|
The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved. -- Marge Piercy, For the young who want to in The Moon Is Always Female. |
…accept that we have no effective voice in the way we are governed. We must accept the hollowness of electoral politics, the futility of our political theater, and we must destroy the corporate structure itself.
I’ve done my best to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup for years after spending a great deal of time in the sugar-is-sugar camp before the weight of scientific evidence convinced me that I was just wrong on the issue and that HFCS was not only unhealthy, this darling of the corn lobby is flat-out dangerous.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles campus add yet another nail in the sugar’s coffin.
A team of UCLA researchers have observed that high fructose corn syrup makes rats more forgetful, while omega-3 fatty acids—chemical compounds that research has shown can protect the brain’s synapses—seem to have the opposite effect.
The researchers, whose paper will be published this week in the peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology, trained a group of rats to navigate a maze. Then, they randomly divided the rats into four groups, and for six weeks, they fed each group a slightly different diet in addition to the usual rat chow: One group received HFCS in its water; another received omega-3 fatty acids. A third received both HFCS and omega-3s, and the fourth, a control group, received plain old rat chow.
At the end of the six weeks, the group that had been given omega-3 fatty acids but no HFCS was the speediest at remembering how to get out of the maze. The control group (no HFCS or omega-3s) was the second fastest, and the group that had received omega-3 fatty acids and HFCS came in third. The slowpokes of the lot were the group that had only received HFCS. The takeaway: HFCS seemed to impair rats’ memory, while omega-3 fatty acids seemed to help it.
In addition to the memory effects, the researchers also noticed changes in the rats’ metabolism. The groups that had been fed HFCS showed signs of insulin resistance, a condition that has been linked to diabetes and obesity.
And I’m certain that the corn lobby’s HFCS department has already kicked into high gear to smear the research in any way they can.
Chris Hedges writes:
Gamer and many others who study the nature of colonial rule offer the best insights into the functioning of our corporate state. We have been, like nations on the periphery of empire, colonized. We are controlled by tiny corporate entities that have no loyalty to the nation and indeed in the language of traditional patriotism are traitors. They strip us of our resources, keep us politically passive and enrich themselves at our expense. The mechanisms of control are familiar to those whom the Martinique-born French psychiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth,” including African-Americans. The colonized are denied job security. Incomes are reduced to subsistence level. The poor are plunged into desperation. Mass movements, such as labor unions, are dismantled. The school system is degraded so only the elites have access to a superior education. Laws are written to legalize corporate plunder and abuse, as well as criminalize dissent. And the ensuing fear and instability—keenly felt this past weekend by the more than 200,000 Americans who lost their unemployment benefits—ensure political passivity by diverting all personal energy toward survival. It is an old, old game.
The lesson we all ought to learn is:
Never trust a capitalist, never trust a CEO, and never, ever trust the 1 percent.
To improve my vocabulary (and my reading) I always keep a dictionary close at hand because I aspire to a Shakespearian vocabulary. Inspired by the new PBS Kids show Word Girl, I’ve decided to add My Words as an occasional feature here at Have Coffee Will Write. Today’s word is precocity.
PRECOCIOUS. 1: exceptionally early in development or occurrence (precocious puberty), 2: exhibiting mature qualities at an unusually early age (a precocious child) — pre·co·cious·ly adverb, — pre·co·cious·ness noun,— pre·coc·i·ty noun.
Many of the black community’s new political leaders were remarkable for their precocity. –Foner, page 358.
I’ve known the word precocious since a very young age, but I’ve never come across the noun form precocity before. As I consider Foner’s use here, I find myself wondering if he used it advisedly. What do you think?
Now why do you suppose so many people looked up the dictionary definition of marriage?
I haven’t been on my bike the last couple of weeks (really not since, 19 April, but who’s counting) mostly because I’ve been wickedly busy with students — 12-hour days for much of April and May — but I decided that enough was enough and altered my schedule this morning, giving up an hour of writing time, to get on my bike at 0530.
Thankfully it is now light enough to ride that early (we morning people really do hate Daylight Savings Time) and I cranked out my standard 5.05 circuit around Cumberland and Forest Hills parks in 28 minutes and 54 seconds at an average 10.4 mph. I now have 865.8 miles yet to ride in 2012 to reach my 1,000 mile goal.
On a related note, I weighed 194.4 pounds — a Body Mass Index of 26.4 — this morning. I’m now only 3.1 pounds away from no longer being overweight (a BMI of 25.9) and a piddling 6.5 pounds away from my goal weight of 187.9 at a BMI of 25.5.
The Briticism, shall I be mother? offered before the pouring of tea, confounded me upon my first reading. After consideration, however, I understood: lacking a mother to serve, another must do.
