EMPTY CALORIES

When people talk about liquor being empty calories, they don't mean there are no calories in it. They mean there are calories but no useful nutrition. If one is counting calories, the tendency then is to lower the food intake and just drink....not a wise move for long.

What Causes Cirrhosis of the Liver? Hepatitis C, fatty liver, and alcohol abuse are the most common causes of cirrhosis of the liver in the U.S. Simply put, many alcoholics take in too many calories that have no nourishment so they suffer malnutrition. Since the liver is there to process nutritional intake, one may picture a liver not able to do its job, overworked uselessly. It doesn't seem to like it...(my non-medical opinion). "The Department of Health carried out research showing a regular beer drinker, who downed five pints a week or 250 over the course of a year, packed away the same number of calories as someone eating 221 doughnuts over the space of 12 months"....."It also revealed the average wine drinker consumed 2,000 calories each month. Over the course of a year, that is the equivalent of eating an extra 38 roast beef dinners."--BBC News, Health 4-17-09

About the only thing you can do that doesn't overload you with calories is psyllium which has no taste and doesn't give you a buzz. Those are probably the main reasons it will never replace alcohol.

NEED VERSUS WANT

You can want and not need; you can need and not want; or you can both want and need the same thing at the same time. Nevertheless, in our society, too often the two are not given the discrimination they deserve. People want, often impulsively, and because they lack frustration tolerance, they experience only a sense of 'need'. A commercial is aired showing a lovely ice cream dish with hot fudge sauce, whipped cream topping and nuts. The weather is hot and steamy. The image flows into a fantasy of remembered coolness and creamy ice cream slips down one's throat. Suddenly, it is not longer a want but experienced as a driving need, so off in the car to the nearest ice cream server. Want comes in three flavors: important, can't do without it, and I'd kill for it. Need also comes as: I will hurt until I get it; I can't move on unless I can have it; My survival depends on my getting it (I will die without it).

Right now people are feeling confused and are anxious about joblessness, poverty, inability to care for their families, their own perceived failures rather than the company heads who have cheated them of salaries workers should have earned while the CEO's were slipping more than their share of profits in their own pockets. Wants and Needs become indistinguishable. Like a battered spouse, workers came to feel they deserved the punishment they received, the fear of the loss of job if they asked for more as Oliver dared (Dickens), and that they should be grateful as they are receiving more than they deserve anyway.

One important idea in economics is that of needs and wants. Needs would be defined as goods or services that are required. This would include the need for food, clothing, shelter, and health care. Wants are goods or services that are not necessary but that we desire or wish for. For example, one needs clothes, but one may not need designer clothes. One does not need toys, entertainment, gems, etc..One needs food, but does not have to have steak or dessert. One does not need glamorous trips, mall shopping, etc..

An important part of the economics is the distribution of resources or goods so that people's needs are met. This is especially true in times of scarcity when there are not enough resources, goods or services.

Many times advertisers try to appeal to consumers in such a way that the consumers feel they need certain goods or services when in fact they only want them.

Wants and Needs can be defined in economic terms. Brain Pops, Jr is a wonderful Internet tool used by many home schoolers. Their definitions are: "A need is something an organism must have in order to survive. For example, people need air, food, water, and shelter. A want is something someone would like to have."

With the above as background, it is easy to see how those who cannot distinguish between their ability to understand and guide their emotional selves would also not make a particularly good judgment about what they need to survive.

In actuality, you only need four things to survive:

* A roof over your head
* Enough food and water to maintain your health
* Basic health care and hygiene products
* Clothing (just what you need to remain comfortable and appropriately dressed)

Everything that goes beyond this – a big house, name-brand clothes, fancy foods and drinks, a new car – is a want.

COCAINE DILEMMA ON PRICE

BBC News has printed something that I have trouble wrapping my logical mind around. It stated: "UK officials said last week that the price of cocaine had fallen by half in the last 10 years. The INCB said prices would continue to fall unless the supply was curtailed."

Don't we want drug dealers to make less profit? My conclusion is that I am no longer able to understand supply and demand in the context of an illegal drug. Are authorities believing that, if the price of drugs goes down, more people will use them? Is there any evidence to bear this out?" This screams to me that it is time to invest in drugs while the price is down because it is bound to go up if we are to believe our government.

On March 9, 2009, The Guardian printed an article which stated: "Cocaine production has surged across Latin America and unleashed a wave of violence, population displacements and corruption, prompting urgent calls to rethink the drug war." On the 13th the following retraction was printed:
"We reported that production of cocaine had increased by 16% across the whole of South America and said that was due to increases in supply from Bolivia and Peru. In fact the regional increase, recorded in a UN survey released last year, was due primarily to a 27% increase in coca production in Colombia. Much smaller increases of 5% in Bolivia and 4% in Peru were recorded"

Well, anyone can forget that Colombia is the major source of the drug problem and mistakenly assume with nothing to warrant the assumption that Bolivia and Peru are responsible. right? However, we need to understand that we are fighting a drug war, as well as a war on illegal immigration, a war for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Irag, and a war against terrorists in Afghanistan (the only war with real merit, though not a traditional war, since we really don't know who we are fighting.) To the best of my knowledge, little is said about how we are fighting these wars, other than the Iraq and Afghanistan. CBS reports that despite the drug war, drugs are getting cheaper. Is it the goal of the USA that drugs should get more expensive and make drug lords richer?


