"If the love fits, wear it" - Listening Link

This unforgettable classic is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Sybil MacDonald, June 27, 1917 - March 22, 2010. May she rest in peace.

Sugar Is Preferable to Corn Syrup

A new study at Princeton University explored the relationship between high-fructose corn syrup and weight gain in lab animals, and found that corn syrup causes far more weight gain than regular table sugar.

High-fructose corn syrup is found in a "wide range of foods and beverages, including fruit juice, soda, cereal, bread, yogurt, ketchup and mayonnaise."

Psychology Professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction said that "when rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board." 

Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup led to belly fat increases with a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides in lab animals in one six month experiment.

The second experiment showed that high-fructose led to greater weight gain than table sugar in lab animals. Animals gained a whopping 48 percent in total weight if they had access to high-fructose corn syrup.

This work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States. Abdominal fat and circulating triglycerides are risk factors for metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, cancer and diabetes.

These results published March 18, 2010 are now online in Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.

American Healthcare Reform ~ Historic Quotes From President Obama and Speaker Pelosi

“Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made ... And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”   -President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama

“We will go through the gate,” [Nancy Pelosi] vowed in late January. “If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health-care reform passed.”    -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

America's Most Critical Issue?

Healthcare Overhaul: This Weekend

Financial Reform to End "Banks Too Big to Fail"

The National Debt: "The most critical issue facing our country, Christopher Buckley

 Immigration Reform: Rally Today in Washington

War with Al-Qaeda: See bedrooms of boys, fallen soldiers killed in action.


This high-density resolution (HDR) photo site has beautiful photos to browse while, or instead of, despairing of all these problems.

Healthful Food at Movie Theaters? If Only ~

While refreshments at movie theaters can easily double the cost of movie tickets, most  theaters do not allow customers to carry in as much as a pre-owned bottle of water, let alone healthful food. What's a caring, health-conscious movie-goer to do?

Movie houses sell captive audiences ever-larger paper cups of soda and oversize packages of popcorn. With monopolistic power, they sell sodas, popcorn, tacos and cheese, hot dogs, chocolate bars and crispy dry chips to customers bereft of healthy alternatives. These are not good foods for employees or kids or for movie aficionados.

Movie theaters would benefit society if they would at least offer smaller soda cups and popcorn without fat as an option. It's a well-known societal problem in America that oils and sugars contribute to child obesity. Hot dogs and pretzels may be among the more healthful foods at movie houses now, but many customers often won't buy them for religious or personal reasons. Bottled water and nuts are the most healthful choices, nutritionists say.

It's time for movie theater owners and managers to wake up and take responsible initiative and work harder to offer us all a greater variety of healthful comfort foods. They're late to the party, in fact. If they offer good food, it will be bought. They should look at the popularity of juice bars. It is a disservice to overcharge customers for basic snacks and under-deliver healthy choices. If they continue to equate junk food with "fun food" they aren't helping improve nutritional challenges.

If only movie theaters would modernize snack bars and offer bananas, whole wheat sandwiches and sandwich wraps, bean dips, granola bars, oranges, clean apples and vegetables wrapped in plastic, dried vegetables and fruit, real fruit juices, yogurt drinks and dairy products. What a dream!  Starbucks could be a positive example to them.

Movie houses, especially big ones in the northeastern United States, have nothing less than a societal responsibility to offer foods with better nutritional value. Not everyone eats at home before a show, at least not in this busy, rushed society. Customers would prefer to make healthful choices. They occasionally watch movies during dinner hours and would welcome the opportunity to choose wholesome organic fare. Movie theaters should react positively since they are in the business of purveying food. Please let me know in your comments if you have noticed any movie theaters with healthy food snacks.

Lipton's Blog - A Must-Read For Computer Scientists et al.

Have to recommend a blog by Richard 'Dick' Lipton called "Godel's Lost Letter and P=NP." Lipton is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University now at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.  One of his posts, called "Is it time to stop malware - forever?" outlines the history of email, which is fascinating. Here's an excerpt:

In the beginning there was ARPANET. Of course before the beginning there was nothing, but thanks to Bob Kahn and his colleagues the ARPANET was created about fifty years ago. This was the first time computers could send and receive messages and files from each other—it seems so obvious today, but then it was a ground breaking application.

I recall watching with envy my colleagues, like Anita Jones, check her ARPANET account for messages. Since at the time I was not funded by ARPA, I was not able to get an account; hence, no messages for me.

Eventually, those of us on the outside, those of us without ARPANET accounts, decided to act. The key event happen during the summer of 1977, when Rich DeMillo and I spent two month visiting Larry Landweber at Madison. Larry wanted to get out of theory, he was trained in recursion theory, and get into some more system area of computer science. After many discussions, we converged on the project of creating an ARPANET type system that would connect US theorists together.

DeMillo, who is a great and fast writer, sat down and wrote a draft of the proposal in a day or two. For a variety of reasons, Larry became the PI of the proposal: he submitted it to NSF, he got the project funded at Madison, and TheoryNet was born. This became successful quickly, and led NSF to create NSFNET. Thus, we went from email for few—those who worked for ARPA—to email for some theorists, to email for all NSF scientists, to eventually email for everyone.

I have no doubt we would have email today even if Rich and Larry had not started TheoryNet in 1977, but they did create TheoryNet. And it led directly to NSFNET, and so on.

