Diet advice do jour. Usual grains of salt apply.

In an article entitled Unhappy Meals, author Michael Pollan documents the rise of food science and "nutritionalism," the belief that one can control one's nutrition completely by understanding nutrients. Pollan's advice is simple and direct: all of the diet advice in the world comes down to seven words:

"Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants."

Pollan's main point is that it is the second word in all that advice that is difficult for people to grasp. Power bars and soda pop are not "food"; anything that tries to sell itself to you as "nutritionalized" is probably not "food". His advice: if someone from 1900 wouldn't recognize it as food, it's not. Avoid ingredients that are unfamiliar and unpronouncable. I especially like his "You're an omnivore: eat like one!" line.

And the bad news came in yesterday: A calorie is a calorie. I can't make my gut go away by doing abdominal crunches. The distribution of fat is wholly genetic: the only way to make it go away is to eat less. That may not be entirely true: some of the middle-age abdominal distension is due to a loss of muscle tone in those areas, so exercise will help that. But not the love handles.

First they laugh at you, then they fight you...

Dr. William Struthers is apparently making a big splash all of a sudden. A researcher into neurobiology and neurophysiology, he's now making the lecture circuit of Evangelical churches preaching that his research shows that pornography is addictive "crack for the brain" and "more addicting than drugs."

So I went and looked up his curriculum vitae. Before he found this gig, Struthers' big thing was in the ethical application of neurobiology. His paper, Evangelical Neuroethics: Mapping The Mindfield, is fascinating because of its view of transhumanism. In a section entitled, "The Faking of Life Issues," Struthers claims that mind-machine interfaces and their potential for augmentation create a "wholly mechanistic" view of humanity, encourages intolerance for those who won't take augmentation, are more likely harmful than not, will not result in an improved quality of life, and will result in a "kind of person" that is not congruent with Biblical teachings. In his endnotes he discusses the need for Christians to come up with a game plan for "civil engagement."

Woah. Struthers is a man who can see the Singularity bearing down on him like cybertank and now feels that he must do everything he can to hold it off as long as possible; long enough, he hopes, for Jesus to come. I've said it before: Jesus better show up in the next fifty years because, if he doesn't, his promise of eternal life with be a paltry and pathetic offering compared to what we'll be able to do for ourselves.

The Curse of Chalion

The Curse of Chalion is, understandably, not Lois McMaster Bujold's most popular work. The book is certainly not her best work; she is far too habituated to science fiction, and phrases from that genre keep creeping into her language. The one that leapt out at me most was "emotionally toxic," which while apt for the scene seemed out of place in Extruded Fantasy Product.

It is undoubtably some of the best Extruded Fantasy Product I've read in a while. And I have been refamiliarizing myself with the art of scene and sequel, so it is with joy and pleasure that I note the little scars scattered throughout this book where Bujold has sliced away everything inconsequential, every extraneous detail, leaving our hero with a stable world followed by crisis, response, widening crisis, emotion, decision, action, crisis... lather, rinse, repeat. Not a single moment to spare throughout the book, and it all leads to a satisfying if somewhat predictable ending.

It is understandable why Bujold is as beloved as she is: there are two Lois McMaster Bujolds. Lois #1 loves Miles and Cazaril and everyone in her books with a passion, and writes about them with that kind of dedicated fury all writers wish they had. Lois #2 is utterly without sentiment, and takes what Lois #1 writes and cuts and cleans and trims and rewrites until there is nothing left but something breathtakingly readable.

And, sigh, saleable.