Thoughts on culture, politics, music and stuff by Eric Olsen, Marty Thau and Mike Crooker, who are among other things, producers.

 
Internecine
From Glenn, a disturbing and exceptional column by Radley Balko about Drug Warriors - even more so because FoxNews.com pulled it:

The cult expert Ross, a self-described Republican, is awed at the adulation still heaped on the Semblers. “It’s really shocking,” he says, “that the Semblers are still lauded and honored after all that’s come out about their organization.”

Staunch drug warriors like the Semblers believe a win-at-all-costs approach is the only way to remove the scourge of drugs from society. Such is why they can be unrepentant about the lives destroyed within the walls of Straight facilities, and in fact still boast that a program they founded “cured” 12,000 teens of drug abuse.

Last year, a reporter from Canadian marijuana advocacy magazine Cannabis Culture asked Betty Sembler in person about the horror stories he’d read from Straight survivors. Sembler replied, “They should get a life. I am proud of everything we have done. There's nothing to apologize for. The legalizers are the ones who should be apologizing.”

That’s the attitude of the drug war’s power duo. Shattered lives, suicides, forced abortions, fractured psyches – all necessary casualties of the drug war, and nothing to apologize for.

The main problem with the Drug War is that it is a civil war, and civil wars cannot be won without your own people losing one way or another.
posted by Anonymous at 10:40 PM

 
Let the Refutations Begin
Whoa now, the big guns have been unholstered. The Captain, Super Glenn, and on the broader topic of sexuality, Dawn and Matt Moore have to varying degrees told me where to get off. Many are advising me to "get a grip." Thanks for the concern, but my grip is intact. I am lean but wiry.

Dawn and Moore make some excellent points about sexuality being a bouquet of all the senses AND the imagination. They are right. My only quibble is with those who SUBSTITUTE the imagination for the real thing. That's all.

To Den Beste: regarding my opening comments about finding an area in which he is "woefully ignorant" - it's a compliment, take it as such. He has a remarkable range of knowledge. I often don't even know what the hell he is talking about, let alone have a contrary view, so it was refreshing to find something I TOTALLY disagreed with. I responded. That's all. I did exactly what Den Beste said he does:

What happens to me is that I'll be looking at something or other, and suddenly a full-blown concept will spring into my mind. If I can hold it until I can reach a keyboard, then I will write an article as fast as I can type..

...I'm writing because I enjoy writing and it's a way of keeping myself busy, and I put what I write online (the 21st century form of "vanity press") because writing without readers is pointless. The idea is that you read what I write because you enjoy it. Maybe it makes you smile, maybe it makes you think. Maybe it makes you angry about things I'm angry about. If it affects you in some way, then I have achieved my full goal. And that is all that is going on here.

Get a grip.

As I mentioned, my grip is fine, thanks (although I have had some pain in my right wrist since I fell on it in the kitchen). I read his post, it reflected a point of view I had mentioned in a recent post of my own, so I responded. That's all: no malice aforethought, no preplanning. Perhaps we should all check our grips.

As to this:

You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. You can't tell what kind of person I am from what I write here. I only show you what I want to show you, and some of what I show you is deliberately faked. You can't judge my behavior by what you see here, because you don't know what I do in real life. And in particular, you can't really judge my attitude towards women from the last few articles I've posted here, because those were exaggerated and partially facetious.

My personal life isn't any of your business. I do not write a "journal"-type site. When I do introduce myself into my commentary here, it's only peripheral as a way of making a point, and some of the time it is fictional. What I write here is solely intended to be entertaining or challenging and maybe even informative. I'm not trying to be some sort of direct line to The Truth, and I'm not out to change the world.

This indignant little bleat is a load worthy of the Big Shovel: you can't have it both ways. I don't claim to "know" him. In fact, I don't know him at all, nor do I pretend to. You can't present some version of yourself in writing and then say, "Hey, no fair, you can't comment on my writing because it isn't me. It's just my writing." That's fine, I am responding to the writing, not to "you." And in the writing I found a point of view I find highly objectionable. I couldn't care less about any writer's "personal life," but if they write it, it's fair game. It's just as much "my business" to write about this subject as about anything else I find online. That's what free speech is all about. You don't want people to comment on something, don't write about it in the first place. I'm not hanging around anyone's "second bedroom of his second-floor condo," with or without wood paneling, I'm reading his blog. If it's there, it's my business. Period. The gratuitous indignation is unwarranted and disingenuous:

I do not write a "journal"-type site. When I do introduce myself into my commentary here, it's only peripheral as a way of making a point, and some of the time it is fictional

What-freaking-ever. I don't care what the relationship is between what's written and whatever is "real": I'm talking about what's written. Am I supposed to do research into what blogging category the writer fits into? Am I supposed to say, "Hmm, this is NOT a 'journal-type' site, and I'm not sure if this particular writing is truth, fiction, or just making a point, so I better not comment on it"? Oh, I see, my bad. I can, and will, comment on whatever is presented, especially when I find the "point" to be odious: truth, fiction, hyperbole, personal, general, micro, macro, or freeze-dried. If you don't want comments, don't write it.

Now that we've disregarded the indignant bluster, let's get to substantive matters. The main point is that women aren't just sexual objects, they are people, and it is much more satisfying to interact with the real thing than to fantasize about them, or to watch them. That's it. I didn't call anyone a "sexist pervert" and I don't give a rat's ass whether or not they are "amused." Tough.

It's not my problem if I find very creepy the point of view reflected in a lengthy discussion of string bikinis and pictures of very young women held up as the apex of sexuality. I DO find it creepy. Sorry. I tried very hard to clarify that I wasn't putting down watching women, or that I am opposed in any way to the expression of sexuality: I was saying the point of view that allows women to be seen as ONLY sexual objects is ultimately self-defeating and unfulfilling, and that one's time and energies might be better spent if one was looking for an actual relationship. If I exaggerated my position to make a point, that doesn't mean my point isn't valid. If you are telling me that vicarious ogling is as fulfilling as an actual relationship, I will tell you that you are so full of it your teeth are brown.

As to Glenn: I was making a comparison, not making an absolute judgment, and my advice was directed at whoever cares. I can give my opinion as to what SHOULD be done on any given topic, and any reader can feel free to agree, disagree, ignore it, or give me money. EVERY opinion has an implicit "should" or "shouldn't" built into it.

Glenn's is saying, "People shouldn't give their opinions on the best way to pursue a relationship." I find whenever (small "l") libertarians disagree with something, or don't want to discuss the merits of a given point of view, they say something along the lines of "mind your own business and don't tell people what they 'should' do." I was saying that an actual relationship is more fulfilling than observation from a distance. I stand by it. People can agree or disagree - no problem - I may be TOTALLY WRONG, but certainly I should be allowed to voice it.

Regarding May-October relationships, obviously there are exceptions to the general rule, and I am happy for them. There are exceptions to EVERY general rule involving human behavior. Hey, if people of any legal age hit it off and get together, more power to them, but they will still have to actually interact with each other and not just stare from across the pool.

And as far as the genetic programming to ogle teenagers goes: we are genetically programmed to do lot's of things that we use our intellect, will and force of law to overcome. That's why we have statutory rape laws.

And lastly, as far as "unsolicited opinions on other people's sex lives" goes: as I mentioned earlier, I couldn't possibly care less about anyone involved's personal sex life. I am responding to what was written, and I sure as hell didn't solicit that. Anything written is fair game for commentary, that's the interactive part of this blog thing.

UPDATE
Matt Moore thinks old people having sex is creepy. I did too when I was 25, but now I'm 43 and a lot closer to it, so it doesn't seem so odd anymore. I don't think sex between ANY consenting adults is necessarily creepy: I think allowing a fantasy life to substitute for the real thing is creepy.
posted by Anonymous at 2:10 PM

 
Do You Want to Watch Her, Or Do You Want to Touch Her?
This post by the normally brilliant Den Beste reflects a disturbing level of unreality. Everything about it - and the earlier post it references - is pseudo, virtual, and presents a vision of women as generic abstractions. In a way I'm relieved: here is an area in which the omniscient Captain is woefully ignorant:

While I was gone on vacation, I wrote an article about how my attitudes towards girl-watching changed about 25 years ago, more or less from "half-empty" to "half-full", and how I was a lot happier afterwards. I think I know how it was that I was in the other mode before I came to my senses. Blame the media.

Before we blame the media for fostering improper modes of girlwatching behavior, let's check out the earlier post. It is, in essence, an ode to the string bikini:

Nothing flatters the figure more of a young woman who has a nice figure (and most do) than a string bikini. I have no idea what it feels like to wear one (and have no interest in finding out, thenkyouveddymuch) but I conjecture that since it maximizes exposure of skin that it's a feeling of freedom.

Of course, it's also the ultimate tease, and a major cause of men doing double-takes and walking distractedly into things. The young women here at the Luxor have adopted the string bikini as this year's swimming-pool fashion of choice.

So let's hear it for the string bikini, and for detente in the war between the sexes. The wearing of a string bikini truly satisfies the philosophy of feminism: be what you want to be and not what someone tells you to become. You don't have to become a bimbo because some men tell you to, but you also don't have to allow some women to force you to become a hag.

First, did I just read that nothing flatters like a string bikini? I have never seen a string bikini that didn't make a woman look much worse than she did naked, clothed, or in a regular, intelligently-cut bikini. Butt-floss makes a woman's hips look enormous, her butt globular and alien to the rest of her body (notice they don't show any of these women from behind - with good cause, and these are swimsuit models).

