Who do I still think I am??

This one's about your Sunday news.

30DBC PROMPT: "Provide your thoughts/opinions on a newspaper/magazine article or a radio/television news story from the past week. And if you feel inclined, let loose and blog about your week. Also, feel free to comment on your favorite blog entries from your fellow challengers from the preceding week, though this is not required."

'Sup y'all? Looks like we all made it to the other side of Daylight Savings Time in one piece, which is good...I know that pesky hourly loss didn't really affect me much, other than feeling like I slept an hour later than I normally do when I woke up this morning. Maybe we all could've used DST as one of the reasons in yesterday's "Creation Saturday" prompt about excuses for sleeping in. But I digress...

So, news happened this week. Lots of it, actually, and depending on your sources, it was either good news or bad news. As some of you know, Gawker (http://gawker.com/) and Jezebel (http://jezebel.com/) are two of my favorite places for informative articles and hilarious commentary...and on a semi-serious note, a couple of items caught my interest today as a matter of fact, so I'm gonna talk a little about them.

The first one concerns how antibiotics were once studied as a method of promoting weight gain...in a practice that was tested on farm animals and handicapped kids. Please pardon my language (oh come on, it's not like you've never heard me curse before), but that's so fucked up. It was proven that the animals gained weight, which not only made them more appealing to the meat industry, but strengthened their immune systems and made them resistant to common forms of farm bacteria...which in turn led to more animals being raised indoors and fed with grain laced with these drugs. Welcome to factory farming.

Here's the link to that, before I forget: http://jezebel.com/the-fucked-up-history-of-antibiotics-farm-animals-an-15399224.... Now, we often joke about how when we were young, all the different things we got away with and all the stuff our parents and grandparents did because it seemed ok yet is really unthinkable now, but for real? Animal testing is bad enough (and I'm not all hippie tree-hugger about it; just don't care for it), but to test powerful bacteria-killing agents on children to see if they not only work but can go above and beyond what they're meant for...dear science in the fifties: What the fuck was wrong with you?? Oh, you only wanna test these drugs out on the retarded kids? Oh, cool, ok...Really?! No, seriously, what the fuck was wrong with you people??

And if that's not enough- which should be, but it's not- I know I've kicked around the idea in the past of going vegan or at least vegetarian (I just can't get over my love of ground beef and bacon), but the fact that we've been eating meat that's been pumped so full of chemicals to resist disease and promote unnatural growth should be enough to scare anyone off pig, cow and fowl. Look at it this way: these antibiotics kill off bacteria, but eventually the bacteria becomes tolerant of the drug, getting stronger...better drugs, stronger bacteria, more drugs, and boom! All the sudden there's E. Coli and Salmonella poisoning and Mad Cow disease all over the place. Think of it like computer viruses: you get this protection for your computer, but hackers and the like are finding ways around them in order to access your information via new methods of spyware, and eventually you end up getting new AVS to protect against that, but the bad guys are always trying to find another way in, and the cycle continues. It's the same thing with these antibiotics, only more sickening.

The second article isn't totally related, but from a pharmaceutical standpoint it's certainly noteworthy and I've taken notice primarily because I suffer from what I consider to be chronic pain (sorry if that's TMI, but you'll have that) in joints and muscles, and I'm starting to think about what my options are going forward.

California is set to start dispensing a painkiller that's ten times stronger than Vicodin, and is made with pure, uncut hydrocodone. Eventually as this drug (Zohydro) becomes widely available, it's bound to change form; the key thing that stands out in this article is that currently the pill is crushable. I read that as being easier to ingest and able to be absorbed faster by the body, and I think that makes it more susceptible to abuse. Also interesting to take away from this article (like I usually add when posting a link to a Kinja piece) are some of the statistics thrown around in the comments section. Americans take 80% of the world's painkillers! The US consumes 99% of the world's supply of hydrocodone! That's crazy! Yet how much of that is legal usage versus illicit abuse? We'll never know.

This article (http://gawker.com/painkiller-10-times-stronger-than-vicodin-will-hit-the-1539932...) interests me because like I mentioned, I'm in pain a lot, and I guess I'm in the initial stages of figuring out if there's something to be concerned about or if it's just my body's way of telling me I overdid too much of everything when I was younger. I do a little research once in awhile, and when I take any kind of prescribed medicine I try to read up on it and ask questions partly because I worry about allergic reactions and interactions with other medications, and partly because I don't wanna end up on the street lookin' for more pills 'cuz I just couldn't help myself from gobblin' 27 of 'em and I barely feel a thing. I was on a steady morphine drip for a couple of days while I was in the hospital with my busted ankle, and they gave me a script for hydrocodone when I got out...I didn't get hooked on either of them, but I can definitely attest to the mind-altering presence of these substances when combined with an unbelievably uncomfortable amount of pain.