In case you want to know more about recent directions in theoretical computer science, you would do well to check out his blog when he posts. In it, you can read through fascinating entries to learn more about current and historical breakthroughs in computer science from an expert. This email pioneer humbly subtitles his blog "a personal view of the theory of computation" although he could say "Theory of Computation from an Inventor of Email, the world-renowned Computer Scientist, Richard Lipton"  but that would be far too flashy for his style. Reading it makes us all smarter about computer science.

New Dreamboat

What a nice dinghy! At $USD 160 million, this float costs more than the most expensive house in America, or is comparable if only in price.

The Oscars, Mitt Romney, Independent Directors, Healthcare, Inelegant Words

Maybe The Oscars are like books - "they can please some of the people some of the time, but they can't please all of the people all of the time." Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow.


Kathryn Bigelow  AP photo

Haven't you ever disagreed with significant others on the "best" movies of the year? Best might not mean favorite or most enjoyable. It becomes glaringly obvious to me with every passing year the Academy Awards are given for political reasons rather than entertainment value, which is subjective and individual. How else to explain the paucity of prizes for women's  issues movies while women comprise more than half the population and for children's and young adult movies - remember "Twilight" and "New Moon"? It looks absurd to pit prizes for children's movies against war movies, while horror movies get  such short shrift. At least there are now alternative Academy Awards for children. Maybe I'll  bring myself to see "Hurt Locker " some day out of a feeling of obligation just as I saw "Crash" (but didn't enjoy it). UPDATE: Barbara Walters on "The View" (TV) Monday morning said that "Hurt Locker" was the least financially successful movie (in relative terms) to ever get  the "Best Picture" award in history - "Avatar" would definitely have overwhelmed other contenders for "Best Picture" in that way.

Mitt Romney makes me angry. Why should a politician even be a politician if he incites anger with his words every time he speaks?

Isn't "independent director" an oxymoron? How can directors appointed by CEOs make independent decisions on CEO and executive pay, options and bonuses? Sounds like a conflict of interest to me. CEOs now make 250-500 times average pay when it used to be 30 times.

Whoever says America has the best healthcare in the world hasn't the experience to compare. How can it be when healthcare is unavailable to some with pre-existing conditions and not every resident is covered? Big Fail.

Inelegant Words we wish would disappear from the media: "tea party"and "coffee party" referring to political groups. Any more to add? How about "atheist"? (Personally, "blog,'' "iPad" and "ipod" don't sound too elegant to me).

Watch the Summit of Christian-Muslim Religious Leaders - Final Words

The Christian-Muslim Summit of religious leaders converged at the Washington National Cathedral Monday to Wednesday, March 1-3, 2010 and gave final presentations in this webcast.

In his Introduction, the Very Reverend Samuel T. Lloyd III introduced the Washington National Cathedral as a House of Prayer for all people, and reiterated his earlier descriptions of these "talks of reconciliation" as "the cornerstone" of all three holy books - Christian, Hebrew and the Koran - and saw the conference as "sacred work" to "restore relationships" with God and among humans. He called the restoration of religious relationships a "labor with God to heal the torn fabric of our world." The idea of this Summit is to create "islands of hope and promise" from which much healing and growth will come.

The talks in the program addressed the following questions:

1) How can religious leaders collaborate to support the diplomatic and political efforts to achieve peace and reconciliation?

2) How are religions and justice and peace inter-related? How can they reinforce each other?

3) a)In what ways can the interpretation of one's own religion trigger fundamentalism?

---b)In what ways can perceptions of another religion promote and/or condone violence?

---c)Are there ways to avoid such exploitation?

4) In what ways can peace be promoted by the practice of religion in the context of current social and political life?

Thereafter follows a challenging and stimulating discussion to expand understanding and commitment. The discussion and webcast present a rare opportunity to watch this public convergence of these leaders:

* Ayatollah Doctor Ahmad Iravani, President of the Center for the Study of Islam and the Middle East, Research Scholar, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.; Shi’a Muslim

* Professor Ahmad El Tayeb, President of Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt; representing the Sunni Muslim tradition

* His Eminence Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Vatican

* The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, Episcopal bishop of Washington

They were joined by twenty additional leaders to represent civic, governmental and religious organizations of "unparalleled global impact and outreach."

Sunlight in the "Land of the Midnight Sun"

"We brought this artificial sun to Inuvik because we're benevolent" : Tropicana ad

 A new Tropicana fruit juice company advertisement and commercial in Inuvik, Canada, features a 15,000 pound helium balloon equipped with 47,000 to 70,000 watts of electricity. It was kept floating and intermittently lit for about two days, and cost about Can.D.$100 to light each minute.

I suppose the week long project was harmless and gave them a special memory of January 2010. Do you approve?  Inuvik is one of the first Arctic towns recently featured in Google Street Views. Here are related blog posts links within a fascinating blog "Inuvik photos" chronicling life in the Artic:

http://inuvikphotos.ca/2010/01/15/more-on-the-tropicana-ad-people-looking-at-the-globe/

http://inuvikphotos.ca/2010/01/13/behold-tropicanas-artificial-sun/

http://inuvikphotos.ca/2010/02/27/tropicana-ad-debuts-in-inuvik/