I am not a prude: I love to look at women at their best, and string bikinis - even on those "who can wear them" - are NEVER women at their best. String bikinis emphasize all the wrong things and are unnatural in all the worst ways. Naked is sexy; clothing cleverly-cut to flatter is sexy (look at these - these are flattering); string bikinis are NEVER flattering, even for women with tiny butts.

They are also unreal. Naked is real because there is nothing to hide; flatteringly attired (in whatever, from parka to bikini) is real because this subtly acknowledges that no one is perfect, that everyone can be improved, and is thus a form of reality-grounding modesty, flattering both the woman and those who look at her. String bikinis aren't real because they are coy: they are as close to naked as possible without being so, yet they don't flatter and so speak of arrogance. They are openly hostile: all show, no go. In this way there is nothing LESS sexual than a string bikini.

None of this matters unless you want to ACTUALLY SPEAK TO WOMEN and interact with them as human beings. Women who wear string bikinis are not looking to interact with men, merely to tease and frustrate them in a display of power. The look both titillates and repels, is brazen but distancing, lewd but unflattering. It is a huge "shove off" to men who would like to actually interact with the women who wear them, rather than simply ogle them from a safe distance.

Which brings up the next point: women are people. Everyone wants to be thought attractive; there is nothing wrong with responding to another person's attractiveness, but it is degrading in both directions to interact with real people only on this level. "Girlwatching," like the entire spectrum of pornography, drains the humanity from all involved. It's a second-person activity, one which precludes any actual interaction.

I'm not saying there is no place for pornography, sexually explicit material, or girlwatching for that matter, but I am saying that this kind of activity precludes any kind of real interaction. Women who wear string bikinis aren't looking for real interaction, nor are the men who spend their time looking at them. It's pseudo-sexuality, not real sexuality, it's isolating and dehumanizing. Rather than "watching girls," a person's time could be much more profitably spent interacting with real women.

Next problem: the girl/woman issue. There is a problem if a middle-aged man finds young women in their late-teens and early-20s to be the height of sexual attractiveness. Sexual attraction can never be based purely upon looks alone: there is no real person who consists of only looks, therefore it is counterproducive, at best, to find most-attractive women with whom there is no hope of actual interaction.

Middle-aged men should feel protective, avuncular, even paternal (not paternalistic) toward young women - toward young people - in their late-teens and early-20s: people who are young enough to be their children. They shouldn't see them as sexual objects. There is just no way a real romantic relationship is possible at 20+ years age difference: too many cultural divides, too many differences of perspective, attitudes, interests, place in life. ALL such relationships are imbalanced, are exploitative one way or another. There just isn't all that much to talk about, and if you don't talk, then it's not the real thing. It's fantasy, just marking time, avoiding the real issues, and keeping life at arm's length rather than dealing with it head-on.

The women most attractive to a middle-aged man should be those with whom he could have an actual relationship. Beauty isn't only found in the very young, and the combination of physical beauty with some actual life experience is vastly more sexy than the callow beauty of youth alone - that is if you find actual living, breathing women more sexy than stereotypical abstractions.

Back to the post: we were blaming the media for unrealistic expectations. All of the women pictured here are very young. They are too young to seem sexy to me. I look at them and think of my 18 year-old daughter: I don't lust after them, I want to make sure no one hurts them, and that they don't hurt themselves. They're just too young. I would feel very differently if I was their age, but I'm not. Katie Holmes, Mandy Moore, Agnes Bruckner (?), Anne Hathaway: these are beautiful young girls, not sexy women.

Here's the next issue:

so we watch our TV and see our films and look at the advertisements in our magazines. And a young man, just come into his full adult complement of hormones, uses this as his standard of what is desirable. And he looks at the girls around him, and says, "I don't want to settle for those; gorgeous women are plentiful. I see them all the time."

"I want one like that. But women like that are not plentiful in absolute numbers. It's just that photographs and film of them can be endlessly reproduced, so that each of us is surrounded by pictures of the few. And even if such a young man recognizes that they are few, he may decide that he wants to be one of those who get one like that anyway.

....It's worse than that. These women don't actually look like that. The photographs are carefully chosen to compliment them, and they're carefully made up and dressed. A week's work, by everyone involved from costume designers to makeup artists and the photographer and model herself may be needed to produce five or six pictures like this, or half an hour's usable film. If you met one of these women in the laundromat when she hadn't been trying to make herself look like this, you might not even recognize her. And she certainly wouldn't look like you expect.

One of the things I recognized in my 20's was precisely the fact that what I was seeing in the pictures was an illusion. "Women like that don't really exist!" became a running joke for me, but it was half-serious. They really don't. These women don't really look like this, either.

Well, yes, actually they do. I've met them (generally speaking). There are beautiful women everywhere - with or without makeup. The key is to realize that THEY ARE JUST PEOPLE. If you see women as individual beings with thoughts and feelings and concerns, in addition to the physically alluring parts, then you won't lump "gorgeous women" into some grand category and make generalizations about them anyway.

Sure there is a higher concentration of beautiful people in show biz: it's the nature of the industry, but they are real people too. I used to DJ show biz parties in LA: TV, movie, music, pro sports; I assure you, these people are real. They DO look like you think they do: with or without makeup, dressed up or dressed down (the ones with the severe disconnect between how they "really" look and the way we see them are relatively few).

The most gorgeous women in the world eat, drink, and shit like everyone else, AND they really are that beautiful. That line about "it's all in the makeup, hairdo, etc., etc." I assure you, it's not. There really are women as beautiful as you think they are, and they can be found in every city and in (almost) every town. And some are smart, some are stupid, some are charming, some are hateful, some are whatever.

You can talk to them, you can even touch them, but you have to treat them as individuals, as actual people with identities of their very own, or they will know that they aren't real to you, that they are just symbols, and no one wants to be just a symbol. They want to be loved, they want to be touched, they want you to do everything to them that you want to do to them; but they want to be treated as actual flesh and blood, not as bloodless abstractions. No one ever had a relationship with an abstraction.
posted by Anonymous at 10:24 PM

 
Kiss My Poll
Let's set things right and have a final-day surge of votes for Dawn, who, if nothing else, is sexy and deserves to win this fucking poll. Then I don't want to hear about it anymore: not that I object to polls or the traffic they drive, but in this particular case sex appeal is pretty much something you are going to have to take someone's word on.

Conveying sex appeal through a blog is about like tasting food via email. A blog is about as sensory as the text of a John Ashcroft speech. A blog is a form of written communication, with interactive possibilities in close-to real time. The great interpersonal barrier of cyberspace remains, and while some may find the Internet sexy and get their jollies didling themselves while perched before the electronic altar, this has about as much to do with real sexuality as the Real World does to actual life as lived by human beings: none.

The Internet is great at conveying information and communication on a certain a-personal level, but it has NOTHING to do with real interaction, 3-D life, or sexuality. If you want a real relationship, pull one hand away from the keyboard, the other out of your pants, and go touch an actual person. You'll be amazed.
posted by Anonymous at 10:23 AM

 
Loss of Clarity?
Dave Roberts of Common Sense for Uncommon Times writes in with an excellent suggestion, which I will get on today:

Hi Eric,
I dropped in on your six month review of Bush and thought it might be useful for you to revisit the piece. The moral clarity that still resonated at six months has now dimmed to a wobbly uncertainty under pressure from the Pentagon's weak sisters. At the same time, his European trip reinforced all the "dolt" images you and I shared about him. His question to the president of Brazil " do you have blacks, too?" has to rate with the stupidest things ever uttered by an American president. He may have some limited clarity, but he seems more and more to be a figurine propped up by poll driven puppet masters like Karl Rove.

Dave Roberts

Bush says idiotic things from time to time, there is no doubt about that. By the way, Dave does not like John Ashcroft (who, we should all recall, was beaten by a dead man in his race for reelection to the Senate):

Very few people have had as many opportunities to distinguish themselves as John Ashcroft has had. He could have prevented September 11, boosted the FBI anti-terrorism budget pre Sept 11, told the President about the Phoenix memo immediately after he found out, used the gun check database to find terrorist suspects, and any number of other activities. Hey, what a great time to have been attorney general if you were alert and focused on terrorism. Of course, if New Orleans bordellos and California medical marijuana clinics and virtual child porn were at the top of your wish list, September 11 might have come as a very rude and unwelcome surprise. In our new found desire to be positive, we're positive Genral Ashcroft is doing everything he is capable of doing.

posted by Anonymous at 9:23 AM

 
Fresh Gonzo
Marty spotted this new interview with an old journalistic hero of mine, Hunter S. Thompson, who has unfortunately inspired more bad writing (what could be worse than pseudo-Gonzo?) than anyone since Hemingway. Either Thompson has exaggerated his substance abuse over the years to a quantum degree, or he is actually dead.

In the spring of 1971, Sports Illustrated dispatched a 31-year-old freelance writer named Hunter S. Thompson to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400 off-road race. His assignment: to write a 250-word caption on the grueling, white-trash event. To the horror of the sports magazine's editors, Thompson filed a 15,000-word piece that couldn't quite be defined at the time. (It is now categorized as Gonzo journalism.) The editors chose not to run it.

