2blowhards.com: Category Archives

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Food and Health Links
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Are vegetarians really healthier than meat eaters? * No reason not to have some chuckles at the expense of the localism-and-organic crowd, of course. Still: How many of those chucklers are aware of what Monsanto is up to? * Another insane health tip is laid to rest. It turns out that there's no reason whatsoever to drink eight glasses of water a day. Which prompts a musing: If we're really serious about improving our health and our happiness, maybe the first thing we should do is dismantle the health-tips industry. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at May 1, 2008 | perma-link | (4) comments

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Radical Fat
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Read about the world's most radical low-carb / high-fat diet. (Video here.) Here's a blogposting in praise of lard. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 27, 2008 | perma-link | (1) comments

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Milk, Eating, Fat
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The Boston Globe takes note of the surge of interest in raw milk. The curious may enjoy spending a few minutes at the website of raw-milk advocates, The Weston A. Price Foundation. With their praise for sauerkraut and kefir and their belief in coconut oil as a cure for almost anything that might ail you, the Weston A. Price bunch can seem like crackpots. But such solid food-and-eating types as Gary Taubes and Nina Planck respect Weston A. Price. I admire Taubes and Planck; I've enjoyed raw milk every time I've drunk it; and I'm currently getting a lot out of "Eat Fat, Lose Fat" by Weston A. Price honchos Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. Hey world, it's time to get over your terror of fat. Me, I've given up the dumb 'n' easy carbs and have taken to helping myself to a lot more fat than ever before, including regular servings of coconut oil (which tastes fine in coffee or chai tea). Result: No problems maintaining the weight-loss I was able to accomplish via Seth Roberts' "Shangri-La Diet." Alt-health guru Andrew Weil has cut back on the dumb carbs too, and has lost some of the Santa Claus poundage he was previously known for. Both Sally Fallon and Mary Enig appear as interviewees in Tom Naughton's entertaining and informative eating-and-weight-loss documentary "Fat Head." I interviewed Tom here and here. Jimmy Moore has done interviews with many of the people on the low-carb, don't-fear-fat side of the fence. Can I have a little more butter with that? Only, make it organic. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 26, 2008 | perma-link | (7) comments

More Gyro
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Julia Vitullo-Martin -- who usually covers urban affairs and architecture -- discovers the pleasures of Gyrotonics. I regularly visit two of the studios she visits, including this one. (Hi, Billy!) Nice sentence: "If every New Yorker regularly did Gyrotonics ... ours would be a far more beautiful, happy, and relaxed city." I think so too. Hot in Hollywood predicts that Gyro will be the next chic exercise fad. I wrote about Gyro back here, here, and here. Call me prescient, or call me a fashion victim ... Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 26, 2008 | perma-link | (0) comments

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Pollan and Taubes and Kunstler
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Michael Pollan thinks that, where food and eating go, we ought to learn how to trust our instincts. I think that's good advice where art and culture more generally go too. * Gary Taubes discusses carbs, fat, and bad dietary advice at the Stevens Institute of Technology: * Standup intellectual James Kunstler takes a break from Peak Oil to deliver a fiery talk about American urbanism and suburbia: Best, Michael... posted by Michael at February 21, 2008 | perma-link | (13) comments

Gyro
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- 30-Minute Meal diva Rachael Ray gives the exercise system called Gyrotonics a whirl: Though I don't giggle quite as infectiously as Rachael does, darn it, I enjoy Gyro too. I've been going to a class or two a week for about two years now, and I love the workout as much as I love yoga, which is saying a lot. For one thing, I love the activity itself. At first the machines can seem bizarre, the movements can be hard to imitate, and lord knows Gyro has its silly side. (That's a bad thing?) But the Gyro scene is a lot of fun. One reason is that Gyro hasn't been as thoroughly discovered and exploited as yoga and Pilates have been, so it's still a small and friendly universe. For another, Gyro teachers (most of them ex-dancers) seem nearly all to be sweet-natured, helpful, and easygoing -- less mystical than yoga teachers but far less Nazi-drill-Sergeant-esque than Pilates instructors. My physique hasn't exactly been transformed into a Greek god's -- far from it. But I'm well past the age when that's a realistic possibility anyway. What I love-love-love most about Gyro is the way it leaves me feeling: stretched, toned, and mellow. It isn't a sweaty-grunty, gym-style, testing-your-willpower activity, thank god. (Lost interest in those years ago.) The weights on the machines aren't there to exhaust you, they're there to dramatize and heighten the movements you perform. Instead it's great at helping you get the kinks out; at expanding your range of motion; at fostering body awareness; and at reminding you of how much fun it can be to have a contented and alert body. You may walk into a Gyro class feeling distracted, alienated from your body, and full of aches and pains -- but you're likely to walk out feeling blissy and playful. The sensation is a hyper-pleasing blend of "I just had a workout" and "I just got a massage." Hours after a Gyro session, I often find myself savoring the sensations in my hip joints, my shoulders, and my spine -- not something I'm likely to find myself doing otherwise. Gyro hasn't replaced yoga in my affections, but it has become a wonderful complement to it. I dragged The Wife to a few Gyro sessions not long ago. Though at first she dismissed it as one of my loonier passions, she has since become a regular at the Gyro studio herself. She likes the scene and the teachers, and she likes the way an hour of Gyro makes her feel. I like the way Gyro leaves her an even sweeter-natured, kittenish thing than she usually is. Here's another glimpse of some basic Gyro moves: A warning: Private classes with a Gyro instructor can be very expensive. So, if you're tempted to give Gyro a try but aren't rolling in dough, let me make a few suggestions. Do spring for five or ten private lessons despite the cost. The movements and... posted by Michael at February 21, 2008 | perma-link | (6) comments

Friday, January 25, 2008

Roberts / Taubes
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Seth Roberts, thanks to whose Shangri-La Diet I've been able to lose 10 pounds with the greatest of ease, interviews Gary Taubes, the author of "Good Calories, Bad Calories," an expose of how far wrong our health-tips industry has gone in its love affair with carbs and its demonization of fat. While the Taubes book strikes me as a major achievement, the interview is a special treat. It offers some things the book doesn't, namely Taubes' reflections about the experience: How he woke up to the fat-and-carbs con, how the establishment has reacted to his work, and how it is that well-meaning "expertise" can turn destructive. In case I haven't been clear enough about this before: The Gary Taubes book reminds me of "The Painted Word" and "From Bauhaus to Our House," Tom Wolfe's books about postwar American art and architecture. In tone, of course, the two writers are very different. Taubes is earnest, detailed, and scholarly in a popular-magazine way, where Wolfe is a stylist, a flamboyant caricaturist, and a provocateur. But, in substance, these three books are all real eye-openers. (Let's just say that in each case the emperor really does seem to have no clothes.) They're also helpful culture-explainers -- the kind of books you read thinking, "Oh! So that's why ..." Incidentally: I have enough experience in the culturesphere to be confident that Tom Wolfe was right. But where Gary Taubes and other members of that team go? I don't have the independent knowledge to be anything but hopeful. It's possible that my bullshit-meter is failing me, and that I'm gullibly buying into a lot of craziness. I have no real way of knowing. Thanks to Dave Lull for the link. Here's Seth Roberts' website; here's Seth's blog. I talked to Tom ("Fat Head") Naughton, who has made a documentary about the carbs-and-fat silliness, here and here. By the way: Should you really be on statins? Link thanks to Dr. Michael Eades. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at January 25, 2008 | perma-link | (4) comments

