1864 The politically correct diet

The other night a group from church got together for dessert after a funeral. I brought my sugar free apple pie and warned everyone it had a peanut oil crust, just in case someone was allergic. Of course, no one our age is, so we talked about that. No one remembered food allergies among our peers when we were children. And most of us knew very few overweight children. None of our children or their friends had allergies to peanuts, and everyone seemed to live on peanut butter sandwiches, although some had had allergies to eggs or milk.

Are we being too careful about our food? I grew up drinking whole milk, but very few whole grains, solid margarine and occasionally butter, pie crusts made with lard, bacon and eggs, beef, chicken and pork, but almost no fish, home canned fruits and vegetables from the garden plus factory canned, but not a lot of off season fresh items and no frozen foods, lots of potatoes and pasta, real sugar, real peanut butter and real cheese (well, except for Velvetta). We might have had ice cream once a month, and soda pop twice a year, but lots of Kool-aid. I can’t think of anything I ate other than bananas that was imported, unless it was the occasional shredded coconut on a cake.

We didn’t have vitamin supplements but when we were little we did get cod liver oil drops. I suppose most of my peers were consuming about the same diet, some with less meat and less milk (I would notice when I ate dinner at a friend‘s house that some had much less variety). Our mothers were the first generation to benefit from time saving “convenience” foods like Spam, Jell-o and store bought white bread--which weren‘t exactly powerhouses of nutrition.

By the time I was in high school I think 2% milk was in the dairy case, Crisco had replaced lard, and “oleo” was colored to look like butter. The only beverage machine in our high school had USDA surplus milk. Going out with friends brought me in contact with more soda, but really I never developed a taste for it or for alcohol. Hot dogs, hamburgers and French fries were available at drive-ins, but were only as “fast” as slow food is today.

I recently came across a web page about Canola oil and its history. I haven’t researched it, but its track record probably follows what has happened to our diet which now contains more olive oil, soy bean oil, corn oil, peanut oil and canola oil and far less animal fat, but we sure aren’t any healthier for it, are we? In fact, low fat diets are dangerous for growing children. And we’re certainly not thinner!

There is no Canola plant. Canola oil is rape seed oil. Well, that’s a toughy to market, and it was produced primarily in Canada by Cargill as Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed, or LEAR oil. Canada Oil was renamed Canola which sounded a bit like "can do" and "payola," both positive phrases in marketing lingo. However, the new name did not come into widespread use until the early 1990s. Read The Great Con-ola which points out there are many ridiculous stories circulating about the dangers of canola. But it does show how cleverly new foods are marketed to the health conscious consumer--who will just about swallow anything in the name of “healthy.”

Technorati tags: food allergies, canola oil

1863 Sleepless nights

Librarians Against Bush (that's most of them) have many sleepness nights worrying about the Patriot Act. The average ordinary American doesn't walk into a library, but I guess someone thinks the terrorists will and then the Bush folks will come snooping and looking at their records. Well, those librarians ought to go pull the Journal of Biomedical Information (2004;37:179-92) off the shelf and read the article by Malin and Sweeny. There is no anonymity or confidentiality or secure records. It's too late to close the barn door.

The article concerns your own health information--something most of us guard a little more carefully than our library record. In this study on database security, the authors took publicly available and de-identified hospital-discharge data from Illinois (from 1990-1997) and combined them with Census data and voter-registration data to identify patients with rare genetic diseases. They showed that 33% of patients with cystic fibrosis could be re-identified, as could 50% of patients with Huntington's disease, 70% of patients with Fanconi's anemia, and 100% of patients with Refsum's disease (very rare).

Although they focused on rare diseases, the avilability of increasing amounts of health information makes everyone rare in some ways, says the New England Journal of Medicine. Earlier they had obtained the health records of a former governor with the use of the most common of data--hospital information about state employees, who were identified only by ZIP Code, sex, and date of birth published by the state's insurance commission. Using a voter-registration list ($20), the author identified 3 persons with the same date of birth and sex as the governor, only one who had the same ZIP.

Think of the mischief that could be created by identifying people with mental illnesses, drug problems, and sexually transmitted diseases. Now throw into the mix DNA genetic sequence data which you might be asked to agree to share for a research study, and you've just added in your entire family, extended family and others who might not be happy that you've shared.

NEJM offers some suggestions for policy makers and legislators. I wish them luck.