About a week after the Mint 400 assignment, Rolling Stone sent Thompson back to Las Vegas to cover the National District Attorneys Association's third annual Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. As Thompson later explained in his classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "If the Pigs were gathering in Vegas for a top-level Drug Conference, we felt the drug culture should be represented."

Thompson's trips to Las Vegas in 1971 produced two separate stories, both of which ran in then-relevant Rolling Stone. The articles were later combined to form the foundation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was published by Random House in June of 1972.

In anticipation of Fear and Loathing's 30th anniversary, I arranged an interview with Thompson. I intended to ask him about the book's impact on Vegas, its historical significance and a bunch of other predictable bullshit.

But the Doctor of Journalism, reached just after midnight at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colo., steered me away from convention.

posted by Anonymous at 9:10 AM

 
I Missed the Speech, Was in the Bathroom
Very interesting analysis of Bush's speech and the Director of Intelligence position by Ian on his Fierce Highway site:

During President Bush's speech on the formation of a cabinet position for Homeland Security, I got to thinking about what has become of the Director of Central Intelligence position. As we've been told time and again on TV, in print, and anywhere else the topic may come up, this position was created in '47 when the CIA was crystalized into something close to its present format (from its humble beginnings as a group of cartographers with amazing derring-do). The initial point of this role was as an oversight to our collected intelligence communities. Obviously, it's not lived up to the initial premise.

Another ex-Buckeye, Ian went to the College of Wooster and is a former Cool Tunes listener.

Here is Jason Rubenstein's take on the Bush speech:

Bush watches polls like a hawk. They poll and poll, and poll again. And a sudden announcement of a cabinet post for homeland bureaucracy, er, security without simultaneous announcement of the name of the individual who will run this department seems to be a hastily assembled shot at boosting some poll numbers ("Look, we're doing something!") at a time when them numbers are slowly sliding downhill. And I sense that the White House is in some chaos, and weak displays of action usually indicate some form of organizational malaise. Pure conjecture on my part.

Jason conjectures well - I still hold out hope he is wrong. More on this later.
posted by Anonymous at 8:28 AM

 
More On the "Mastermind"
He's U.S.-educated, as they so often say:

The man suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 terror attacks is believed to have once attended college in North Carolina and, in 1999, visited the German city where chief hijacker Mohammed Atta lived, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Officials suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti-born lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, met with Atta or members of his cell in Hamburg, but they have not received direct evidence of any contacts between them, one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Since Sept. 11, evidence has mounted that Mohammed was chief among the bin Laden lieutenants organizing the attacks, counterterrorism officials said. He provided some of the money used in the attacks, and Abu Zubaydah — another of the alleged organizers now in U.S. custody — has identified Mohammed as the organizer, they said.

Mohammed is believed to have attended Chowan College in northeastern North Carolina before transferring to another U.S. university, where he obtained an engineering degree, a second U.S. official said Thursday, declining to provide further details.

posted by Anonymous at 8:24 PM

 
Signal?
I fervently hope this is a signal of immediate plans:

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Thursday there was a growing danger of terrorist groups acquiring weapons of mass destruction from Iraq or other countries and that this required a decisive response.

"This gathering danger requires the most careful, deliberate and decisive response by Americans and our allies," Cheney said in a speech to the National Association of Homebuilders.

His comments added to a drumbeat of U.S. signals of potential new military action in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. But they went a step further in singling out Iraq than President Bush's statement last Saturday that Americans must be ready for "preemptive action" against threats to the country.

Time to get preempting, I'd say.
posted by Anonymous at 8:20 PM

 
More Dee Dee
We are saddened by the death of Dee Dee Ramone at 49 from an apparent drug overdose. It is ironic but fairly typical of junkies that they are done in by success: the Ramones were just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March.

Here is an interview with Ramone from the Boston Phoenix. Here is Marty's tribute to the Ramones.

We heard from a friend of Dee Dee's who offers some perspective:

One hears about very few drug addicts over 50. It's a sad thing but was destined to happen. He wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the socket, or the sweetest and most honest person you'd want to hang out with. He's lucky he got all he did out of life. I don't mean to sound too 'cold' or indifferent about this but Dee Dee was a fine example of what not to do as a person and rock and roll musician.

posted by Anonymous at 7:33 PM

 
"Useful"
Dear pundits of all stripes: professional, amateur, weekend, weekday, conservative, liberal, libertarian, tech, white, black, green. Please do not ever use the word "USEFUL" to describe the writing of another person ever again.

I am sure the word is not meant maliciously: it's a habit, and many of us do it, although I'm pretty sure I haven't because it has been bugging me for a long time. I am not even speaking as one who has been called "useful" - I haven't been to my knowledge. Please call anything I write ANYTHING other than that. I thank you in advance.

The word is blatantly patronizing: "I deigned to peruse your scribbling and I found aspects of it ... useful." Besides being patonizing, use of the word is damning with faint praise: "I wouldn't call it well-written, or insightful, or delightful, or penetrating, or splendid, or meaningful, or life-changing; or obsequious, purple or clairvoyant. But I suppose there is some information in there that might be ... um ... useful?"

It's as if writing were a utility, or a garden tool. This is the most generic possible praise: "I don't really LIKE your writing, but I was able to slog my way through it and extract a few ... useful ... tidbits for my own use. Of course, whatever I do with these 'useful' tidbits will be of much greater worth to the world than the mess I found them in. Thank you for being ... useful ... now fuck off."

This is not how we want to think of each other, now is it? Thank you for your consideration. I hope this discussion was useful.
posted by Anonymous at 5:24 PM

 
World's Cup
Matt Welch doesn't go for that anti-soccer smack, although he likes Layne's column, which questions the rampant nationalism angle of the World Cup.

Here's the deal, Americans don't care as much about soccer as they do about the Big Four professional team sports because soccer is far too subjective. There are statistics to describe every SINGLE ACTION in baseball. It is the essence of objectivity. Basketball is a little looser with stats - no one is counting the dribbles, which they WOULD do if it was as anal as baseball - but the scoring is more prolific than cow farts and scoring is the ultimate in objectification.

Football has discrete plays to objectify and progress is literally measured in the field. Plus it's fast and violent and full of massive freaks and world-class athletes smashing into each other. Hockey is closer to soccer in its methods of operation and relative lack of stats, but it makes up for this with fights galore. Besides, Americans don't REALLY like hockey anyway. If an amusement isn't on broadcast television, rest assured Americans don't really like it.

Soccer offers all kinds of brilliant athleticism and skill - I can certainly appreciate it - but very little gets quantified: there are few actual plays to keep track of, field position is very fluid and not quantified, there is hardly ever any scoring. There just aren't very many interesting numbers to keep track of and hang your interest on; and unlike the NHL, there are few fights ON THE FIELD to fight attention drift.

Another problem with the World Cup specifically is its name: Americans, accustomed to baseball, subconsciously picture this huge athletic supporter protecting the world's package and it's not a pretty thought. We'll protect our own package, thank you, and the world can stay out of it.
posted by Anonymous at 4:04 PM

 
R.I.P. Dee Dee Ramone

more here. Looks like an OD...
posted by tofu at 3:45 PM

 
Bring On the Fluorocarbons!
We in Northeast Ohio have a moderate climate, if by "moderate" you mean you freeze your nads off half of the year. I am from Southern California originally, and while I love many things about Ohio, the weather sucks fatmen. At least it usually does. For the 12 years I've been back in Ohio, though, it's been pretty darn mild: shorter winters, more sun, drier.

The reason property values up here on the North Coast are so moderate is primarily due to this weather: not cold enough for real snow people, not NEARLY warm enough for heat people. So we who own property or are building new homes say BRING ON THE GLOBAL WARMING. How's this for a friendly forecast?

Citing "plausible" model scenarios, the report said many areas of the country would undergo a change comparable to "an overall northward shift" in weather systems and climate conditions. "The central tier of states would experience climate conditions roughly equivalent to those now experienced by the southern tier, and the northern tier would experience conditions much like the central tier."

This change is already under way. Some areas are experiencing "a shorter duration of lake ice," and there's already been "a northward shift in the distributions of some species of butterflies."

These are changes that force you to wonder what kind of environment lies in wait just two or three generations hence. And yet we continue, with very little restraint, to spew out the so-called greenhouse gases.

Lily enjoys our new butterflies, lake ice is a depressing hazard, and I say fucking-A-right bring on the "overall northward shift." The EPA report acknowledging global warming and its likely cause by "human activity" is just the first step to soaring property values and long, lazy summers for Ohio! And I'm telling you, Bush must own land in Lake County or some damn place around here, because his reaction couldn't have been scripted better:

"I read the report put out by the bureaucracy," Bush said dismissively Tuesday when asked about the EPA report, adding that he still opposes the Kyoto treaty.

"Yeah, we've got global warming. Am I going to do anything about it? Hell no!! I've got prime acreage in Painesville, Ohio, buddy, and that shit is going through the roof! They've got new butterflies, disappearing lake ice - the rest of the country may be going down the climatic toilet, but everything's tits up there on the North Coast. I'm retiring there after I get done being president. Hello easy street!!"

Oh yeah baby, we've got it made here - check out the horrors coming down on the current high rent districts:

In the United States, changes over the next few decades are expected to put Southeastern coastal communities at greater risk of storm surges, prompt more uncomfortable heat waves in cities and reduce snowpack and water supplies in the West.

