The Pishtacos are Coming!
by Gary Phillips
There was this gruesome but, from a fiction writer’s standpoint, great pulpish yarn in November 2009 about a gang in Peru knocking off people for their body fat. The gelatinous goo was then sold for as much as $15,000 a liter smuggled out of the country for Botox supplements and European cosmetics.
Being a large-sized cat, I could imagine some heavyset guy or gal in Lima out for a late night chili dog or the equivalent of junk food down that way. You get your order from this cart vendor that just happens to be out at that time. Walking along humming, chowing down on your grub, you pass this alleyway. Suddenly two uber fit, triathlon-looking types in workout gear and rubber gloves get a hold of your corpulent self.
You struggle in that gloomy alleyway, only now the vendor has joined his pals and, as your arms are pinned back, one of them injects a narcoleptic chemical into your carotid artery. Stumbling and mumbling, the three heft you quickly into their waiting operating van, done up as if it was part of the fleet of a local ambulance service. Soon, after slicing away and vacuuming out your fat, your eviscerated corpse is dumped like yesterday’s trash and they roll away in search of new well-fed victims.
Indeed, this fantastic tale was said to also involve ritualistic killings that went back over thirty years. The outfit was called the Pishtacos of Huallaga, a reference to a fable about Europeans going into the Andean jungles to kill the indigenous people for their fat. Such was promulgated by a general in the police department, one Eusebio Felix Murga (great bad guy name, Felix Murga, going to use that). Anyway needless to say there were skeptics to his claim and he was transferred, some alleging he’d concocted this business to divert attention from other criminal matters the cops were lagging on dealing with effectively.
Big fat is big business. In this past Sunday’s L.A. Times, there was a piece about a company called Allergan—though again, a lovely ominous name like something out of a Ursula K. Le Guin or Frank Herbert sci-fi novel. Allergan markets Botox, breast implants, eyelash lengthener and the Lap-Band weight loss device, a kind of high tech rubber tube, which is an alternative to gastric bypass surgery or stomach stapling. According to the HowStuffWorks website, the Lap-Band works thusly:
The device is a band made of silicone rubber that wraps around the [top portion of the] stomach. Inside the band are small silicone balloons. There is a tube connecting the balloons to a adjustment port that is located under the skin. To “tighten” the band, saline solution is injected into the port and fills the balloons, applying pressure to the stomach. The pressure shrinks the stomach’s capacity, meaning the Lap-Band wearer cannot eat as much. Since there are no cuts or staples in the stomach, the effects of the system are reversible if necessary.
Reversible meaning that if I wanted that chili dog at midnight, can I twist a knob to back off some of the saline solution, loosening my stomach? Maybe the dial could have notches on the dial marked “double cheeseburger” and “large French fries.” I suppose that would be self-defeating. Nor is the Lap-Band trouble free, given the article also related that in Europe some Lap-Banders have had band erosion, slippage and leakage. Jeez. Drastic measures, as the Lap-Band doctors will warn, are not to be used lightly. This is a risky shortcut for only the most in need, and following a proper diet and exercise are better ways to control one’s weight. Pumping iron in moderation is not only beneficial to your health but may correlate to a liberal vs. conservative outlook as well.
According to a paper by Aaron Sell, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, “Formidability and the Logic of Human Anger,” stronger men (but not stronger women) viewed themselves as winning conflicts, believe in physical force as a tool for resolving interpersonal and international conflicts, feel entitled to better treatment and anger easily. For the women, it was prettier women who shared these traits. In the words of the researchers from the paper’s abstract, “... predictions were confirmed. Consistent with an evolutionary analysis, the effect of strength on anger was greater for men and the effect of attractiveness on anger was greater for women.”
The researchers reached these conclusions based on 343 students they used as their subjects in a gym. The students answered questions about their history of violence, fondness for aggressions and so on. I don’t know if the researchers factored the possible use of steroids or other muscle and recovery drugs by their participants, or for that matter how much Red Bull they drink, but that might play a role in the aggressiveness quotient. Also, some dude who can dead lift 320 pounds doesn’t stand much of a chance against an accomplished martial artist built like Jet Li—so their notion of strength is limited. It just might be that weightlifters are an over-compensating bunch.
So does this albeit not exactly a cross-sectional study undergird a theory of the limp-wristed, yoga-indulging, jogging liberals being mentally aggressive while their conservative counterparts are knuckle-draggers who rely on their fists more than their wits?
Well, another study by neurologist Geraint Rees from this past December at the University of College London determined that conservatives’ brains have larger amygdalas than liberals’ brains. Amygdalas are where fear and other primal emotions reside. He also found from his look at 90 student brains and two members of Parliament, that conservatives had a smaller anterior cingulate, the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.
Said Rees, “It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes." He did note that since these were adult brains he studied, he was curious as to what came first, the hardwiring or the political attitude that affected the brain’s physical landscape.
Assuming Rees isn’t having one up on us like Murga, I’m thinking the schlubs who triumphed, the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, should take a lesson from the Wall Streeters, and create secret gatherings for themselves in the fashion of the Bohemian Grove where capitalists go to play and plan. There they could hatch a long-term scheme where the overweight and undernourished geekazoids wouldn’t waste their times pursuing the prettier, angrier, self-absorbed girls, but the bench-pressing ones.
They would breed a race of Octobrianas (for the background on this 1960s Eastern Bloc underground comics legend, click here), massively fit Amazons who can do advanced trigonometry problems while field stripping their assault rifles. It will be they who will lead the charge against the jack-booted oppressor and the fat stealing pishtacos who do their bidding.
Yaaaaa!
Comments
No comments.
RSS Feed