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Fact for the Day
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- A major reason to be grateful for living in a First World country, IMHO: More than 65% of India's rural population defecates in the open, along roadsides, railway tracks and fields ... And about 70% of India's billion-plus population live in its rural areas. Wow, almost a half a billion Indians crap in the open every day ... Me, I say: "Praise the heavens for modern plumbing." Source. Link found thanks to Vdare. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at January 16, 2008 | perma-link | (14) comments

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Q&A With Tom Naughton, Part One
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- When I read about Tom Naughton’s as-yet-unreleased food-and-diet documentary "Fat Head," I was instantly interested, and on two counts. In the first place, Naughton sounded as fascinated as I am by the way that the official health-tips class has put a lot of bad eating advice over on the public during the last few decades. How did this happen? In the second place, I was eager to learn more about Tom's experience as a first-time filmmaker. We're witnessing a major shift occurring in the world of audiovisual-through-time entertainment. As digital technology grows ever cheaper and ever easier-to-use, moviemaking has ceased being something that only fulltime professionals can afford and manage. Tom Naughton made his own feature-length movie almost entirely by himself. What was this like? So I contacted Tom and talked him into sending me a copy of his movie. I enjoyed it very much. Framed as a response to Morgan Spurlock's headline-grabbing, eating-all-month- at-McDonald’s film "Super Size Me," "Fat Head" is humorous, engaging, and informative. In only 80-odd minutes, Tom brings you up to speed with a lot of science and history -- and he does it all without strain, which is quite an accomplishment. Trust me on this, by the way: I've read a number of the books that cover this material, and I've done some professional writing myself. It's quite miraculous how efficiently and enjoyably Tom has conveyed the essence of a lot of very dense and dry work. Concision and easygoing-ness only look easy. But "Fat Head" is more than just sharp and entertaining. It's also resourceful, straight-shooting, and direct. Tom -- who has worked as a health writer and as a standup comedian -- is a very smart, droll, and agreeable host. As a filmmaker, one of his smarter choices was not to compete in the slickness sweepstakes. You might say that "Fat Head" is to the usual contempo documentary what a great blogposting is to a Vanity Fair production number: twice the substance presented with a tenth the clatter. And with graphics by his wife and a few appearances by his kids, "Fat Head" is nothing if not pleasingly handmade, and full of real-people personality and "touch" of a sort that we don’t often get from movies. Tom’s gimmick is that, like Morgan Spurlock, he too is going to eat at fast food places for a month. Will the experiment lead to a Spurlockian weight-gain and health-decline? At the end of the film, Tom caps this stunt by going on an Atkins-ish low-carb diet to see what ingesting all that saturated fat will do to his cholesterol profile. Not to give anything away, but ... Well, let’s just say that Tom’s doctor was surprised by the results. You may be too. I’m very glad that Tom Naughton has agreed to be interviewed by 2Blowhards. I wanted to ask him about the diet-and-health subject matter of his film as well as about his adventures as a first-time filmmaker in... posted by Michael at January 13, 2008 | perma-link | (4) comments

Thursday, January 10, 2008

More Carb Linkage
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * The Whole Grain Council and the Idaho Potato Commission want you to know that "carbs are back." General Mills does too. * Diet iconoclast Seth Roberts interviews Gary ("Good Calories, Bad Calories") Taubes. (Link thanks to Dave Lull.) * Dave also points out this Corby Kummer piece about a newly-established Slow Food University. Readable only by subscribers, alas. But here's a free-for-everyone Henry Hoffman slideshow entitled "A Slow Food Tour of the Po Valley." Coffee fiends won't want to miss this Corby-hosted video about high-end brew. Slow Coffee sounds good to me. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at January 10, 2008 | perma-link | (5) comments

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

What Does "Plain" Mean?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I think I'll buy me some soy milk. Lookie there: Plain soy milk. My kinda thing. Now that's some honest and straightforward soy milk. None of that vanilla or chocolate or chai stuff, all of it ridiculously sweetened ... I sure feel sorry for the suckers who fall for that ruse, ho-ho ... What could be more wholesome? Health and nutrition-wise, no question about it: Silk Plain Soymilk is one piece of good news after another. Man oh man, I'm gonna live forever ... Whoa, check this out: Drinking Silk Plain Soymilk is even good for Mother Earth. That's not win-win, that's win-win-win: Taste plus healthiness plus virtue. But hold on a second ... Evaporated cane juice. That means sugar, doesn't it? They've snuck sugar into Plain Soymilk. Health food bastards! So how much are we talking about here? Ouch. 8 carbs ain't nothing. (Sound of your humble bloghost rummaging through dozens of containers of soy milk until finally ...) Aha! Now, let's give the ingredients list a very close perusal. God only knows what Carrageenan is, but at least there's no cane juice in there. So what kind of diff does it make? Bingo. If a little hard to find. America, eh? Land where almost anything's available. But also land where "Plain" means "with sugar," and only "Unsweetened" means "plain." Best, Michael UPDATE: In the comments on this posting, Prairie Mary points out that the excellent Michael Pollan has a new book out. Here's an NPR interview with Pollan. "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food," Pollan likes to say. I wonder where he stands on soy milk ...... posted by Michael at January 1, 2008 | perma-link | (10) comments

Friday, December 28, 2007

Raw Milk, Cont.
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The raw-milk battles continue. In California, producers and fans are fighting a new law that some say would destroy the raw milk market. Apparently they have made their voices heard. Dr. John Zoldberg predicts that raw milk will be the top health story of 2008. I'm not going to gloat and say "you heard about it here first." But, hey, you might have. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at December 28, 2007 | perma-link | (8) comments

Monday, December 24, 2007

Low-Carb Linkage
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Jimmy Moore runs two terrific interviews. The first is with the excellent Nina Planck, who is generous with information and advice. Great Nina line: "Even the sorriest grocery story has a produce section. Use it." Nina's own website is here; "Real Food," her very rewarding book, can be bought here. I raved about "Real Food" here, and I ran a note that Nina wrote to 2Blowhards here. * Terrific Jimmy interview #2 is with Tom Naughton, who has made a documentary attacking the low-fat gospel of the official health-tips class. I'm intrigued by Naughton, who has worked as both a health writer and a standup comedian -- interesting combo! And I'm curious about his movie, "Fat Head," which looks like a smart and snappy piece of work, as well as an appealingly handmade and personal one. You can watch a lot of teasers for "Fat Head" here -- great use of Monty Python-style Flash animation. And you can check out the website that Tom has made for his movie here. It's an interesting, entertaining, and informative work in its own right. * Jimmy Moore has issued his own low-carb chocolate bar. Jimmy Moore is a low-carbin' force of nature. * Having lost a bunch of weight, Prairie Mary finds herself experiencing a lot of things very differently. Best, Michael UPDATE: Dennis Mangan registers some disagreements with the low-carb crowd: here, here, here, here.... posted by Michael at December 24, 2007 | perma-link | (4) comments