The extents of aspen, eastern birch and sugar maple probably will contract dramatically in the United States, shift into Canada and cause loss of maple syrup production in northern New York and New England. Great Lakes water levels are expected to drop, which would affect navigation, water supplies and aquatic species. Production of U.S. hardwood and softwood products is projected to increase, mostly in the South. Fewer cold days and reduced snowpack do not bode well for the southernmost ski areas, where costs of snowmaking would rise.

Kalee Kreider, global warming campaign director for the National Environmental Trust, an advocacy group, said environmentalists want from the administration a climate change plan that joins with other nations in requiring carbon dioxide emission reductions and increased fuel efficiency requirements for vehicles.

Kalee Kreider - bitch, shut the hell up! Bring on HIGHER carbon dioxide emissions, and DECREASED fuel efficiency requirements. Every time I see an SUV sucking up fossil fuel and spitting out globe-warming gas, I see dollar signs dancing around my soon-to-be resort property. With all hell breaking loose on the other three coasts, the North Coast will be Park Ave, South Beach, and Malibu all rolled into one Buckeye Bonanza, baby!

In short, thank you George W! By acknowledging warming but refusing to do anything about it, you have hastened the cushy retirement of many a Midwesterner and put the fear of God into those damned smug coastal folk. When Manhattan is underwater and Century City an island, you will no longer find North Coast property values "surprisingly affordable," and we will smile and take your money. Right George?

UPDATE
Josh Chafetz adds:

Very nice! Actually, you forgot to mention that a little melting of the polar icecaps would make Crawford, Texas a prime beach resort! Bush would have a ranch on the Gulf!
Yours,
Josh

posted by Anonymous at 2:18 PM

 
Beer, Baseball, American History
How can you not love this article?

In the history of American beer, the modern period begins on the spring day in 1882 when the short-lived American Association of baseball teams opened for business. The establishment-leaning National League, aiming for a tonier clientele, had recently doubled ticket prices and banned gambling, Sunday playing, and—most important—beer. Franchise owners in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and other brewing centers refused to accept the new rules and seceded from the league. Several of them were brewers themselves, and they had learned to count on a sizable increase in collective thirst on home-game days. So, banding together, they formed the American Association. Dubbed the Beer and Whiskey League by the competition, it scorned the toffs and made its pitch directly to the average workingman, keeping the ticket price an affordable 25 cents, playing on the Sabbath, his only day off, and serving what had already become his signature drink.

Though there were strange days ahead for the mostly German-born beer barons, here, in this heady mix of beer, baseball, and fun, were most of the elements that would come to define beer’s role in the American living room and the American imagination: its connection to sports and other places men go to escape and to bond; its connection to leisure, especially of the American working class; and its implicitly rebellious, nose-thumbing attitude toward the tastes and rules of social “betters” and other authority figures.

....The deepest layer of all, though, lies in the ties between beer, work, and the saloon and the connection of all of these to a working-class vision of democracy that has seduced the whole culture. Somehow, by the middle of the twentieth century, the bar where men shared beer had picked up resonances of both the colonial tavern, mythical birthplace of patriot ism and democracy, and the pre-Prohibition saloon, refuge from the competitive marketplace, from confining domes ticity, from the coldness of modern life, from the pressure to rise and “better” oneself. The Miller brand discovered the power of the image when, in the late sixties, marketers changed the advertising approach. “The Champagne of Bottled Beers,” with its implicit appeal to class, became “It’s Miller Time,” an ode to the workingman, and Miller found itself shooting up from seventh place in beer sales to second.

In addition to the story of beer's heady place as the drink of democracy, the article also features a sidebar on the history of microbrews and brewpubs:

Inspiration may have come from Fritz Maytag, of the washing-machine-and-blue-cheese family, who took over San Francisco’s old and ailing Anchor Steam and in 1975 created the first of the new breed, Liberty Ale, in commemoration of the bicentennial of Paul Revere’s ride. Huge in flavor, intensely aromatic, and bursting with the delectable bitterness of hops, it bore the same relation to subtle, understated European beers as California wine did to French. And like California wine, it went great with the spicy new American cuisine.

In other grainy matters, Kevin Holtsberry has a poll and a debate a-brewing over which nation makes the best beer. My vote goes to Antarctica - a continent, not a country, I know - for its little-known but exquisite Penguin Piss Ale.
posted by Anonymous at 12:59 PM

 
Child-like Faith
Dawn has an interview with Lily about God.
posted by Anonymous at 12:20 PM

 
They Have Bad Breath, Too
John Hawkins has found that besides being hateful, deluded conspiracy theorists who wouldn't know the truth if it sucked out their entrails, white supremacists are also poor spellers with bad grammar.
posted by Anonymous at 11:58 AM

 
The "Why" Hasn't Changed
King Kaufman asks if there is a new and different mechanism working in baseball that explains the record number of six managers fired since the beginning of spring training. His answer is "yes" there is something different and that thing is money.

"There's more pressure because there's more money involved," said Jim Lefebvre, the hitting coach for the Cincinnati Reds, who managed the Seattle Mariners in 1989-91, the Chicago Cubs in 1992-93 and the Milwaukee Brewers for part of the '99 season. "People expect teams to come out of the blocks quicker, expect to perform better, so there's more pressure on managers today. Now, we know one of the reasons why is the salaries."

Lefebvre pointed out how many teams are already more than 10 games out of first, with, at the time we talked, slightly less than a third of the season gone. Through Tuesday's games, a little past the one-third mark of the season, eight of the 30 teams were that far out. "There's just teams that can't stay up with the Joneses [because they can't afford to pay high salaries]. And if you do have money, there's more pressure," he said. "Different organizations as you go around have made big investments in teams, money to get the teams going. And when they're not going, they have a tendency to fire people quicker."

All of this is true, of course, but misses the bigger picture. The thing that gets managers, general managers, and even players (in the sense of being traded or released) fired is the same thing that always has: unmet expectations.

When expectations are not lived up to, someone gets fired. The key is to assess expectations as realistically as possible, then keep adjusting those expectations to fit circumstances: injuries, off-years, career-years, etc., and try to determine what, if any, adjustments can be made to maximize a team's chances. Money may alter elements within the equasion, but the answer is always "unmet expectations" when the question was "Why did X get fired"?

In other baseball matters, Cornlad Dave Hogberg (a last name destined for an agricultural state) calls Marishal's attack of John Roseboro "ancient history," which 1965 is if you believe civilization began with the advent of MTV. But for me, as a six year-old, seeing a famous and successful pitcher turn around and beat the hell out of the catcher for MY TEAM with his bat left a deep impression upon my psyche and left me deeply suspicious of both Giants, Latins, and opposing pitchers for a long time: Giant opposing Latin pitchers being worst of all.

He also gloats about Barry Bonds, who without question, is a Hall of Famer and had one of the greatest statistical seasons of all time last year. One small problem: Bonds is obviously on steroids, didn't deny it when asked, and rumor from the locker room has it that his nuts resemble raisins.
posted by Anonymous at 11:17 AM

 
Sufficient or Necessary?
William Saletan rightly sees the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions regarding the 9/11 blame game:

It's doubtful that erasing any one of the admitted failures, by itself, would have averted the attacks altogether. To suggest that it would have is satisfying to the accuser but unfair to the accused. It also gives each of the participants in this collective failure an easy out. None of them had enough information to stop the crime. So if having enough information to stop the crime is the standard of culpability, no one is culpable. If we're going to learn anything from Sept. 11, we need to talk less about what would have been sufficient to avert the attacks, and more about what would have been necessary.

...."could" doesn't imply "would." The latter conveys certainty; the former conveys possibility. In fighting terrorism, possibility, not certainty, should be the operative principle. It suits the complex nature of investigation, gives agents practical guidance, and is a standard to which politicians and bureaucrats can reasonably be held. The question to ask about each step not taken in the months leading up to Sept. 11 is not whether it would have prevented the attacks but whether it would have kept alive a chain of investigation making that outcome possible [emphasis mine].

Exactly: the real issue isn't whether any given failure caused 9/11 - actually a bunch of muderous zealots CAUSED 9/11 - the question is whether a given failure broke the chain that COULD have led to prevention, or at least modification of the eventual result.

Saletan also recognizes that intelligence gathering and analysis are not mutually exclusive activities, but are intersected:

in practice, information-gathering and analysis aren't separate stages. They're interwoven. When you get information, you have to analyze it in order to figure out what kind of information to look for next. Consider the now-famous "Phoenix memo," in which FBI agent Kenneth Williams advised headquarters of "the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities." Williams spun that scenario from sketchy evidence based on a few examples. He offered a possibility, not a firm theory.

When asked a few days ago about the Phoenix memo and the near-simultaneous Minnesota investigation of accused Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, Mueller replied that "there was nothing specifically in either of those instances that gave a direct connection to what happened on September 11." That's true. But investigations don't require specific, direct connections. The Phoenix memo was just a link in the chain. The next link was to check out flight schools, as Williams proposed. If the FBI had done that, it might have found enough information to get a warrant to search Moussaoui's computer, which in turn might have exposed more of the plot and its participants.

What, then, can be done? Saletan is content to assert the culpability of the FBI, CIA and politicians of both parties for allowing failures to break the chain of investigation that could have prevented/altered 9/11. More information needs to be gathered, it needs to be shared and coordinated, and SOMEONE needs to be put in the position of thinking the unthinkable and looking for patterns that could allow the unthinkable to become reality.
posted by Anonymous at 10:33 AM

 
Process vs. Goal
Rand Simberg has mixed feelings about the Mars Student Imaging Project, which he posted here.

