Watch the Court, Day 1: The Health Care Case That Can’t Be Dismissed
The first day of the Supreme Court’s oral hearings didn’t feature any fireworks, but the stage is set for their biggest ruling in a decade.

Watch the Court, Day 2: A Skeptical Court Confronts the Individual Mandate
The Justices discussed a mere nine pages that could make or break the entire health reform effort.

Watch the Court, Day 3: Health Care Reform’s Goldilocks Dilemma
A final day of arguments that many expected to be purely hypothetical could decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act.

Watch the Court, Epilogue: It’s All Over But the Ruling
The Supreme Court subjected the new health care law to harsh interrogation, but they overlooked the human questions.

Tofu Chili

I made tofu chili in my house last week. It was kind of a big deal. For the last two years, I purchased and consumed a small tofu chili from the CoHo marketplace nearly every single day I was on campus. To this day, if I so much as catch a whiff of tofu chili, I can instantly determine the quickest path to Wellman Hall. You might say I’m an evangelist for tofu chili. To the enlightenment of friends, I preach its affordability, nutritional value, satiety and spicy-yet-reasonable taste. Don’t worry; this is not a column solely about tofu chili. But seriously, try it. Right now.

My last column is more about what it meant to me, and the corresponding symbolism of preparing it in my own home. Tofu chili was once a thing I thought I would miss about Davis. There aren’t too many places out there that bring this nomming sensation together for $2.25 at the register of my friend Loni. I figured I would enjoy the dish like a fleeting moment and sing its gospel to others. For two years, that’s exactly what I did.

And then my roommate brought home this vegetarian chili mix from the Co-op. This probably says a lot about my character, but it never occurred to me that I could make my own tofu chili, with my own ingredients, in the comfort of my home. With leftover tofu, some green beans, soybeans, chili and the mix, I made it the next day at the (and this probably also says a lot about my character) rough cost of one dollar. I’m not the type to boast, but let’s just say my homemade tofu chili brings all the roommates to the yard. And I’m like, it’s better than yours.

Of course, tofu chili wasn’t the only thing I was going to miss about this place. I’m going to miss sushi buffets with the first friends I made here. I’m going to miss staying at the MU way too late just to hang with some folks I knew would be there too. I’m going to miss the regret of cramming papers and studying for exams at the last minute. I’m going to miss the Arboretum at night, Late Night at the DC and closing time at the ARC.

I’m going to miss how mind-bogglingly helpful and kind students, staff, faculty and administration on this campus have been to me day in and day out. I’m also going to miss the rallies and demonstrations that brought thousands of Aggies together. I’m going to miss the distinctly UC Davis way in which these last two items were never mutually exclusive.

And I’m going to miss writing this column and fighting with my beloved editors Melissa and Jeremy every week and getting put in my place because they’re (usually) right. I’m not going to miss the prohibition on using the Oxford comma.

With so much to miss, I look to tofu chili for the final gift it has given me — a way to deal with moving on. I don’t think graduation is an exercise in dealing with loss. I think it’s a challenge to recreate the magic of college in countless little ways as we make our way into the real world. In some cases, that means literally recreating tofu chili in your own kitchen. In others, it means keeping in touch with old friends, procrastinating other deadlines, finding new places to explore in the night and returning kindness while honoring your sense of activism.

For all these items and more, I haven’t yet determined the recipes. But I have the right ingredients.

—–

March 7: What’s in a word?
February 29: Going gorillas, huh?
February 22: Direct reaction
February 15: Civic education
February 8: Performance art politics
February 1: Shit memes say
January 25: On my SOPA box
January 18: Recession and regression
January 11: Sanctum Santorum

Let’s take a moment to walk down memory lane. Remember what it was like to apply for college? If you didn’t black out the memory as a kind of repressed past, then you probably remember how little we knew about each of the institutions to which we sent our applications. I don’t think this is for a lack of trying — it’s difficult to understand how individual colleges differ if you’ve hardly experienced different high schools.

My perception of colleges was heavily influenced by their brand, which itself was a joint project of what current students told me, how the media stereotyped schools and what the colleges themselves did to highlight their strengths. To this end, in 2008 UC Davis meant a relaxed atmosphere, an agriculture-veterinary-viticulture giant and emerging Public Ivy, in that order.

As the deadline draws near, though, I’m afraid we’ve become the “pepper spray school.”

During the brief reprieve of Thanksgiving break, multiple family members and friends asked if I was pepper sprayed, or at the rally or in a tent on the Quad. Before I can respond, they usually begin to express their broad opinions of the Occupy movement. With all the media attention, it makes sense for their questions to take this form. While I wish folks would ask me about my course load or research, at least I can balance their perception with my interpretation of the past few weeks.