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Raw Milk: Telltale Issue of Our Time?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I'm finding it fascinating that raw milk has become a flash-point issue -- one of those possibly-unresolvable conundra that many establishment people wish would just go away, yet that permit some underlying feelings and convictions to show themselves off in more glory than they often have a chance to. A little background: In most states, it's against the law to sell or buy raw (ie., unpasteurized and unhomogenized, straight-from-the-cow-or-goat) milk because of fears of contamination. Yet some people feel that raw milk isn't just ultra-tasty (having tried raw milk, I agree wholeheartedly with this verdict), it also benefits their health. So: Perhaps the sale of raw milk should be strictly prevented on public-health grounds -- public-health grounds that we're justifiably proud of, and that we should be completely unyielding about. After all, in pre-pasteurization days, tons and tons of people used to get sick because of milk-borne infections. On the other hand, why shouldn't freedom and liberty prevail whenever possible? Provided that the public is made aware of the risks, why shouldn't people be allowed to conduct business as they see fit? After all, if we permit the sale of cigarettes ... The controversy seems to be emerging as a newsworthy one. (Here, here.) An informal coalition of hippies, home-schoolers, health buffs, libertarians, local-farming fans, and foodies are pushing the freedom-and-raw-milk cause, while governments are cracking down so hard on the raw-milk scene that they're beginning to make some people think, "Good lord, it's Waco all over again." And editors and policymakers are beginning, if reluctantly, to take note. Whee! It's also fun that, as with many up-to-date issues -- immigration policy is another example -- traditional notions of "left" and "right" have zero relevance to any of this. After all, what kind of guidance can you derive on the raw-milk issue from saying, "I'm a Democrat"? Is Ohio the state that's toughest on raw milk producers? Ron Paul seems to be the candidate most sympathetic to the raw-milk cause. (Tyler Cowen and many commenters are interesting on Ron Paul here.) Here's raw milk central. Nina Planck, whose book "Real Food" I liked very much, is a raw-milk fan. Here she manages to make the case for raw milk and for Gary Taubes' book "Good Calories, Bad Calories." On the third hand, this can't have been fun to endure. And here are some reasons why you might want to avoid raw milk. How deeply should our governments be involving themselves in public-health matters anyway? If we're OK with our rulers and bureaucrats swinging into action when a plague threatens, how about flus? Smoking? Obesity? Trans-fats? ... School meals? ... Raw milk? Not that my opinion matters (or should matter) one iota, but I certainly can't see why people who want to buy and drink raw milk shouldn't be allowed to. Tens of thousands are injured and killed every year because of cars ... Leafy greens and salad bars sicken many more people than raw... posted by Michael at December 20, 2007 | perma-link | (26) comments

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Race and Evolution
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Steve Sailer looks at the stats and concludes that the U.S. is turning Hispanic a lot faster than anyone expected -- even faster than alarmists have predicted, in fact. Fun passage: "Half of all Hispanic women who gave birth in 2006 were unmarried." These are the people who -- and these are the policies that -- are going to be saving Social Security? It sometimes seems to me that the people we're importing in such droves can't even do a good job of cleaning our hotels. * Fred Reed thinks that it's time for the mainstream media to stop concealing the race of people accused of horrifying crimes. * The new Cochran, Harpending, Hawks, Moyzis, and Wang paper is a corker. This particular Blowhard has always been unable to believe the usual polite thing, namely that evolution stopped 50,000 years ago. Why should it have? But Hawks, Cochran, Harpending and their posse argue something far more radical: that evolution has in fact dramatically accelerated in recent years. Swallow that one, polite society! Steve reprints an informative press release here. John Hawks blogs here. Here's Scientific American's report. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at December 11, 2007 | perma-link | (19) comments

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Food, Fat, and Health Linkage
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Alt-health guru Andrew Weil thinks that Gary Taubes has made a major contribution with his book "Good Calories, Bad Calories." * Say hello to "In Search of the Perfect Human Diet," the documentary film. Donate -- er, become an investor -- here. * A few clips from Tom Naughton's Taubesian film "FatHead, the Movie": Learn to boo and hiss at The McGovern Report, and especially at Ancel Keys. Tom himself somehow managed to eat nothing but fast food for four weeks and lose weight. * What if saturated fat is actually good for you? * What if there isn't any correlation at all between cholesterol levels and heart disease? * Michael ("Protein Power") Eades blogs, very generously, here. Jimmy Moore -- low-carb-diet enthusiast extraordinaire -- blogs here. (Jimmy has lost -- and kept off -- 180 pounds by following a low-carb diet.) The Weston A. Price Foundation is here. "Paleo Diet" guru Loren Cordain has a website here. I wrote enthusiastically about Nina Planck's book "Real Food" here. Nina's website is here. * Jimmy Moore interviews Gary Taubes. Here's a CBC audio interview with Taubes. Here's a WNYC audio interview with him. (Scroll down a bit.) Best, Michael UPDATE: Thanks to Dave Lull for sending along links to some talks given by Malcolm Kendrick (author of "The Great Cholesterol Con"): Cholesterol; Familial Hypercholesterolaemia; Statins; What Causes Heart Disease?; CVD Populations and Stress. For Spiked-Online, Kendrick explains his view of what's wrong with the cholesterol hypothesis. For one small thing: "Cholesterol in the diet has no effect on cholesterol levels in the bloodstream." For another: "No clinical trial on reducing saturated fat intake has ever shown a reduction in heart disease. Some have shown the exact opposite." For a third: "It is worth highlighting a critically important -- remarkably unheralded -- fact: After the age of 50, the lower your cholesterol level is, the lower your life expectancy."... posted by Michael at December 6, 2007 | perma-link | (4) comments

Friday, November 9, 2007

Saturated Fat
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Saturated fat is to be avoided whenever possible, right? It's the ultimate dietary no-no: Clogged arteries ... Heart disease ... Avoid saturated fats and you'll live forever. Although the conviction that saturated fat is evil must be one of the most basic beliefs in the modern educated American's mental toolkit, there's in fact nothing at all behind it. "Study after study has failed to provide definitive evidence that saturated-fat intake leads to heart disease," writes Nina Teicholz, whose article reads like a much-condensed version of Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories." Taubes' book, which I've now finished going through, really is startling. He details convincingly -- at enormous length and in devastating detail -- how today's health-tips industry took shape, how unhelpful its advice has proven, and how unsound the science the whole edifice is based on is. His judgment: It's "an enterprise ... that purports to be a science and yet functions like a religion." Pass the pork chops, please. Here's a good Frontline interview with Taubes. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at November 9, 2007 | perma-link | (50) comments

