Sharon Kapnick reviews a new wine book: Here he suggests many “under-the-radar, superb wine bargains that taste as if they should cost two or three times the price….”
Author: SeniorWomenWeb
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Urging the FDA to End Food Labeling Chaos
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a reliable, authoritative organization, a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science. Here’s one of their latest in depth (an 158 page report) examination:
Can orange juice really help prevent or treat arthritis? That’s the implication on the label of a Minute Maid orange juice fortified with glucosamine hydrochloride “designed to help protect healthy joints.” And it’s exactly the kind of misleading health claim that the Center for Science in the Public Interest wants the federal government to stop. Today the group is sending the Food and Drug Administration a 158-page report that documents some of the most egregious examples of false claims, ingredient obfuscations, and other labeling shenanigans.
Though under the Obama Administration the FDA is sending more warning letters to food manufacturers about misleading labeling, many major companies, including Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Kraft, General Mills, and Nestlé, continue to confuse or defraud consumers about the health effects, ingredients, or “natural”-ness of their products. Some notable offenders include:
Kellogg: On labels for Smart Start Strawberry Oat Bites cereal, the company deliberately misreads a report from the Institute of Medicine to claim, falsely, that consumers can eat 125 grams — more than half a cup — of added sugars per day. CSPI says FDA should establish a Daily Value for added sugars, require its disclosure on Nutrition Facts panels, and provide definitions for terms such as “low sugar.”
Nestlé: Labels for the company’s Carnation Instant Breakfast misleadingly claim that its antioxidants “help support the immune system.” While it is true that serious deficiencies in vitamins A, C, and E and other antioxidants can lead to serious health problems, consuming this or other products that make this common claim won’t help ward off colds, the flu, or other maladies.
Kashi: A Kellogg-owned brand, Kashi falsely claims that the green tea in its Heart to Heart Instant Oatmeal will “support healthy arteries.” The FDA does have a so-called qualified health claim for green tea that relates to cancer but has not agreed that green tea can protect arteries or fend off heart disease.
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Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell By the Numbers
Testimony Regarding DoD ‘Dont Ask, Dont Tell’ Policy
As Delivered by Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of StaffFrom the Center for American Progress’ Fact Sheet:
Nearly 14,000 gay and lesbian service men and women have been discharged from military service since 1993. More than 33,000 gay and lesbian service men and women have been discharged from military service since 1980.
A survey of 545 service members who served in Afghanistan and Iraq found that 73 percent are comfortable in the presence of gay men and lesbians. Of the approximately 20 percent who said that they were uncomfortable, only 5 percent are “very uncomfortable,” while 15 percent are “somewhat uncomfortable.”
This policy may have cost the US government more than $1.3 billion since 1980.
According to research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, “No reputable or peer-reviewed study has ever shown that allowing service by openly gay personnel will compromise military effectiveness.”
Twenty-four countries allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military. None of these have reported “any determent to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality,” according to the Palm Center, and “in the more than three decades since an overseas force first allowed gay men and lesbians to serve openly, no study has ever documented any detriment to cohesion, readiness, recruiting, morale, retention or any other measure of effectiveness or quality in foreign armed services.” Even the British, whose military structure and deployment patterns are most similar to ours — and who fiercely resisted allowing gays to serve in the military — were forced to do so by the European Court of Human Rights, and have now seamlessly integrated them.
During the First Persian Gulf War, enforcement of the ban on gays in the US military was “suspended without problems.” Moreover, “there were no reports of angry departures.”
The CIA, State Department, FBI, and Secret Service all allow gay men and women to serve openly without any hamper on effectiveness or quality.
The GAO found in 2005 that discharging and replacing each service member cost the federal government approximately $10,000. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara found that the GAO’s methodology did not include several important factors and that the actual number was closer to $37,000 per service member.
