Spin That

~ Clarissa

I’m fascinated, absolutely fascinated to know how the media will spin this as a bad thing:

FDA Commissioner Dr Marty Makary announced the agency will phase out the use of eight artificial food dyes in America’s food supply within the next two years. . . The Trump administartion will set a plan for food companies to follow in order to adequately phase out the use of Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3 by the end of 2026 and start using natural alternatives, which the FDA will approve or deny first.

Of course, this is amazing and an absolute dream but I wonder how this measure will be turned into the most Nazi thing ever on the news.

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Published by Clarissa

43 thoughts on “Spin That”

    1. I did not think I’d ever see the day.

      I saw that the weirdos piled on RFK for the description he gave of people suffering from severe autism. What anyone could possibly object to a discussion of the plight of non-verbal autistics is unexplained.

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      1. I have been observing that, it’s really disturbing, and… I think it has the hallmarks of a paid campaign.

        The directive on that seems to be something like: stoke up the existing tensions between the pedantic, high-functioning autistic-traits/Aspergers crowd, and the parents-of-profoundly-disabled-autistic-people crowd, and get them all het up and yelling at each other, so that the pharma and chemical companies who probably have some serious culpability in the epidemic… can tiptoe away in the chaos while their victims tear out each other’s throats.

        It’s not a bad strategy. Everybody’s naturally irked by the pedants anyway: they always say tactless things and fail to understand context or express empathy. Easy targets. Doesn’t matter that, whatever insensitive thing they said, they don’t actually have any political power, they didn’t cause the problem, and hacking them to bits won’t solve the problem.

        But… if there’s a paid campaign underway to displace public/parent anger from toxin manufacturers onto high-functioning autistics and take attention away from recent pronouncements from our new health czar, I think that means some really positive things in the long run:

        They are really, truly afraid of transparency from our health agencies re: causes of autism.

        They think, or know, that there is damning information there to be revealed.

        Let the sun shine in!

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        1. And everybody who has said for decades that autism is a spectrum (which it really is, unlike sex) has suddenly forgotten it and is pretending that it isn’t.

          I have a friend whose perfectly normally developing child suddenly regressed at age 2 and is now a non-verbal low-functioning severe autistic. She was very liberal until she discovered that she couldn’t share her story in the liberal circle. People would get downright vicious. There are many people like this who discovered that their very real suffering is unmentionable because it doesn’t fit some insane narrative.

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          1. It’s not a spectrum.

            It’s a bloody trash-can full of *different disorders* with vaguely similar symptoms, that’ve all been lumped together to make sure nobody can ever pin down the causes.

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            1. True. I have many neurodivergent traits that are clearly genetic on my father’s side. But it’s weird to group me with my friend’s son. I stopped referring to what I have as autism after meeting her because it feels mean and cruel.

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              1. Exactly. Similar with our family– I’m a “traits” person. Our eldest is a “many traits” person. Just like his dad. Who is just like his own dad, a numbers guy. Whose dad was some kind of pioneering research biophysicist with stuff named after him. IMO it takes a fair number of “traits” to tolerate keeping buckets of live squid in your kitchen for experimental purposes (not to mention a lack of empathy)… a lot of that is for sure genetic.

                None of us need any kind of assistive services, special school considerations, sitters, etc. We’re OK. It doesn’t remotely make sense to tag us and put us in the same squid bucket as profoundly autistic people who will need fulltime caregivers for life.

                But also, talking to other high-functioning “traits” people, we struggle with some of the same things outwardly, but internally: we don’t all have the same issues. Husband does the gross-motor-coordination problems plus total lack of social awareness thing… and I skew a LOT more toward neurosensory issues: poor sensory gating, intense single-focus art/informational obsessions, filing and categorizing, pattern-finding overdrive. All my sensory gateways are jammed on “open, no filters”, and his are, if anything, stuck on “tunnel vision”. He misses peripheral things going on in traffic, so I’m the better driver, but I will have a migraine for three days if I get stuck behind a tow truck with blinky lights. He likes roller coasters. I can’t even set foot in an amusement park.