Technorati tags: medical records, confidentiality, biomedical information

1862 Blogs are still a mystery to many

In the last 5 days I've explained to 5 or 6 people what a blog is, and given them my URL, but I can see the "Huh?" look in their eyes. My sister says that Diane Reams on NPR interviewed a blogger yesterday; today's Wall Street Journal has an article about tech bloggers, who are much less political than the red/blue, pro/anti-life, young/old splits you see on my links. Here's a link to the article.

"The reality is that while there are now as many tech blogs as stars in the sky, only a tiny fraction of them matter."

"The easiest way to follow this world is via a useful blog-tracking service called tech.memeorandum.com. The site runs off software written by Gabe Rivera, a former Intel compiler programmer. It sifts through hundreds of technology-oriented blogs to find the hour's hot topics and who is saying what about them. The results are presented concisely in a single place, updated every few minutes. Another site, blogniscient.com, offers a similar service."

"The major difference between politics blogs and tech blogs is that many of the former still depend on the mainstream media to provide the grist for their mills. The tech blogs, though, have become a world onto themselves, and require no such crutch."

1861 FASTER ways to kill babies

Lots of bloggers noted the study last month in the New England Journal of Medicine about first trimester tests for Down's Syndrome (Vol. 353, no. 19, November 10, 2005, pp. 2001-2011). I didn't get a chance to read the article until today, after I'd checked out the issue to read an article on the dangers of sleep apnea. Anyway, the early test is so parents (are they called parents if the blob of tissue isn't a baby?) can look at strategies to "help guide the choice." The word choice appears in the very last sentence of the article--up to that point, nothing is said about what will be done with the information from the tests.

This article has the most bone-chilling, sanitized medicaleze I've ever read, beginning with the name of the Consortium that performed the study: FASTER stands for First- and Second-Trimester Evaluation of Risk. In short, you can find out earlier (faster) if your baby has Down's. However, there is a greater margin of error--more "false positives" if you rely just on the first trimester test instead of doing it again in the second trimester and comparing results. It is less stressful, I suppose, to kill off a baby before you feel those little ticklish butterfly kisses in your abdomen, but how do you turn off the brain that knows what you are really doing?

Figure 1 in the study charts the women who participated in this study. A total of "42,367 patients were approached for enrollment." Not pregnant women who might be willing to have an abortion given test results faster, but "patients." Not solicited, but "approached." Not scammed, but "enrolled." Well, 4,178 jumped ship right away--they were either ineligible or they refused. Then another 156 had some other, non-Down's problems, so they were dropped. So, 38,033 got this first trimester screening, with 92 revealing Down's Syndrome, which drops to 87 with the second trimester screening. There's other playing with numbers in the table, and I'm not sure what all went on, but having the two tests "is superior for detecting Down's Syndrome." We're not told if the women chose abortion or life for a less than perfect baby, only that this screening is a powerful tool.

[You could all just save yourselves a lot of grief, sorrow and death of babies (remember all those false positives) if you'd have your babies before age 35. In the study, 29,834 of the women were younger than 35, and they had 28 fetuses (i.e. babies) with Down's Syndrome; 8,199 of the women were 35 or older and they had 64. Put the career track on hold instead of the mommy-track.]

And in the small print: Jacob A. Canick, PhD, and Nicholas J. Wald, FRCP, who participated in the study hold U.S. patents for unconjugated estriol as a marker in prenatal screening for Down's syndrome. Mr. Wald holds patents for the screening test using the first and second trimester markers as a single test, and is a director of a company that makes software used to calculate Down's syndrome risk, and is a director of the company which licenses the screening test. Some of the doctors in the study receive lecture fees from various equipment companies used in the study.

1860 Adoption Hollywood style

Gone are the good old days of Hollywood adoptions, when the movie stars married, adopted a cute little baby, then divorced and discarded the kid to boarding school and occasional visits and he grew up to write about his life (Michael Reagan son of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman); or the movie star had a baby out of wedlock then adopted her (Judy Lewis, daughter of Loretta Young and Clark Gable). Then there was Joan Crawford, who kept adopting children AFTER each divorce. I don't know if the subsequent husbands adopted her adopted-while-single children.

Now Brad Pitt wants to adopt Angelina Jolie's two adopted-internationally children, but he doesn't love them enough to marry their adoptive Mom, and I suppose we could assume he doesn't love her enough to get married. So he has to go through the expense and hassle of a non-relative, single parent adoption, instead of a step-parent adoption.

