Kolkata’s Eco Park + Red State Birth Control by V. Tarico + Podcast

Cutout photo of da-AL next to golden statues of a woman walking a small dog at Kolkata's Eco Park.
You too can strike gold at Kolkata’s Eco Park!
Listen to today’s post out Happiness Between Tails Podcast’s homepage at Spotify for Podcasters! Find links to subscribe, listen, and share episodes via most platforms; from Spotify and Apple Podcasts, to Google Podcasts and Pocket Casts, along with RadioPublic and Castbox and Stitcher and more, plus an RSS feed. The full list of 50+ places is at LinkTree.

Not counting getting to Los Angeles International Airport, then futzing around there, the journey to Kolkata took 23 hours. Ignorant that a young boy with lungs strong enough to keep us awake the first 16-hour leg of the flight, we were fresh-faced when we checked in at the ticket counter. The second leg was a restless blur, as were the first couple of days of settling in.

Photo of da-AL and Khashayar at Los Angeles International Airport airline counter.
We’re ready and set to go from LAX!

Was it one — or two days? — after we landed that we visited New Town’s Eco Park? New Town is the suburb of Kolkata where we stayed at (more blog posts about that here and here), a whirlwind of pardon-our-dust burgeoning growth that includes new indoor malls, hotels, condos, and more.

My fave vacations involve lots of walking to look at amazing things between tasty meals. India is a heaven for vegetarians, which I am (more about the food here). We decided to walk the mile or so to Eco Park.

Photo of cows on sidewalk of New Town, Kolkata.
Pedestrians sometimes share the walkway with cows in New Town, Kolkata.

Strolling the highway there, we shared the sidewalk with a couple of cows. Someone explained they probably belonged to a nearby farmer. Later, another local discussed how difficult it is to relocate economically challenged people into subsidized apartment buildings when they and their livestock live off the land.

On the subject of where people live, New Town owes much of its current rebirth to co-ops. Families, friends, and co-workers pool monies to build condos. Construction crews live on-site. We passed one building that housed former airport co-workers, which they proudly announced on their signage.

Photo of a condo building in New Town, Kolkata. Placard notes it's owned and built by airport co-workers.
Family, friends, and co-workers invest together in condos.

Good thing most apartments and condos feature balconies. The impressive saris that all types of women wear run anywhere from four to six yards long. I don’t know how anyone washes that much fabric, but I do know that many people dry them by hanging them over their balconies, the cloth draping clear past the balcony below them.

Look closely at :52 and 1:11 to see what I mean…

Once we got to Eco Park, we were in for one surprise after another. With a name like that, I’m not sure what I expected. All I know is that it wasn’t a sculpture of a golden woman walking her golden dog, a historical recreation of a Bengali village…

Photo of statues at historical village representation, Eco Park, Kolkata.

Hergé’s Tin-Tin and his dog, Snowy… 

Photo of Khashayar at Eco Park, Kolkata, with statues of Tintin and his dog Snowy, by Hergé.

A mock Japanese forest guarded by mythical lions…Photo of fronts of lion statues at Japanese forest representation in Eco Park, Kolkata.

Photo of anatomically correct rears of lion statues at Japanese forest representation in Eco Park, Kolkata.

And a mini Eiffel Tower…

Photo of da-AL and Khashayar at Eiffel Tower representation in Eco Park, Kolkata.

Next week, we’ll go shopping for Indian wedding clothes!

Photo of psychologist/author/blogger/activist Valerie Tarico.
Psychologist/author/blogger/activist Valerie Tarico.

Closer to where I live, today’s guest is psychologist and writer Valerie Tarico of Seattle, Washington. In addition to her blog and her books, Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light, and Deas and Other Imaginings, she writes about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society for The Huffington Post, Salon, and a slew of other impressive publications.

Here’s her valuable encouragement and information for those who live in Red States (overwhelmingly Republican states that are inhospitable to women’s reproductive rights). Please share it with anyone and everyone…

What Every Red State Resident Should Know about Birth Control Options by Valerie Tarico

Some birth control options are 100 times more reliable than others. 