MEXICO UNDER SIEGE White House unveils plan to fight drug cartels at border

"The $700-million multi-agency plan targets drug and human trafficking and money laundering and aims to curb spillover of violence from Mexico into the U.S.
By Josh Meyer March 25, 2009 Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration said Tuesday it is speeding hundreds of federal agents and intelligence analysts to the Mexican border, along with specialized technology, as part of an ambitious new plan to attack the powerful drug cartels and prevent violence from spilling into the United States."

On 3/30/2009, Marc Lacey wrote: "The cartels bring in billions of dollars more than the Mexican government spends to defeat them, and they spend their wealth to bolster their ranks with an untold number of politicians, judges, prison guards and police officers — so many police officers, in fact, that entire forces in cities across Mexico have been disbanded and rebuilt from scratch.

Over the past year, the country’s top organized crime prosecutor has been arrested for receiving cartel cash, as was the director of Interpol in Mexico. The cartels even managed to slip a mole inside the United States Embassy. Those in important positions who have resisted taking cartel money are often shot to death, a powerful incentive to others who might be wavering."

What would happen if suddenly all drugs were made legal? My guess is that all the politicians and others being paid off by the cartel will demand salary raises from their government jobs. The tragedy is that they will probably get them anyway.


"The cartels bring in billions of dollars more than the Mexican government spends to defeat them, and they spend their wealth to bolster their ranks with an untold number of politicians, judges, prison guards and police officers — so many police officers, in fact, that entire forces in cities across Mexico have been disbanded and rebuilt from scratch. Over the past year, the country’s top organized crime prosecutor has been arrested for receiving cartel cash, as was the director of Interpol in Mexico. The cartels even managed to slip a mole inside the United States Embassy. Those in important positions who have resisted taking cartel money are often shot to death, a powerful incentive to others who might be wavering."

Portugal made drugs legal and the drug usage has dropped markedly. The Netherlands also have a similar policy. Mexico drug war: cartels recruit child assassins Drugs don't make life prettier or kinder for most of us who don't use them, does it?

FOSTERING REVOLUTION: FOX NEWS?

Since I am neither a lawyer nor Constitutional scholar, I naively believed if you went public with pleas to start a revolution that it was considered tyranny and was not rewarded kindly. I guess I was wrong. Whatever happened to patriotism, supporting the President who has been duly elected, saluting the flag, standing up and holding your hand over your heart as the Star Spangled Banner is being played? When we forgot to pass out the Handbook for Illegal Aliens to Pretend to be American, we should have made more copies to go to all Republicans, as well. They seem to have forgotten about Unity, graciously losing, and patience. My guess is they are bored after the exciting last twelve years. With Clinton they had pornographic Congressional sessions. With Bush, eight years of trying to guess what the truth really was that they were expected to support in lock step.

While I am quick to criticize whatever I believe to be wrong, dangerous, and almost everything Bush 43's administration did, I never advocated Revolution. I just impatiently waited for the years to pass so that we could elect a President who was actually fit for the job. Now that we have one, too many people expect him to part the ocean of differences between political factions. While President Obama has made many efforts to pull Republicans with particular expertise into his Administration, too many have made themselves look politically rigid, like Judd Gregg did.

My fantasy is that there is a man behind the Republican curtain, acting like a Wizard of OZ, calling the Republican shots. Who might that be? Limbaugh, Gingrich?...probably not, because the curtain has not yet parted to reveal the 'Reverend Jones' who is busily mixing Republican Kool-Aid. There is absurdity in the tea-bagging, supposed purpose (too much taxation). Taxes have gone down for 95% of the country with representation. I also wonder if the people we see on camera are paid 'extras' as the ad makers against the changes in laws for same-sex marriage found.

L.A. Progressive believes it is Rush Limbaugh. Actually, the published comments are the most fun to read, as one wrote: "Flush Dimbulb and his sycophantic minions, are a scary group. He is a legend in his own mind, the Pied Piper of the bitter, and ignorant." It would appear the tea-baggers want the government overthrown. When last I looked, I thought plans to overthrow the government were rewarded with more than a slap on the wrist. I also wonder if we, the overtaxed citizens, are expected to clean up the mess from the million tea bags planned to be thrown in Washington? If so, I firmly object to their demonstration. We have freedom of speech, which dumping teabags does not represent. What do they not understand about the difference between speech and action?

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

"The diet and behaviour of elephants evidenced by the chemical makeup of their tail hairs shows how they compete with other species, researchers say.....That history is laid out chronologically in an "isotope record" along the hair. Isotopes are naturally occurring variations of atoms that are chemically identical but have a slightly different mass.
Different food or water sources that the elephants might access contain different ratios of isotopes of carbon, hydrogen or nitrogen"

Having been referred to much of my life as "pleasingly plump" I've worked with calories forever. I find they are not only in all foods ingested, but seem even to come out of the air I breath, especially fresh bread being baked and beef being grilled. Then I noticed that they fly off labels I read and quickly add a pound or two if I'm not careful about which labels I read.