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A Collaboration: The Science and Entertainment Exchange
The National Academy of Sciences provides entertainment industry professionals with access to top scientists and engineers to help bring the reality of cutting-edge science to creative and engaging storylines:
“We can help flesh out ideas that depend upon accurate details relating to insects, extraterrestrial life, unusual Earth-based life forms, or the mysteries of oceans. We can refine concepts relating to emerging science concepts in areas such as space travel, multiple dimensions, nanotechnology, computer technology, and engineering. We can find experts in environmental and ecological issues, health, medicine, and disease, and US educational practices. We are also well positioned to work with you on public policy issues that relate to science such as stem cell research, global climate change, and teaching about evolution and the nature of science.”
Here are a few examples of collaborations:
The Science and Entertainment Exchange explores The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and social network theory.
The Science and Entertainment Exchange: Guest blogger E. Paul Zehr discusses what it would really take to become Batman. Could a real world superhero ever exist?
Malcolm MacIver Works as Script Consultant for New Show ‘Caprica’: In the reimagined TV series Battlestar Galactica, a group of robotic Cylons destroyed human civilization and chased the remaining survivors in their search for a mythical place called Earth.University of Minnesota physicist and Watchmen consultant, Dr. James Kakalios, recently won an Emmy award for his video Science of Watchmen. Read more about the story behind Jim’s experience working with the Exchange and the producers of Watchmen over at The X-Changes Files blog.
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Sacks by Rebecca Skloot
“In 1951, at the age of 30, Henrietta Lacks, the descendant of freed slaves, was diagnosed with cervical cancer — a strangely aggressive type, unlike any her doctor had ever seen. He took a small tissue sample without her knowledge or consent. A scientist put that sample into a test tube, and, though Henrietta died eight months later, her cells—known worldwide as HeLa — are still alive today. They became the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture and one of the most important tools in medicine: Research on HeLa was vital to the development of the polio vaccine, as well as drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, and Parkinson’s disease; it helped uncover the secrets of cancer and the effects of the atom bomb, and led to important advances like cloning, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping. Since 2001 alone, five Nobel Prizes have been awarded for research involving HeLa cells.”
“There’s no way of knowing exactly how many of Henrietta’s cells are alive today. One scientist estimates that if you could pile all the HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons — the equivalent of at least 100 Empire State Buildings. “
“Today, nearly 60 years after Henrietta’s death, her body lies in an unmarked grave in Clover, Virginia. But her cells are still among the most widely used in labs worldwide—bought and sold by the billions. Though those cells have done wonders for science, Henrietta — whose legacy involves the birth of bioethics and the grim history of experimentation on African-Americans — is all but forgotten. “
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The Potent Plant Garden, Patterned After Agatha Christie’s Novels
The Royal Horticultural Society describes the Potent Plants garden at Torre Abbey in England thusly:
“Poisonous plants used by some of Agatha Christie’s most notorious villains have come together in a new garden at Torre Abbey in Torquay, Devon, where the crime writer spent much of her life.”
“Head gardener Ali Marshall read more than 80 of Agatha Christie’s novels and short stories to put together the garden. Among the plants she chose are Prunuscultivars, such as dwarf peaches and nectarines, whose fruit stones produce cyanide — the murder weapon in several novels including, of course, Sparkling Cyanide. Deadly nightshade, used by the murderer in The Caribbean Mystery is grown alongside aconite, responsible for poisoning several characters in 4.50 from Paddington.”
” ‘ While this might sound extremely dangerous for staff and public alike we have been very careful in our choice of plants, substituting less potent garden cultivars where possible,’says Ali. ‘This is a garden designed to entertain — not provide murderous opportunities!’ “
“In addition to the central display, Ali has also concocted a horticultural whodunnit for visitors to solve. In the beds surrounding the poison garden she has planted a series of clues to the titles of four of Agatha Christie’s short stories — a puzzle which, she says, has tested even the most avid of Christie’s fans.”