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Watson, Population Groups, Etc
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Like many people, I've read the news reports about James Watson's comments about Africa and brainpower, and the other news reports about condemnations of Watson, about Watson's apology, about his dismissal from the institution he founded. Main reactions, not that my reactions deserve paying-attention-to: I'm as scandalized as many are by the spectacle of Watson being crucified. At the same time, I think you have to be a bit of a social-political retard not to realize that topics of the kind that Watson touched on and statements of the kind that Watson made carry a charge. You can't realistically say the kind of thing that Watson said and expect the world at large to act deferential and grateful towards you. Prick the giant monster that is political correctness and you will have a serious fight on your hands. Given that, once what was said was said ... Well, in the case of James Watson as in the case of Larry Summers, I felt let down. Both men tested a taboo -- yay to that -- and then both men backed down. (Boo, hiss.) Lordy, what wusses. To be fair, perhaps neither guy had any idea how badly he'd taunted the monster. Perhaps both men were taken by surprise by the reactions they provoked. Even so, once the fray was underway I'm sorry that Summers and Watson didn't grow a pair, find their inner "300" Spartan warrior, and put up a serious fight. Why? For a simple and practical reason. Some people I've met who work in the genetics field have assured me that tons of information about biological-genetic differences between the races is going to be emerging over the next few decades. Given that fact, it seems to me of the utmost importance that numerous discussions about how we're going to handle this kind of information get underway, and pronto. We seem already 'way past the point where denial, self-righteousness, and attempts to control the conversation will prove productive in anything but the shortest run. So far as getting started with these conversations go, Steve Sailer and GNXP's Jason Malloy have seemed to me to have a lot to contribute, agree with them or not. They also command about a thousand-trillion times the knowledge and information that I do. (Jason here, Steve here and here.) I also enjoyed scrolling through the comments on Jason and Steve's postings. The world is full of so many brainy, interesting people ... But, but ... Well, there are two things that emerge sometimes from the rightie side of the table that baffle me. #1. Some righties seem to feel that the West made a suicidal mistake when it let itself say, "All cultures are equally valuable." According to this crowd, the person who thinks that all cultures are interesting and valuable ensures that all values crumble. The culture that agrees that other cultures are nifty too succeeds only at paralyzing its own will and undermining its own self-preservation... posted by Michael at November 6, 2007 | perma-link | (62) comments

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

More Taubes
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The L.A Times interviews Gary ("Maybe It's All a Big Fat Lie") Taubes. I'm in the middle of Taubes' new book about how the low-fat / high-carb doctrine became America's semi-official diet despite a near-total lack of supporting evidence, and I'm finding it very impressive -- one of the most methodical and devastating jobs of whistle-blowing that I've ever read. Taubes does supply a lot more information than this lover of short books really needs to know. (In other words, Taubes' book is very long, and I gotta admit that I'm doing a fair amount of skimming.) But he also supplies a wide-ranging and toughminded look at the ways that science, politics, and journalism -- the "we know better than you do," Expertise class -- can wind up working against the public interest. Reminds me of the way that the modernist- government- NEA - academic, intellectual-arty class has blighted our cultural life, come to think of it, all the while telling us that they're doing it for our good. There's been a lot of that kind of thing around in recent decades, hasn't there? Semi-related: The National Animal Interest Alliance takes a look at some of the ways that feel-good and do-good laws can make life worse. (Link thanks to Terrierman.) Wal-Mart is now the nation's #1 retailer of organic food. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at October 30, 2007 | perma-link | (9) comments

Friday, October 12, 2007

Shangri-La Update
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Not to turn 2Blowhards into a diet-blog or anything but ... Well ... (Blush) ... I continue to stick to the Shangri-La Diet, and I continue to lose weight on it too. (I wrote back here about what it was like to begin the Shangri-La Diet.) No big deal: Only about a pound a week is coming off. Still, the weeks do go by ... I'm finding the experience not just pleasing from a losing-weight point of view but interesting in a variety of ways. For me, the most amazing thing about the Shangri-La Diet hasn't been that it works so far as losing weight goes. It's that it has been almost no trouble at all to follow. It's as simple as can be. That's why Seth Roberts, the Berkeley psychology prof who dreamed the diet up, gave it that "Shangri-La" name: This diet is almost too good, or at least too easy, to be true. (Roberts' website is here.) I won't go into the details of the diet; you can buy the book if you want those. But I will spill the central discipline of the Shangri-La routine: It involves ingesting some flavorless calories (in the form of oil or sugarwater) several times a day. And that's it. No carb-watching, no fat-forgoing, no vegetarianism, no tofu, no endless rows of grapefruit to consume. You ingest your flavorless calories three or four times a day; otherwise, you eat as you see fit. The fact is that -- for whatever reason -- you wind up eating less than you usually do. The theory behind why this should be has to do with how we evolved to flourish in Paleolithic conditions of scarcity instead of today's state of abundance and convenience; and about a calories-taste connection that gets forged, makes us fat, and needs to be broken. Much more important than the theory, though, is the fact that the diet is easy and it works. Perhaps I've taken to eating like a caveman. Perhaps some flavor-calories connection in me is being broken. I have no idea. I do know, though, that after five weeks of going to very little trouble I've dropped five pounds. From a dieter's point of view, I've found a number of things about the experience to be striking. One is the fact that the diet requires no willpower -- zero. You aren't put in the position of having to overcome your appetites and your instincts. Instead, the flavorless-calories routine changes your appetite, and soon after that your actual eating habits. You begin to want less food, and to feel full and satisfied sooner than usual. Yes, you do eat less -- but not because you're trying to eat less. You eat less because you feel like eating less. What's double-fascinating is that this process is largely involuntary and unconscious. When I'm eating a meal, at a certain moment -- ie., when I'm full -- I simply put my fork down. That's it,... posted by Michael at October 12, 2007 | perma-link | (16) comments

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Bad Health Advice
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I wrote back here wondering what might be done about it when public-health types, docs, and other health officials hand out bad advice. After all, when bad health advice comes from trustworthy-seeming -- and especially official and scientific -- sources, it can prove anything but harmless. People develop worse health than they'd otherwise have had; some people may even die. In The New York Times, John Tierney visits with Gary Taubes, the author whose new book about the low-fat craze set my own musings off. Tierney doesn't attempt an answer to my question, but he does a first-class job of showing both how flagrantly the public-health sector screwed up in this case, and of how that screwup came to be. Fact of the matter #1: No reputable study has ever shown that diets high in fat cause heart disease. Fact of the matter #2: For almost 50 years, the American health establishment touted low-fat diets as a good way to fight heart disease. It's like watching dominos knock each other over. Basing their judgment on a single, poorly-done study from the early 1950s, the American Heart Association announced in 1960 that people at risk for heart disease should eat a low-fat diet. Time magazine featured the researcher behind the lousy study on its cover. In the 1970s, a committee led by Sen. George McGovern urged Americans to eat low-fat. By 1980, the Dept. of Agriculture had adopted the advice and incorporated it into the Food Pyramid. Let me repeat that in a condensed version for emphasis: By 1980, the American Heart Association, Time magazine, a Senate Committee, and the U.S.D.A. were urging Americans to fight heart disease by eating a low-fat diet. Meanwhile, zero good scientific evidence supported their advice. But how were Mr. and Ms. Routine American to know that? And it didn't stop there. The "scientific" and public-health consensus continued to snowball. The National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society endorsed low-fat eating. Although the truth of the matter appears to be that fat in the diet has no significant impact on mortality whatsoever, the U.S. Surgeon General himself announced in 1988 that fat in the American diet was a health concern on a par with tobacco-smoking. Meanwhile, millions of Mr. and Ms. Americans were abandoning fat, were gobbling down carbs like they were going out of style, and were packing on weight at a rate never before seen. Aesthete that I am, I feel the moment may have come to remind visitors of what every good cook knows: "Fat is flavor." Our waistlines were expanding, our life-pleasure was on the decline -- and it was all for nothing. Gary Taubes of course deserves a lot of credit for his research. And John Tierney does an excellent job of describing how this mistaken public-health consensus cascaded into something that may well have done real damage to American health. If you're a sly, inside-the-media-beltway dog like me, you can't help but... posted by Michael at October 10, 2007 | perma-link | (11) comments

