Café Society: America Runs on Adreno-Cortico-Stimulants

    Ah...as I sip my hot-water extraction of roasted coffea arabica beans from Guatemala blended with the cream of cow's milk, typing on my laptop, feet not planted firmly on the floor, I can only say...God bless America! Now....
     "Wake up!"
                       and smell the coffee burning at the bottom of the pot, taste the acids churning inside your intestines, disrupting the bacterial flora that regulates your immune system;
                              feel the tension in your jaw,
                              write home to Mother all your racing thoughts as you babble vapidly to friends
on sidewalks and traincars, endlessly listing off the categories of Infinity....

...O, to be young and write poems in cafés and chainsmoke as if life had no consequence...

now: reality: 
                     you need coffee to function, to work, to write, to get up and make the kids breakfast, to raise up the nerve to even talk to anyone.
now: back from the initial stimulus and bliss, that 1st sip of poetry, down to the prose of this post:

     America is addicted to coffee. We need it every day just to function. Coffee is originally from Africa, although some people think it is from the Americas. In fact, it was the Dutch who expanded the coffee industry beyond Africa and Arabia, and it was they who brought it to Central and South America, where indeed so much of the world's coffee is now produced. Brewed coffee in the form we drink today was developed in Yemen. The first coffee-houses among the Arabs were indeed a political innovation as they became a powerful yet affordable and accessible social forum, and for this reason were quickly recognized as dangerous. Coffee became popular in the North American Colonies in the late 17th Century, and it was at a coffeehouse that the Boston Tea Party was concocted.

"In the year 2000 in the US, coffee consumption was 22.1 gallons (100.468 litres) per capita.^[6] More than 150 million Americans (18 and older) drink coffee on a daily basis, with 65 percent of coffee drinkers consuming their hot beverage in the morning. In 2008, it was the number-one hot beverage of choice among convenience store customers, generating about 78 percent of sales within the hot dispensed beverages category.^[7] " - Wikipedia 

     So coffee is at once an industry of oppression, colonialism and exploitation, but also a tool for political dissidence. My primary focus of enquiry is not political, moral or ethical, however, but sociological, nutritional, and endocrinological. Caffeine, and other compounds present in the coffee bean, stimulate the cycle of adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline is very useful for an animal that needs to fight, run, or otherwise respond rapidly, decisively and forcefully to a situation or stimulus. It is not healthy to have adrenaline always blazing, as this leads to adrenal fatigue and exhaustion. However, proper diet and exercise can mitigate some of the effects of excessive adrenaline. Of more concern, to me at least, is the cortisol spike. Fasting and lowered blood-sugar levels already tends to elevate production of cortisol, the primary 'stress hormone.' Many people drink coffee on an empty stomach, and many women and men, generally out of commercially misguided vanity, use caffeine- and other stimulant-containing products to lose weight...the problem is that cortisol ends up breaking down muscle tissue, yet in the long run will prevent fat loss...I myself no longer take sugar in my coffee, but perhaps the sugar does help to mitigate the gluco-consumptive properties of caffeine and reduce the stress that coffee often causes.
    Adrenaline should not be discounted for its danger, either. We are an aggressive nation of car-crashers, bar-brawlers and murderers. My wife has suggested that caffeine-induced aggression is likely a primary contributor to violent crime and accidents in America (and in other caffeine-addicted industrialized nations.)
    Caffeine is a phenethylamine. These psychoactive compounds are all derived from the amino acid phenylalanine, and include its metabolite tyrosine, the hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline, and dopamine, as well as drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, the prescription-anti-depressant Welbutrin (or bupropion) and mescaline. Of these, mescaline (and related alkaloids in various cactii species, somewhat legal with the exception of peyote) is the only phenethylamine that has the full potential to activate man's Higher Mind, whereas the rest have a tendency to be addictive, despite or rather due to their tremendous benefit to active, organized and socialized human populations. For this reason peyote is illegal, because we are racist Christian vigilantes who have condemned the beautiful traditions of the Native populations of the Americas and supplanted them with an abstraction forged of Christianity, war and colonialism. Peyote would allow one to access the 5+1/2th Chakra, the secret Sephira Daath, denied by Hebrew Kabbalists as heresy due to the loss of trans-Atlantic trade in ancient times.
     Of greater import for modern America is the question of the legalization of marijuana. It is incredible that human beings are branded as criminals for utilizing a plant that has for ages been a sacred food, medicine and ally. Perhaps the dis-attenuation of peripheral awareness could cause more car accidents from stoned drivers; this is probably the most legitimate argument against legalization, IMO.  However, as we have mentioned, it is highly probable that caffeine already does contribute to traffic accidents, as well as aggressive crime. Marijuana, overall, would reduce violence and aggression. Most of the association between marijuana and crime is, in fact, due to its being criminalized (duh!) It would be a wonderful world where high school students could buy marijuana from someone who didn't also deal in addictive pharmaceutical narcotics; if legal, marijuana would never be a 'gateway drug.' 
     Coffee, however, doesn't even need to be a gateway. Middle-class teenage girls learn that they should wear tight black riding pants and bring their laptops to Starbucks. Just in Harvard Square there are three Starbucks, plus one a seven-minute walk and another a twelve-minute walk away. This is saturation. Monopoly. At least independent cafés have some character and distinction. And then there's the slogan, "America Runs on Dunkin'." How proudly perverse, our culture's celebration of its own addictions, even as we make (successful) strides to curb smoking...even then, an addict can pat themself on the back for two weeks without drugs or alcohol, as they congregate together outside the church smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. 
    (ok, case-in-point, I'm just typing on the computer drinking coffee and now I'm yelling at the kids 'cause they're making too much noise...I think caffeine also lowers the tolerance for loud noises, by turning everything into a stimulus for adrenaline and cortisol, as mentioned, and making every noise or word a cause for panic and reaction.) 
     Before the coffee beans are roasted they are actually green, and contain much higher amounts of chlorogenic acid, with relatively less caffeine. Cholorogenic acid has been shown to have many health benefits, including blood-sugar regulation and, by extension, purportedly weight-loss. It will be interesting to see if the interest in green coffee bean products grows in the future, and somewhat replaces our addiction to roasted coffee beverages.
     Of course, coffee is not the only caffeinated beverage we drink. Tea, however, contains theanine, an amino acid which relaxes the mind and mitigates the effects of caffeine (one must watch out for the tannins present in tea, however, as they are highly acidic.) The biggest problem is probably the artificial energy drinks, which use other stimulants as well such as l-tyrosine, further contributing to adrenal fatigue, and generally without the addition of antioxidants, which are naturally present in coffee, tea, cocoa and yerba maté, and lend these plants much of their health-promoting benefits. Obviously these drugs should be regulated, far more than ganja.   