The Torrey Abbey Garden notes that, “In a final twist the potent plants are framed by flowerbed containing horticultural clues pointing to four of Agatha Christie’s short stories.”
Some of the ‘potent’ plants will be familiar, some not:
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Mirror Mirror: Self-portraits By Women Artists & On The Nature of Women: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits of Women
England’s National Portrait Gallery created Mirror Mirror as an exhibition in 2002 and another, On The Nature of Women: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits of Women 1535 – 1620, that closed in November of 2009:
“This exhibition brings together all of the self-portraits by women artists from the Gallery’s collection alongside loans and new works acquired or commissioned by the Gallery for this exhibition.”
“Spanning four centuries, the exhibition includes work by 40 artists, from the mid 17th century to the present day. It features works in all media, including oil painting, photography, prints drawings and sculpture.”
Virtual tour of the exhibition
(best seen with set screen resolution to 1024 x 768)- Eileen Agar
- Mary Beale: “In this painting she affirms her position as an artist by showing us a palette hanging on the wall behind her, and her status as a portrait painter and mother — her right hand rests on a canvas portraying her sons. Her husband — who might perhaps be called a ‘new man’ before his time – was her assistant, mixing paint and keeping the ‘notebooks’ containing details of her accounts and sittings. His notebook of 1677 (in the Bodleian Library) details a busy year: eighty-three commissions yielding earnings of £429.”
- Helen Chadwick
- Lallie Charles (née Charlotte Elizabeth Martin)
- Susan Vera (‘Susie’) Cooper: “Ceramic designer; in 1929 set up her own company, whose motto, ‘elegance combined with utility’, was the basis of long-lasting commercial success. Known popularly for her ‘art deco’ designs, in the industry she was acknowledged for generally improving standards of lithographic transfer decoration. In 1940 she became only the second woman to be created a Royal Designer for Industry.”
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EPI Economic Snapshot Roundup: A Massive Earnings Gap, Job Creation & Spending Freeze
The Economic Policy Institute issued an economic snapshot that covered the spending freeze proposal merits, job creation difficulties
Spending freeze = bad economic policy
“While EPI applauds President Obama’s attention to the jobs crisis, which was the centerpiece of his January 27 State of the Union address, [EPI Economist Josh] Mishel also warned that Obama’s proposed freeze on non-discretionary spending was “bad economic policy” that would make it much harder to create new jobs.”
” ‘It’s the recession, not out-of-control spending, that has been the main source of the increase in the budget deficit,’ Mishel said in a statement issued ahead of the State of the Union address. ‘Shifting federal spending from less effective to more effective programs is certainly welcome, but it doesn’t justify an overall spending reduction — especially not at a time when we need the federal government to inject demand into a severely weakened economy in order to create jobs.’ He stressed that the main cause of the large deficit was not government spending, but the recession, which had significantly reduced tax revenue. By contrast, had it not been for Recovery Act investments Obama signed into law last year, the economy would have shed 2 million additional jobs.”
“This complex matter of federal spending, when it makes sense and when it should be avoided, is examined in more depth in the recent paper, Budgeting for Recovery, by Economist Josh Bivens. The paper argues that worries about deficit spending are misplaced during weak economic times, when government spending can help stimulate the economy and offset declines in private sector investment. One dollar of stimulus spending, Bivens argued, typically generates more than a dollar in economic benefits.”
Worst recession, by a long shot
“In a separate analysis, Bivens offered the economic evidence to back up that commonly used phrase “worst recession since the Great Depression.” His January 27 Economic Snapshot charts the course of the current recession, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) compared with the nine prior recessions in the post-War period. In all but one of the past downturns, GDP had returned to its pre-recession peak within seven quarters of the start of the recession. The exception was the 1973 recession, but even that downturn was less severe than the current one: Even after some recent quarterly growth, today’s recession remains 3.2% below its pre-recession peak. UC Berkeley economics professor J. Bradford DeLong highlighted Bivens’ research as the ‘graph of the day’ on his blog.”