that’s NOT love

Love isn’t supposed to hurt – physically, psychologically, or sexually. If it does and that hurt is routine and intentional, that’s not love.

the truth about L-tryptophan

Our word for the day: L-tryptophan (ell-trip-toe-fan).

It’s the supposed active ingredient in turkey that makes you feel sleepy and sluggish after that big Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Some like to refer to this post-meal drowsiness as the ‘itis.’ Well, the fact is that L-tryptophan is not the culprit of your feelings of grogginess, sleepiness and sudden exhaustion.

freedom and that OTHER celebration

So today is Independence Day where we as Americans commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Or we more commonly refer to this 4th of July as a day to reflect on our freedom as a country and eat a lot of barbecue. But what of freedom for everyone? History tells us that slaves (mostly blacks but a few other minorities) were far from free for decades to come. You may be thinking, “What about the Emancipation Proclamation?”

There is a common misconception among Americans that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with a stroke of his pen. Yet the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on January 1, 1863, did no such thing — or, at least, it didn’t do a very good job of it. Two and a half years later, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers sailed into Galveston, Texas, announced the end of the Civil War, and read aloud a general order freeing the quarter-million slaves residing in the state. It’s likely that none of them had any idea that they had actually been freed more than two years before. It was truly a day of mass emancipation. It has become known as Juneteenth.1

Can or should non-Blacks celebrate Juneteenth? Juneteenth is for ALL people, anyone who celebrates the basic tenets of freedom, human dignity, and equality. There were a great many white people who were ecstatic that slaves were emancipated. Standing together publicly to denounce today’s racism doesn’t hurt either.2

1 Gilbert Cruz, A Brief History of Juneteenth (2008 article from TIME)
2Abel Pharmboy of scienceblogs.com