I don't think it's a good idea for a single woman, or men for that matter, to adopt--all studies show children do best with both a mother and a father--and having her boyfriend then adopt the adoptees is really a bad idea. Wasn't it Woody Allen who started that trend, he raised girlfriend Mia Farrow's adopted children and then married one of his non-adopted, Korean step-daughters adopted by Andre Previn? Of course, he didn't actually adopt them all, so I suppose he's in the clear.

Technorati tags: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, adoption,

1859 Women and heart attacks

Since it is now well known that heart attacks, not breast cancer, is the big killer of women (deaths from cardiovascular diseases in women exceed the total number of deaths caused by the next 16 causes), I was very surprised to come across Dr. Helen's story of her misdiagnosed heart attack. I learned about the risk of young women and heart attacks way back in my car pooling days, when one of the mothers of my kindergarten group who was then in her mid-30s, had a heart attack and needed to rely on the rest of us to fulfill her driving duties. Since my son is now 37, that has been awhile.

Dr. Helen tells of being an athletic 37 year old in excellent health, and then developing terrifying shortness of breath episodes. In the ER she was given a shot for an allergic reaction while a man with the same symptoms was whisked off for heart tests. After several trips to the ER and being put off as an anxious woman with panic attacks, she finally begged her own internist for tests, and then it was determined that she had suffered from a heart attack and also had a ventricular aneurysm as a result of not resting her heart after the heart attack. Because she'd been told that she had panic disorder, she thought that exercise would be good.

Hers is a scary story, and you should read it yourself.

1858 Eggcorn--another fun language site

Earlier today I mentioned Language Log and the discussion of snowclones. That led me to the site called the Eggcorn Database, which “collects unusual spellings of a particular kind, which have come to be called eggcorns. Typical examples include free reign (instead of free rein) or hone in on (instead of home in on), and many more or less common reshapings of words and expressions.” It takes its name from a misuse of the word acorn--calling it an egg corn.

I’m not sure this would qualify for the Eggcorn Database, but yesterday here in central Ohio there was a hunter’s death (apparently self-inflicted) and several times the reporter in the field said the authorities were going to get to the bottom-line of this.

And then there is "butt-crack of dawn" which is apparently seen and discussed in Iowa and other places with a straight face. Isn't English just the most amazing language?

1857 Is this the artist or the object?

When I see art like this I think I need to get back to my other interest, art. A sack of flour with cat hair? An aging addict who's become his drug of choice? An artist's who's been dismembered and can't produce? I just don't know. But I think the art world needs me.

1856 Tasty Snowclones

Language Log has the most fascinating list of “snowclones” and a history of the word’s evolution. A snowclone is an expression which uses a certain formula (sort of like a cliché, but not exactly) for a shortcut to familiarity. An example of a snowclone, and from which it gets its name, is “If Eskimos have 20 words for snow, then the Illini must have at least that many for losing.” Actually, there is no such thing as an Eskimo language, and in the languages of that part of the world, there are no more words for snow than in English. But it is a phrase that is used anyway, particularly by journalists. Calling it a “snowclone” is relatively recent--maybe 2 or 3 years. Other examples of snowclones are:

The right X for the right Y: (The right tool for the right job)

Have X, will travel:

Every schoolboy knows ----------

Once an X, always an X.

Language Log not only provides the list, but develops the story of the earliest known use, such as Thoreau or Dickens or even the Bible. It makes very interesting reading.

Snowclones are easy to track using Google hits, or "ghits." For instance, enter "every schoolboy knows * " and you get 17,300 ghits. (The asterisk is a truncation symbol and substitutes for the word or phrase you’re looking for.)

“Nowadays every schoolboy knows that the essential and permanent conflict in life is a conflict between the past and the future, between the accomplished past and the forward effort.” H. G. Wells

“I knew that the virus was incredibly infectious, and, as every schoolboy knows, epidemics are unpredictable.” Emma Tennant

". . . as every schoolboy knows, the Arabs have at various times inhabited parts of Europe, lived along the Mediterranean, been contiguous to European nations and been assimilated culturally and otherwise by them." Arab World Project

Try this “snowclone” in Google and you will be amazed by what “every schoolboy knows.” It will restore your faith in the public school system.

