Narcissism and the modern Western male

[frequent]

I've just finished reading a great opinion piece (by a woman) about the self-absorption of the modern male. Don't get me wrong; I like the look of a nice young man - Ruairi O'Connor topless in Delicious, for example (I had to be revived with smelling salts). But done to excess? I think not. Here are some memorable quotes from a piece that contains many witty observations:

"Young men are drinking less alcohol, smoking less and, oddly, having less sex, perhaps because sex involves focusing on someone else."
"Veganism is on trend because it is slimming and ethical — never mind that it makes you a bore at parties."
"We are witnessing a very 21st-century asceticism. No real sacrifice involved, just a new exciting set of powders and pills to order on Amazon Prime, while you have earnest conversations about the dangers of our consumer culture."

Read and enjoy - https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/...f-improvement/

[a447]

What a great article!

The comment about Lewis Hamilton "going 'plant-based' because of his fears for the planet" is particularly ironic, given that his job involves introducing enormous amounts of harmful carbon emissions into the atmosphere!

As for vegans, there is a group who appear every weekend in a downtown shopping mall. They stand in a circle next to a large banner displaying their beliefs, holding laptops depicting the cruelty we inflict on animals. How dare we kill them for our own selfish desires!

A month or so ago I was accosted by one of them - a pale, wrinkled, decidedly sickly-looking woman in her twenties extolling to me the virtues of her lifestyle. I immediately noticed that she was wearing a pendant on a woven leather cord. I then looked down to see what the protesters were wearing on their feet and surprise surprise - many of them were wearing leather shoes!

On pointing out the blatant hypocrisy, her only defence -after a long, embarrassing silence- was that they had all bought their leather products before they had embraced veganism and considered it a waste of money to dispose of them.

Hypocrites, one and alł! Some people have way too much time on their hands.

[frequent]

Hypocrites, one and alł! Some people have way too much time on their hands.

I thought you might enjoy this article on the organic food con game and all the muggins who are taken in by it - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is...ier-2016-12-01

[paborn]

Excellent article, but where do you find the time?

[frequent]

Excellent article, but where do you find the time?

Flipboard

[frequent]

Another twist, this time about those who think they can enforce what "organic" means: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/d...areburger.html. Summary - "The term doesn’t mean much in restaurants, which are not required to undergo the same rigorous certifying process as farms and food companies." I'd have rebranded the restaurant chain "Barebacker" but in the politically correct world of the New York Times I guess that would be unacceptable

[paborn]

There are frequent discussions in the US press about how certain we can be about what "organic" means especially in labeling. So much discussion that I've started to think that all Organic, in th US, simply means it is not mineral.

[frequent]

The best response, I find, to someone who admits to vegetarianism or - worse - veganism in conversation is to reply "Oh I am sorry". I do confess however to not eating meat every day, but that's on the basis that the health benefits of such a practice seem to have some basis in evidence eg. Michael Mosley's series "Trust me, I'm a doctor". Mosley by the way regularly exposes the foolishness of certain health fads. A recent one I saw was the craze for "Manuka Honey". It's been a wonderful marketing ploy by the NZers, but that's all it is from a health perspective - marketing. Manuka honey has no advantages over any other honey. I also learned that the optimal portion of meat is the size of the palm of your hand, which clearly shows most of us eat too much of it, and if we cook it in oil we should be using olive oil and not any other oil

https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title...ctor:_Series_4

[cdnmatt]

For diet fads, I always love when people are gluten free, because they seen it on Dr. Oz or whatever celebritiy.

[frequent]

For diet fads, I always love when people are gluten free, because they seen it on Dr. Oz or whatever celebritiy.

A friend of mine who runs a cafe in a Western country is utterly cynical about this fad (and the "organic" fad as well). He buys whatever he needs from the local supermarket, has a sign in the window of his cafe that reads "organic & gluten-free" (the sign is indeed organic and gluten-free), charges absolutely premium prices, is never short of customers and has never been challenged in the four years he's been doing it. When asked about his suppliers he taps the side of his nose and gives a "knowing" look