Unexpected pregnancy? Wrong time? Wrong partner? Wrong circumstances? Too bad. That’s the attitude of Christian Right fundamentalists, and conservative politicians who think that sucking up to fundamentalists will get them reelected. 

Most people—including religious people—including Christians—don’t think this way. But fundamentalists and their lackeys are doing their damnedest to make pregnancy the price of sex by outlawing abortion while also driving down birth control knowledge and access. If they wanted to, they could make abortion almost obsolete by broadcasting information about the most reliable birth control methods and making them cheap and easy to get. They could also fund research on even better methods, including options for men. Instead, they spread misinformation about modern birth control options, shout about risks while being zipper-lips about bonus health benefits, and falsely claim that the most reliable methods work by turning your body into an abortion factory. What does that tell you?

One thing it tells me is that this isn’t just about abortion. (See: Children as Chattel–The Common Root of Religious Child Abuse and the Pro-Life Movement.) Another is this: Spreading accurate information about birth control options is an act of defiance.

So here goes the list. It’s organized from most trustworthy to least, because some methods are literally 100 times more reliable than others. But first, some quick comments:  

  • With regular unprotected sex, 85 out of 100 couples will get pregnant within a year. Unless you are trying to make a baby, unprotected sex is pregnancy roulette. 
  • Bedsider.org has the most accurate, up-to-date birth control chooser on the web.   
  • No one method fits (or works) for all of us, and none is perfect. 
  • How often contraception fails depends a lot on how much effort it takes, how often. 
  • Lastly, apologies in advance, guys: Your non-permanent options stink; you deserve better. In the meantime, if you have sex with females you should know what they are using and what options they have. 

Implant (3-5 years) —The implant is a flexible rod the size of a matchstick that goes in the underside of a female arm. From there, it slow-releases hormones that prevent eggs from developing. It is the most reliable method currently available, with a 1 in 1000 annual failure rate. Another way to say this: If you used an implant for 1000 years, you could expect one pregnancy. That is because long-acting contraceptive devices like the implant or IUD flip the default setting on fertility to off making pregnancy “opt-in” instead of “opt-out.” Downsides: Costly up front if not covered by insurance. May cause irregular periods or hormonal side effects like headaches or sore breasts, especially at first. Upsides: Quick outpatient insertion. Get it and forget it for up to five years; quick return to normal fertility whenever removed. Safe for smokers, people with hypertension, and diabetics. Ok while breastfeeding. Bonus health benefits: May reduce PMS, depression, or endometriosis symptoms. 

Hormonal IUD (3-8 years) —An IUD is a T-shaped bit of plastic that fits into the uterus; it is the birth control method most preferred by gynecologists for themselves and their partners. (Some people even turn samples into earrings.) This IUD releases a local micro-dose of progestin; and the female body responds by sealing off the cervix like it would during pregnancy, an internal barrier. Like the implant, it has a 1-in-1000 yearly failure rate. Downsides: Insertion, though brief, can be painful. May cause cramps at first. Some bodies spit that puppy right back out. Upsides: Get it and forget it. Lighter periods or none at all, so good for athletes or people who suffer from anemia or strong menstrual cramps and bleeding. Can reduce endometriosis. Quick return to normal fertility. Good while breastfeeding. 

Vasectomy or Tubal Ligation (permanent) —A vasectomy is the only truly dependable method that lets a man control his own fertility. As in a tubal ligation for women, a tiny tube in the body is snipped so that gametes (sperm for males, eggs for females) can’t travel to the place they would meet. Both methods are almost as reliable as the implant or hormonal IUD. Downsides: Requires a medical procedure, and you can’t count on reversing it if you later change your mind. Upsides: One and done. No medications, no potential side effects, no repeat medical visits. 

Copper IUD (10+ years) —Thin wires wrapped around the arms of this IUD release copper ions that make it so sperm can’t swim. The amount needed is so small that a copper IUD can work for a decade or more as an internal, hormone-free spermicide. (I had mine for 23 years.) Once settled into place, it has a 1-in-100 annual failure rate. Downsides: Insertion, though brief, can be painful. May cause cramps or backaches. Usually causes heavier periods during the first few months, so not good for women with anemia. Upsides: Get it and forget it till you want to get pregnant or menopause kicks in. Hormone-free for those who don’t do well on estrogen or progestin. Immediate return to normal fertility upon removal. Normal periods for those who want them. Good while breastfeeding. 