Well, hey, wasn't that all fun? More evidence that as much as science thinks it's trying to help us, in the long run they may just be killing us faster (or at least at a harsher, more insufferable pace).

BCF PROMPT: It's Sunday! No prompt! Day of rest! Whoo hoo!! I think I'll use this space, if it's ok with the fine people of the "Blogging Circle of Friends " , to give a short recap of the week and talk about one (or some) of my favorite entries in this month's "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" . Who's with me? Show of hands! Ok, sweet.

For having nothing to do, I feel like I had a busy week...maybe because most of my running around was condensed into Thursday and Friday. The good news (if you haven't been reading up on me lately, and I don't blame you if you haven't) is that I can return to work on a limited basis as of tomorrow. The bad news? It's only temporary until I find out when I'm getting the remaining five screws and plate taken out of my left ankle, and I'm awaiting the results of my arthritis screening. I've made it through the weekend not being a nervous wreck, but I imagine I'll be pretty tense tomorrow. I'm only working 9am-noon, so I'll have the afternoon to decompress if I need to, and I know I'll be really stressed out if I don't hear anything because I'll be working all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning I have an appointment with a career specialist at the employment office in town...ok, maybe I am starting to get a little unnecessarily up here about this whole medical situation.

As for the week in blog entries, it's good to have an old friend of this space back in the 30DBC mix, the one and only Brother Nature . There are some people that, when you start participating more often in activities like these, you know their presence is missed when they're not around...Joel's got one of them kinds of personalities. I especially enjoyed his take on Wednesday, regarding activities did as kids...you can see it here if you missed it: "Invalid Entry" . Growing up in an old Polish neighborhood in Cheektowaga, New York, it was common to see many lawns adorned with fake plastic pink flamingoes...I wish back in my hellion days I'd have thought of Pink Flamingo Golf.

I also wanna give some attention to Charlie ~ and his entry, "Invalid Entry" . If you're not reading Charlie, you should be, and not just because he's got great taste in music. This particular entry touches on some interesting topics, even if they're not relatable. His style of writing really pulls you in and makes you feel like you're there, being a part of what he's talking about. The details aren't always pretty and sometimes the experiences aren't easy on the heart emotionally, but in the end you'll find yourself rooting for him.

Lots of good topics, entries and comments this week...the PC/Mac debate was pretty informative, as was the National Working Women's Day one. Jeff brought his "A" game as usual, Lyn's a Witchy Woman continues to do an awesome job turning out entries for multiple groups, and even though she's not participating in this month's 30DBC, blainecindy has been very busy with the recent reopening of "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  while managing to offer the kindest and heartfelt words wherever she manages to be found on WDC. And as always, it's great to have some new participants in the 30DBC as well as the BCF.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

As funny as it sounds, this is pretty true whether you know it or not. How many people can say that they're happily getting by without the aid of some kind of pharmaceutical, or are eating 100% organic food that isn't tainted by overzealous corporate farmers for the sole sake of the almighty dollar, or aren't practicing some kind of escapism just to forget about life for awhile (don't front...writers are the ultimate escape artists in that we can bullshit ourselves from accepting reality for a little while if we need to)? Face it...we're all on something.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

I'm slowly trying to alter my diet by attempting to eat healthier, so I bought a carton of almond milk the other day...and the more I think about it, the more repulsed I am by the notion that it's gonna be decent on any kind of cereal. I know anything that comes in a package probably has some sort of crap in it your body will hate you for, and I'm really trying to cut out as much garbage as I can, but why I thought almond milk was a good idea, I really don't know. I mean, I should've been tipped off immediately that it can't be that healthy because it's sold unrefrigerated (with a shelf life of months!!) but you're supposed to "serve chilled". Sure, it's lactose-free, which is a plus, but something's not adding up here. I swear, I've made better life choices shitfaced off my ass and not full of a combo of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety pills, and pain-relieving meds.

More trending news this week: The Russia/Ukraine battle over Vladimir Putin's toupee; The discovered remains of the Malaysian plane crash were just pieces of an asteroid that flew perilously close to Earth before exploding in a fit of panic over not wanting to land on such an unstable planet; President Obama, in a tribute to Aretha Franklin, managed to screw up the most important line in arguably her most popular song by misspelling "respect"; and Pope Francis has a potty mouth.

That, my friends, is your Sunday News And Review. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna see what everyone else is up to before I try to call an end to this fair day. Peace, give me some of that stuff, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!

True story, bro.