Spiritual malnourishment

The Huffington Post is concerned for the spiritual welfare of its readers. It offers them guidance from "Dr. Susan Corso, Omnifaith Spiritual Expert." Dr. (in what? Omnifaith Studies?) Corso shares her expertise with us in a posting called "Beware the Ides of March." Key words include:

Alice In Wonderland, Aquamarine, Ash Wednesday, Bloodstone, Crocus, Daffodil, Dr. Seuss, Easter, Equinox, Fath [sic], Tuesday, Ides Of March, Inernational [sic] Women's Day, John Philip Sousa, Julius Caesar, Lent, March, March Hare, March King, March Madness, Mardi Gras, Mars, Narcissus, National Reading Day, Pisces, Red Cross Month, Spring, St. Patrick's Day, The Inner Life, William Shakespeare, Women's History Month, Living News.

Impressive free association for a single blog post, Dr. Corso, but you left out The March of Time.

In case her spiritual welfare caseload doesn't get the reference in the title, she explains: "Today is the Ides of March, that infamous occasion marking the murder of Julius Caesar. The line of my title is from William Shakespeare's play of the same name, Julius Caesar." Thanks!

One of the ideas that struck me about the Ides is that it's two weeks, give or take, before the end of the first quarter of the year. For a lot of businesses and people, that's one-quarter way through the calendar year. Maybe we could use the Ides to preview our end-of-first-quarter progress? How about a middle day of reckoning?

I was going to have a little sport with her — "Actually, Dr. Corso, it's one-quarter of the way through the calendar year for for everyone" — but not according to the Chinese and, I believe, several other calendars. She's right. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, I am previewing my end-of-first-quarter progress and demanding a recount. My day of reckoning has already come and gone (unlike the Ides for Julius Caesar), multiple times.

March's birth flower is the Narcissus which signifies egotism in my little book. Perhaps a warning to that original Caesar to beware excessive self-contemplation. I could go on and on because the associations are endless.

I don't think Brutus and Co. stabbed Caesar because they were concerned about his excessive self-contemplation. But thanks for your restraint from going on and on, Dr. Corso.

The Huffington Post adds: "For spiritual nourishment, visit Dr. Susan Corso's website and blog, Seeds for Sanctuary." Seeking further spiritual menu items, I did, and learned from her that

And it is what it is!

She offers a Not to Do list — get it? A Not to Do List! Don't:

Make war
Lose your temper
Snap at others
Despair
Whine or complain or criticize
Judge
Hit anyone
Discount the good
Neglect God/dess

And those are just off the top of my head! … And, because I, like you, know that humans don’t not do things very well, I have to add that every single one of these items would be easy to check off if we all just made a commitment to inner peace.

Yup, that's my trouble all right. I just can't commit. Nevertheless, in the spirit of not making war, not whining or complaining or criticizing, not judging, etc., I thank Dr. Corso for her insight. And let me leave you with this thought, from the heart: Have a nice day.

Endgame for the government debt crisis?

While all eyes are riveted to the Machiavellian strategies of the Obama Mob to kick Americans' teeth in and shove health care "reform" down their throats — scratch that; Machiavelli was a smart politician — it won't do to forget about the backdrop. Namely, the government debt deluge that in varying degrees threatens to wash away every Western nation's economy.

No one, obviously, knows for sure how it will play out. All you can do is pay attention to a range of opinions, and decide what you tentatively believe and how you plan to protect your life, your honor, and your sacred fortune if the expected scenario goes down.

In that spirit, I offer the views of Christopher Wood, publisher of the newsletter Greed & Fear (which I am not familiar with) and apparently a respected Asia-Pacific financial strategist. (Tip o' the hat: Credit Writedowns.) I am not endorsing his ideas, and even if I were, it would make no difference because I lack qualifications in international finance. But I believe it is important at least to listen to people like him.

In a CNBC interview, he says:

My view is that there is an inevitable endgame as a result of all this massive spending of taxpayer money in the West and Japan to bail out bankrupt banking systems, so in my view unfortunately the end game will be systemic government debt crisis in the western world.

It will probably happen in Europe and will climax in the U.S., and I am expecting on a five year view the collapse of the U.S. dollar paper standard.