                I was really quite surprised to learn that this is a very common dividing line *within* HFA. So we both are socially blundering numbskulls with absent or inappropriate body language, facial expressions, and social responses, and an exceptional ability to focus on the same project intensely for a very long time… but there’s a huge amount of variation in common comorbid conditions (epilepsy, migraine, eczema, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmune stuff…), and in the degree and *type* of neurological impairment/anomaly… and I think that indicates separate etiologies.

                We need to ditch ‘Autism’ or reserve it for the profound headbanger crowd. We need probably a dozen diagnoses to replace that: sensory processing disorders, default mode network impairment, neural hyperconnection, methylation disorders, mitochondrial impairment…

                I think if we did a better job at teasing out baseline dysfunctions instead of just describing symptoms, we’d have a real shot at treatment and prevention.

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              2. The problem is that people get attached to autism or neurodivergence as an identity label. These are, of course, people with the gentlest symptoms because those who have more onerous traits know that there’s nothing cute about them. The “slightly socially awkward” crowd goes nuts every time one suggests that their suffering is not remotely as bad as that of people with severe autism. I saw endless comments on social media where people responded to RFK’s statement with “me, me, me.” I pay taxes! I have a family! I achieved this and that! Ergo, RFK is lying and non-verbal autistics are a myth. One wants to climb on top of a mountain and yell, “THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU, DUMBASS!”

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              3. Yeah, I think some of that is genuine autistic narcissism and should be ignored as such. But I think some of it is also paid agitators doing some shit-stirring to make sure everybody’s looking in the wrong direction.

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    1. Kneejerk on that is: all the countries that banned petro dyes ages ago have oodles of evidence on the safety record of natural dyes.

      But of course, that’s not the point. The point is to collect your weasel paycheck from the junkfood industry.

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  4. Speaking of healthcare, I came across this thread.

    Of course, “she” (trans) had a big role in writing up Obamacare laws.

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      1. Thank you for pointing this out. Why are so many AGPs (autogynephiles) computer wizards or nerds or engineers involved with digital technology?

        This cannot be pure coincidence and I suspect there might be a PhD thesis waiting to be written by some intrepid researcher into the connection between high-functioning neurodivergent autism and autogynephilia, who knows?

        On a more sinister note, I read the invariably biased Wikipedia entry for Faulkner, only to discover that “Judy” is married to a Dr Gordon Faulkner, a pediatrician, and they have three children. They make it impossible [on purpose?] to ascertain what Judy Faulkner’s original name was and whether the children are from either partner’s previous unions with a biological woman or whether in fact Dr Gordon Faukner may well be a trans-identified female and a biological parent of the children in more ways than one.

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        1. The common factor is that these tend to be highly aggressive men with very pronounced masculine traits both physically and at the level of personality. So it’s not usually a quiet, shy nerd programmer but somebody in a management role. Or very successful in business. Or in the military. Or in politics. These are not “girly” boys. These tend to be very manly men. It’s a fascinating phenomenon that isn’t getting studied because everybody is terrified of the subject precisely because it’s driven by very aggressive, very powerful men.

          It’s similar for trans-identifying women who don’t tend to be aggressive, masculine types either in appearance or personality. These are usually very soft, physically and personality wise, women. Men with feminine traits actually seem very happy to be men, especially since they always historically had great success with women. The same goes for women with male-coded traits.

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        2. The only trans person I know was/is an Aspie who at 18 was getting contracts and a lot of money from big tech in the early 2000s. Worked for or might currently still work for Google. We lost touch not long after they transitioned.

          I wouldn’t call him aggressive but he was a *massive* internet troll.

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            1. I suppose you’re right. In person, he was very reserved. Saved the aggression for people he didn’t know, I guess.

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    1. Banning artificial food dues is definitely a good step. But I have also been seeing reports that various food safety inspections are being scaled back or eliminated. That does not seem like a good development for everyone’s health.

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      2. Food safety inspections, for decades, have been a tool for big ag. to stifle potential competitors: Do read up on the requirements for USDA inspectors for slaughterhouse/meatpacking facilities, for instance. It is completely insane, and if you can’t buy local grassfed meat in your area, good odds that’s why.

