parents and their physicians. Smith, who is from Edmonton, is finishing up his PhD at the Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter.
Hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is currently the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorder, says Smith, and millions of children are prescribed drugs such as Ritalin to treat it. Yet prior to the 1950s, it was clinically and culturally insignificant.
He argues in a paper presented at the Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences taking place at Ottawa's Carleton University this week, that hyperactivity disorder as we understand it today is a modern construct that was first described as a disorder in 1957.
Before that, Smith says hyperactive behaviour existed – but it wasn't always thought of as a disorder or pathology worth treating.
However, Smith says many today assert that hyperactivity is a universal phenomenon, and say evidence of hyperactivity can be seen in historical figures such as Mozart or Einstein. Smith argues that hyperactivity as we understand it is rooted in social, cultural, political and economic changes of the last half century.
'When history is extended back beyond 1957, it overlooks all the social factors that contributed to the idea that children were hyperactive – and that that was a problem,' he says.
'We need to refocus the history of hyperactivity on the period starting from the late 1950s and 60s. By doing so, we start to understand why people started to think there was a problem with children, why they thought that problem needed to be fixed, and why it became acceptable to fix that problem with drugs.'
Smith says that whether you consider hyperactivity a disease worth treating often depends on context – and the context changed in the late 1950s when the U.S. refocused its education system in response to the space race.
'If a child's playing soccer, there's a chance hyperactivity isn't going to be a problem. But if they are stuck in a classroom, it is a problem.
'We have to look at the social and historical factors that created the idea that children were distractible and that these were pathologies that needed to be treated.
'For patients and their parents, what this means is that the process by which their children are diagnosed is not rooted in a long history. If they understand that, they can develop the tools to question the diagnosis.'
For me, here's the take-home message: "We have to look at the social and historical factors that created the idea that children were distractible and that these were pathologies that needed to be treated."
Wanna hear (er, read) about my oh so fun Tuesday thus far, Gentle Reader? Sure you do!
So I had my appointment with a sports doc (well, his P.A.) this morning, the same doc who diagnosed my lateral patellar tracking and IT overuse issue on my left side back in 2005. After barely getting through six miles yesterday, I was praying Camille would offer me some hopeful news about what's going on with my sartorius and other fun parts of my right leg.
Heh....
I'm going in a few minutes for an MRI to rule out a stress fracture in the femoral neck area. Given how tender certain places were on my right leg this morning when Camille palpated them and given the pretty noticeable limp I had (which has since largely resolved after 45 minutes of Spinning just now), she was concerned I might be dealing with a stress fracture. She also said the tenderness could just be from the tendonitis, which she said I'm definitely dealing with--but she wanted to be sure.
However the MRI turns out, I'm off running great distances probably for a while (suck an elf!), and I'll be having some fun PT to get my leg back into rights (joy). But at least for now I'm not hobbling on a crutch or cane, which Camille highly recommended I acquire while I'm limping.
Ugh...
Better go dry my hair, get dressed and figure out if I can remove my navel ring. Wouldn't want that sucker heating up while I'm in the machine!
UPDATE The MRI tech said he didn't notice anything glaring, and I can call and get a copy of the report on Friday or so. The report and images will go to my doc sometime tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll get a call from Camille or the doc himself if there is a fracture.
Lemme tell you one thing, an MRI is a nice excuse for a little midday catnap in a big magnetic donut hole. However, I'm not chomping at the bit to do one again. I had to remove my navel ring, which hasn't been out since it went in in November 2002. I had to frantically track down instructions online for removing the silly thing--and that was the easy part. Putting the sucker back in--not entirely pleasant. And getting the iddy biddy ball back in place was a total pain in the arse, lemme tell you, Gentle Reader.
Yesterday the Washington Post ran a story about a new niche of pharmacies opening that cater to pharmacists who morally object to contraception...and feel it's their business to inject their personal beliefs into patients' lives. Yeah, I know, broad generalization, but when a professional who is trained and given the responsibility to dispense prescriptions objects to doing his or her job, then why should that person be given that responsibility in the first place? Why would that person want that responsibility?
During my last job, I had the opportunity to work with some pharmacists and learn about the pharmacy profession. What a lot of folks fail to realize is that pharmacists who earn their Pharm D have a lot of health and medical training. The job is not just about deciphering a doctor's scrawl, finding a bottle of pills on a shelf and counting out a particular number of those pills and putting them into a smaller bottle to give to a customer. What a lot of folks should realize is that if they really want to know about a drug, they should ask a pharmacist, not their doc(s) because more than likely, the pharmacist will have read and be aware of how a drug works in the body, how it can impact the body's functions, how it can screw up the body's functions and how it can interact with other drugs. Doctors? Eh, you can give 'em the benefit of the doubt--but I wouldn't stake my life and health on that.