The Shot (3 months) —The Depo-Provera shot suppresses ovulation–no eggs released to meet up with sperm. The annual pregnancy rate is 4 in 100—almost twice as good as the pill but a lot worse than IUDs and implants. Downsides: This is the only method with documented weight gain for some users. May cause irregular spotting. Can cause hormonal side effects like headaches or depression. Requires quarterly medical appointments. Upsides: Effort free for 3 months. Shorter, lighter periods. Works for people who don’t tolerate estrogen in birth control pills. (Note: Self-administered and six-month versions of the Depo shot are in the works.) 

The Ring (1 month) —A soft, flexible ring around the cervix delivers the same estrogen-progestin combination as some birth control pills. Out of 100 users, 7 will get pregnant in any given year. Downsides: Must be changed out every 3 or 4 weeks. Same side effects as similar pills. User needs to be comfortable inserting and removing the ring with their fingers. Upsides: Benefits of pills without having to remember every day. Lighter, less crampy periods, less acne. Monthly periods can be skipped if desired. Some protection against bone thinning, ovarian and endometrial cancers, anemia, and some infections.   

The Patch (1 week) —Similar in look to a nicotine patch, an estrogen-progestin patch works pretty much like birth control pills except you only have to remember once a week rather than every day. Like the shot, ring and pill, it keeps eggs from being released. Out of 100 users, 7 will get pregnant in a year. Downsides: Need to swap out weekly. Potential hormonal side effects. Upsides: Lighter, less crampy periods, less acne. Monthly periods optional. Some protection against bone thinning, ovarian and endometrial cancers, anemia, and some infections.   

The Pill (every day) —A variety of birth control pills offer different combinations of estrogen and progestin, or just progestin (called the mini-pill), which let people try out which formulas work best for them. Out of 100 users, 7 will get pregnant in a year. Downsides: Hard to remember—85 percent of women miss three or more doses each month. Potential hormonal side effects. Upsides: Lighter, less crampy periods. Monthly periods can be skipped if desired. Estrogen-containing pills reduce acne and protect slightly against bone thinning, ovarian or endometrial cancers, anemia, and some infections.   

Condoms (every time) —The condom is the only nonpermanent option for men who want to manage their own fertility, and it is the only method that protects against sexually transmitted infections. But as birth control goes, condoms aren’t very reliable: Thirteen out of 100 couples relying on condoms will face a pregnancy within a year. Downsides: Can reduce sexual pleasure, high effort, easy to get it wrong. Upsides: inexpensive, no prescription required, no side effects, protection against STIs. 

Periodic abstinence (one week every month) — Some couples, for religious or other reasons, prefer simply to avoid sex during the female partner’s fertile days. Periodic abstinence has been used to avoid pregnancy for generations; now a variety of tools can help to track monthly cycles or even detect signs of ovulation. On average, these methods result in pregnancy each year for about 15 in 100 couples, but tracking tools are getting better. Downsides: Requires careful monitoring, effort, discipline, and a certain kind of couple. Substantial pregnancy risk. Upsides: Inexpensive, no prescription or side effects.   

Diaphragm, female condom (every time) — Diaphragms and female condoms are barriers made from silicone or rubber. Inserted before intercourse, they block sperm from reaching the uterus. Around 1 in 5 couples relying on these methods will get pregnant each year, half again as many as those using male condoms. (My mom had five diaphragm babies.) That said, the female condom is the one female-controlled method that protects against STIs. Downsides: Substantial risk of pregnancy. Takes practice to insert consistently and correctly. Can irritate the vagina. Upsides: No side effects, condom offers STI protection, diaphragm reduces pelvic infections. 