        Try this:

        https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/salatin-testimony.pdf

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        2. Nothing about the current food industry is working. We can all see and feel in our bodies that the food supply is crap. When I was in Spain and Germany this year, my blood sugars were perfect. I ate all the same stuff I do in the US. But the difference in that and in my energy levels was immediate. When I go to Canada, I always end up eating more than in the US because the Ukrainian relatives are desperate to feed me. And I always lose weight. Every time. And when Canadian relatives visit me in the US, they always gain weight. Something is badly wrong.

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          1. I have never been more lean and healthy than I was when we lived in Peru. Weirdly, I was even able to tan a little bit, which I don’t back home. That one wigs me out: like wait, our *food supply* is making me more melanin-deficient?

            But also, my ring size went down (this isn’t about weight, this is about knuckle swelling), I weighed less after having a baby than I had before I got pregnant (and I was not overweight to begin with), and I have never enjoyed food so much in my life.

            Things are seriously wrong here with our food supply, and anything that gets us closer to food like our neighbors in Europe, Asia, and Latin America have access to… OH HELL YEAH LET’S DO IT!!

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          2. Not to dispute the points that methylethyl and yourself are making, many Canadians have noted that serving sizes in the USA are noticabley much larger in restaurants. But I didn’t really notice it among family down there, except for the desserts.

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            1. We never eat in restaurants though. Can’t afford it.

              I’m sure there’s a role for that, but it may be an effect rather than a cause: the food is deficient an unsatisfying, so more is required for customers to feel satisfied that they’ve had enough to eat.

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              1. methylethyl

                Perhaps, despite all the horseshit about boomers. My late wife and myself were working class, and faced difficult times together, fortunate in having both being raised to fear debt. We underwent two periods of stagnation of the 70’s and again in 2007-10. Very serious recessions (depressions?) where the economy shrinks, yet both inflation and unemployment increases simultaneously.

                And in the back of my mind, I fear that the self anointed “elites” in the World Economic Forum fully intends to create another. For the last 40 or 50 years, whether supposedly liberal or conservative, governments in the West have deliberately ignored the will of the people. I mean does anybody actually believe that multicultural can possibly work ;-D

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              2. Methylethyl

                Sorry, I meant to say that we went through two periods of stagflation in the 70’s and 2007-10, far, far worse than stagnation because so many people lost not only their homes but their faith and hope.

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              1. Was it a Wienerschnitzel or some other variant? A proper Wienerschnitzel is supposed to be thin, but be the size of a plate. That’s not new.

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              2. I didn’t know that! The ones I make at home are modestly sized.

                Also there was this gigantic fish with a lot of bones. Plaice? I’m not sure. Exceptionally delicious.

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            3. Peru beats the US in portion size. Monstrous portions. It’s not strictly large portion sizes at restaurants (most people don’t eat every meal in a restaurant) that are making us so fat.

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              1. I didn’t know this about Peru. Always wanted to go because I love Peruvian food.

                But I agree it’s not restaurant portion sizes. Or not majorly. I cook most of our meals from scratch and that didn’t help. I am absolutely convinced that nobody can cook more of their own food than I do. We order takeout once a year. We don’t grab pizza on our way home. We are definitely not an example of outsourcing our food supply to restaurants.

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              2. Plus, they serve potatoes and rice with *everything*, and they put MSG in the rice. You’re right, I didn’t notice any appreciable difference between serving sizes in Peru vs. the US. But the food tastes a lot better! I still have weeks where I crave Seco de Res and antecuchos, and there is *nowhere* to get those around here (sadness!). And the tamales… we only have the Mexican kind here and Peruvian tamales are a totally different beast.

                I’m diabetic, the potatoes and rice thing isn’t good for me. AND STILL, we ate in restaurants probably once a week there (we never do this at home), and we both lost weight and were much healthier.