He does not appear to be saying the dollar will become virtually worthless, only that it will no longer be the world's "reserve" currency, the international standard of value, as it has been at least since World War II. Not everyone agrees.

Wood thinks the U.S. will be the last man standing … until it, too, can no longer violate the financial laws of gravity.

The key reason why that’s the endgame is that this credit crisis we saw in the west in 2008 and 2009 has simply been deferred, because 95 percent of the so-called government policy solutions to deal with this crisis have simply been to extend government guarantees.

So the problem’s been transferred from the private sector to the public sector. It’s just a matter of time before investors revolt against these sovereign guarantees … . The crisis is going to happen first in Europe. It’s going to climax in the U.S.

It's pretty clear that, so far, all the government bailouts and alleged fixes have not restored the economy, except for banks, who have been happy to take the public coin and use it to reward themselves, not start lending it to get the wheels turning again. Maybe a lending time out is a good thing — after all, madcap borrowing for consumption helped get us into this pit — but many businesses have a legitimate need to borrow for capital spending, and citizens for mortgages.

For investors, Wood advises overweighting Asia and underweighting the U.S. and Europe. But it's probably best not to put too much stock (pun intended) in that suggestion. As the managing director and chief strategist for an Asia-Pacific financial services company, he — like every other investment professional with a strategy — stands to benefit if people heed him. As the expression in the brokerage business goes, he's "talking his book."

Here's the clip from CNBC — I don't know why the screen has so much blank space around it, but scroll down. (Why can't the talking heads doing interviews shut up long enough for their subject to complete a thought? Do the producers and directors think viewers will tune out if there's a second of "dead air"?)

The Hurt Locker

I probably wouldn't bother to write about The Hurt Locker except that I happened to be watching it — via DVD — on Oscars night. That wasn't because of any prior planning; it just happened to come up in my Netflix queue and arrived last week. Since The Hurt Locker won the gongs for Best Picture, Directing, Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Fingernail Trimming, it is no doubt being much discussed at the moment. Given human nature, there will probably be a backlash against it.

For what it's worth, I thought the film was memorable in parts, but in view of all the talent that went into it, it should have been a heck of a lot better.

First, credit where due. Most of the action scenes — and the movie was basically a series of action scenes strung together like a necklace — were gripping and felt authentic.

Felt authentic because I don't know what bomb disarming special ops are actually like. But seeming realistic is all you can ask a film to do. Most of the action scenes because the extended chase through buildings and alleys about 3/4 of the way through was like what has been beaten into a wad in dozens of cop movies.

Kathryn Bigelow's direction? You know, back when I was reviewing movies for the weekly rag in Santa Fe, around 1990, I gave her early Blue Steel three stars (out of five; I disliked assigning star ratings but it was the paper's style). I was impressed that she made the routine genre film surprisingly polished, and got a very fine performance from Jamie Lee Curtis. That was the last of her movies I had seen before The Hurt Locker.

As to the latter, her work was, well, professional. I don't know how much control she had over the casting — possibly complete, since this was touted as an "indie" — but in any case she seems to work well with actors. The leads, all previously unknown to me, left nothing to be desired. And Bigelow probably deserves kudos for the unusually involving action takes. Still, with due respect, the film industry has action down to a science, since that's what most movies consist of these days. That she didn't mess them up (except for the previously mentioned chase) is an achievement, but not a particularly outstanding one.

I'll skip the editing and sound, which are hard to evaluate because you don't know what options were rejected or not thought of, except to say that, again, I didn't find anything either exceptional or clumsy. Oh, one thing: the sound mixer resisted the temptation to make the rifle shots and explosions too loud. Good going.

Giving Mark Boal the Oscar for best screenplay was fatuous, unless all the other nominees were worse, which is possible. What screenplay? The scenes looked mostly improvised, and not always to good effect. The connective tissue between the explosives and shooting bits, where the team members "fought" and "bonded" (in quotation marks because neither was very convincing) were almost embarrassing.

The dialogue largely consisted of constant obscenities (again, likely ad lib). Now I don't object to the obscenity as such — it is probably how soldiers on bomb disposal duty talk. The trouble is that there wasn't much else; hardly a line in the whole picture was a keeper.