No one method works for all people. Some, like me, have medical conditions that mean they shouldn’t take hormones (in my case migraines). Some have personal or ancestral trauma and don’t feel ready to have a healthcare provider put something inside them. Some trust shots; others hate them. Some can remember to take a pill at the same time every day for years on end, while most of us can’t. Some want lighter, less-frequent periods while others like their monthly cycle. For any given person, one or more of these considerations may be worth a higher degree of pregnancy risk. We all make trade-offs. 

But to do so, we need to know what we are and aren’t trading off. Everyone who doesn’t want to be pregnant right now deserves to know their options. How well does each birth control option stack the odds in favor of—birth control? The differences, as I’ve already said, can be huge: A couple relying on condoms is 100 times more likely to face an unsought pregnancy and a potential abortion quest than a couple relying on an implant or hormonal IUD. 

Abortion rights and sex ed and contraceptive access for young people are under siege in much of the United States. Some Christians and politicians think the price of sex should be pregnancy roulette and then parenthood, however unwanted or mistimed. Women are being treated like moral degenerates or criminals because they chose not to incubate an unsought or unhealthy pregnancy. In other words, the stakes are high, and spreading accurate information is an act of defiance. 

So do it.

What’s the best way you know to make the world a better place for women?

Eating Thoughts + Infidel753’s Vegan COVID Ones

Little K-D girl definitely loves her meat — and anything else her people are eating. Here she works her hypnosis… Photo thanks to Khashayar Parsi
Little K-D girl definitely loves her meat — and anything else her people are eating. Here she works her hypnosis… Photo thanks to Khashayar Parsi

What kind of eater are you? Writer, reader, whatever you do for fun (I’m working on my novels, “Flamenco & the Sitting Cat’ and “Tango & the Sitting Cat”), you gotta eat, right?

I’m sort of vegetarian — more pescatarian — more accurately hypocritical — but definitely not vegan.

Whatever one is or isn’t, I believe the thoughtful — and emotional — life is best. The idea of considering one’s actions, being honest with oneself and the world at large mean a lot to me. Particularly because I believe not being so causes harm, i.e., people doing bad things to themselves, each other, their pets, the environment. I’m no expert, though. The only thing I know for sure is that generalizing generally gets me in trouble.

So for the rest of this post I’ll stick to worrying about myself. I’ve written about what my pets have taught me here and here and here

For a long time, I didn’t really want to eat meat, but I ate it because the vegetarians I knew were so insufferable that I didn’t want to be anything like them. For one thing, they were awful to eat with, the way they’d badmouth nearby meat-eaters and discuss food in unwholesome ways. But as someone who too often bends backward to be understanding and accommodating, who am I to speak badly of vociferous vegetarians?

What I can say is one day I attended a BBQ. One where the hosts had purchased ribs as I’d never encountered them before; long racks of them, as boney and white-pinkish as mine! I can’t remember if I ate some to be polite. What I know is that very night I had a nightmare wherein I ate the little lovebird I owned at the time. It didn’t help that around then (in real life, I mean) it seemed convenient, tasty, and nutritious to once a week or so rinse a dead refrigerated Cornish game hen and dump it into a crock pot with veggies. How grown up of me — Voila! — dinner awaited as soon as I got home from work!

After aforementioned BBQ, the next time I rinsed a little boney pink-white-grey game hen — I thought of my ribs, my pet bird who was named Gumbie for her adorable putty green feathers, and the nightmare.

I can’t remember if I immediately — “cold turkey” harhar? — stopped eating flesh. Maybe I ate whatever was left in the fridge as it would’ve been beyond disrespectful to toss the corpse remains in the trash….

What I’m sure of is the convergence of discomfort woke me to the fact that I was foolish to eat meat only because I didn’t want to be like the sort of folks I could never anyway be.

It wasn’t hard to stop. The meaty meals I enjoyed had to do with the stuff on them, the sauces and such. And I’ve always loved veggies and fruit and nuts and beans and grains and the like. Good chance less meat would clear space for more of the better stuff, assuming I didn’t fill said “meat gap” with candy. That I could easily do as I love chocolate, but I didn’t. Not much, at least.