                And even though we cook all our own food from scratch and don’t indulge in junkfood at home, we gained the weight back and got less healthy, as soon as we were back stateside. The problem is on a MUCH deeper level than just toxic food dyes and stuff– we don’t eat those and we are still affected. I think it is at the level of agricultural regulations and practices: it’s how we’re treating our soil, how we’re feeding and medicating our animals, and how we are shipping and storing our food.

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              3. methylethyl

                “…how we’re feeding and medicating our animals, and how we are shipping and storing our food.”

                Yes, I mentioned that contrary to Trump’s complaint about the tariff that Quebec has on dairy products is amazingly precisely the subsidy that the USA gives to dairy farms. The other problem is that many American dairy producers use rbST, injecting hormones to increase production.

                And it is not only a matter of health concern, quality affects mouth feel, satisfaction, and probably the amount eaten. Frankly, Quebec produces some very superior cheeses such as the well renowned OKA. And while this old phart rarely eats ice cream, when I do I want something like Chapman’s that can still legally call it’s product ice cream rather than “frozen dessert” and the like. Science means measuring, everything, not just quantity but also quality ;-D

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  6. I don’t know who it will be pinned in the US, but I vaguely heard about this (Radio-Canada) and they presented that Red-40 thing as a good thing.

    Ol.

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    1. Terribly spelled post, even for my low standards:

      I don’t know how it will be spin in the US, but I vaguely heard about this in Canada (Radio-Canada), and they presented that Red-40 banning thing as a good development. Now, they also said that this is only the tip of the iceberg of all the things that go wrong in the US food industry.

      Ol.

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  7. Spin by definition means distract.

    From Feudalism to the UN: How International Law Recreates Medieval Structures to Contain Jewish Sovereignty

    UN Resolutions like 242, 338, 446, and 2334 reflect an imperial logic that attempts to redefine Jewish sovereignty not on the basis of national independence, but on external moral frameworks crafted by global elites. Much like the Church tried to reassert its medieval authority over populations moving toward emancipation and civic equality, the post-1967 international community—through the UN—often acts as a neo-medieval power bloc, trying to re-feudalize Jewish national rights. Through the propaganda of “International Law” the UN seeks to redefine the Jewish People as Feudal subjects of the UN, mantain the protectorate status, and not acknowledge Israel as part of the Middle East voting block of “nations”. A political Apartheid policy directed against Israeli Jews.

    The Church of Europe once said: “You are not a people unless we say so.” The UN says: “Your borders, capital, and legitimacy are not yours to define. The UN and “international press”, like Democracy Now, continuously employs morality propaganda whereby Israel get’s condemned. The current war in Gaza serves as a fresh example. Oct 7th 2023 Hamas invades, inflicts a pogrom, killing some 1400 Israelis and taking some 250 hostages, an attack similar to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet the MSM propaganda press condemn Israel. The UN ICJ and ICC accuse the leaders of Israel of the crime of Genocide.

    The MSM propaganda press always publicly condemns Israel over the post ’67 “Occupied Territories”, and “stolen Palestinian lands” despite the simple fact that neither Jordan nor Egypt between 1948 to 1967 made any attempt to establish a Palestinian State. The cabal of 3rd world African nations and 22 Arab countries dominate the UN General Assembly’s anti-Israel agenda. England and France together with all other countries other than the US under the leadership of President Trump, refuse to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. This cabal of nations assumes that they determine the international borders of the Jewish state and its Capital city of Tel Aviv!

    In point of fact, neither the Western Roman empire after it expelled and destroyed Judea and renamed the land “Palestine”. Nor the Arabs who conquered the Middle East. Nor the Muslim Turks. Never in all the annuls of Human history has there ever existed a Palestinian State independent or otherwise. Yet the MSM propaganda press condemns Israelis for stealing and illegally occupying stolen Palestinian lands.

    The Balfour Declaration combined with the UN General Assembly vote where 2/3rds of all UN members voted that Jews have equal rights to achieve self-determination in the Middle East, these two ground breaking events set the foundation of Zionism to this very day.

    Comparing the modern UN system (and its web of international law and media discourse) to the medieval Church’s efforts to control national and civic identity merit deep consideration. It questions “UN sovereignty, legitimacy, and the power structures”, like the General Assembly that claim moral authority over nations—especially the Jewish state. Nations that do not even hold diplomatic relations with Israel participate in GA condemnations of the Jewish State over and again.