So when I read about pharmacists refusing to dispense prescription contraception, I just get a wee bit infuriated. The pharmacist's job is to dispense a prescription drug and make sure the patient knows how to take it, knows what to do if she or he has reactions to it or misses a dose, answer questions the patient might have that are related to the prescription and, probably most importantly, do the best she or he can to make sure the prescription drug is right for the patient. It is not the pharmacist's duty to sit in moral judgment of the patient. Yeah, sure, you can pull the Nazi argument here--"Yeah, and the common Nazi soldiers at the concentration camps were just doing their jobs too!"--but that's not appropriate because we're not talking about killing, even if you belief life begins at conception (which is just to me a baffling and ignorant thing to believe based on what we know about fertilization and implantation and the odds for successful implantation). Contraception prevents fertilization or implantation or both (per good 'ol Merriam-Webster)--and one or both of these steps is part of conception. Therefore, if egg and sperm never have their little meeting or if their union never gets a toehold, if you will, then those folks who are who believe life begins at conception really don't have much life to protect.
So the way I see it, these pharmacists who claim to morally object to contraception are really morally objecting to sex. And it doesn't seem to matter who is having sex from what I've read because some of these pharmacists won't dispense contraception to married folks--and isn't within the bonds of marriage the only place where sex is supposed to be happening? These pharmacists are apparently really hung up on the notion that sex between humans is only for procreation purposes, and maybe they've been so busy reading about drugs (or praying and reading their holy books) that they've missed reading various scientific research reports indicating that within certain species on planet Earth--including us humans--sex isn't just about the act of procreating. Perhaps if we all were busy reading about pharmaceuticals (exciting, titillating stuff there, let me tell you) or busy praying and reading holy books, maybe we could ignore basic biological urges.
But here's what I'd like to ask these objecting pharmacists: You consider abortion wrong, therefore you didn't study to become a doctor who performs these procedures, yet you studied to become a pharmacist who has the duty to dispense contraception, which you morally object to--so what part of your logic and reasoning isn't functioning? I mean, math and I don't get along, therefore I didn't study to become an engineer or a math teacher or some other professional who relies on mathematics to conduct her work. Seems reasonable, right? What part of the reasoning flew right out the window when these persons decided to only partially fulfill the duties for which they've been trained and authorized to do? That's sort of like training and getting certified to work on death row (doubt such certification and training exists) but because you morally object to the death penalty, you only escort a condemned prisoner to the execution chamber but refuse to fulfill your duty to execute said prisoner.
Eh, I'm rambling here. Getting indignant and self-righteous with these issues ("Keep your morals out of my uterus!" and all that stuff) is far too easy, so I tend to analyze the thinking processes of these people I don't understand so that I might understand them better. But there's a hole, a leap, a something--a flaw, in my understanding of the logical progression that I would suspect has taken place--that defies my comprehension.
Something about the article itself (not the subject) irks me: "Many [birth control-free pharmacies] offer 'alternative' products, including individually compounded prescription drugs, as well as vitamins and homeopathic and herbal remedies."
Folks, compounded prescriptions are not alternative drugs. Many basic, common healthful items that we call drugs or nutritional supplements or health items have to be specially prepared and mixed through what is known as compounding. Compounded drugs aren't folksie, questionable, unresearched, unproven, potentially dangerous things. Hell, when one of my cats had her thyroid removed, the vet gave us a 'script for a calcium supplement that could only be filled by a compounding pharmacy because it had to be specially prepared. Calcium, folks. Nothing "alternative" there.
Also, there's an increasing amount of Western research indicating that those other "alternative" items do indeed have quantitative healthful effects and benefits. To associate these items in with, well, kooks who have a sexual hang-up and therefore won't sell a mother and father of four a pack of condoms because they can't afford to have kiddo #5 is just...bad writing and bad thinking.
At the time I was doing this work, Fresh Air was in the middle of a segment about the theory that the discovery of cooking--not language or other shocking discoveries--was what allowed cave dwellers to prosper and survive and flourish and become we modern homo sapiens. Writer Michael Pollan, who was presenting this theory, provided some interesting evidence about how cooking changed our ancestors' stomachs and how today, our by and large abdication from the cooking process--and, really, from the whole food production process--is (he theorized, as have so many other folks, myself included) driving us into gluttony, ill health and early death. Yet at the same time, he argues, TV programs about cooking and food preparation are highly popular.