Since Mid-November I’ve dropped more than 70 pounds by avoiding foods I don’t fix. I grocery shop two or three times weekly; and cook three meals and three snacks daily. I enjoy cooking. I lack, however, the time or energy to produce whole meals in a single continuous motion. I do have moments, sparse minutes for mini-tasks: assembling the dry ingredients for oatmeal, measuring the components for soup or rice, chopping vegetables, poaching pre-cut chicken breasts; placing each into individual containers for the future me to pop open and add to pot, skillet or grill.
Such is my mindfulness practice. In these moments – time intervals we think too small for practical use – I Become Mother and dash off a bit of cookery; sustaining bits that together, accumulated sometimes across days, become real meals. I no longer drive home vacillating between pizza or lo-mien. Instead I cross my threshold to turn the heat on to boil an already-filled pot of water, rinse and add the pre-measured rice at the boil then set the timer while I meditate. My bell rings. I rise, fluff the rice, steam the broccoli with sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, add diced chicken, pour wine and sit for dinner compliments of Mother.
I am vulnerable to take-away foods and binging after dinner, but Mother completes most of the work by noon or so, and lessens my temptation to stray. June Cleaver is my goddess, her white apron my surplice.
To improve my vocabulary (and my reading) I always keep a dictionary close at hand because I aspire to a Shakespearean vocabulary. Inspired by the new PBS Kids show Word Girl, I’ve decided to add My Words as an occasional feature here at Have Coffee Will Write. Today’s word is Confect: To put together, to prepare, to preserve.
Still tantalized by the prospect of confecting a Republican majority from a program of debtor relief, economic development and white supremacy, party leaders advised freedmen to abandon politics (except for casting Republican ballots) and concentrate on “earn[ing] an honest subsistence.” — from Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner.
The Plain Dealer deserves credit for its handling of the five alleged terrorists caught (if not provoked) by the FBI. At least so far.
The paper handled this episode responsibly. Some restraint.
It made the effort to put the attempt by five people to bomb a local bridge into proper perspective without hysterics.
Of course, it also published the usual bullshit of Kevin O’Brien. It was the one aspect to mar the otherwise responsible journalism.
The front page article by well-regarded James McCarty specifically quotes Steven Dettlebach, U. S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, saying that the five suspects acted alone.
He quotes Dettlebach: “Let me be clear. The FBI and Department of Justice are not conducting an investigation of any specific group.”
That, in this context, has to mean the Occupy Cleveland movement. Not guilty.
But the infiltration and lead-on of the shaky five follows an old FBI Continue Reading »
[David, Getting Things Done,] Allen has come to appreciate why decide has the same etymological root as homicide: the Latin word caedere, meaning to cut down or to kill. “When we’re trying to decide what to do with our stuff or what movie to see,” Allen says, “we don’t think to ourselves, Look at all these cool choices. There’s a powerful thing inside that says, If I decide to do that movie, I’ll kill all the other movies. You can pretend all the way up to that point that you know the right thing to do, but once you’re faced with a choice, you have to deal with this open loop in your head: You’re wrong, you’re right, you’re wrong, you’re right. Every single time you make a choice, you’re stepping into an existential void.” p. 86
From Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney
Found in my electronic chapbook.
The tactical romance of Democratic Mayor Frank Jackson and Republican Gov. John Kasich over schools and teachers should have Ohio Democrats worried.
Jackson – for his own purposes – is helping rescue the self-wounded Kasich.
And he’s doing it on the very issue that Kasich dug himself into a big hole – the rights of public employees.
Any Democrat putting in with Kasich is double-crosser. All Labor Continue Reading »
Charles Wheelan could have made this point No. 10 or left the caveat off his list entirely.
3. Don’t make the world worse. I know that I’m supposed to tell you to aspire to great things. But I’m going to lower the bar here: Just don’t use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already. And if you really want to cause social mayhem, it helps to have an Ivy League degree. You are smart and motivated and creative. Everyone will tell you that you can change the world. They are right, but remember that “changing the world” also can include things like skirting financial regulations and selling unhealthy foods to increasingly obese children. I am not asking you to cure cancer. I am just asking you not to spread it.
Via Andrew Sullivan…
I’ve never read a Google advertisement. I find Google ads only slightly less annoying than pop-ups (does anyone else remember pop-ups?). So, when I read this bit this morning along with my daily does of Doonesbury:
Total advertising revenue of the U.S. newspaper industry in 2011: $23,900,000,000. Of Google: $36,500,000,000.
– from May 2012 Harper’s Index.
My immediate reaction was huh?
Clearly someone is not only reading Google Ads, but they’re also buying products based on Google ads. Are you one of these people? What did you buy and what was the hook that convinced you to hand over cash? I’m serious. Explain this to me.
Please.
I decided to do this to get out of my comfort zone and force myself to write.
I need to keep my ego reined, so I am giving the poetry away; the only copy. If it’s the best poem I’ll ever write, I’ll be letting it go with whomever requested it. I’ll be letting go of control for a change. I’m not asking for money, I’m not even promoting myself. I’m still going back and forth on putting my name on the poems I produce.
Powered by Wordpress | Design by Ash Haque
XHTML Strict | RSS Entries
