Wandering Weekend

Yesterday got away from me but not in the usual way, which is that I'm here working on various things including finding something that I think is worth posting but can't really find anything.  Sometimes I start down a path and either mess it up or can't find a piece of information I want.  Sometimes I get distracted by a different project or something to play with. 

The big difference was that yesterday was entirely family-centered and hours away from home.  Mrs. Graybeard and I don't have much family left to interact with, so the events of the last year have changed that in a remarkable way.  I've mentioned son, DDL (Dear Daughter in Law) and PGD (Precious Grand Daughter), and long time readers might even remember those acronyms.  Unfortunately, they live over a thousand miles away so they're difficult to visit with.

The changes have come from my older brother's son and daughter.  Nephew got married well over a year ago, and had their first baby around a year ago.  They were living out of state until summer of '23, and we met niece-in-law on last Thanksgiving.  I have no idea what to call my relationship with the baby.  Not to be outdone, my niece got married in mid-'23, and while she lost one pregnancy, she delivered her first back in December.  I neglected to mention that niece-in-law is expecting their second in March. 

All of which sets up where we were all day yesterday.  Actual niece decided to throw a baby shower for niece-in-law at nephew and niece-in-law's house over on the west side of the state.  They're in location that's just hard to get to from here. As the crow flies, it's around 65 miles, but any route the map programs give me are in the vicinity of 120 miles. So two hours driving instead of one, each way. 

That's awfully long; I just don't see much of a way of shortening it.  The setup is part of the story because it illustrates that both of these women, 30-ish year old millennials, are playing the role that seems to be called "trad-wife" - a disparaging term to the screaming liberal girls that we see on the 'net in a never-ending series of memes.  

It was great visiting with the two couples, along with the rest of the family. 

And for something completely different...

To begin with, Mike Myles at 90 Miles from Tyranny has a clip from a Tucker Carlson video that is a good intro to this.  

The topic isn't RFK Jr. or autism that he's talking about, but it kind of leads to what I'm thinking of.  

I certainly don't agree with everything I've heard him talking about but if the numbers he throws around have truth behind them something is seriously messed up in our health care, especially with the dramatically higher rates of many conditions.  Another line of evidence shows up in this video, also from 90 Miles. 

The fundamental issue is that in virtually every instance the science behind public health questions is poor quality - and that's because higher quality studies are inherently difficult and expensive to conduct.  The study run by the doctor in that second video may be about as good as the studies get.  Until the Covid era, I was one who pretty much swallowed all the crap on vaccines.  Then I started learning more about how little they test things like the recommended series of vaccines for children, and I'm really unsettled about that now.  The tests I'd like to see are in the category of “inherently difficult and expensive.”

Let me add two buzzwords I keep seeing and I have no idea how important they are in terms of health. They’re clearly important to get people talking and selling newspapers, online reading or something, but what little “science” I can find is even lower quality than usual for this sort of the stuff.

The buzzwords are “microplastics” and “forever chemicals”.

When I first heard of microplastics it sounded like a good thing. Everyone was worrying about plastics in the ocean and talking about the great Pacific Garbage patch when all of a sudden (that link is dated '17) it turned out that the plastics were being partially dissolved or even digested by some sort of bacteria or maybe a critter. That meant the big pieces of plastic were becoming small pieces of plastic, and if it’s a surface area phenomenon, smaller pieces have a higher surface area to mass ratio (very little mass) so they disappear faster.

In the last year or two, it has turned into people saying we have microplastics everywhere, and it’s getting talked about as something to be alarmed about.  I have yet to see any explanation of why we should be alarmed.

The second term, “forever chemicals,” seems almost self-contradictory. I’ll borrow a quote from a news article that came out recently.  

PFAS are aptly named “forever chemicals” because of their nearly indestructible chemical structure, which prevents them from breaking down in the environment. These chemicals build up in soil, water, and even the human body over time.

Exposure to PFAS has been linked to various health issues, including cancer, hormonal disruptions, developmental delays in children, and weakened immune systems.

My issues here are both different than usual and the same as usual. The different thing is that a “nearly indestructible chemical structure, which prevents them from breaking down in the environment” means these chemicals don’t react strongly with other chemicals (and everything, is a chemical).  I read that as saying if they don’t react with other chemicals, or only react very weakly, they'll react the same way with the chemicals in our bodies.  So how can they be "linked to various health issues, including cancer, hormonal disruptions, developmental delays in children, and weakened immune systems?"  It has to be another “correlation versus causation” trap that so many of these studies fall into.  It sorta works like this: a researcher notices an increase in these “various health issues” and compares the rate of increase with various things until they get something with a similar rate (yeah, that's the same as usual part).

The same article states “Among the most troubling effects is the potential for hormonal disruption, particularly in men, where PFAS exposure has been associated with plummeting testosterone levels.”  Again: chemicals that don’t react much if at all with other chemicals are breaking down a select group of chemical pathways?  If they’re not reacting, how are they doing that? 

An editorial cartoon from Rubbernews - found by web search for "forever chemicals."