Bicyclists on the Sidewalk

Bicycling seems to be more popular today than it ever was. This has many positive implications. Reducing carbon emissions will help to at least slow the damage done to our environment by combustion of fossil fuels. The (perhaps not right at the moment, but ultimately) rising cost of gasoline and oil and unavailability of parking certainly make the bicycle an economic alternative. Bicycling is great exercise and (in moderation) may help to improve our nation's health and wellness. And, after all, bikes are not as dangerous as automobiles....However, a large metal object on wheels accelerating with a human being on top is still a liability to anything in its path.

     Bicycles are expected to share the road with other vehicles. Admittedly, it can be difficult and, for the cyclist, dangerous to maneuver through streets of traffic, with cars turning, merging, changing lanes, passing; trucks and emergency vehicles speeding by. There are many times when it makes more sense for a cyclist to get off the road and onto the sidewalk. We all do it; how else would you lock up your bike, get home or go into a store? Sometimes in order to get across a street it is more appropriate to travel the paths laid out for pedestrians than those intended for drivers.
    Riding down an empty sidewalk, in fact, might be safer for everyone than darting between cars across a busy road. When there are pedestrians on the sidewalk, however, it does not makes sense to pass them at full-speed. This is dangerous in any situation, especially if those pedestrians are children, the elderly, handicapped, or otherwise not fully attentive and ready to apply their reflexes to avoid harm's way.
   Slowing down is a start. At the very least, running one foot on the ground gives the biker physical control to stop the bike if necessary, preventing injury to themselves and others that could be caused by applying brakes suddenly. Getting off and walking the bike is an even better idea when on a crowded sidewalk; once you get around the pedestrians and onto the other side of the street you can start biking in the street again, where you belong!
   This seems so simple but it all comes down to courtesy and care for others. A symptom of our modern culture of detachment is a profound display of indifference to others. I learned to ride a bike late, in high school. Of course I myself road on the sidewalk over the course of a few days as I got the hang of it. One day, and I wasn't even going that fast, someone came out of a store and I nearly ran into them. They yelled at me as I kept going and I arrogantly yelled back, not thinking I was really in the wrong and also infected by that same social apathy I just mentioned is prevalent in our society, especially among youth; and everyone seems to be affecting the characteristics of irreverent youth today.
   After that incident I sucked it up and put myself in the street, riding stoned on good grass listening to Metallica on my headphones with no helmet, because it seemed noble to put the safety of others above my own at that time. Maybe it's just my Virgo Moon.
   In any case, if I see you biking towards me when I am walking down the sidewalk with my children, I will make the sidewalk impassable until you either get off the sidewalk or walk your bike. And if you are coming behind me, please don't ring your corny little bell or shout out "left!".....but that is the topic for another blog.

The Obsession with Skinny

It is quite disturbing that so many women are befuddled so as to equate their own self-worth with maintaining a dangerously low body-weight and the application of harsh abrasive chemical make-up etc...
Women who are already quite attractive, or even a bit too thin who might do well to put on a few pounds (speaking as a man who finds woman's beauty to be a thing of unparalleled splendour) will spend large amounts of money on diet pills, books, magazines; obsessively workout and deny themselves a well-rounded diet providing essential nutrients.
They do this because the media informs them that they have to, to be beautiful, and the media also fools enough men into believing this false ideal of beauty that they in turn amplify the social pressure upon women. There is no arguing that a woman's physical attractiveness is one of her most important traits; for with it she finds a mate, hopefully, and reproduces herself, thus becoming a successful creature. However, today success is equated with symbolical wealth, not actual prosperity so much as the social status attached to a middle-class life.
Which all leads into commerce, who is behind this all. The diet-pill companies, the magazines with skinny women on the front, the movies the pornographers are all making a killing, more and more literally, as women physically discount their health and try to look like skinny little girls.

to be continued...(comments?)