The first year, to be social, I ate a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches. I was taken aback by just how much meat some people consume when I heard lots of, “I would starve if I didn’t eat meat. What do you eat?” The trickiest situations were eating at people’s homes until I realized I should just bring a good veggie dish to share. As a result, I found people enjoy veggies a lot more than they think, so long as they’re prepared nicely. In fact, at parties, it’s the veggie pizzas that usually finish before the meat ones.

But I eat fish sometimes. So I’m a hypocrite. Though I don’t go out of my way to eat fish meals…

Eating is complicated. For all the health advice I’ve encountered, stress is hands down the worst thing for us. And eating can be super emotional. So if not eating meat is going to stress anyone out, not that anyone seeks my opinion on this, I’d say just go ahead and eat some, but try to do it with thought and compassion.

For sure don’t heap more of it than you can eat on your plate and then throw it away. That animal died for you, after all, unwilling as it was. And try to make sure it had a halfway decent life before it was led into a slaughterhouse or tossed into boiling water or…

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I recently stumbled onto “Infidel753: we are not fallen angels, we are risen apes,” a blog filled with so many genius posts that I asked Mr. Infidel753 to guest blog post here for you! The following post he wrote for us is what inspired my preceding aside. BTW, with all the quarantining, like him, between no social eating and exercising more regularly since now I do it on zoom without having to add in a commute, I’m now actually healthier.

Born in the United States since his parents arrived here from Britain, Indfidel753 blogs from Portland, Oregon. He’s been to the UK, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, Ukraine, and Japan, and hopes to travel some more. Though he earned degrees in Middle Eastern history, he works in something secret that’s other than academia. A blogging pioneer, he started in 2006!

An in-depth portrait of the author, Infidel753.
An in-depth portrait of the author, Infidel753.

Pursuing health in a land of sickness by Infidel753

It started with the pigs.

For most of my life I ate pretty much like a typical American. That included eating meat, with little or no thought to what meat is or where it comes from. But due to a long-standing interest in evolutionary biology, I steadily learned more and more about animals — including how similar they, especially other mammals, are to humans in many ways. Did you know, for example, that the other great ape species have the same blood types as we do — A, B, O, etc? In the case of chimpanzees the blood chemistry is close enough that transfusions between species would be possible, with individuals of the same blood type.

Around 2008 my reading made me aware that pigs, in particular, are at least as intelligent and emotionally sophisticated as dogs. This made me uncomfortable with the thought of eating their meat. Most people, at least in the West, would not be comfortable with eating dog flesh because we think of dogs as quasi-persons. But I realized that eating pig meat was no different — so I stopped doing it.

Over time, as I learned more, I extended the same principle to mammals generally. Cattle and sheep are not as intelligent as pigs, but they’re also self-aware creatures, and I could simply no longer blank out the knowledge that what I was eating was part of the corpse of a conscious being. Finally I gave up meat altogether. Even animals like chickens and fish seem obviously self-aware to some extent, and they certainly have the capacity to suffer.

And suffer they do. Most meat now is produced on factory farms, where animals are kept in horrific conditions of overcrowding and immobility, constantly dosed with antibiotics to suppress the infectious diseases which would otherwise run rampant under such conditions (and even so, disease is often widespread). Unlike many vegetarians, I don’t really like animals — they’re unpredictable, generally not very clean, and in many cases dangerous; I don’t like having them around me. But I don’t like the thought of them suffering.

But I still hadn’t grasped the implications for human health. If anything, I worried that eliminating meat might lead to malnutrition. I still ate things like eggs and cheese, as well as the wide range of processed junk that makes up so much of the “normal” American diet.

By the beginning of 2020 I knew I needed to do more. I had lost some weight, but at 225 pounds and 5’11″ I was still clinically obese, and I was about to turn sixty. That put me in the express lane to a stroke or a heart attack. I started educating myself about health and came to realize that animal by-products like cheese and eggs are probably even more toxic to the human system than meat is.

