Was I prescient or what? Sperm counts and testosterone. Western Christmas

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There is a big explosion in Tyumen, Russia, east of the Urals.  Guess who lives there?  A number of non-Russian groups.

One can only imagine they are treated terribly. The Russians have usually treated Ukrainians badly. They starved us with the Holodomor, about which everybody knows. There was a previous starvation just after the revolution about which nobody talks anymore. They treated the Eastern European satellites badly between the war and the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Chechens fought back in the 1990s. One can only imagine that the other tribal people, far in the interior, with few outside connections, were treated terribly. Unknown, and as far as they were from any other country, they could not have had much hope. Nuclear physics polymath Richard Feynman chose Tannu Tuva as the most remote place on earth. The 1991 book “Tuva or Bust” describes his efforts to learn about the language and the place.

But… the enemy of my enemy is my friend. These downtrodden, unwilling subjects of the Slavic majority, now have a friend. They are useful in Ukraine’s battle against the Russians. Ukraine has the intelligence capability to seek out Russia’s weak spots and devise plans to exploit them. They have been successful in recruiting accomplices.

If the Russians suppose these traditional people are the only natives to get restless, they will be proven very wrong as they try to incorporate Ukraine. As the Russians sorely remember, we wrote the book on how to get even in Soviet times. The update is in press.

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Completing my review of Noble Savages, I had to reflect that if nothing else these guys have testosterone. It caused a lot of trouble. What they do with it bothers the hell out of female anthropologists. But it keeps them from going extinct.

What about us?  A couple of weeks ago subscriber Romanos put me onto Shanna Swan, a woman who has deeply studied the falling sperm count situation.  Her explanation is that it has a lot to do with microplastics and agricultural chemicals.  I am sure there is room for EMF as well.  In any case, study after study has confirmed the drop in sperm count.  Moreover, the numbers are remarkably consistent considering the number of measurement techniques, countries, ages and so on.  They are all right around 50%.

I’m not a video guy, so I downloaded her 2017 article on what was happening.  Just the what, not the why.   Here’s an  article in which she explains her more recent conclusions about Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs).  It says “Thе chеmicals shе has bееn ablе to link most dirеctly to rеproductivе hеalth arе phthalatеs and pеsticidеs, whеrе shе and othеrs havе found convincing еvidеncе of a causal link bеtwееn rеproductivе disordеrs and thе “triazinе” catеgory of hеrbicidеs. Othеr rеsеarchеrs, shе says, havе found еqually incontrovеrtiblе еvidеncе of harm to rеproductivе hеalth from othеr classеs of ЕDCs such as thе bisphеnols.”

Today el gato malo has a piece on testosterone. It has fallen about as far, and about as quickly as sperm count. Today’s 20-year-olds are at a level comparable to the 70-year-olds of a couple of decades ago. 

It could be that this accounts for our plummeting interest in reproducing ourselves. There are a great many incels in our own society. The Japanese are overrun with soy boys. The prime age men and women that I know here in Ukraine do not seem to be in any rush to get married, and even less of one to have children.

El gato malo’s article is long and worth it. In his conclusion he writes:

in the meantime, many are probably asking “so what am i supposed to do here?” mostly, the answer is “take care of yourself in a manner your grandparents would have recognized.” you want the T your dad and grandad had?
o     eat well. eat simple, whole foods in reasonable quantities. balance your nutrition.
o     exercise regularly. you want strong muscles and strong cardio.
o     stay lean.
o     get enough sleep.
o     and do not put drugs into your body that he did not unless you have a really good reason and understand the trade offs.
o     being on 9 prescription drugs is not safe “just because a doctor gave them to you.”

Inasmuch as many people find jokes about “old people making love” distasteful, I will simply note that Marianna was born shortly before I turned 78. I think there is something to what the bad cat has to say. You younger folk need to play your part – there is no way in the world our species can depend on septuagenarians for its perpetuation.

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It is real winter. We have had snow on the ground for more than three weeks. The temperature dropped to 16°F this morning. Snowmen have been built, snowball fights have been had.

Further separating Ukraine from Russia, we are celebrating religious holidays by the Western calendar. St. Nicholas Day, when we exchange presence, was moved up from December 19 to December 6. We will celebrate Christmas on the 25^th and New Year’s on the first. I suspect that the comfortable traditions of four occasions to drink, celebrating Orthodox Christmas and “Old New Year’s” as well, will fade away.

Zoriana remembered that we had a real tree for Christmas last year and we made our own handmade ornaments. The kids want to do the same thing again and I expect it will happen. We are starting from scratch. Being petty, my ex wife Mary Ann has not answered my requests that she send the three generations of Seibert family Christmas ornaments that remained in the attic when I moved out. I doubt the Christmas will again ever mean as much as it did when I was a kid, but those family keepsakes would’ve been a good start.

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the good-looking woman is in a constant fight to keep warm clothes on the kids, the kids are in a constant fight to take them off to keep from overheating, and I am a constant fight to avoid the resultant squabbles and get them out the door on time for the bus. Coming back from school yesterday I was burdened with two extraneous pairs of gloves and an extra snowsuit. In the process of grappling with that nonsense I forgot something of importance – Marianna’s backpack.

Graham