His thoughtful, empathetic concern is that kids will get all jazzed up by student projects like this one and then be forever frustrated in their desire to get into space - as he has been - and similar to the vast majority of kids who aspire to, for example, the NBA.

My overall feeling on the matter of "many will enter, few will win" is that free societies have a certain Darwinian element to them regardless of the endeavor you choose to pursue: space exploration and basketball are not different in kind, though they are perhaps different in degree regarding room at the top.

I can't see kids practicing basketball or learning this

Students in the on-site format will be at the Mars Space Flight Facility to receive the image they chose to take of the surface of Mars. Student teams will learn how to use image-processing tools to enhance their image for better scientific study. Students will also prepare a presentation to assist them in peer-tutoring the students who were unable to travel to the facility.

as ever being bad however. Yes, there are only so many hours in the day, and if all you do is dribble and shoot to the neglect of your studies then that is a poor use of time and poor prioritizing.

But developing a skill, virtually any skill, is one of the joys of life and a real achievement from which to take pride. Just because a person doesn't end up in the NBA doesn't mean that making the most out of his/her ability was a waste of time. Playing well at the high school level is deeply satisfying in and of itself, and if you are good enough, can be an open door to college, which can only be good.

The issue isn't ultimately even WHAT the particular skill is: the fundamental import of skill development is developing and demonstrating the skills required to do anything well. The fortitude and determination displayed in the development of one skill can always be applied to the development of others. The fact that only a tiny percentage of people will attain the apex of any given endeavor should in no way detract from the satisfaction a person should derive from maximizing his/her own facility.

Just because you don't make the NBA, or even your high school team, doesn't mean you shouldn't take pride in holding your own on the playground. I played baseball through college and while I feel a certain level of regret at not having been good enough to have advanced further still, the positives of knowing that I made the most out of my ability, that I played out the string, far outweigh any resentment that the string ended sooner than I would have preferred. At some critical junctures in my life I have said to myself things like "it is worth the time and effort to pursue this goal, or develop that skill - look how far I was able to go in baseball with relatively modest natural skills," and I have pushed on as a result.

Specifically regarding a few of Rand's points, then, I can't imagine there being ANY real downside to developing a love for or interest in space and/or science. I can't imagine there are very many individuals who regret pursuing their interest in space even if they NEVER GET TO GO THERE. The IDEA of space seems to me more interesting than the reality of a featureless vacuum occasionally punctuated with rocks. Sure it would be exciting to go to Mars, but the skills, knowledge and self-improvement inherent in pursuing the dream of space will always outweigh the disappointment of not actually getting there.

Regarding dreams of leaving the ghetto, I think the pursuit of basketball glory is a better use of time with more transferable skills than the pursuit of rap, boxing, drug dealing, hustling or pimping/prostitution. Basketball can be at least a tenuous connection to school and the pursuit of eligibility can persuade at least some to remain in school longer and put greater effort into studies. ANY activity that provides an entree or impetus into college is only to the good for an individual and society.

I understand and sympathize with Rand's desire to not foster disappointment by encouraging kids to pursue unattainable goals like space or the NBA, but the goal ultimately isn't nearly as important as what can be achieved in the process of trying to get there.
posted by Anonymous at 9:57 AM

 
Backing Away From the Brink?
Dean made some points regarding India and Pakistan in the comments section of this post that deserve a broader hearing:

I'd suggest that the situation is quite dire.

Pakistan may well not be in full control of its situation. ISI (the Pakistani intelligence service) has long been a law unto itself. One of Musharraf's first actions after 9-11 was to fire a number of ISI-linked generals in the Pakistani high command. One can only hope that they were NOT in the nuclear chain-of-command, or if they were, that their replacements have rooted down deep. This is NOT to excuse Pakistan (which has been aiding the Muslim militants), but to note that, now that the chips are down, they may or may not have the ability to corral the tiger that they unleashed.

India has little incentive to rein itself in. In the first place, it has conventional superiority; so it may well believe that it would win any conventional war. As scary, however, it may also be banking on Pakistani rationality to keep Pakistan from using its nukes, i.e., "They won't use nukes, because they know they'd lose." Such brinksmanship makes a certain amount of sense, since the Pakistanis, as noted above, have been stoking the fires of Kashmir. However, w/ a weak government and a Hindu nationalist prime minister, India also seems to believe that it is on a God-directed (or would that be Kali-directed?) mission. Remember that it was Hindu nationalists who tore apart the mosque at Ayodhya w/ their bare hands a few years ago, because it was built on the site of a Hindu temple---several hundred years ago.

That is what makes this so scary---BOTH sides are convinced that God is on their side (the Pakistanis named one of their missiles after a god that killed the Indian missile's name-sake---I s*** you not). And few wars are as bloody as religious wars, historically.

As for the handshake, a brief anecdote. John Foster Dulles refused to shake hands w/ Zhou Enlai, back at some conference in the 1950s, iirc. This was a slap that the Chinese never forgot, nor forgave. Thus, when Richard Nixon visited China, he very noticeably went to Mao w/ his hand extended, in order to make up for that diplomatic slap decades previously. And the Chinese RECOGNIZED it for what it was---an apology. I don't know what Vajpayee was necessarily referring to, but these sorts of things DO mean something, especially where there is so much hatred and dissing and all that rooted down deep.

Just some thoughts.....
Dean

I agree very strongly that gestures and symbols count, especially in Asia. It would appear the rhetoric has toned down a bit, which I presume to be a good sign:

- Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf declared on Thursday he won't start a war with India as diplomacy appeared to be making some head way in averting war between the nuclear-armed foes.

"President Musharraf has made it very clear that he is searching for peace and he won't be the one to initiate a war," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters in the Pakistan capital.

"I will be hopefuly getting the same type of assurances tomorrow in Delhi," he said.

The big boys are taking this very seriously:

Britain's Independent newspaper reported on Thursday the United States will propose a joint Anglo-American military monitoring force for Kashmir.

Quoting defence and diplomatic sources, the report said U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would put forward the proposal when he visits the region next week.

It said about 500 helicopter-born troops could be used to patrol the disputed border. Foreign office and defence ministry officials delcined to confirm the specifics of the story.

....Armitage's tour to the subcontinent follows President George W. Bush's appeal to leaders of the two nuclear-armed rivals to step back from the abyss.

....Bush telephoned Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Wednesday, raising the profile of an international diplomatic offensive to head off war, as the United States and Britain urged their citizens to leave the region.

....Fears that millions could be killed in the first atomic war between nuclear-armed states have prompted world leaders to step up diplomatic pressure to pull them back from the brink.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is scheduled to follow Armitage to Pakistan and India in the next few days.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said there were signs tensions between India and Pakistan were easing slightly, but it was too early for a summit between the two leaders.

posted by Anonymous at 8:30 AM

 
Risk and Responsibility
It comes down to the questions of what is rational and who is responsible. I am almost pathologically anti-smoking so my attitude has been "soak the tobacco companies for all you can get" every step of the way. But I beginning to realize that individuals also have to take responsibility for their own actions at some point on the continuum: where exactly this point is I am not sure, but that is the legal and moral crux of the entire product liability issue.

There is no question the companies should be liable for damages incurred prior to the 1964 surgeon general's report - people simply didn't know of the dangers, while the tobacco companies did. After that the scale begins to slide.

W. Kip Viscusi, professor of law and economics at Harvard Law School, nonsmoker, former Nader's Raider, is an unlikely candidate to have

spent much of his energy defending the rationality and judgment of those souls, more risk-tolerant than he, who choose to light up. As a chief witness for Big Tobacco, he has made a compellingly simple argument: Smokers have a very solid understanding of tobacco's health risks. In multibillion-dollar lawsuits, individual smokers and state attorneys general have claimed that tobacco companies have duped the public about the risks of smoking. But Mr. Viscusi insists that just isn't so. Even if tobacco companies have churned out misinformation and propaganda, he says, they've failed to deceive their customers.

More controversially still, Mr. Viscusi declares that state governments enjoy a net fiscal gain from each pack of cigarettes sold, even before excise taxes are taken into account. Because smokers tend to die young, he argues, governments incur lower nursing-home and health-care costs for smokers as a class. So the major state and federal lawsuits against tobacco, which have sought reimbursement for smokers' Medicaid expenses, are based on a false premise. According to Mr. Viscusi, total Medicaid costs would actually be higher if there were no cigarettes. (That analysis, which one of Mr. Viscusi's critics calls "obscene," was initially disavowed by the tobacco industry itself.)

For a man who claims to be coldly rational and to argue only from the facts, though, it is possible that this bit of biographical information may color his judgment:

Mr. Viscusi was raised in Louisville, Ky., the son of two teachers -- and smokers. "We collected Raleigh coupons," he recalled during a legal deposition in February. Both of his parents stopped smoking during the early 1960s, shortly before he started high school. That was an era when the health risks of smoking were being widely publicized, and he describes his parents' decision to quit as highly analytic: They saw the data, assessed their own risk tolerance, and decided to stop.

Viscusi's defense of the industry is based upon this:

[In the late-'80s] he was hired as a consultant by a law firm representing R.J. Reynolds, the tobacco company. He was engaged as an expert on warning labels, as he'd done research for the government on the efficacy of various kinds of chemical warnings. "They brought me to their offices," he says, "and they had a couple of file drawers full of stuff on warnings. They said, Have a look through here and see what you find." In one of those drawers Mr. Viscusi came upon a file that would change his professional life: a survey of consumers' risk awareness, financed by two law firms for tobacco companies and conducted in 1985 by Audits and Surveys Inc., a research company based in New York City.