Update: I tried "Once a * librarian, always " and found some rather dull examples showing not much fexibility within the career field:

“Once a * librarian, always a *”

Once a music librarian, always a music librarian.
Once a serials librarian, always a serials librarian.
Once a teacher-librarian, always a teacher-librarian. . .
Once a children’s librarian, always a children’s librarian. . .
Once a Public Librarian, Always a Public Librarian . . .
Sorry, once a reference librarian, always a reference librarian. It is a curse. ... [Air America]
Once a retired librarian, always a retired librarian I always say.

1855 He doesn't like my crow's feet?

Today I've received a reminder in the mail from my ophthalmologist. (Just a reminder: this is one of the few words in English that have a phth combination of consonants and is frequently misspelled). He says I'm due for an annual appointment. I don't think I've ever gone to him annually, only by referral for bigger problems. And he included in the letter a little surprise. To go along with my entries on aging beauties Donna Mills and Bo Derek, I now add that my ophthalmologist is offering Botox cosmetic injections so I can dramatically reduce the frown lines between my brows. Just a few small injections can relax (paralyze) my facial muscles for up to 4 months. What? There's not enough money in correcting vision?

1854 Bo Derek says

the 80s are back, so bring out those flared jeans, low hip huggers, belts and jackets. Gosh, I thought that was late 60s, early 70s. At least it was at my sewing blog when I dug out some old patterns. And I read that the turned up collar is back. When I posted this at Coffee Spills I didn't know that--had probably not adjusted the collar after I took off my scarf. Imagine that today a teen-ager might be asking grandma for her hip huggers.

Bo Derek testifying in Illinois about horse slaughter in 2004.

1853 Finally Donna Mills is catching up with me

Donna Mills and I were at the University of Illinois at the same time. I think she was a freshman when I was a sophomore. Of course, she went on to fame and fortune in TV and a few movies (Misty). I think I first saw her in 1967 on a soap "Love is a Splendored Something" and she played the wimpy, delicate sister Laura. Her sister Iris was the fiesty one.

Years later when she was famous for being the 70s version of a controling gorgeous woman on Knots Landing, I picked up a tabloid to find out she was about 10 years younger than me. Imagine my shock! Last week I saw an item in USAToday that the "desperate housewives" of 1979--Michele Lee, Joan Van Ark and Donna Mills, "now in their 60s. . ." So our age gap is dwindling. My guess is she is 65. I googled her bio and it gave her birthdate as 1942. Maybe she was a brilliant student who entered college 3 years early.

1852 Why is this news?

"The U.S. military command in Baghdad acknowledged for the first time yesterday that it has paid Iraqi newspapers to carry positive news about U.S. efforts in Iraq, but officials characterized the payments as part of a legitimate campaign to counter insurgents' misinformation." WaPo

How else would positive news "leak" to the press--maybe they should have paid U.S. newspapers to carry positive news about Iraq. Is paid good news [i.e. propaganda] worse than killing people?

To this I have three little words, in a string, of government agencies which openly manipulate information for good public relations, [you can go to their web sites and look for jobs in communications] and our very own news media which either distort or enhance the news to satisfy their owners or readers or advertisers.

Radio Free Europe RFE
Voice of America VOA
Agency for International Development AID (United States)
Information and Communications Technologies (Canada)

New York Times
The Washington Post
BBC
ABC
NBC
CBS
CNN
Fox Broadcasting Company

And then there's Eason Jordan of CNN who distorted the [bad] news from Iraq, making it less horrible, published it in the U.S. so that he could keep his agency doors open which would continue to distort the news for the U.S. readership.

Disclosure: I was paid for 3.5 years as a librarian on a grant from the USAID.

Technorati tags: propaganda, Iraq War

1851 Booking through Thursday on Friday

Forgot to check the questions yesterday (Dec. 1). The questions and answers are:

Have you ever read a book in a language other than your native language?
Do attempts count--or easy learner's books? Russian and Spanish.

If so, how would you describe your experience?
Pretty awful, but I learned to appreciate dictionaries.

Have you ever read a book translated from another language into your native language?
Yes, often the ones I was supposed to be reading in Russian, like Crime and Punishment and the Cherry Orchard.

Why or why not?
They were assigned. Who would read Crime and Punishment and struggle with all those hard Russian patronymics if you didn't have to?

If so, how would you describe your experience?
Useful. I graduated and got a great job. . . years later.