Nor was there any real plot building, story arc, character development, whatever you want to call old-fashioned storytelling virtues. Just episodes that became more familiar and less effective as they went on. To be fair, there was one strong scene near the end where a wired up suicide bomber repented at the last minute and asked to be relieved of his explosives before the timer detonated him. If only more of The Hurt Locker had that kind of quiet but intense drama.

By the way, I kept waiting for a line of dialogue to pay off the title, but if it was there I missed it.

UniGod

I've been puzzling over something for a while. If you have answers to offer, please comment.

Why didn't the concept of a single, unitary God appear in Western history until late in the classical world? Why not in ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome?

Greek civilization was hardly incurious. Its philosophers, from Socrates through Plato to Aristotle, as well as less famous names, seem to have pondered everything about the nature of the universe and mankind's relation to it. Their great playwrights -- Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides -- took soundings of the human soul as no other dramatist except Shakespeare did. At least the first two were concerned with the individual's relation to the gods, even if by the time of Euripides a certain skepticism was creeping into the Greek world view.

Still, the religious ideas of ancient Greece strike us as puerile. Zeus, Hera, Hephaestus, Poseidon and many of the others are like cartoon characters. And even if they had had more dignity (by our standards), they were multiple.

The Roman Republic and early Empire were arguably practical-minded and un-philosophical, though there were exceptions like Lucretius and Ovid. And as a whole the Roman aristocracy at least had the ideal of gravitas, or taking life seriously: they would have agreed with Longfellow: "Life is real! Life is earnest!"

But the Romans were hardly indifferent to the unseen. They had gods and ceremonies for virtually every aspect of life. Birth, marriage, death, the household, planting, harvesting, going to war, the hearth, crossroads, streams, you name it. They had no religious doctrine or creed as we understand it, but they took their religious observances to heart. A ritual or sacrifice had to be done in exactly the right way or, if there was a mistake, done over. The Romans were so scrupulous about observing the proper rites that in late classical times they continued to honor obscure gods and conduct practices that originated so far back in time that no one could explain their meaning or purpose.

H.J. Rose, a professor of Latin and Greek and surely one of the most learned students of the religion of antiquity, wrote in Ancient Roman Religion (London, 1949):

It is clear that in all this [the Romans' relationship with their gods] there was an element of sheer magic; there was also a strong element of bargaining, for the Romans were a legal-minded people who understood excellently the obligations of both parties to a contract. So on occasion they made contracts with gods, drawn up by skilled clerical draughtsmen and providing for all manner of contingencies. A very famous one has come down to us.

When it became evident that the Second Punic War was to be a long and hard-fought struggle, with Hannibal in Italy and threatening Rome itself, Juppiter [Rose's spelling] was appealed to and promised a sacrifice of the whole increase of the flocks and herds for a year if by that year, half a decade ahead, he put the Roman people in a satisfactory position. The deed, when drawn up, was approved by the Assembly.

But in return for so great a gift, the god was to waive certain rights which he might normally insist on; the Romans were considered to have done their part even if irregularities were found in the method of sacrificing, if the offering were made on the wrong date or even by an unqualified person, and also to be quit of responsibility for any beasts who might die or be stolen before the time came to offer them.

This kind of crude bargaining with the gods sounds absurd or distasteful to us, but before we get too condescending, we ought to recall the numerous churches and monasteries built in the Christian era of Europe as thanks for battles won and plagues survived.

But to return to the main point: how could there have been two great civilizations in the ancient world, lasting over a millennium between them, that developed no idea of One God until Rome's armies and rulers encountered a certain sect on the fringe of the empire, in Palestine? And even then failed to accord it, or its derivative religion of Christ, any respect for many generations?

Surely both Greece and Rome had their share of mystics and contemplatives on whom the Spirit descended. How can we doubt that some who had received knowledge of the transcendent could no longer be enchanted by polytheism? Why did they have, as it appears, zero influence on "official" classical religion? Why was the idea of one God ignored, or abhorred, until Constantine recognized Christianity in the fourth century?

True, that was a troubled period, and spirituality is said to be the daughter of adversity. But Rome had gone through plenty of sticky patches before -- the Gauls overrunning the city, for instance. Athens had its debacle with the Peloponnesian War. Yet the old gods held their ground.