Holistic nutritionist Gillian McKeith works with unhealthy eaters to break a lifetime of bad habits in just eight short weeks. The phrase implies: "The notion that to be fit and healthy you need to eat good food."

However, food is not only a giver of energy, health, longevity and endurance, it builds muscle, keeps a brain functioning well, and some foods, like garlic, emanate strong odors from every pore which proves quite distancing to some. Others, such as beans, promote flatulence. Refer to the Crepitation Contest Flatulence having grown to the heights of International competition and made its way into the movie Blazing Saddles, shocking some and driving others into gales of laughter.

Ethnic food habits around the world vary. Years ago the movie Mondo Cane revolted many stomachs within the theater audience as dogs were chosen for entrees, and all sorts of multi-legged, creepy creatures were used to feed hungry people, some enjoying many as delicacies...beauty is in the eyes of the beholder was never more to the truth than in this context.

Bunny Crumpacker, is the author of "The Sex Life of Food: When Body and Soul Meet to Eat." I assume that the food cells copulate and produce more calories after you have eaten them.

AMEN

For those who believe in miracles, today's rescue of the hostage, Captain Phillips, who had been held by Somalian pirates, might be seen as one. For the rest of us who don't believe in miracles, we show gratitude to the selection, training and bravery of the Navy Seals.

The media would like emulate Geraldo who was criticized for giving away so much information, he was giving troop locations away. The lay public does not have to know every detail of crime investigation, negotiations, policies in areas that would be compromised by the information being made public, and many other reasons. When people ask why the commercial vessels are not armed, they should listen to the many reasons it is actually safer that the pirates know they are not armed. There will be far less bloodshed that way. However, there is no reason there cannot be other ways to outwit these pirates, none of whom I have seen pictured look very old. Let's face it, there are cans of stuff that will fog vision, even temporarily blind. What if someone sprayed Nitrous oxide directly at a pirate, or some similar substance. What about booby traps on board ships. It would seem to me that clever minds could come up with many clever solutions other than making a target range out of the ships. Whatever is decided by law enforcement and the shipping companies, should not be shared with the public so that the pirates can be prepared for what they should unexpectedly meet.

THE BSO's SILK PURSE OUT OF A SOW'S EAR

There are those who like the smell of burning rubber and atonal modern music. , Tonight at The Boston Symphony Hall, those of us who have not yet had our brains evolve to like Messian, Carter, Berg or Schoenberg, the music was literally music to our ears. The Orchestra, under the direction of a most talented young Korean conductor, brought energy to the musical offerings that the pieces may not recognize in themselves. Shi-Yeon Sung is an Assistant BSO conductor who should not drop off the radar screen. Her hands move like those of a ballet dancer, graceful and smoothly, as does her body as she urges the musicians to put more and more into their playing....and they do it for her. She wore no tux, just black pants on her slim, feminine body and a navy blue jacket with three thin red stripes on the back and one on top and one on the underside of each arm.

As matter of taste and fact, the program was not spectacular, totally 'old chestnuts' as some may have called them, but the resulting concert was spectacular. The Sibelius tone poem (The Bard)started the evening with his typical melodic plodding, occasionally mournful to often energetic. Next was the Piano Concerto in A minor by Edvard Grieg. A Brazilian pianist, Nelson Friere, who started to play at age 3 and performed at age 5, played brilliantly, as musical geniuses are often known to do in concert. He was given a standing ovation and repaid his audience with a piano solo encore. Unfortunately, no one announced the name or composer of this lovely, delicately flowing piece, so I may never have the good fortune to hear it again..

We were treated to the Appalachian Spring, through which so many sensations are felt. We heard the Civil War, the sadness of grief and losses, and clearly, as days wound down, heard the sunset at the end of the day. The activity of the start of the day was an obvious contrast. Copland was calling with his music but it was not always clear, to someone not familiar with Appalachia, to whom or what he was calling. There were carefree parts like you might be strolling along on a beautiful day. Then the relaxed carefree spirit would turn majestic and structured, yet with carefree running through as Tinkerbell might, had she abandoned Peter Pan just for this piece. Copland soothes and excites alternately. He finished by extending a musical hand to offer a loving caress on the listener's forehead.

The final piece played was the Suite from the one-act pantomime, The Miraculous Mandarin, opus 19. Pomposity and power oozing threats and fear, aided by low, frightening melodies accompanied by lots of percussion thumping, lets one know that the Mandarin is in control and you survive at his whim. As with six and seven year-olds, there is a lot of "Look at me; look at me." While it started with the feeling that the listener was watching the Mandarin, at times it felt as though the Mandarin was watching and speaking to the listener. The sounds evolved to produce an image of a huge lumbering beast or ogre only to plunge into serenity after the tantrum. There is more dragging of feet like tired marchers, getting louder and louder. The end resulted in an appreciative audience who recognized that they had been treated to a very special evening of a potential musical ugly duckling turned into a sonorous musical swan.