1850 Liar, liar, panties on fire

Andrew Sullivan should know the power of the bloggers to track down lies, and he's got some whoppers. Sullivan is a gay, Catholic conservative (or was) and when I started blogging in October 2003 and adding favorite links, his blog was one of my first. I dropped him after about a year because he turned against President Bush and the war, both of which he at first supported. What happened? Gay marriage, and his President for whom he'd endured ridicule and scorn (by other gays, I guess) didn't support it. James Taranto at Opinion Journal links to some of Sullivan's pro-war blogs which he is now denying he ever supported. Sullivan is learning "globbing" from John Kerry. Gripe, lie, obfuscate, backpeddle.

Technorati tags: Globs, Andrew Sullivan

1849 You may not like it

but you can't say there is no plan.

“National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” November 2005, 38 pages

"The following document articulates the broad strategy the President set forth in 2003 and provides an update on our progress as well as the challenges remaining."

"Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week." Senator Joe Lieberman, A Democrat who gets it.

Technorati tags: Victory in Iraq, Iraq Strategy

1848 Like this isn’t funny, but like, can’t these kids, like speak?

From the Ohio News Now story of a clerk escaping abduction:

“Earlier in the day, police say he [Steven Corbin] tried to abduct a 16-year-old grocery bagger from a Kroger store.

"He told me he needed help carrying out his groceries and he had a lot of stuff. And like I was helping him carry you and like he kept on saying like all this weird stuff to me. Like I don't know he was like, 'hey baby come on, let's get it on,'" she says.

"He's like, kept trying to get me to come to his house. And I'm like no, I can't, like I said I want to get away and he like grabbed my arm like pulling me that way," she says.”

Like. . .

1847 If I move to Canada, will I lose weight?

Canadians apparently aren't as fat as Americans, and their plumpness is much more evenly spread among income groups. Rich Canadians are closer to rich Americans when stepping on the scale, but the rich aren't as fat as the poor in either country. At least I think that's what this chart shows. I'm trying to find the story that goes with it, but keep getting "forbidden" when I chop back the URL.
Chart source here.

I've been in four quintiles--there is great income mobility in the United States. You usually start at the bottom, minimum wage or entry level or part time, work your way up, then when you retire, as we have, you drop back down again. These charts are based on income, not wealth. Most people in the "poor" statistics move on up very quickly, and I think only about 10% are poor for 10 years or more. Although I'm not sure it would make any difference, because poverty, like racism, is on a sliding scale in the U.S. If the poor or the "racists" were to disappear tomorrow, we'd immediately have a huge unemployment problem in government programs and foundations, (so I suppose that would create a new group of poor). Whoever is on the bottom, even if they own a house, car, stock, etc., will be "poor." You can't compare the "poor" from the 1970s with those of 2005--they aren't the same people, aren't even children of those poor. The 2nd quintile in 2005 may have been in the fifth quintile in the 1970s.

But fat--I think that is forever.

Correcting a drunk driver story

A month ago, I wrote about Frankie Coleman's drunk driving charge. I referred to it as a DUI, "driving under the influence." Since January 1, 2004 this has been called an OVI, "Operating a vehicle under the influence." The same bill also made these changes: Restricted license plates can be issued for OVI offenders. Vehicles can’t be seized, immobilized, or forfeited unless registered in the driver’s name, which repeals the “innocent owner” defense; a new “physical control” offense was created to cover being intoxicated in the driver’s position with the vehicle’s ignition key, but not driving; provides consistency between OVI laws for watercraft and motor vehicles; clarifies no driving privileges allowed if offender has three or more OVI convictions in six years (SB 123, explained at Ohio's Drunk Driving Laws)

So I suppose "driving" was changed to operating, because watercraft is now included, and sitting in the driver's position with the key in the ignition makes you an operator, though not a driver.

DUI or OVI, Mayor Michael Coleman (D) has dropped out of the race for Governor. I'm sure his wife has made many sacrifices over the years for his career, and I admire him for standing by his woman and realizing her recovery is going to take a lot of effort from both of them.

"But life is more than polls and more than any one campaign. My family and my city are more important than either, and after spending Thanksgiving considering all of the factors, I have made a very difficult decision. Today, I announced that I am no longer a candidate for Governor of the State of Ohio.

I have traveled long miles since this began, and I've learned so much about this great state and its needs, but I love my family above all other things, and right now that is where I am needed most - as a husband and father." Coleman website

1845 Useful source

when you want to analyze the opposition after President Bush's speeches, check this site, The Who Said it Game--Iraq Style. It says it is "A repository of quotes from prominent Democrats regarding pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

But no one, absolutely no one, can back peddle as fast as John Kerry.