For that matter, other than Islam, no major religion with a concept of one supreme God has emerged anywhere in the world. Buddhism finds it a waste of time to talk about God, preferring to speak of Enlightenment. Hinduism does have a mystical side that could be said to be monotheistic, but popular Hinduism continues to have a variety of deities.

Something very strange and profound happened in the Mediterranean world of late antiquity. Why then, and not before?

My alternative right is more alternative than your alternative right

Alternative Right, which has been in business now for four days, is already a 7.5 on the conservative Richter scale. Two bloggers on my "Gold Standard" list have enthusiastically registered their feelings: hopeful (Dennis Mangan, here and here) and contra (Lawrence Auster, here).

I've checked out Alternative Right — not read everything posted there, but enough to get an impression of what it's on about. My response, which has to be tentative considering the site is still a pup, occupies the No Man's Land somewhere between Mangan and Auster.

Before getting down to cases, a little preface: Most of us who vaguely identify ourselves with "traditionalist" or "classical" conservatism are dismayed by what passes for conservatism in the mainstream media, the halls of Congress, and many intellectuals' gray cells. At its most superficial, opinion identifies conservatism with the Republican party, business, even globalization. And of course "conservatism" has opened a branch office, neo-conservatism, dedicated to bringing enlightenment, capitalism, and democracy to the Middle East at gunpoint.

In King Obama's moribund administration, conservatism should have a rallying point. Unfortunately, the right is divided, watered down, unsure of what it stands for. And the growing popularity of libertarianism further muddies the view.

So bang from the start, I am somewhat skeptical about introducing yet another "alternative." The problem is not that there is no alternative, but that there is no end of alternatives.

However, let's see what Alt Right has on offer.

It calls itself an "online magazine." The editor is Richard Spencer, formerly editor of the Greek socialite and Web publisher Taki's site. The second-chair editorship includes Peter Brimelow of VDare. I have long thought that VDare is useless and counterproductive, recycling essentially the same immigration horror stories month after month without doing anything concrete to change the system and draining contributions that would be better sent to the lobbying organization NumbersUSA.

Richard Hoste, whose own blog is HBD Books, explains "Why an Alternative Right Is Necessary."

It's because of so-called "conservatives" like [Dick] Cheney that an Alternative Right is necessary.

Besides our disagreements with mainstream conservatives on the issue of foreign policy and the relative importance of fighting terrorism, there is the topic of race and, more broadly, IQ and heredity. We've known for a while through neuroscience and cross-adoption studies--if common sense wasn't enough--that individuals differ in their inherent capabilities. The races do, too, with whites and Asians on the top and blacks at the bottom. The Alternative Right takes it for granted that equality of opportunity means inequality of results for various classes, races, and the two sexes. Without ignoring the importance of culture, we see Western civilization as a unique product of the European gene pool.

Bringing human biodiversity into mainstream conservatism, if Alt Right can pull it off, is good. "If," because it is not clear to me why HBD should become respectable just because of Alt Right. There are plenty of pre-existing HBD sites, but mainstream, soi-disant conservatism will have no parley with the heathens on this subject. Water wears away rock, but the time span is measured in millennia.

I'm no scientist, but I would guess that nuclear technology, like all technology, is going to get progressively less expensive and more widely available. Muslims have never failed to use against their enemies any type of arms they could get their hands on . They also tend to fight those whom they live amongst.

One would think that the odds of a major terrorist attack happening would depend on how many Muslims are allowed to live in the United States. Reducing Islamic immigration in the name of fighting terror would receive widespread public support, be completely practical in a way installing a puppet regime in Afghanistan wouldn't, and not lead us to kill or torture anybody.

Yet the "Conservative of the Year" [Cheney] whose entire raison d'être has been "keeping us safe" acts as if such a thing isn't even possible. The idea that nothing must be done to stop the March Of Diversity is so entrenched in the minds of those considered of the Right that they will defend America policing the entire planet, torture, indefinite detentions, and a nation on permanent war footing but won't mention immigration restriction or racial profiling.

Good again. Still a Forbidden Thought in pseudo-conservative dialogue, and it needs to be said. Once again, though, how much use is saying it? Lawrence Auster has vociferously advocated a policy of separationism between Islam and the United States for years without any noticeable influence in the political sphere.