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Nutrition / Food
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- * Given how often scientists and nutritionists change their advice, Gary Taubes asks, why should we pay any attention to them at all? "Be skeptical," he writes. A question that often occurs to me when public-health debacles arise: Why shouldn't we be able to sue the experts and organizations who hand out advice that proves to be destructive? Gary Taubes points out that tens of thousands of women have died -- died! -- due to misguided enthusiasm about hormone-replacement therapy. Another example: The high-carb / low-fat diet that respectable docs and organizations urged on us for years resulted in many people growing much fatter than they otherwise would have, and even developing diabetes. That's a lot of damage that our experts have inflicted on us. I'm tempted to make a comparison between our nutrition- expertise industry and our architecture-and- urbanism-expertise industry ... * A refreshing antidote to the above is Yummy or Yucky, a charmer of a new foodblog. Vanessa, the proprietor of the blog, manages to combine expertise about eating and cooking, a lot of personality, and writing flair -- yet she never loses her frankness about the infantile energies that are the basis for all food-pleasure. Sophisticated, yet in happy touch with the bodily and emotional basics -- that's a combo I always find delightful. I like reading Vanessa's food writing as much as I enjoy reading Calvin Trillin's, and that's saying a lot. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at October 4, 2007 | perma-link | (24) comments

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Exercise and Weight
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Gary Taubes discloses an unnerving fact about exercise and weight control. (Link thanks to Arts and Letters Daily.) So far as they show anything, the studies that have been done on the topic suggest that exercise -- whatever its other virtues -- does nothing to control weight. For most people, the harder they exercise the more they'll eat. Exercisers may wind up with a toned body, they may enjoy peace and relaxation, they may get a kick out of being active for its own sake. But few of them will lose weight. My personal experience only semi-confirms Taubes' argument. For example: When he was his late 40s, my dad was told by doctors that he had only a few years to live unless he reformed his sedentary, beer-guzzling ways. Scared into long-overdue action, Dad took up jogging. When he first started up, he could barely walk a quarter of a mile. But within a couple of years he was jogging a mile and a half a day and had lost 25 pounds. He also cut 'way back on the beer, which was no doubt a big factor in the weight-loss. But did he drink less beer because he'd resolved to live more healthily, or because (thanks to jogging) he no longer needed to? In my own case, as a car-free Manhattanite who prefers to avoid cabs and public transportation, I spend around six hours a week walking. When I moved for a summer to Los Angeles, where walking opportunities are hard to come by, I put on ten pounds. Once I was back in Manhattan and once again walking nearly everywhere, the ten pounds came right off. So, in my book anyway, activity does tend to equal weight loss -- or at least a little weight loss. Or at least contributes to a little weight loss. Still, I take Taubes' larger point, which is that the health-and-eating-and-exercise industry has probably done more to mislead us than to enlighten us. In this essay for the New York Times, Michael Pollan goes even farther; he argues that the very existence of a nutrition-tips industry has made us fatter. Long ago, after I wrote something about health and eating here at the blog, I enjoyed an email exchange with a doctor who had read the posting. The point he wanted to stress to me was that medical people don't know nearly enough to be giving us the kind of -- and the volume of -- specific eating-and-exercise instructions that they and their journalistic p-r people do. He was really indignant about the way the health-tips industry is forever coming up with new discoveries and new regimens. ("Green Tea For Your Joints," etc.) Are eggs bad for you? Or was that last week? "Maybe in ten or twenty years they'll know enough to be handing out lots of advice," he wrote me. "But not now. At the moment they really don't know nearly as much as they claim... posted by Michael at September 25, 2007 | perma-link | (21) comments

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

What's Your A.Q. (Aspie Quotient)?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Don't ask me why, but I can never pass up a "How Aspie are you?" quiz. I scored a very low 11 on this one. I evidently don't have much of a future before me as an Aspie -- my love of parties dooms that ambition every time. Best, Michael UPDATE: Steve Sailer has put up some interesting postings about nerds and nerdishness: here and here.... posted by Michael at August 7, 2007 | perma-link | (33) comments

Friday, July 20, 2007

Propagatin' and Populatin' 2: Raw Numbers
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- In a recent posting I noted the surprise I often feel on encountering some of the conversations about propagatin' and populatin' that I run across online. My example there was the debate between breeders and nonbreeders. Hoo-eee, do some people get heated about that one. Another propagatin'-and-populatin' conversation that often startles me is the one about growth. It turns out -- to my intense surprise -- that there are people out there who think that growth in raw human numbers is always and everywhere a good thing. Who knew? Unlike the breeding-quarrel, the raw-numbers conversation doesn't usually take the form of a debate. (People who would make the opposing case seldom take on the growth-is-always-good crowd. They keep to their own pastures instead.) The growth-is-always-good crowd is out there fretting passionately about population sizes -- positing nightmare scenarios, and moving quickly from overblown worries into big-picture policy advocacy. Perhaps people drawn to this topic are more prone to monologue than to debate. I wonder why that should be. As in the previous posting, I'm going to let myself be impressionistic -- apologies for my failure to collect links to illustrate my points. I'll assume that you've bumped into the same kind of postings, personalities, rants, and articles that I have. If in fact you haven't, well, please come back in a day or two. Da Blowhards will be gabbing about some other topic soon, you can count on that. CONCERNS ABOUT RAW POPULATION NUMBERS MBlowhard description: Germany's birth rate is down! California is going to need millions of immigrants to pay for its retirees! Europe is in a state of demographic freefall! There's often a "the West vs. the Rest" subtext to these shrieks of concern, of course. But not always. Check out this Frank Furedi article in Spiked Online. Memorable sentence: "How can there be too many people?" My response: Easy! Fascinatin' too, the way that Furedi labels those who wince at the idea of a standing-room-only earth as humanity-haters. They're "strident and misanthrophic"; they're "anti-humanist"; they're "pessimistic"; they're "inhumane." "They harbour a powerful sense of loathing against the human species itself," roars Furedi, who apparently had one too many capuccinos the morning he wrote his piece. I guess the possibility that the people who disagree with him might wish humanity well isn't something Furedi cares to wrestle with. MBlowhard reactions and musings: Let me respond first with a visual. (I lifted the above from this place, but hundreds of versions of it can be found online.) I don't know about you, but when I eyeball that graphic what I most emphatically don't think is, "Wow, humanity has been running the risk of allowing itself to go extinct recently! We really gotta pump those numbers up!" Here's one way of looking at it: By 2050, there will be ten times the number of living humans as there were in 1800. Here's another: If I live to a ripe old age, the world will... posted by Michael at July 20, 2007 | perma-link | (46) comments