The pandemic was the final straw. It soon became clear that if you catch covid-19, overall health has a lot of impact on how badly it harms you. I observed rigorous isolation to avoid the virus, but I knew I couldn’t absolutely eliminate the risk of catching it. So I cut out all the remaining animal products and most of the junk food. It was, I suppose, partly a way of feeling proactive and taking action rather than being passive in the face of the viral threat.

I also became something of a fanatic for learning as much as I could about the effects of various kinds of food on the human body. Human anatomy and biochemistry are those of a herbivorous animal, not an omnivorous one, and our pervasive problems of obesity, diabetes, arterial damage, and a dozen other scourges, are simply the kinds of things that happen to an animal when it eats the wrong kind of food. Such problems have historically been rare in populations which traditionally ate a mostly starch-based diet with very little meat, as in much of Asia — but as prosperity brought American-style eating to those cultures, American-style health problems have followed. Conversely, among Americans, it’s vegans — those who eat mostly vegetables, fruit, nuts, and legumes, eschewing animal products and keeping processed stuff to a minimum — who statistically suffer least from such ailments. All this self-education helped me stick to the new path.

The results far exceeded expectations. By the end of 2020 I had lost thirty pounds, and the joint inflammation flare-ups and chest pains which had plagued me for most of my life had almost disappeared.

This isn’t a “diet” in the sense of a temporary program to be followed until its goals are achieved. It’s a reversion to what should be the norm. I consider it analogous to quitting smoking.

In terms of popular thinking and moral consensus, I think meat-eating today is about where slavery was around 1800. Most people still accept it as a normal part of life without giving it much thought. Only a small minority recognizes that there’s a serious moral problem, to say nothing of the health issues. But that minority is growing with time. There is, at least, fairly widespread awareness of how much animal farming contributes to global warming. But that issue is only the tip of a very large, ugly, and dangerous iceberg. Over time, I hope and believe, the reality of the problem will become widely understood despite the dense fog of misinformation, propaganda, and wishful thinking that now obscures it. Until then, at least I personally am no longer implicated — and no longer harming myself.

How do you feel about eating these days?

Guest Blog Post: Six Warm Piglets by Cecilia Mary Gunther

photo of piglets feeding

Warning: reality check, then Cuteness Overload! It’s not for nothing that the human star of the glorious pig movie, “Babe,” went vegetarian…

thekitchensgarden

If you were hanging out in the Kitchen’s Garden Lounge of Comments yesterday you would have read that a piglet was lost in that first cold night.  I found him dead on Poppy’s side of their quarters.  Being the Lady Pig Farmer is not always easy. All our focus these first few days is keeping the babies safe and well fed. This task feels mutually exclusive at times.

View original post 811 more words

Guest Blog Post: “Meet my Mbee…” by Akshitha Javahar

Hoping you enjoy Akshitha’s charming post as I do. Now I can add ‘cows’ to my list of topics covered within this blog! While North American cows don’t snack on dosa or chapatti, lucky Indian ones do! – da-AL

“Meet my Mbee…” by Akshitha Javahar

12988147_1198301216854183_1770488560_nghgh

 

There is this really cute calf that comes to graze in front of my house. She is actually my neighbour’s calf. I feed her bits of dosa, bread, chapatti or banana peels every day. Though initially I thought of naming her, I changed my mind later on when my neighbour told me they hadn’t named her yet. So now I simply call her onomatopoeically ‘’mbeee..” because she keeps calling out” mbeee mbeee” each time she sees me, cajoling me to give her something. As soon as she hears me calling “mbeeeee,’’ she moos back in response and comes running towards me. (It’s so funny! Someone should have taken a video of us !)She then licks my feet and I run my fingers over her soft head (she is really cute).But as soon as she has finished her little snack and she catches me leaving, she calls again..’’mmmbbbeeeeee’’ louder this time. I turn back and wave my empty palms at her. (Which means, I have nothing left) She understands the sign and soon she stops her moos and goes back to grazing. Today I gave her rice and rice water for a change and I think she liked it. I saw her munching happily. She even gave me a happy moo in response. Since she seemed happy I thought of taking a picture but, unfortunately, this was the response.

( Hope this post made you smile.)

For more by Akshitha, visit her lovely blog by clicking here!