    The UN General Assembly often function like medieval hegemonies. Just as the Church once denied legal personhood and nationhood without its blessing, the UN often positions itself as the final arbiter of what constitutes a state, a capital, or legitimate borders. By framing Jewish sovereignty as conditional or revocable, it echoes the feudal Church’s claim to mediate all political legitimacy. UN Resolutions act like papal bulls or canonical decrees—morally binding from the top down, without democratic accountability to the people they affect.

    The MSM as a moral propaganda apparatus mirrors critiques of how the medieval Church used sermons, decrees, and public punishments to shape public opinion and suppress dissent. Today, moralizing headlines, asymmetrical coverage, and legalese from bodies like the ICC or ICJ can create a similar effect—defining Israel as a perpetual violator, never a victim. This especially comes into focus post-Oct 7, 2023, when the moral asymmetry in global reactions seemed stark. Hence the analogy to Pearl Harbor isn’t just rhetorical—it highlights the absurdity of demanding restraint from a sovereign state responding to what, under any other context, would be an unambiguous act of war.

    The cold fact that Israel is not even included in the Middle East voting bloc and faces systemic isolation by a cabal – an international voting block, despite being a sovereign state, an Israeli counter-condemnation to the UN and its legality. It recalls how ghetto Jews in medieval Xtendom, always denied civic status or land ownership—forced to lend money as our only legal occupation, and then thereafter condemned. Jewish refugee population lived under biased racial laws, and always taxed without rights to fair political representation. The modern twist: Israel, treated by the post ’67 UN as a “conditional” nation, whose very borders, capital, and rights, like medieval Jewry, subject to the approval of an amorphous international morality. That’s not international law; that’s international lordship.

    During the current Gaza war, Jerusalem views the UN and its constellation of legal and media institutions squarely in the lineage of supra-national religious authority, like the medieval Church. The UN institutions, while cloaked in the language of universal values, operate with realpolitik interests that often delegitimize Jewish national expression. Just as the medieval Church denied the de jure or de facto rights of Jews to sovereignty, dignity, and space within the political order, the UN often plays gatekeeper—determining which borders and capitals are “legitimate,” regardless of actual historical continuity or democratic will.

    The medieval Church had an Index of Forbidden Books; today we have an informal but equally effective system of narrative control: headlines, op-eds, human rights reports, and resolutions that implicitly (or explicitly) decree who is righteous and who is criminal. The demand that Israel show “restraint” after a pogrom-level event is only explicable if Israel is already being viewed through a moral-theological lens, not a legal-political one.

    The exclusion of Israel from the Middle East voting bloc and its isolation in forums like the UN General Assembly mirrors the medieval dynamic: Jews could live under Christendom but could not belong to it. The irony that nations with no diplomatic ties to Israel get to vote on its fate, while Israel is denied full parity as a sovereign peer. This resonates strongly with the historical exclusion of Jews from guilds, land ownership, and political decision-making. Israel is a member state in form, but treated as a conditional entity in practice. This isn’t law, it’s lordship.

    Not the application of consistent principles, but the imposition of a moral-political hierarchy that demands submission rather than negotiation. Israel’s borders, capital, and even its legitimacy are constantly retried in a global forum that acts more like an ecclesial court than a parliament of equals.

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  8. “The [schnitzel] I make at home are modestly sized”

    Probably soviet-era meat portions have something to do with that… kotlet schabowy (a kind of breaded pork cutlet) used to be the unofficial national dish in Poland but even pounded very thin it was never a big as a wiener schnitzel or Italian cotoletta (milanesa).

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    1. We call these breaded pork cutlets “отбивные” because we hit them with pallets to soften up the meat. It’s always a great disappointment when we first go to a Western restaurant and discover that a cutlet is not made out of ground meat. 😆

      Soviet meat was so bad that nobody could eat a steak or an American style cutlet. We had to beat and ground it to the dust to make it edible.

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