Saturday, July 14, 2007

John Derbyshire Recommends ...
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- One of the reasons I'm wary of attributing too much significance to aptitude tests has to do with my own experience of math aptitude tests. As a student I always did well on them despite the fact that I have never had any actual aptitude for doing math. Year after year, I'd score well on a math aptitude test; I'd be assigned to a fast math class; I'd squirm out of it in two or three weeks; I'd just barely manage to squeak by in a slowish class ... And then I'd do well on another math aptitude test, and start the following year in a fast math class once again. This cycle repeated itself over and over until the authorities finally allowed me to ditch math entirely. (I can't tell you how many little pep talks I endured about how I wasn't living up to my math potential. Earth to authorities: I had no math potential, I just wanted out.) So I was left wondering: Given my complete lack of any actual math gift -- and I'm not being coy about this, let alone asking to be contradicted or reassured -- what on earth were these tests measuring? Still, despite my inability to do math, it seemed like an interesting field. All those brilliant mathematicians must have been up to something fascinating, no? What was it? I mean, roughly speaking. The many hours that I spent snoozing through conventional math classes I might well have spent happily indeed listening to someone talk about the history of math: what it was good for, how it worked, what the basic fields were, what the Larger Questions it raised were ... Why didn't anyone want to tell me about any of this? I mean, without requiring any actual math of me? But this line of thought may reflect a failing of mine: I was born with a deep-seated conviction that anything, no matter how complicated, can be turned into plain and vivid English. Further, I have the ego to be convinced that if I'm not following a line of discussion it isn't because I'm dim, it's because whoever is doing the presenting is falling down on the job. He / she isn't turning the material into accessible and enjoyable English. Is it in fact true that anything can be turned into plain and fun English? I've run into specialists who claim that this isn't the case. The argument seems to be that, past a certain level of complexity, abstraction, and technicality, there's simply no way plain English can suffice. Yet I've also read histories of thought that did what seemed to me to be bang-up jobs of presenting far-out ideas. I've lunched with philosophy profs who have made their interests and their fields of study clear and understandable to me. Hey: I once spent an afternoon with a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who explained his black-holish, string-theory-ish studies and findings in ways that I... posted by Michael at July 14, 2007 | perma-link | (28) comments

Friday, July 13, 2007

What If You Don't Taste What I Taste?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- In a fascinating series for Slate, wine critic Mike Steinberger looks into the biology of taste. It turns out that people are wildly different in their abilities to sense aromas and perceive tastes. You might be able to detect flavors that I'm unable to pick up. Not only that: People also differ in how the aromas and flavors that they do perceive affect them. What's repulsive to one person might be experienced by someone else as deeply satisfying. I may adore shaving a little Parmesan cheese onto my salad while the thought of doing such a thing makes you gag. (And for good reason: The main chemical contributing to the aroma of Parmesan cheese -- butyric acid -- is the same chemical that dominates the aroma of puke.) The series is interesting for the info it conveys as well as for the questions it raises. One example: How valid is food or wine criticism as an activity if each of us has a different makeup where our built-in -- ie., biologically-set -- capabilities and predilections go? Is there any way a wine or a dish can be declared "good" if it's a simple fact of life that different people experience it differently? Another: What to make of criticism more generally if this same kind of thing turns out to hold true where reading, watching, and listening go? I wouldn't be surprised if it does; people seem to have many built-in preferences and rhythms. An example: Some people find narrative suspense to be a pleasant heightener. (That group includes me. I love suspense, and I'm fascinated by the mechanics and psychology of it.) But for others, suspense is anything but enjoyable. I have one relative who finds narrative tension so unpleasant that she gets up and leaves the room whenever a movie's twists and surprises start to make the blood-pressure level go up. One dimension that I'm sorry Steinberger doesn't touch on is time -- ie., how our biological abilities and makeups change with age. My body certainly isn't the same thing it was when I was 15 or 20, and because of that I no longer crave the same kinds of experiences that I craved when I was that age. (Younger people have systems that fire off much more avidly than older people do.) I've learned from many people in the arts bits of folk wisdom about how older and younger people tend to react to stimuli and events. Sound engineers have told me, for example, that how a person experiences loudness depends on age and sex. Boys and young men find loud noises exciting; young women and girls find loudness OK, but far less immediately pleasurable. What teen girls and young women mainly like is having boyfriends. So if the boys like loud music and loud movies, well then, that's OK with the girls. Once past the age of 30 or 35, though, nearly all people find loud noises first annoying and then... posted by Michael at July 13, 2007 | perma-link | (14) comments

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Global Eats
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Wal-Mart, General Mills, and Kellogg's are importing ever-more food from China. Interesting facts for the day: In 2000, China accounted for 1 million pounds, or less than 1%, of all U.S. fresh garlic imports. By 2005, China dominated that market, exporting 112 million pounds, or 73%, of the total garlic import market. The same goes for strawberries: China exported just 1.5 million pounds in 2000 and now exports 33 million pounds to the U.S. "China's record with food imports isn't reassuring," continues BusinessWeek. "Just last month, 107 food imports from China were detained by the Food & Drug Administration at U.S. ports, according to The Washington Post. Among them were dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical and mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides." Best, Michael UPDATE: It isn't a foodstuff exactly, but cough syrup from China has been blamed in the recent deaths of at least 83 people in Panama.... posted by Michael at July 5, 2007 | perma-link | (6) comments

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Depletion
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- This can't be good. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at June 21, 2007 | perma-link | (28) comments

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Diabetes Linkage
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- The New York Times reports that surgery to reduce "man-boobs" is on the increase, especially among boys and teens. Although some kids are genetically unlucky, it seems that the main reason for the higher numbers is increased levels of obesity. Boys are gettin' fat=boys are developin' boobies, in other words. Which reminds me: On a recent flight The Wife and I found ourselves chatting with a doctor from the Dallas/Fort Worth area. According to him, people -- and children especially -- are growing fatter in that already-fat part of the country at a remarkable rate. Cases of adult-onset-style diabetes among kids are skyrocketing. When we asked our doctor what he thought might be done about it, this was his answer: "People would be amazed what cutting back on packaged food and taking three 45 minute walks a week can do." The Times also reports on growing levels of diabetes in Mexico. Hmm, Mexico ... Texas ... You don't suppose that ... Yep: Hispanics have twice as high a rate of diabetes as non-Hispanic whites do. Small hunch: Whatever else it might accomplish, importing a lot of Mexicans won't be solving our health-care problems. Greg Critser explains how we became such an obesity-embattled people. I don't think that The Guy From Boston will be following any of Greg Critser's advice, though ... Best, Michael... posted by Michael at June 20, 2007 | perma-link | (4) comments

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Dog-Training Video Linkage
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I blogged recently about a dog-training reality-TV show that I love, "It's Me or the Dog," starring the glamorous and expressive Victoria Stilwell. It's a wittily entertaining half-hour series that provides nifty clips of dogs learning how to behave as well as suggestive, touching, and hilarious footage of the lives and souls of dog owners. TV's real dog-training hit, though, is Cesar Millan's "The Dog Whisperer," which runs on the National Geographic Channel. The two shows -- and the two stars -- make for quite a contrast. Where Victoria is theatrical and quicksilvery, Cesar is blunt and direct. Where Victoria's likely to make a toy-breed intervention, Cesar generally grapples with the hard cases, physically powerful and aggressive dogs that have taken over households. Cesar is a bit of a street dog himself -- an impressively charismatic, tough, and insightful figure who masters difficult situations and dangerous animals amazingly quickly. If Victoria is like a slightly camp diva, Cesar reminds The Wife and me of a great, perhaps somewhat authoritarian, acting teacher. If his show is a little too souped-up for my tastes, and if it isn't quite as alert to household and personal dynamics as Victoria's is, it's full of its own kind of pugilistic drama. He does great dog impersonations too. Cesar Millan turns out to be quite the controversial figure in the dog-training world. Are his methods sensible or cruel? Is he giving people the skills they need to live with their dogs peacefully and rewardingly? Or are his methods not only not-transferable, but even dangerous? But perhaps those who carp about him are just jealous ... On this issue, I'm goin' with Terrierman -- a blogger I discovered thanks to the dog-lovin' boys at Querencia. Terrierman writes, "If a dog is going to learn anything it needs a calm, assertive and not-too-verbal person who consistently does the same thing over and over again. In fact, this is exactly what Cesar Millan offers and when he teaches -- along with a good dose of 'Your dog is not your child,' and 'this is a choke chain -- learn how to use it'." What possesses so many people to acquire high-energy, difficult, and belligerant dogs anyway? You can watch some clips from "The Dog Whisperer" here. * Train your whippet to slalom. * Cowtown Pattie sent along an irresistable snap of her dog -- and you better spell that d-a-w-g -- Rusty: Best, Michael... posted by Michael at June 19, 2007 | perma-link | (3) comments