Here, Mr. Viscusi believed, was a gold mine. The survey asked respondents such questions as "Have you heard that cigarette smoking will most likely shorten a person's life?" and "Among 100 cigarette smokers, how many of them do you think will get lung cancer because they smoke?" In Mr. Viscusi's reading, the data suggested that the public is highly aware of smoking risks. The respondents surmised, for example, that 43 percent of smokers will get lung cancer because they smoke (the scientific consensus is that the actual figure is around 15 percent).

It seems to me that Viscusi took the information he found in the study, coupled it with the experience of his parents - rather analytical teachers, it would appear - who were able to rationally assess the risks of smoking once the surgeon general's report came out, and make the decision to quit.

But not all people are as rational as Viscusi's parents: many, many people have an amazing capacity for self-delusion, and coupled with the influence of physical and psychological addiction, the simple fact that the "truth is out there" shouldn't absolve the industry entirely:

Mr. Viscusi's critics raise several substantive questions about his approach to the public's risk beliefs. They claim that he has failed to take into account the insights of social psychology, and that he views his survey data through a crudely economistic lens.

Among the principal charges is that Mr. Viscusi's surveys suffer from "third-person bias." The Audits and Surveys questionnaires asked people how many of a hypothetical 100 smokers will contract a given disease, or how many years of life a hypothetical smoker will lose. The questionnaires did not ask smokers directly how they assessed their personal risks. "Tobacco poses a special, unique challenge to people's rationality," says Paul Slovic, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. "A single cigarette is probably not going to harm you physically very much. And that's what you're always smoking: the next single cigarette. You don't make a decision to smoke for a lifetime. It's always, Should I take one more? Surveys suggest that people know the risks and want to quit, but they're wildly overoptimistic about the likelihood that they actually will quit within a given time frame."

....Critics also charge that, contrary to Mr. Viscusi's findings, heavy smokers are foolishly optimistic about their odds of living to age 75. A 1997 study by Michael Schoenbaum, an economist at the RAND Corporation, used data from the long-running federal Health and Retirement survey to assess whether heavy smokers among the "near elderly" (that is, from 55 to 64) correctly understand their health risks. By matching respondents' answers to their eventual dates of death, Mr. Schoenbaum concluded that heavy smokers overestimate their likelihood of reaching 75.

Some would go so far as to say that the decision to smoke is never rational: the "benefits" can never outweigh the "costs," but this is where the individual responsibility issue comes in. How do we want to be treated by our government? How much do we want to be taken care of "for our own good"? How much autonomy do we want in our decision-making?

It seems to me it is time for us to take a step back and rethink our relationship with government in order to resolve the rampant contradictions within our system. Why are tobacco and alcohol - with legion studies chronicling their detrimental health effects - legal but regulated when other substances - like marijuana - are prohibited outright with stiff legal penalties for mere possession? Yet if we are to choose less regulation nd more personal responsibility for our decisions, then it would seem that the tobacco industry could only be held liable for purposeful deception and not for simply making a product that is inherently dangerous.

There is no "right" answer, but the time has come for us to make hard decisions about responsibility and rationality and retool our legal system accordingly, because right now it is a confused and contradictory mess.
posted by Anonymous at 4:35 PM

 
Comments
It's probably my fault, but it seems like the "Comments" have been sparse lately. You are hereby encouraged to leave your thoughts, suggestions, criticism, recipes, whatever. I will always respond. Or if you prefer privacy, send me an email. However you do it, let's keep it interactive. Thank You!
posted by Anonymous at 3:00 PM

 
Cool Tunes Playlist
I've had a bunch of requests to publish the Cool Tunes playlist on the site, so from now on I will. Thanks for your interest.

Cool Tunes is a radio show in a magazine format Saturday nights at 10pm (Eastern) on WAPS, "The Summit," in Akron, Ohio. I play new music, reissues, and preview shows coming to town each week. Musically it is among the widest-ranging 2 hours in the country: modern rock, punk, electronica, jazz, reggae and ska, roots rock, Americana, blues, world, funk, hip hop, avant garde, etc. - if it's cool I play it. Cool Tunes has been proudly serving humanity since 1990.

6/1/02
Artist, Song, Album, Label

The Hives "Supply and Demand" Veni Vidi Vicious Epitaph/Sire;
The Mooney Suzuki "In a Young Man's Mind" Electric Sweat Gammon;
Unwritten Law "Sound Siren" Elva Interscope;
Our Lady Peace "Life" Spiritual Machines Columbia;
Spindle "Window" Spindle EP Spindle;
Thrice "See You In the Shallows" The Illusion of Safety Sub City;
Dillinger Four "Fuzzy Pink Handcuffs" Situationist Comedy Fat Wreck Chords;
White Zombie "Thunder Kiss '65" The KMFDM Remixes Geffen;
Static X "A Dios Alma Perdida" Machine Warner Brothers;
Trik Turner "Existence" Trik Turner RCA;
Quarashi "Transparent Parents" Jinx Time Bomb/Columbia;
Chaka Demus and Pliers "Murder She Wrote" Ultimate Collection Island/Hip-O;
Tony Rebel "Hypocrites" Realms of Rebel RAS;
Toots and the Maytals "Monkey Man" The Very Best of Island;
The Equators "Police On My Back" Hot Ace Boon Tune;
The Meters "Sophisticated Sissy" The New Orleans Hit Story Instant;
Dr. John "Mama Roux" Right Place Wrong Time Flashback;
Dr. Michael White "Caribbean Girl" Jazz From the Soul of N.O. Basin Street;
Chuck Prophet "After the Rain" No Other Love New West;
Jason Ringenberg "Honky Tonk Maniac From.." All Over Creation Yep Roc;
Freedy Johnston "Bad Reputation" This Perfect World Elektra;
Michael Stanley Band "Gypsy Eyes" You Break It You Bought It Epic;
Eddie Burns "Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But.." Snake Eyes Delmark;
Mighty Joe Young "Chicken Heads" Mighty Joe Young Blind Pig;
Sleepy John Estes "Airplane Blues" Newport Blues Delmark;
Bill Charlap and Shirley Horn "Stardust" Stardust Blue Note;
Dave Brubeck "Lullaby" Telarc Jazz 25 Years Telarc;
E.S.T. "Strange Place For Snow" Strange Place For Snow Superstudio Gul/Columbia;
Philly Joe Jones "Hi Fly" Drum Songs Milestone;
Eric Alexander "The Sweetest Sounds" Summit Meeting Milestone;
Wayne Shorter "Aung San Suu Kyi" Footprints Live Verve;
Lemon Juice Quartet "Trumpets of the Rosicrucian 2" Peasant Songs Piadrum
posted by Anonymous at 2:42 PM

 
A War In Six Days No More
I came late to the Israeli-Arab conflict - the machinations of a bunch of nuts in the desert didn't much capture my attention until after 9/11, when much of America and I looked up from our collective navel. I am still catching up on the background of the conflict and this Amitai Etzioni review of a new Michael Oren book on the Six Day War fills in holes and connects some dots:

IN A VERY USEFUL opening chapter, Oren provides the historical context for the Six Day War--the conflict that, in turn, established the framework for many of the geopolitical issues with which the Middle East is still contending. It is a familiar story of the Jews of the Diaspora settling in what they believed to be a land with few people. In 1947 the United Nations "General Assembly Resolution 181" created two states, Arab and Jewish, with Jerusalem under an international regime. But both the local Palestinians and the neighboring Arab states refused to accept the arrangement, choosing instead to fight Israel from the day it was born. (I served as an Israeli commando in the Palmach at the time and can testify to Oren's accuracy.)

But there is a new element to the conflict:

Nationalism did provide some motivation, but not enough to fill the rank and file of the Arab armies with a strong desire to fight. Instead, the kind of ideological fervor that leads to suicide bombers and people willing to spend years preparing terrorist attacks on civilians has come, since the collapse of Soviet communism and the fading of the Cold War, from a new force: Islamic fundamentalism.

Recently there was a fight among the hundreds of volunteers for a suicide bombing mission in Gaza--because one of the candidates jumped the queue, taking the place another considered his. And many millions of Muslims across numerous countries, egged on by Arabic TV, have made eliminating Israel (the little Satan) and the United States (the big Satan) a tenet of their faith.

As a result, the Six Day War is not a metaphor for the current situation:

The campaign against terrorism by Israel and the United States will be a prolonged struggle. Its proper metaphor is not--sadly--the Six Day War, but the Cold War. We are engaged in a long, tedious, and brutal war with virulent forms of Islam, during which will have to be a fight over the hearts and minds of those we face. We shall have to help them to see the virtue of free governments and open societies over the dogmatic life under theocratic regimes that now not only terrorize, but also ideologically mobilize them by playing on religious symbols.

When liberal democracies fight terrorism, they face a moral dilemma. The individual terrorists hide within the civilian population and do not fight by traditional rules of war. And the countries that support them place their missiles, topped with chemical and biological agents, next to schools, hospitals, and mosques. So, when we fight terrorists in Afghanistan (or when Israel fights them in Jenin), there are inevitably civilian casualties.