But Hoste also seems to advocate one of the stupidest of all "conservative" ideas, that whites should indulge themselves in a breeding contest with other races.

We may lament the low European-American birth rate, but the fact that it's even near replacement level in such a feminist and anti-natalist society is a testament to natural sex differences.

I do not lament the low European-American birth rate; I'd like to see it become universal. It's true that as long as we keep importing high-procreation ethnic groups (which Hoste says he's against), then whites are in a demographic graveyard spiral. Whites trying to outbreed other groups is not a sane answer. Even if it could be achieved — doubtful — it would merely accelerate the pace of the overpopulation that is at the root of virtually every environmental problem. There's an "alternative" view for you.

Robert Weissberg writes on "The Siren Song of Diversity," criticizing the diversity industry's grip on business and government organizations. It's well written, although there have been articles and books by the carload in the past two decades on the subject. Still, he does have an interesting take on how "affirmative action" and all the rest of the official tribal favoritism has actually, in the large picture, worked against the interests of American blacks.

Walter K. Olson’s The Excuse Factory observes that employers can run afoul of anti-discrimination laws by insisting on employee traits that are so obvious, so pertinent to the job that they are never put in the official job description. These include traits like a pleasant attitude, a willingness to follow instructions, being neatly dressed, an outward enthusiasm for the position and being law-abiding, among many others that define “a good worker.”

In today’s upside down world, this too-obvious-to-warrant-saying policy invites legal trouble: since possessing an agreeable disposition is not formally part of the job advertisement, and not a specified must-have part of the job, a sullen, foul-mouthed applicant with a “’tude” can insist that he was turned down on racial grounds since nothing was actually said about his obnoxious demeanor. Obviously, since no job description can be exhaustive, a litigation-prone black applicant can always claim that it was race, and only race that lead to him not being hired.

Faced with anti-discrimination pressure carried to crackpot extremes, a company may well choose to avoid the persecution through equally extreme measures.

When costs and risks are fully calculated, it often makes economic sense to move to North Dakota (or India), sub-contract out as much as possible, automate the tasks or just exit the market. … Ironically, the traditional and relatively cheap solution to addressing impossible-to-meet regulations—bribing the building inspector, for example—is unavailable when confronting ideologues who fervently believe that they are helping the less fortunate by making them impossible to hire.

What to do? Weissberg has an answer, and it is witless.

Now, compare the benefits of hiring Juan, a Mexican (of uncertain legal status), who desperately wants to return home and buy a pick-up truck, to John, an African American with a hyper-sensitive sense of racial injustice. Though both enjoy equal legal rights, Juan is unlikely to exploit them.

And so on, with his own siren song about the comparative value of hiring Hispanic immigrants. Right out of the "jobs Americans won't do" and "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande" playbook of George W. Bush. A strange inspiration for an "alternative" right publication.

I don't think Weissberg is a conservative of any stripe. He is, if you want to group him, a libertarian. And it appears from this article that he has the typical libertarian blindness to any values other than economic ones. It's fine with him if the United States becomes a Latin American country, as long as it is more "efficient" and improves the Gross National Product.

Which brings up something else. Nowhere in this "magazine" — why call a Web site a magazine? It strikes me as pretentious — do I find, so far, the slightest notice of spirituality. God is dead in this "alternative." What kind of conservatism leaves out any sense of a higher, non-material realm and source of moral behavior? This kind, I guess.

Atheists and scientific materialists can be genuinely conservative on various issues. Their unbelief does not make them bad people. I think I understand their intellectual objections to spirituality, and in many cases it does them credit: they're rejecting dogmatic religion. The thing is, intellectual objections to the call of Spirit are just that, intellectual. The rational mind is not the way to God, although it can be useful in guarding against fanaticism and power trips justified in the name of spirituality. Knowledge of God, which is bound to be an on-and-off thing, seen "through a glass darkly" for most of us, comes from an inner transformation of consciousness, not from the intellect.

But I digress. On the basis of its short record so far, Alt Right may be worthwhile as one more gadfly buzzing around the left. Its views are well expressed, even when I disagree with them. But its brand of conservatism appears to be partly a product of unexamined assumptions derived from what Auster calls "right liberalism."