But I can’t do that for the dozens of thousands of students deciding what campus boxes to check on the UC application. UC Davis has had the fortune of rising applicant pools over the past several years. Between the 2007 and 2008 cycles, our pool of applicants increased 20.6 percent — the highest increase in the UC system — from 35,088 to 42,311 applications. It’s the breadth of our applicant pool that allows us the privilege to build a diverse body of students.

With how little high school students know about college, I’m afraid our brand as a school is being subverted by images of hostility and volatility — or worse, memes of Lt. John Pike. At this point, I don’t know how much the admissions office can do to sell our campus to prospective students. So that leaves us.

If I had an internet-sized megaphone that could reach all those cramming to finish their UC application, I would tell them about my version of the last week. I would point to the rally of 5,000-odd students, with an emphasis on the odd. When I went to the rally on Monday, I stood unintentionally next to a past coworker and a former roommate, behind a friend of an old dormmate and in front of a fellow writer at The Aggie. In every direction and at every distance I saw someone I know.

I would point to the ways in which the rally accommodated everyone. A lady on-stage translated the speeches into sign language. Where speakers were lacking, the crowd used a human mic to echo speeches into earshot. To help those at the back see, us in the front sat down on the wet grass. Decisions were made by consensus.

I would make note that many of us were there for different causes, but allied for the same reasons. Many students at the rally called for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi. A lot of students came out against the use of police force on campus. Most students were there to rally against cuts to higher education that are increasingly pricing us out of social mobility. But everyone was there in the most visceral form of community I’ve ever seen.

Shortly after the rally, and through the rest of the week, the campus still had that electricity in the air. On my Facebook newsfeed later that evening, there was a flood of status updates and comments, each expressing what I’d heard throughout the day from virtually everyone — that this is the proudest they’d ever felt to be a UC Davis student.

Color me cynical, but I don’t think this kind of pride is going to make headline news. It lacks the violence and agitation initially, and then consistently, pinned to the recent stories on our campus. And with one day to go, high school seniors aren’t looking for reasons to redeem colleges while they’re trying to cull their lists. So I hope you take from the rally the principle of the human mic, and echo your Aggie pride.
—
September 27: Rest in politics
October 4: Tea for two
October 11: Eminem meets the 99 percent
October 18: The Amazing Race
October 25: Stonewalling justice
November 1: Primaries and profits
November 8: Apathetic students of UC Davis
November 15: Where’s Walden?
November 22: The System and I
November 29: Applying the human mic

And that’s exactly what some independent organizations and city outfits are doing as they make use of existing public space to add health value to the community.

In Los Angeles, officials have worked out a way to open public schools after hours so families and children have a safe place to play and exercise. The details of the program, as well as the partnerships involved, are unfortunately at the very end of the article:

Avila added that working with community groups helps ensure that the school stays clean while it is open after hours.

The Alliance for a Better Community, which received federal dollars for the program, worked with public health officials to choose locations that had poor health outcomes, such as high levels of diabetes or obesity, and a community desire for change.

The organization is working with the Los Angeles Unified School District to streamline policies on after-hours campus use and joint-use agreements. The group’s executive director, Angelica Solis, said there is no “rhyme or reason” to which schools are locked Saturdays and Sundays.

Another community program, this one the project of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, was the subject of a study by the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. By virtue of the Society’s work,

Nearly 4,500 vacant lots totaling over 7.8 million square feet were greened from 1999 to 2008.

…

This program involved removing trash and debris, grading the land, planting grass and trees to create a park-like setting, and installing low wooden post-and-rail fences around each lot to show that it was cared for and to deter illegal dumping. Several times a year, PHS returned to each greened lot to perform basic maintenance, such as mowing the grass, tending trees, or repairing fences.

The study, which collected data from household surveys, police data, and epidemiological studies found:

Vacant lot greening was associated with significant reductions in gun assaults across all four sections of Philadelphia in the study and with significant reductions in vandalism in one section. Greening was also associated with the reporting of significantly less stress in one of the sections of the city and with more exercise in another. Cholesterol numbers were lower to a statistically significant degree for the greened areas across all four city sections.

With all the closed public schools and open vacant lots, we have a lot of potential for doing great work in the vein of minimally-invasive preventative health policy.

To me this is good news. Most reports of childhood obesity focus on the need to prevent obesity, usually in the forms of community development, economic restructuring, and education. But you can’t prevent obesity out of existence. Prevention is important first line of defense, but treatment is where we begin to solve the present issue at hand.

Despite this being the talk of the town, I’ve yet to form a coherent view on these issues. That’s partly because there are so many issues to consider (corporate money in politics, police brutality, higher education, economic inequality, occupying protests, and so on), and partly because it’s incumbent upon each person to decide precisely what Occupy means to them. Here’s what I’ve been reading:

We Are the 99.9% (Paul Krugman in The New York Times): Krugman directs our attention to the richest of the super-rich, the 0.1% for whom inflation-adjusted, after-tax income rose 400% between 1979 and 2005. He also works to dismantle the claim that this group should be treated with an exceptional reverence–that they are not, in fact, the mythologized “job creators.”