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Do We Make Too Much of Adolescence?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I blogged long ago about how completely the U.S. has given itself over to adolescent values. Stuart Buck points out a very rewarding interview with Robert Epstein in which Epstein argues that we too often isolate our adolescents from adults. Nice quote: We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other "children." In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. And another one: Teens in America are in touch with their peers on average 65 hours a week, compared to about four hours a week in preindustrial cultures. In this country, teens learn virtually everything they know from other teens, who are in turn highly influenced by certain aggressive industries. This makes no sense. Teens should be learning from the people they are about to become. When young people exit the education system and are dumped into the real world, which is not the world of Britney Spears, they have no idea what's going on and have to spend considerable time figuring it out. Stuart reports that he enjoyed Epstein's current book. I wrote about Young Adult fiction (in other words, novels for teens) here. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at June 7, 2007 | perma-link | (0) comments

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Non-Chocolate
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- I've just now awakened to the fact that Big Chocolate -- Hershey, Nestle, and Archer Daniels Midland -- is petitioning the FDA to let them market candy as chocolate even when the candy contains little or no cocoa butter. Lordy, what's the world coming to? This campaign is obviously a disgrace and an outrage, and perhaps even something these firms should never be allowed to live down. What the event really has me thinking about, though, is something more general, namely: Why do American companies seem so prone to making these trashing-their-own-reputation blunders? Don't they realize that respect and trust play an important role in consumers' feelings about their products -- especially where luxury and pleasure goods are concerned? Hey, CEOs: People want a nice experience, from the marketing to the buying to the consuming. Let's hear it for the chocolate makers See's and Guittard, who have taken a stand against their competitors in the chocolate biz. Here's a "Don't Mess With Our Chocolate" website sponsored by Guittard. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at May 31, 2007 | perma-link | (13) comments

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Green Tea
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Maybe it's time to start drinking green tea more regularly. I wish I liked the taste of green tea better than I do. In fact, as an Asia junkie (and Asia fantasist), I feel that I really ought to love green tea. Negative-spacey, non-monotheistic ways of being and perceiving delight me so much that I feel that my soul should mesh deeply with everything Asian, green tea included. Yet, sadly, it doesn't. I don't really like green tea in the same way that I don't really like the game of Go. I get something out of both, it's true. But in both cases I have to actively talk myself into facing them. Here are a few tricks I've learned to make green tea more pleasant: Spend extra. Using high-quality loose tea can take a considerable amount of the curse off of the morning cup. Green tea made from fresh loose tea is a funky, substantial brew so rich that it can remind you of hand-crafted fermented drinks like brew-pub beer or expensive sake. (Hey, did you know that sake is in fact a fermented-grain drink? Although Americans tend to think of sake as Japanese wine, and though it certainly has its taste-and-consistency similarities to white wine, it's in fact more closely related to beer than it is to wine. Another couple of neat things to know about sake: 1) Don't drink the cheap stuff, and don't drink it hot. Bad sake is thin and lame, and is heated-up in order to disguise its weaknesses. The best sake is complex -- it'll stop you in your tracks and make you examine its qualities. It also costs a few bucks more, and it's never heated. 2) While many sakes are a clear amber, like flat ginger ale, some of the best sakes are unfiltered, which means that they're cloudy or even milky in visual appearance. Short version: The next time you order sake at a Japanese restaurant, be willing spend a few extra bucks. Specify to your serviceperson that you have no interest in any such lousy thing as "hot sake" -- you want good sake, and you want it at room temperature or perhaps cooled. You might even think of asking about their unfiltered brands. And then enjoy.) Even if you can't face brewing your morning cup up from loose tea -- and I usually can't either; I'm too groggy -- buy the expensive tea bags. No matter what the brand, the quality really is better than that of cheap bagged green tea, which almost always consists not of crumbled-up tea leaves but of tea-sweepings and tea-dust. Don't let the water come to a boil. Water that's boiling hot does something awful to green tea leaves. I'm not sure what that would be in a technical sense. Boiling water seems to me to scald the leaves, or something. In any case, the results are very displeasing. Don't let the tea steep for too long. I've... posted by Michael at May 8, 2007 | perma-link | (16) comments

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Vernon Smith on Being Aspergery
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Those fascinated by Aspergers Syndrome should find this video interview with Nobel economist Vernon Smith a treat. Link thanks to Tyler Cowen, whose visitors' comments are pretty fascinating too. Steve Sailer suspects that economists are especially prone to having Aspergers. I have my own hunch that many systems-lovin' eggheads have Aspergers. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at May 2, 2007 | perma-link | (8) comments

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Global Warming -- Or Not -- Online
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Is global warming really happening? And even if it is, is it really worth worrying about? (Link thanks to Charlton Griffin.) Best, Michael... posted by Michael at April 11, 2007 | perma-link | (37) comments

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Culture / Biology
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Agnostic has put up a nifty posting about how cultural evolution might affect biological evolution. In a comment I dropped on his posting I managed -- in however scatterbrained a way -- to ask a question I've meant to ask for a while, namely: I think there's a lot to it. New niches crop up, and -- to everyone's surprise -- previously unnoticed creatures take them over. Geeks are a good example. Anyone old enough can remember when "the geek" wasn't a big or at least much-visible part of society. Computers caught on, and suddenly geeks were everywhere. Everntually even geek taste (sci-fi, Wired) became culturally important, alas. Another example: When a quirky beauty becomes famous, suddenly you find yourself surrounded by girls who look like her. The world is suddenly full of Meg Ryans, or Britneys, or Lindsays. Were they always there, and we didn't notice them because we had no template to stick 'em in before the star established the the template? Or did the star's success make it possible for the girls to assert their quirky looks with some confidence? I remember noticing this happen with Claire Danes, for instance. She became an It Girl, and suddenly the world was full of Clarie Daneses. Where had they been hiding until then? Any thoughts? Best, Michael UPDATE: Another GNXP commenter provided a link to a fascinating -- and NSFW -- page featuring and discussing some ancient Etruscan art.... posted by Michael at April 4, 2007 | perma-link | (4) comments

