[Freedom]

[alexr_rwx]

This morning: the traditional Turner Field to Lenox Mall and Back Home, about 19 miles, if you account for all the times I had to cross the street. It went pretty well! I slowed down a bit towards the end (and took a little break for stretching and espresso), but it mostly felt good. I want to do that same run a few more times before the race.

Also out today was an enormous contingent of ladies and dudes, walking a considerably long way for Breast Cancer Awareness, all decked out in pink and with cool accessories like pompoms, fairy wings, and cute ears and whiskers. There must have been thousands of people out, all ages, and they filled the sidewalks all through Buckhead. Very cheerful scene.

Now for foods. Oh, foods.

Oh, and I'm about to go learn about Freedom (well. firearms) with Corey varineb. It's probably good to see what people are excited about? Who knows, maybe I'll turn out to love shooting ranges? ...

Comments

[cola-fan.livejournal.com]

Classic run.

The 2nd amendment right is one that consistently puzzles Europeans and Canadians. The thought that anybody could be running around with a gun is mind boggling to them.

But it's written in our culture and Constitution stronger than most, that guns are agents of autonomy and defense, despite the probable higher rates of violence that we may suffer as a result.

[gtv42.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how having just one friend who's a gun enthusiast can change the way you look at it all. My friend Mark has a concealed carry license and several rifles and such at his house. He's promised to take me out to the firing range soon.

I now find myself disagreeing with my mom about the extent of 2nd Amendment rights. In other areas, it's been my policy to allow for greater freedom. Not to take away the guns of the people who like them and want to use them for peaceful, recreational purposes.

Obviously there is a great deal of misuse, but I'm more prone these days to say that gun violence is a symptom of deeper social problems. It's not that more guns is the answer, and not that fewer guns is the answer, but that the answer is somewhat orthogonal to that train of thought.

[gtv42.livejournal.com]

There were lots of people in pink at Ikea in the afternoon. I was wondering what was going on.

[deepdistraction.livejournal.com]

Heart disease kills 499,000 women each year. Breast cancer kills 40,000 women each year. I can't figure out why heart disease doesn't qualify for a similar Awareness campaign.

I don't like guns very much. But once I found out that disarming the populace is a measure often adopted in third-world countries, the right to bear arms made a lot more sense.

[gtv42.livejournal.com]

Long answer/guess: Heart disease has many incarnations, causes, and risk factors and its screening/prevention is roughly the same for either gender. Eat right, exercise, don't smoke, get routine basic physicals/bloodwork, and (barring the pharmaceutical management of conditions such as genetically-linked high cholesterol and/or high blood pressure) that's about the best you can do. It remains the leading killer of everybody. Breast cancer, while still stemming from a variety of (generally poorly understood) causes, can easily be detected in its early stages, and treatment at these early stages is largely successful (so that something like heart disease can then kill you {hopefully) decades later). Remember that everybody has to die from something eventually; I would suppose that the mean age of the half-million women who drop from heart disease is greater than that of the 40-grand cancer victims. Why devote time, money, and resources to save the old and those with risk factors leading to early death from heart disease when you can put those assets to work for younger women who statistically start having higher risks of breast cancer at age 40?

Short answer/guess: Boobs!

[lindseykuper]

I agree -- even though breast cancer affects far fewer, it's scarier in a way because we don't understand it as well.

[deepdistraction.livejournal.com]

Actually, they're finding a fair number of differences between women and men in the way heart disease presents. Two-thirds of women who die from coronary heart disease (CHD) have NO previously recognized symptoms. Chest pain is the presenting symptom in less than 50% of women with CHD. Almost half of myocardial infarctions (MIs or heart attacks) in women present with shortness of breath, nausea, indigestion, fatigue and even shoulder pain--all of which women experience more commonly than men, and so there is diagnostic confusion.

Because of all this, women seek medical care LATER than men for these symptoms, and are more likely to be misdiagnosed. Women UNDER 65 suffer the highest relative sex-specific CHD mortality--twice as high as men for people under age 50. Mortality from coronary artery bypass surgery--particularly among younger women--is DOUBLE than of men. Nine thousand U.S. women younger than 45 sustain a heart attack each year. And more women than men die within a year after a heart attack.

Despite the risk factors that AREN'T controllable (family history, age) many more risk factors ARE preventable. In fact, coronary heart disease is largely preventable. Hypertension (65% of which is undetected or inadequately treated), smoking (50% of heart disease is attributable to this), obesity (1/3 of American women are obese and this percentage is increasing!), physical inactivity ( regular physical activity reduces the risk of coronary heart disease by 50%) are all risk factors that are controllable.

It's not a question of devoting time, money and resources. It's a question of awareness.