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy (Naomi Wolf in The Guardian): Wolf makes some serious allegations against the coordinated effort of law enforcement agencies, lobbying firms, Congress, Homeland Security, and even the President in response to occupations around the country. The shocking truth, so to speak, is that the effort to discredit and shutdown Occupy can be traced to the focus of the movement on reducing corrupt Congressional profit streams.

Naomi Wolf’s ‘Shocking Truth’ About the ‘Occupy Crackdowns’ Is Anything But True (Joshua Holland, writer for Alternet): The title kind of gives it away. While a supporter of Occupy, Holland takes to fact each claim Wolf makes and argues that her piece weaves a series of non sequiturs into a conspiracy.

‘Occupy the Hood’: Including all of the 99% (Jesse Strauss in Al Jazeera): Profiles the approach of the title’s namesake to include historically marginalized communities in the emergent Occupy. By some in communities of color, Occupy can be seen as a movement of the largely white and middle class that is getting attention while they fight the same injustices communities of color have been afflicted with for centuries.

Michael Kazin on Roots of the Occupy Movement (The Browser Blog): Author of a recent text evaluating the history of the American Left draws connections from The Communist Manifesto, A People’s History of the United States, Democracy Is in the Streets, Winner-Take-All Politics, and Waging Nonviolent Struggle to Occupy.

Carne Ross on the Leaderless Revolution (The Browser Blog): Former British diplomat writes about his transition away from the foreign service to the OWS general assembly. He doesn’t think the problem is so much about politicians as it is about the inability of a government to address certain problems. To this effect he doesn’t stop at OWS, but also talks about the War on Terror and climate change. In the tradition of this series on The Browser Blog, he identifies 5 books that influenced his own work.

Post-prandial somnolence is a normal state of drowsiness or lassitude following a meal. Post-prandial somnolence has two components – a general state of low energy related to activation of the parasympathetic nervous system in response to mass in the gastrointestinal tract, and a specific state of sleepiness caused by hormonal and neurochemical changes related to the rate at which glucose enters the bloodstream and its downstream effects on amino acid transport in the central nervous system.

While this page seems to debunk popular myths and explain the true etiology, a recent (and oddly steam-of-consciousness styled) piece from Wall Street Journal claims we don’t understand well the cause of food comas:

The after-meal dragging feeling instead could be associated with changes in certain hormones induced by the food, says Ms. Sandon, who is also a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. Or it could be as simple as the feeling of being weighted down by a large amount of food sitting in our stomachs

…

Another possibility is that food coma isn’t related to food or digestion at all. Rather, it’s because our bodies are wired to feel tired during the afternoons and evenings when there is a natural dip in the circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates our sleeping and waking hours, says Robert Basner, director of Columbia University Medical Center’s sleep-studies program.

What both sources agree on, however, is the misled popular belief that food comas are the result of blood rushing to the GI tract from the brain, leaving behind a sense of drowsiness. While it’s true that extra blood is drawn to digestive processes, that blood comes from skin and muscles. Blood from the brain is usually protected unless there’s a serious need for its reserves.

The supercommittee’s failure was finalized yesterday, and so today is the day we figure out who to blame. President Obama was clear in his remarks last night: The gridlock was the Republicans’ fault. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Republican co-chair of the supercommittee, is clear in the Wall Street Journal this morning: the Democrats deserve the blame. My colleague Michael Gerson, meanwhile, says it was Obama.
…

If by “at fault” we mean “unwilling to compromise,” we can do better than listen to the self-serving remarks of the players.

I wish Klein pushed farther his definition of “at fault” to include “failure.” With so many folks inside the beltway expecting the supercommittee to fail from the outset, I don’t think what happened with the supercommittee could be defined “failure.” Since its beginning, the rhetoric resembled commentary on witnessing a car accident in slow motion. It would seem more appropriate to say the supercommittee met our expectations, even if that sounds like funny way to phrase the result.

Framed this way, the “at fault” no longer applies inside the committee, and the blame-game shifts to a different set of decision-makers.

Workplaces Feel the Impact of Obesity -NPR News
Better-For-You Items Actually Sell Better – PreventObesity.net
Walmart Can’t Lead Us Out of the Food Desert – Colorlines
Cap and Trade Applied to US Diet? – New England Journal of Medicine Blog

Related News:

California Shut Out of Farm Bill Process – San Francisco Chronicle
Recess Returns to Chicago Public Schools – Chicago Tribune
Sugar Companies vs. High-Fructose Corn Syrup Label “Corn Sugar” – Marion Nestle