Pain, Pain, Go Away!

The habit of getting to bed on time, at 10:30, has eluded me. I know it's important to get enough sleep, but I'm never tired at 10 PM. I've been inspired to look at this a different way, though: I've begun to see going to bed on time as punctuality. Having waited for hours--no exaggeration--on Thanksgiving dinners at relatives' houses, having waited on my ex-jerk to show up to pretty much anything, having carried a coworker who'd often get to work 20 minutes late and then spend ten minutes making her breakfast, I've had enough. I admit that I often run a few minutes late. (I'm usually on time for work, but I do take PTO or a short lunch if I'm more than a few minutes late.) But now I'm inspired to change. The Art of Manliness site ran an article a few years ago called The Importance of Punctuality . Being on time, it says, shows integrity, dependability, builds self-confidence, and assures you're at your best.  George Washington was a s

Last time, I discussed clueless meddlers who misread, misunderstand and give useless advice on an individual level. This time, I'm looking at a few clueless meddlers who do it on a scale to attract media attention. Remember The Guy from CSPI, the vegan group that got saturated fats at restaurants replaced with trans fats? Food companies may now be replacing trans fats with something worse, another lab creation , according to Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. Here's The Guy from CSPI in action in a video from Fathead by Tom Naughton: Another crusader against fast food, Kia Robertson, put her nine-year-old daughter up to scolding a McDonald's CEO at a shareholder meeting . It wasn't fair that big companies tricked kids into eating food that isn't good for them, said daughter Hannah, who of course wasn't being manipulated in any way and apparently felt herself smarter than the other kids. At this writing, McDonald's is still selling Happy Meals, a

Has anyone run into this? A caring but clueless meddler sees someone with problems vaguely like their own and starts giving advice, which you know is off the mark. They're not the type of person who mentions once or twice how something worked for them, but persists even when their errors are pointed out to them. I don't see this often with diet-related stuff, since my mother and I both do low-carb, my meetup group drinks coffee and I avoid health subjects unless others bring them up, and my coworkers are mostly CPAs familiar with HIPAA and have work of their own to worry about. I think the last part is key: work of their own to worry about. Everybody has something they need to be doing--and ought to be doing it instead of creating problems from thin air so they can save the day. Robert over at Living Stingy wrote about the urge to save the day a while back. I might have quoted it before, but it's worth repeating. Before you decide to become an "activist&quo