Reading the Bible

Many issues may divide us, but soup unites.

I’ve been working a lot, on various jobs, so today will be a short one. Here are a few things I managed to read before I started work:

Google’s Woke AI Disaster. In The Scroll. This would be funnier if it weren’t real. Google’s AI was generating images that were racially diverse but completely historically inaccurate, if the historical place and time might include white people. It gets worse. Read the article for yourself.

“Protesters” at Berkeley: Scroll down for the video and article.

For anyone who is wondering if campus antisemitism is real, watch the video. This is not a peaceful protest. This is mob action.

Protesters can be heard in the video shouting “Intifada, intifada!” and one attendee reported that a woman spit in his face and called him “Jew, Jew, Jew.”

I feel so bad for the young people on these college campuses. And I’m so grateful that I’ve made contact with the Jewish community at Penn and seen the ways they are taking care of their students even when it seems the world outside is against them.

On a different topic: Are You Asexual or on Antidepressants?

You gotta read this one. It’s well known that SSRIs like Prozac have sexual side effects. That’s all fine if adults make an informed decision to take them knowing the risks. But in the UK and I imagine here too they are being prescribed to kids and teens at alarming rates. And sure enough, Gen Z is becoming known as the sexless generation. The author of this post points out that when anyone questions if feeling asexual may be a medication side effect, they are shouted down and called acephobic or some such. While I certainly affirm the right of anyone to be as sexual or not sexual as they choose, people should consider if their medication may be having side effects they don’t actually want.

From the article:

In the UK, 1 in 3 teenagers aged 12 to 18 has been prescribed antidepressants. In 2022 alone, the number of children aged 13 to 19 taking antidepressants rose by 6,000 to 173,000. That’s kids taking drugs known to cause sexual dysfunction—drugs that the Royal College of Psychiatrists admits to using to castrate sex offenders—right during puberty.

And increasingly before puberty! In the UK, antidepressant prescriptions for children aged five to 12 years increased by more than 40% between 2015 and 2021. Aged five! Before they’ve even had the chance to develop normally! Online forums are already full of people sharing their experiences of puberty on SSRIs and now dealing with sexual dysfunction as adults. Stories of starting Zoloft at age 11 and never developing normal sexual sensation. Of being prescribed Prozac at 14 and not knowing what it’s like to have a libido. Of taking Lexapro for less than a month and still having genital numbness six years on. We talk endlessly about giving puberty blockers to children, which I think is important, but if we are worried about the chemical castration of our youth we also need to acknowledge the millions in Gen Z taking SSRIs during vital stages of their sexual development—and potentially being told their side-effects are a valid identity.

This seems especially true for girls and young women. In the US, 86% of those identifying as asexual are female, and 91% are aged between 18 to 27. Which is also the demographic with some of the fastest-rising rates in the use of mental health medication. Women and adults aged 18 to 29 in America have the highest rates of current depression or depression treatment. Women are also twice as likely to take antidepressants than men. In the UK, too, it’s young women driving the rise in prescriptions for anti-anxiety and antidepressant drugs. What are the chances that at least some are suffering from sexual dysfunction and thinking it’s asexuality? When we know that antidepressant use during developmental years can significantly impair women’s sexual desire in adulthood?

Y’all know I have a big problem with the massive over-medication of everyone. While I am extremely, radically harm reductionist, meaning that I believe people should be able to put into their bodies what they choose, I also believe that people should make their own, informed decisions. Exercise beats out antidepressants in every clinical trial, yet doctors never tell you that. Take a pill…

If you want to take medication and find it helpful, I support you. But beware of the meds only approach. Poverty, stress, bad relationships, and lack of safety just to name a few cannot be medicated away. If medication helps at times of stress, great. If you have an underlying condition, something I think individuals can decide better than doctors, then medication may be a lifesaver. All respect to that! But think for yourself.

Meanwhile…

I love soup. Don’t you? Tomato soup, clear soup, chicken soup, clam chowder, cream soups, bisques, gazpachzo, Thai soups, Chinese food restaurant soups, miso soup, Campbell’s soup, Progresso soup, dollar store soup, my dad’s curried zucchini soup, but most of all, my very own homemade soups! Where I go crazy (wait, that ship has sailed!) with whatever ingredients I have on hand.

I posted a question about soup on my Facebook two days ago and it got more responses than anything has in a long time. Soup unites us. And no one thinks I should put canned tuna in it.

I decided to consult an authority on the topic of soups, so I turned to a book I’ve had for a long time.

You guessed it. The Soup Bible. I found it for free on one of our free tables, but I’d never read it. It’s so great. I’m on fire for soup. Not literally on fire. Metaphorically on fire. It’s really scary that I feel I need to make the distinction.

Today I made a giant pot of vegetable soup with a can of clams, tomato sauce, and broccoli cauliflower blend with tons of red curry paste! Some like it hot. I like hot food, both temperature and spicy wise. I like my water Daenerys Targaryan hot. I like hot weather. Did I share my plan to become a tropical plant? Wait, I want to be a tropical plant but I want to go to Israel? “The waters? We’re in a desert.” “I was misinformed.”

Extra points if you can identify the last quote.