Howard Gardner: Seven? Eight? And Now Five?
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- What a nice franchise Howard Gardner has. First he sells the idea that intelligence doesn't come in one flavor but in seven. (He later upped the number to eight.) Now he's back with a new book, this time arguing that the future will demand and value five different types of thinking . How do you suppose Gardner settles on these magical numbers of his? I find Gardner a strange case. I dislike much of what he stands for. He's one of those progressive educators who believes that it isn't important whether students learn any facts, for instance -- instead they need to know how to "solve problems." My personal bullshit alarm goes off extra-loud when I run across that particular opinion. I also find it telling where Gardner's approach leads him. He's now questioning freedom of speech: The cartoons of Mohammad that caused such a fuss a while back shouldn't have been published, he argues. While being skeptical of tradition and custom, he seems to believe that it's possible to create laws that will guarantee courtesy and respect. And I'm happy to agree that the science behind his eight-types-of-intelligence notion seems shakey at best. All that said ... Well, I do think it's clear that talents come in many flavors, and I do think that that's a fact well worth standing up for. I wish Gardner weren't arguing about intelligence per se. There does seem to be such a thing as raw intellectual horsepower, after all, and why not assign it a number if your measuring-stick seems trustworthy? But Gardner wants no part of such a project. Why not? Though kindness may play a role in Gardner's thinking, his main motivation seems perfectly obvious: He dislikes the fact that some ethnic groups score higher on IQ tests than others. He finds the fact unacceptably harsh. It's hard to avoid thinking, "This Howard Gardner is a bit of a 'if the fact hurts, then ban the fact' kinda guy, isn't he?" Still: nothing wrong with kindness. And nothing wrong with recognizing that talent comes in many flavors. (If life teaches us anything ...) IQ may be an important topic, but it's certainly possible to make too much of it. Physical prowess, craftsmanship, musical ability, loyalty, a gift for relationships, verbal pizazz, erotic attunement, a knack in the kitchen, emotional insightfulness, persuasiveness, social adroitness, humor, visual flair -- these are all talents as well, each one of which strikes me as eminently worthy of respect, and of nurturing and guidance too. No need to feel bad for Howard Gardner, btw. Though he seems to have a knack for portraying himself as a beleaguered rebel -- hey, that's a talent too -- he has a secure position at Harvard, some of his books have been huge sellers, and he has even won a MacArthur "genius" grant. He hasn't lacked for influence either. Harvard is re-doing its curriculum to come more in line with his thinking, and he... posted by Michael at April 4, 2007 | perma-link | (21) comments

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Chocolate Lifesaver
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Good news for those sweet of tooth: Chocolate -- or at least epicatechin, a type of flavonoid found in cocoa -- may help prevent heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 29, 2007 | perma-link | (3) comments

Sciatica Be Gone
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- One of the most tangible benefits I've gotten from yoga has been relief from piriformis pain. Piriformis syndrome is a variety of sciatica, caused by spasming muscles pinching the sciatic nerve. The pain tends to start in the hip -- OK, in the very undignified butt-muscle area -- and then shoot down your leg. I'd been bugged by piriformis pain for years and years. No idea how I develped it initially, and in my case it never became anything debilitating. But it was enough: a constant ache in my hip that was occasionally amplified by electric-bolt-like zingers. Like many with sciatica, I found it annoying not just for the pain itself but also for how the pain affected me and my habits. Sciatica typically disrupts how you're comfortable, as well as how you find comfort. Your favorite sleeping and sitting positions might well become unavailable to you; your nightly sleep might be interrupted, over and over, because the pain wakens you and obliges you to find some new position to settle into. Over the years I'd tried a variety of treatments for my piriformis syndrome, but I obtained a little relief from only two sources: ceasing carrying my wallet in my back pocket (wallets can throw your back and hip alignment off), and acupuncture. Conventional exercise and stretching didn't help much, nor did a number of visits to health-insurance-style physical-therapy outfits. Acupuncture sometimes took the edge off the pain, except when it didn't. My very first Bikram yoga class was a head-turner in many ways. After it, I felt weird but wonderful: wrung-out and emptied, yet freed-up inside too. It was such an overwhelming experience both physically and mentally that it took me a few hours to notice what was missing from my normal state of being: my chronic sciatic pain. It was gone, poof, like that. That night, for the first time in years, I slept in whatever position I felt like and I slept the whole night through. I've been going to yoga three times a week ever since. Yoga hasn't been a complete cure for my sciatica. If I let four or five days go by without a yoga class, the pain starts to knock on my consciousness again. But so long as I do yoga regularly, I experience no piriformis pain. It ain't a part of my life any longer. Actually, doing yoga regularly means considerably fewer aches and pains generally for me. (Over the decades those little aches and pains that won't go away build up in vast, vast numbers ...) I feel more fluid and happy in my body -- ten years younger than I otherwise do in terms of flexibility, ease, and cheeriness. Aches and pains still show up, but then they go away. I'm as creaky as ever when I roll out of bed, but yoga works out that rust too. That tweak in my left knee that I picked up trying to learn how to... posted by Michael at March 29, 2007 | perma-link | (12) comments

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Dining Out
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Tough-talking chef Anthony Bourdain disses Rachael Ray -- too bad, I like her myself, overperky though god knows she can be. But Bourdain shares a little political wisdom too: I don't think we should be legislating what people eat. We've reached the point where the government has to come in and tell us what to eat. That's wrong. I'm all for peer pressure. It's not a chef's job. A chef should be in the pleasure business. I'm all for vast publicity campaigns to let people know how bad this food is, but when you cross the line into legislating food, no. Now that's an attitude I can agree with. Plus, isn't his reference to "the pleasure business" great? Why does the cooking world have its head screwed on so much more securely these days than the other artworlds do? Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 25, 2007 | perma-link | (15) comments

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Ellen Dissanayake, Again
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- A while back, I wrote a posting about evolutionary biology and the arts, and more specifically about Ellen Dissanayake, an independent scholar whose theories about art and culture I find useful and provocative. (See that posting for book suggestions.) The best intro to Dissanayake's work has long been an article about her that Caleb Crain wrote for the now-defunct magazine Lingua Franca. A visitor recently pointed out to me that links to Crain's article's previous online incarnation had gone dead, and passed along a link to the article's current online location. It's here, and I once again enthusiastically recommend it. I suspect that fans of such iconoclastic yet down-to-earth brainiacs as Denis Dutton, Geoffrey Miller, Christopher Alexander, etc, will have their minds enjoyably blown apart by Dissanayake too, and in semi-similar ways. Dissanayake's website is here. Caleb Crain's own blog is also well worth visiting regularly. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 17, 2007 | perma-link | (0) comments

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Eye on Meat
Michael Blowhard writes: Dear Blowhards -- Smart Money lists 10 good reasons to be wary of supermarket meats. Short version: Livestock-raising and meat processing have changed a lot in the last 30 years. Good, if unappetizing, quote: Americans are consuming more meat than ever. In 2004 we ate over 221 pounds of meat and poultry per person, up from 199 pounds in 1990. In order for the industry to turn a profit on the low prices Americans have come to expect, most livestock are kept and slaughtered on factory farms, where animals eat corn- and soybean-based feed -- 10 to 30% of which is often radically different from what the animal would consume naturally. For example, feathers, poultry manure and bedding are all acceptable in cattle feed, according to the Food and Drug Administration. I blogged about Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" here, here, and here. Best, Michael... posted by Michael at March 14, 2007 | perma-link | (1) comments