Brace for Impact

A couple of the phrases I remember from my Navy days were, "Standby for heavy rolls," and "Brace for impact." 

The first would be announced when the ship was in the trough of a wave. When the waves rolled through, so would the ship from side to side, sometimes violently if the waves were big enough. We always tried to keep the ship's bow (nose) pointed toward the waves, or away from them, but we couldn't always do that for a variety of reasons. And when we couldn't, it could be a real problem.

They would announce: "Brace for impact," when we were about to hit something, like land or an iceberg or another ship. This never actually happened on any ship I was on but we ran drills for everything and that phrase came up in some of those drills. In which case you would have to grab something and hold on tight.

It's one thing to standby for heavy rolls and brace for impact externally, but it's quite another to do so internally. Another word for this phenomenon is "worry." Or "anxiety." And it can cause real health problems. What does such internal bracing accomplish? Does it help the situation in any way? Or does it merely cause physical discomfort?

What to Eat

How do we answer this question, "What to eat?"

Do we look around for the latest diet fad and read the book? Do we sign up for one of the weight loss programs and let someone tell us what we should eat?

Here's an idea: listen to your body. Maybe it knows exactly what to eat.

How would you go about listening to you body? What would that look like? It might look something like this:

Kirkus Review of License to Ill

When you self-publish a novel, you want to find ways to lend credibility to it, a way to say the book is worth reading. One way to do that is to have a reputable agency review it. Kirkus is a pretty respected reviewer. Here's what they had to say about License to Ill. I think it's pretty accurate.

Two lawyers attempt to overturn Obamacare on spiritual grounds in this debut novel.

Jerry Riggs is chief counsel to the speaker of the House and, as a Republican, is exasperated with his party’s failure to effectively oppose Obamacare. He’s especially angry at the GOP’s hypocritical complicity: Senate Minority Leader Mack McCormick openly criticized the Affordable Health Care Act but simultaneously ensured its protection from legislative assault in deference to his close ties to the health care industry. But an unusual opportunity to attack Obamacare surfaces when Sebastian Vogel, an old law school classmate of Jerry’s, files a suit against the federal government, requesting a religious exemption from the act’s individual mandate. His argument is a strikingly odd one, not premised on any adherence to institutional religion but instead on a general spirituality that interprets sickness and health as states of consciousness rather than medical conditions: “We’ve mapped out the DNA and found that it doesn’t explain everything….Could that be because there’s a spiritual aspect to disease?” Jerry reluctantly teams up with Vogel—his New-Age conversion strikes the chief counsel as incoherent at first—because he sees a real possibility to strike a blow at an otherwise impregnable law. But when Vogel’s home is set on fire by an arsonist, the stakes become perilously clear—a billion-dollar industry has taken notice and is prepared to kill to protect its profits. Meanwhile, Jerry struggles with his own mounting health problems—overweight and underexercised, he’s developed a serious heart condition that requires surgery, precisely the circumstances that led to his father’s death. Wright inventively combines political intrigue, humor, and philosophical meditation in an unusually policy-wonkish thriller. The author certainly stretches the outer limits of plausibility—and readers’ credulity—but in a way artful enough that the plot never descends into outright absurdity. Vogel’s form of spirituality can be irksomely enigmatic, but he still delivers some memorable insights. The whole narrative is a kind of conservative fantasy—a spiritually inspired but legitimate way to topple Obamacare—so it’s possible those readers unsympathetic to the Republican cause will find it tough to be sensitive to Jerry’s plight.

A witty and refreshingly original political drama.