P.S. As the prince told Gertrude, "arras me no more questions, and I'll kill you no more guys."
Love, Mike On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 1:45 PM Michael Godwin <[email protected]> wrote: > > A couple of people have noted that our message traffic on the big Winedale > mailing lists has dropped a lot since Thanksgiving. This is understandable, > I think, because 2025 was an eventful, and frequently stressful year, even > though a lot of us managed to get together and commune and share time with > one another, which I very much appreciate. > > (This is where Google AI is suggesting to me all sorts of bromides to > finish off this email, which may be a sign of how much progress AI still > needs to make in guessing what I might want to say!) > > I do have a couple of things I want to share, though. > > (a) HAMNET, which I first heard about as a novel from other alums (I think > maybe Susan Gayle Todd first brought it to my attention), is now a movie, > which I'm dying to see but which isn't yet in anything like wide release. I > think maybe I can arrange to see it this weekend--if I do, I'll report > back. (I know from second-hand reports that there's more of Shakespeare's > text in it than there is in the novel, and my thought is, how can that be > anything but good? Not that this is a criticism of the novel, though.) > > (b) I wrote a little essay that seems to be getting some traction among > those who read me regularly, and so I thought I might share it with you > too. See below. Needs a good title. > > ------------------------ > > Multiply 260 by 0.667, and you get 173 and change. One year ago, I weighed > 260 pounds (about 118 kg). This morning, I weighed very slightly less than > 173 pounds. I want to emphasize here that although I’m pleased with this > progress, it would be a mistake to say that I’m “proud” of it—the success > in getting back down into the 170s is attributable to the American Pharma > Industry developing suitable drugs to address (and reverse) problems > created by the American Food Industry. (My ultimate goal, if you must know, > is probably somewhere around 160–I’m five-foot-eight, about an inch shorter > than I was in college, so not too terrible a decline in height.) > What I brought to the table (so to speak) was my willingness to find ways > to afford medications that my insurance would not yet cover. It may do so > now—will check at refill time. If you want to know what role my willpower > and resolve played, it’s this: I made the decision to prioritize fixing a > persistent health problem that dates from my early 20s. Although I had been > overweight from time to time before then, true obesity itself didn’t start > manifesting for me until about 1980. For a long time I thought it was > something particular to my own life that had changed. (I had graduated from > college, was trying to figure out next steps in work and education, wasn’t > always eating the best food, started drinking more—alcohol is a great > analgesic, and putting on weight quickly tends to increase one’s daily > aches and pains.) Did I exercise? Why, yes, and I also developed > significant muscle mass, which was helpful in moving around a much larger > version of myself. (It should be noted that the rise in gym memberships in > the USA tracks the obesity stats—Americans were investing in working out > more *at the very same time* that obesity was on its abrupt rise.) > But what I was slow to recognize was that the same problems I was having > (fairly rapid increase in weight, increasing experiments with dietary > change in the hopes of reversing the lurch into obesity—experiments that > ultimately weren’t successful and that may even have made things worse) > were not specific to me, but in fact were accelerating through the U.S. > population and then quickly afterwards in most of the developed world. The > global stats showed that this was happening everywhere in reasonably > prosperous or quickly developing countries soon after this obesity > acceleration manifested in the USA. > The chief candidate as a source of the problem seemed straightforward, a > quarter of a century after 1980: the industrialized production of food as a > product shaped as much by applied chemistry as by agriculture. One reason > Michael Pollan’s FOOD RULES and other writing on how to eat have continued > to be current for years even as various diet books have fallen by the > wayside is that they shift our attention to, inter alia, buying one’s food > around the edge of the supermarket—that’s where the more natural, and more > recently grown, produce at, e.g., Whole Foods and Safeway, lives. > But while following Pollan’s prescriptions (I’m using the word > metaphorically—he’s a science journalist, not a doctor) might help someone > avoid the sources of the obesity epidemic, it’s less successful in > reversing that epidemic. For someone like me—and here I still hesitate to > share that for a long time weighing in the mid-200s of pounds signified > success for me, because for one mercifully brief period in the late 1990s I > crossed the 300-pound line—more proactive interventions, including medical > interventions, seemed necessary. Part of getting my weight to move in the > downward direction was bariatric surgery (in late 2004), which certainly > helped keep me alive long enough to reach the era of Ozempic et al., but > which, as is the case with most weight-loss surgery, was only partially > successful in returning to non-obesity … or achieving it in the first > place. (Childhood obesity is a major thing now in the USA and > elsewhere—earlier in my lifetime, it wasn’t.) > So here I am in 2026, weighing at least a few pounds less than I did when > entering college in 1975, trying to make sense of where I am now. The guy I > see in the mirror is visibly older, but in most respects better looking and > fitter than I have been for most of my adult life. But I also have to > wonder what my life might have been like if I had never had this particular > health issue … well, “weighing me down” seems like an appropriate trope. > I hope to make up, in the time I have left, the progress in my > professional work that I might have achieved had I been healthier over most > of the last four or five decades. But I should stress that there have been > a few ways in which my path has been helpful to me professionally and > personally. First, I really have done an immense amount of avocational > academic research to get a handle on the problem—here I credit my > undergraduate education at UT Austin for building in me the habit of > reading scientific papers on the regular, rather than mere journalistic or > other popular accounts of what the research may or may not show. I also > acquired a certain amount of persnicketiness when it comes to experimental > models, for which I should credit Plan II philosophy (at UT Austin) for > introducing me to Karl Popper’s work specifically, and the philosophy of > science generally. > My work as a journalist and as a lawyer has also made me more careful > about sourcing what I post or publish, which is all to the good, even when > the topic in question is not food or medicine or even science generally. > But most important, I think, is that my inability to solve my particular > problems through application of willpower/resolve has made me more > sympathetic to other people who can’t just willpower their ways out of > their difficulties, which may be health-related or rooted in something > else. I listen better now, I think. Now if I could just trigger an epidemic > of better reading, better listening, and greater willingness to question > one’s own theories at least as much as one critically examines those of > others—that would be something I could really be proud of. > > ----------- > > That's it! Hope to see you all again soon! > > Love, > > Mike > > >
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