Other than some of the fighting in Afghanistan, this isn't a war against armies at all:

today we fight a worldwide war against terrorists who hide only among civilians. Moreover, if caught, they claim all the rights we bestow on civilians, supported by civil-libertarian lawyers, and backed up all too often by judges who think that they are dealing with garden-variety criminals. And, in terrorist nations such as Iraq, not only are there more than a few instances of major military assets being hidden among and under civilian quarters, but such positioning is systematically pursued. In short, we are unable to overcome terrorism without causing "collateral damage" on an entirely new order of magnitude.

But this shouldn't, can't stop us:

WE MAY FIND SOLACE in what ought to be called "collateral gains." We have learned in Afghanistan that the overwhelming majority of its people wanted to be released from the yolk of the tyrannical government that had terrorized them for decades. Far from being fanatical (as many of us, only two years ago, supposed most Afghans were), they were dancing in the streets when freed from the Taliban. A visit to Iran this May left me without the slightest doubt that about 80 percent of the population of that country (as indicated by election polls and their behavior) do not favor the fanatical regime imposed on them by the mullahs. And although Iraq is governed by a secular and not a theocratic tyranny, the fact that it has to rely on terror to keep its own people in check is a sign that American troops may soon be welcomed as liberators in Al Basrah and in Baghdad, as they have been in Kabul.

posted by Anonymous at 11:02 AM

 
"Stern Determination"
Novelist Donald E. Westlake has some thoughts on 9/11 and the president:

[On 9/11] those inhuman creatures with their own death-soaked values called America's attention to themselves, as they'd been trying to do for years. This time, they succeeded, but they accomplished far more than they set out to do.

In the first place, they finally brought an end to the Vietnam war. For thirty years, America has been wounded, defensive, insecure, a braggart, and a bully because it was no longer sure of itself. Vietnam had broken America's belief in its own decency, the belief that had made it so useful and so cordial in the world for so long. A German friend once told me that, when he was a child, the first word one thought of in connection with Americans was "candor." After Vietnam, that was no longer the first word anyone thought of.

With one slap across the face on September 11, that changed. America became closer to what it had been in 1960, self-confident without arrogance. The nation of the Peace Corps, not Grenada. Which meant that the symbol at the top had to change. In the first day or two after September 11, George W. Bush could be seen floundering, breathing open-mouthed like a fish, waiting for somebody to tell him what to do. But, more rapidly than I expected, he realized what he had to do. He had to become a grownup.

The new suit does not fit perfectly, but that's all right. President Bush is performing a demonstration of stern determination, and is certainly doing it well enough to pass. We asked him to change roles in mid-performance, and he did it. We could not ask for more.

Actually, we could and should ask for more: we should ask for him to continue with the performance and not revert to that of Fratboy In Chief, bumbling equivocator, an encore he seems to have been rehearsing in earnest of late.
posted by Anonymous at 10:48 AM

 
Football In June
Creepy Blogger of the Corn Dave Hogberg, who, since they have no people and therefore no professional sports teams in Iowa, has to identify with teams like Minnesota's Twinkies, writes to point out that those same Twinkies clearly dropped some Roofies on the Indians' pitchers last night at the Trash Bag Dome, as they savaged the Tribe 23-2. There goes the winning streak.

UPDATE
Dave isn't really all that creepy and he informs us that he isn't a Twinkies fan as he was originally a Bay Area denizen. Well thank goodness for the former, but as to the latter, does he think I'll be happy he's a GIANTS fan? I'm from L.A. and think Juan Marishal should have been taken out back and shot after he attacked John Roseboro rather than being fined a pittance and suspended for 5 minutes.
posted by Anonymous at 10:23 AM

 
Aussie Follow-up
Tim Blair knows his idiotic countrywoman Dr. Helen Caldicott:

Oh my God! Caldicott!

She's freakin' hilarious. The old bint has been railing about nuclear evils for decades, then a few years ago developed cancer -- for which she needed treatments devised by, you guessed it, nuclear medicines.

Then she went straight back to campaigning against Australia's only nuclear reactor, which isn't a powerplant. It has only medical and research applications.

She's insane.

Cheers,
Tim

posted by Anonymous at 10:08 AM

 
Nuclear Responsibility
Two nuclear nations, the fate of millions in the balance, a million troops massed along their mutual border, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf were both at an Asian summit in Almaty, Kazakhstan earlier this week. What happened?

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was due to leave Almaty early on Wednesday after failing to agree to a face-to-face meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, President Pervez Musharraf, who left for home on Tuesday.

"No, I didn't meet him. And no, I didn't shake hands with him," Musharraf said earlier. "I shook hands with him once before... Maybe I was waiting for him to shake hands with me this time."

"Maybe I was waiting for him to shake hands with me this time"???

This is the best diplomatic effort the leader of a nation poised on the brink of the first nuclear exchange in the history of the world could come up with? Say what you want about John F. Kennedy running around like a rutting Irish wolfhound, in October of 1962 he wasn't waxing petulant about who initiated what handshake while the missiles flew:

On Saturday evening, after a day of tense discussions within the "ExComm" or Executive Committee of senior advisers, President Kennedy decided on a dual strategy—a formal letter to Khrushchev accepting the implicit terms of his October 26 letter (a U.S. non-invasion pledge in exchange for the verifiable departure of Soviet nuclear missiles). coupled with private assurances to Khrushchev that the United States would speedily take out its missiles from Turkey, but only on the basis of a secret understanding, not as an open agreement that would appear to the public, and to NATO allies, as a concession to blackmail. The U.S. president elected to transmit this sensitive message through his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who met in his office at the Justice Department with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.

And do you imagine that even blustery Khrushchev, who variously pounded his shoe on the podium at the U.N. and said "We will be at your burial," would have encouraged Cuban terrorist raids on South Florida and then coyly denied it? ("Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used for any terrorist acts outside or inside its boundaries.") Or whined that it was Kennedy's turn to call him on the Hotline?

The difference between then and now - the U.S. and the Soviet Union vs. India and Pakistan - is that nuclear capability 40 years ago seemed to carry a much higher burden of responsibility: those who had it took it very seriously, perhaps with Hiroshima and Nagasaki relatively fresh on their minds. The U.S. and the Soviet Union played at brinksmanship, but had diplomatic efforts going on behind the scenes throughout the Cubam Missile Crisis:

the resolution of the crisis (Khrushchev's withdrawal of the missiles from Cuba) came after a series of secret meetings in which RFK offered the Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin not threats of nuclear retaliation but an old-fashioned diplomatic deal: a pledge of no U.S. invasion of Cuba, plus the withdrawal of U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey. The terms, according to the memoir, were that this could not be an explicit quid pro quo and that the deal would never be publicly acknowledged by the United States. Further revisions of the myth emerged in the early 1980s, when former Kennedy aides Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy, alarmed by what they saw as President Ronald Reagan's embrace of brinkmanship, warned the public that the Cuban Missile Crisis had not been resolved by America's nuclear superiority but by its conventional superiority in the Caribbean, which enabled restraint and the quarantine of Cuba.)

The threshold then for nuclear confrontation was very high - let us hope it remains so. Perhaps India's conventional superiority will also "enable restraint," though certainly not the "quarantine" of Kashmir. I am not reassured of the parties' understanding of the seriousness of the matter though after exchanges like these:

In the midst of heightened Indo-Pak tensions, an Indian high commission staffer in Islamabad was abducted on Saturday by unidentified persons, believed to be Pakistan intelligence operatives, while he was returning home along with his 10-year-old son.

High commission officials said Kulwant Singh was abducted at around 11.30 hrs near his residence at Royal Enclave while he was returning on a two-wheeler.

India on Saturday night termed the abduction of one of its high commission staffers in Islamabad as 'inhuman and reprehensible' and lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over the incident.

The abduction was against all diplomatic conventions and code of civilised behaviour, an external affairs ministry spokesperson told PTI.

The abduction, she said, was an obvious retaliation to Friday's incident involving an assistant of the Pakistan high commission in Delhi being caught red-handed while accepting classified documents from an Indian Air Force sergeant.

Pakistan has said that Kulwant Singh, the Indian high commission staffer who was prevented from crossing over to India by road, was stopped 'for travelling without completing procedural requirements' and accused Indian officials of 'deliberately subverting' rules agreed between both the countries.

A Pakistan foreign office spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday night that the staffer had not completed the formalities required to travel by road.

"The foreign office has conveyed its deep concern to the Indian high commission in Islamabad at the deliberate effort of the Indian official to circumvent the relevant requirements," said the statement.

Handshake slights, beating up a diplomat on a bicycle, preventing same from getting medical treatment - these are not the actions of people who understand the seriousness of their situation, who are willing to keep the unthinkable unthinkable. We, the world, must make them realize that nuclear is not an option, that this is not a game.

Ernest W. Lefever, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, tries to be reassuring:

Strange as it may seem, a little nuclear saber-rattling over the Kashmir conflict may be a good thing. During the last two weeks, the leaders of India and Pakistan have brandished their nuclear-tipped missiles and made veiled threats to use them. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee have felt compelled to look and act fearsome.

Like animals that show their fangs or inflate themselves with air to appear more menacing to adversaries, both men have resorted to this hallowed ritual of political rivals, which more often than not has prevented a deadly showdown.

"More often than not" is not the level of assurance I am looking for.

The well-documented history of the nuclear era--and virtually all other evidence--suggests that such a war will not erupt. The provocative words on both sides are part of an elaborate ritual.