Every political movement, to be effective, has to strike a balance. It needs to accept enough differences on one point and another so it doesn't break into factions and splinter groups. Yet it has to be principled as well, and not water down its message unto blandness. More than that, it must energize its followers to act, not just nod at debater's points. We will see what, if any, influence Alt Right can contribute along those lines.

Government obesity is a national problem

Fifty-six percent of Americans polled last week said that "the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens." An immediate threat.

According to an archaic document — the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution — recovered from the ruins of Washington, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So what is our national government up to that the states or the people cannot do for themselves? Some good things: national defense and … uh … I'll get back to you on that. Some bad things: Control of the currency. And others that are useless; or full employment programs for bureaucrats and designated victim groups; or settings for plum jobs given to big-time campaign contributors; or … the word bizarre comes to mind.

Uncle has maxed out his credit cards, but that doesn't stop him from the swift completion of his self-appointed rounds. Let us go where angels fear to tread, and have a look at current agencies of the federal gov't.

Ready? As the USA.gov site says, "Government made easy."

There — that's not such a long list, is it? Oh, wait. Those are only the agencies whose names begin with A. Let's take a stroll through the alphabetical listing.

To be clear: Many of these agencies have worthwhile goals; some can occasionally boast of genuine accomplishments; a few perform services that the states or the people could not efficiently do for themselves.

If you are floating in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, or have just poured yourself a tot of whiskey, or are otherwise feeling no pain, the chances are you will be okay as we sample these agencies funded by your tax dollars, should you happen to be among the "fat cat" 60 percent of Americans who pay taxes.

Administration on Aging. "Global Connections United Nations Television Interviews AARP President Jennie Chin Hansen and Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary of Aging, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services"; "AoA Announces First Annual 'Excellence in Action' Awards"; "U.S. Administration on Aging to hold Public Input Session for the Reauthorization of Older Americans Act, Series of forums being held to [sic] throughout the country."

U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. "MSPB Redesigns Its Web Site"; "The MSPB Allows Leniency in Meeting Filing Deadlines"; "MSPB Announces Chief of Staff and General Counsel Appointments."

Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration. "GIPSA Ensuring Swine Contracts Comply With Farm Bill Requirements"; "Guidance to Live Poultry Dealers [do any of the dead deal in poultry?] on Arbitration Provisions in Contracts"; "In Troubled Times: Financial Protection for Livestock Producers and Poultry Growers."

Open World Leadership Center. "The Open World program has tremendous potential to help Tajikistan's future leaders exchange ideas and experiences with communities in the United States. — Ambassador Tracey Ann Jacobson, U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan"; "Russian Leaders Examine Accountable Governance and Youth Programs in Central Ohio" [Listen up, Putin!]; "Prize-Winning Alumna Films in Antarctica."

Vietnam Education Foundation. "We are pleased that you have learned about us and have chosen to visit our website." You're welcome. "Announcement: VEF 2010 Fellowship Program for Process B (for applicants with school admission)."

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). Your blogger would have thought that community-oriented policing would involve keeping Washington as far from the community as possible, but no. "The COPS Office serves a noble purpose. In alignment with our component partners within the Department of Justice, our mission is to create safer communities across this country through the advancement of community policing."

"Reducing Fear of Crime: Strategies for Police: This guide provides a comprehensive review about the phenomenon of fear of crime as well as historical and contemporary police efforts at fear reduction. The main focus is on tools and techniques that police can use to target fear of crime, reduce fear, and institutionalize fear reduction within their agencies. Promising practices are identified—these are strategies and programs that make sense, that have been implemented, and that have been tested and shown to be effective—to illustrate possible ways to address fear of crime."

Not reducing crime — reducing public fear of crime, which is a nuisance for police management.

But fear of crime, within reason, is good. It discourages citizens from going into bad neighborhoods and encourages them to be aware of threats. It means being prepared for self-defense in case of carjacking, robbery, or burglary. Presumably COPS believes self-defense is not for ordinary people; it's a highly technical specialty, best left to professionals with the appropriate academic degrees and badges.

Uncle: I know this is a sensitive issue, but perhaps you'd feel better if you went on a diet. I know I'd feel better if you did.