Now, as always, leaders confronting a crisis communicate with one another not only through quiet diplomatic channels but also by a public ritualized code. This coded confrontation is often a substitute for lethal conflict, a kind of foreplay that can end in a fragile peace if not in a mutual embrace.

Lefever believes they DO know what they are doing:

More important than the immediate posturing by India and Pakistan is the fact that both sides are increasingly aware of the lessons learned by Washington and Moscow since the dawn of the nuclear era. Many of those who studied in the U.S. have adopted the esoteric vocabulary of the nuclear balance. Among the understandings they learned are these:

* The atom-bombing of Japan in 1945 was a one-time measure, tragic but justified because it ended a brutal war and saved up to a million lives, mostly Japanese.

* Shortly after the Soviet Union acquired the atom bomb, both Washington and Moscow realized that the basic purpose of their respective stockpiles was to prevent their use. As it turned out, the delicate nuclear balance of terror also prevented a conventional war.

* The 1962 Cuban missile crisis demonstrated the stabilizing impact of nuclear deterrence and reinforced the tendency of the superpowers to rely on less-lethal means for managing conflict. Further, President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev negotiated by deeds without the necessity for face-to-face talks.

* After the Soviet Union fell, the threat of nuclear war receded even further. Both sides increasingly recognized the merit of minimum deterrence, the view that each side needed only enough nuclear weapons to make a first strike against it too costly to the other. What rational Kremlin leader would initiate a nuclear attack if he assumed millions of his people would perish in retaliation?

To what extent have the leaders of India and Pakistan internalized these vital lessons? And do they have the requisite attributes--common sense, prudence and courage--to resist the passions of the moment? I believe they do.

The childish behavior, the sabre rattling, is it a front for serious negotiations? We must hope.
posted by Anonymous at 8:32 AM

 
"Goodnight and Have a Pleasant Tomorrow"
This headline appears in one form or another every few weeks:

Taliban Leader Still Alive, Says Afghan Minister

Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, one of the world's most wanted men, is alive and spending much of his time outside Afghanistan, the interior minister of the interim Afghan government said Monday.

"... Mullah Omar still exists. He is out of Afghanistan most of the time," Yunis Qanuni told reporters.

It was the first time an Afghan minister has confirmed the one-eyed Taliban chief and protector of Saudi-born al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was still alive.

It may be the first time an Afghan minister has said it, but a series of spokesmen for this or that organization have been proclaiming the irrelevant, illiterate, one-eyed bumpkin-terrorist alive since he disappeared.

I am reminded of the old Saturday Night Live running gag where a picture of a general, replendent in a military uniform, flashed on the screen during the newscast. Chevy Chase deadpanned to the camera: "This just in ….. Generalisimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

Of course we want Omar - he's a murderer, a stupid demagogue, a dangerous remnant. But that's all he is: a remnant. For Afghanistan's future, he might as well be dead. He is the discredited detritus of history. Regardless of his wretched biological status, for all intents and purposes, "Mullah Mohammad Omar is still dead." Good riddance to bad news.
posted by Anonymous at 9:07 PM

 
9/11 Mastermind Fingered?
All of this dithering about Iraq, and inconsequential mop-up work in Afghanistan has left me bored and frustrated, but this is a headline to make the dog sit up and wag his tail:

Sept. 11 Mastermind May Be ID'd

Investigators believe they have identified a Kuwaiti lieutenant of Osama bin Laden as the likely mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Tuesday.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, designated one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, is at large in Afghanistan or nearby, the official told The Associated Press.

U.S. investigators believe Mohammed planned many aspects of the Sept. 11 attacks, turning bin Laden's calls for dead Americans into reality.

"There's lots of links that tie him to 9-11," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He's the most significant operational player out there right now."

I think it is not coincidental that this information is coming out now, the day the Senate investigation into intelligence failure begins.
posted by Anonymous at 8:06 PM

 
Other Ecosystems
With the blog world abuzz about NZ Bear's Ecosystem, it is worth noting there are other systems for plotting the blogs. Also, Doc Searls and Richard Bennett note that the "A Team" of early computer-related blog legends like Winer, Weinberger, Kottke, Evhead, etc., are grossly underrepresented on the Bear's system, which they are.

Mark Pilgrim checks in with his blog-relation system, which he calls a "neighborhood":

The neighborhood is just a way of figuring out where you fit into the larger weblogging community. There are lots of ways to determine this; some automated, some not. My particular interactive example today looks at Google to find sites "related" to yours, for instance

Then it looks at each of these sites to see what sites *they* link to (in their permanent blogrolls).

I was experimenting with this over the weekend to try to find sites that I might be interested in reading on a regular basis, but that I didn't know about yet. There are several different ways to do this, and they all yield slightly different results.

But anyway, that's the goal: not only to see where you fit, but to use the collective intelligence of the community to discover new and interesting people.-Mark

posted by Anonymous at 6:20 PM

 
Starved to Life
According to this article in the WSJ, scientists are on the verge of declaring a "restricted calorie diet" adds to the life span of monkeys and most likely humans:

Calorie restriction was first shown to create exceptionally long-lived rats in the 1930s. It later had the same effect in guppies, water fleas, yeast, spiders and a microscopic water invertebrate called the rotifer. Last month, Labrador retrievers became the first large mammals to join the list.

Now, scientists appear on the verge of a finding that calorie restriction also extends the lifespan of monkeys, who share more than 90% of their genes with humans. At the National Institutes of Health, where researchers have been studying a colony of 120 rhesus monkeys for 15 years, evidence for calorie restriction is mounting. The control animals, fed a healthy lowfat diet, are dying at a normal rate, while animals fed 30% less appear to be living far longer -- and avoiding age-linked maladies. One of the underfed monkeys is 38 years old, the human equivalent of 114 years.

There are various theories as to how it works:

Calorie restriction appears to create biochemical changes in the body that have a more-profound effect on lifespan than simply avoiding diseases caused by excess fat. No one knows for sure how it works. It might lower the levels of free radicals, or potentially toxic particles created by the breakdown of food. Other scientists believe it triggers a state of emergency called "survival mode" in which the body eliminates all unnecessary functions to focus only on staying alive.

....If scientists could discover what makes calorie restriction work, people might be able to enjoy the same effect without the hassle, and without the deprivation. One theory is that the lower body temperature caused by near-starvation somehow extends life. In case low temperature is in fact the secret, Mr. Rae avoids putting on a sweater even when he feels chilly.

There is mounting evidence for another favorite theory -- that lower food intake results in fewer free radicals, or unstable particles created as a result of the breakdown of food. These particles can seriously damage genes and proteins, resulting in potentially fatal diseases. Advocates of this theory got a major boost when samples of thigh muscles from the calorie-restricted monkeys at the University of Wisconsin were shown to have suffered remarkably little free-radical damage, says Dr. Weindruch.

NIH scientists have also found preliminary evidence for the "survival mode" theory. The scientists found that human and rat cells grown in the blood of calorie-restricted monkeys are enormously resistant to heat and toxins -- suggesting there is something in the blood that is fighting dangers aggressively.

Whatever the actual trigger, we are talking about very restricted intake to make it work:

the NIH monkey experiments limit food intake to the minimum necessary to prevent negative effects on health -- or at least 30% less than the current "healthy" diet. Translated into human terms, that would be 1,120 calories a day for the average woman, or 1,540 for a man.

For the average American, eating at that level would create deep hunger pangs. One meal at McDonald's -- a Big Mac, supersize fries, and small Coke -- weighs in at 1,450 calories. And if a woman on 30% calorie restriction had a cappuccino and a large muffin during her morning commute, she would already have consumed 75% of her allocation for the day, says Cathy Nonas, director of the Van Itallie Center for Nutrition and Weight Management at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York.

There are calorie-deprived people all over the world, but in most of the Third World malnutrition offsets the benefits of a low calorie diet. One place where a low calorie/high nutrition diet occurs naturally in on Okinawa:

a study of the Japanese island of Okinawa -- whose 1.3 million inhabitants have traditionally eaten a spartan, but nutrition-packed diet of about 1,800 calories a day -- provides some evidence for calorie restriction.

On Okinawa, where the diet consists of soy, vegetables and small amounts of fish, meat and rice, there are 34 centenarians for every 100,000 people -- more than triple the U.S. rate, says Bradley Willcox, a gerontologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. The oldest person in the world, 113-year-old Kamato Hongo, lives on a nearby island, he adds.

In the monkey study, not only are the calorie-restricted living longer, they are healthier as well:

Only 14% of them have developed an age-related disease, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes or failing kidneys, compared with 32% in the control group, Dr. Lane says.

Also, calorie restriction staved off the normal age-related decline in a multifunctioned hormone called dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate. DHEA, sold as a dietary supplement, has touched off a craze among Americans even though many scientists say there is no proof it will forestall aging.

All of this is very interesting, and obviously, the key is to find the actual mechanism that triggers the positive changes rather than forcing us to starve ourselves to live longer.

But what if this mechanism isn't found? The emphasis for active people now, especially athletes, is to get bigger and stronger, using intense weight training, supplements and even illegal steroids to achieve maximum size and muscle density. What would happen if a person pursued these twin, seemingly contradictory goals simultaneously? My guess is either one lean, muscular corpse, or an abundance of trophies from the Senior Olympics.
posted by Anonymous at 4:46 PM