TUMERICA

Will Your Next Car Cost Less Than Your Next Computer?

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Shhhh. Super-secret deal. No big to-do yet from the car manufacturer. But naturally, there are both the Internet and gossips, so here goes.

Volkswagen Introduces the World's Most Economical Car

Check this out:

Speeds up to 72 MPH

Fuel efficiency up to 258 MPG

One seat--one person only

For Chinese market

$600 per car

GT Racing car equivalent impact protection

Non-alternative energy--uses standard gasoline

Authentic-looking Fake Blood--Best Recipe on the Internet!

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:54:00 +0000

Forget those other recipes that have corn syrup. This is the REAL DEAL. It looks so creepy that while I am making it, I get grossed out. Will not harm anyone, although it will spoil after a few days. Enjoy!

Authentic-looking Fake Blood

Two quarts water
Two tablespoons unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup red food coloring
Few drops of yellow food coloring
1/4 cup chocolate syrup

Dissolve the gelatin in cold water. Add in some hot water to thoroughly mix it. Add in the rest of the water needed to make two quarts. Stir in the other ingredients and let set for a couple of hours before bottling, serving, etc. Use quickly as it will go bad after a few days.

My Junior-Senior Prom Date is Running for Congress!

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:17:00 +0000

Yes, it's true. I was a young gal once. I went to the Junior-Senior prom once (in 1979). I had a date--someone I never before or since went out with. He was a wonderful date--gentlemanly, solicitious--laughed at all my jokes. He was also our class president and well-loved by all. A real mensch. He ran for and succeeded as mayor of a small town near where we grew up--Hendersonville, North Carolina. Recently, he quit his post as mayor to, uh-huh, run for the US Congress. Too cool. Greg Newman for President, anyone? He's a good guy--I can vouch for that (despite his being a Republican).

P.S. I made my dress. It cost about $20 and I got the materials at the local Piece Goods Shop. Prom dresses were so subdued back then compared to now (sequined mini-skirts, anyone?).

Lose Weight & Feel Great: What a High-Protein Diet Can Do for You

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Dear Readers: Yes, this is a departure from my usual foodie and political writing. Here's my sorry tale and why you are getting a health article instead: I wrote this piece for my client and it was rejected. Why? Because I wrote it poorly? Nah. Because the editor and I had some, at hem, disagreements. So here is my hard work, hopefully, for your enjoyment. And for free. As an aside, since I did this research, I have started eating more high-protein foods and have lost a couple of pounds without trying whatsoever. And I feel wonderful.
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If the term, "high-protein diet" brings to mind images of Sylvester Stallone downing a dozen eggs and a steak for breakfast while training for his Rocky movies, then it's time to rethink high-protein. Once the domain only of professional body-builders and Olympians, high-protein has become more mainstream in the past few years. We all know protein is found in every cell in the body and is necessary for building tissue and thus for life. But what can a high-protein diet really do for you?

The ideal starting proportion of protein-carbohydrate-fat is 30-50-20. Some intensive training programs may recommend a higher proportion of protein for a short period of time, but long-term, extreme high-protein is not recommended, and can lead to health problems. Also, a high-protein diet is not synonymous with a low-carbohydrate diet. Research shows that low-carb diets may not be sustainable in the long-run and have even been linked to ketosis, kidney stones, high cholesterol, and loss of muscle mass. (See Resources for an excellent article that explains rationales for different diet ratios, at LoseWeightBuildMuscle.com.)

And clearly, not all protein, carbs, and fats are created equal. Think quality protein rather than quantity protein. Fatty red meats and full-fat dairy products cannot compare to lean meats, eggs, fish, beans, and nuts as far as excellent, healthy sources of protein. A successful high-protein diet will include healthy carbs, such as whole grains, vegetables, and fruit to make up 50% of your total daily intake, as recommended by the Department of Agriculture. And lastly, a quality high-protein diet will have health fats in it, such as olive oil, canola oil, and avocados.

Build Muscle and Lose Body Fat

So you have added high-protein to your diet, gotten into smart carbs and smart fats. Now what? Exercise, of course, according to Dr. Donald K. Layman, professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois, Urbana (see Resources):

"Layman and his team . . . [found that] those who consumed the high-protein diet lost more body weight and total fat and less lean muscle mass than did those on the high-carbohydrate diet, the report indicates. Further, the addition of exercise, particularly to the high-protein diet, allowed women to lose even more body fat and preserve lean mass."

Feel Satisfied and Eat Less

Want an all-natural appetite-suppressant? Try high-protein foods, such as low-fat dairy, lean meats, beans, eggs, or nuts. Protein-rich foods signal satisfaction sooner and chances are that you will eat less calories than if you were still craving something.

Build Strong Bones

Think downing lots of calcium supplements and calcium-rich foods alone will strengthen your bones? Think again—calcium, combined with high-protein and weight-bearing exercise—is the best way to strengthen bone structure. Protein also increases the absorption of calcium.

Improve Your Blood with Protein

Increased protein intake, when combined with exercise, can improve blood pressure, blood lipids, and blood glucose. And, in fact, high-protein diets are sometimes recommended for Type 2 diabetics.

Speed up Your Metabolism

Your body burns off a larger percentage of calories when the meal you eat is high-protein—up to 25%. Protein actually works to increase metabolism.

Better Hair, Skin, and Nails: The High-protein Beauty Triumvirate

There is a reason why you see supplements in many stores that promise more beautiful hair, skin, and nails. Look closely at the ingredients. Usually, these beauty pills contain mostly protein, in the form of collagen (a protein that makes up much of hair, skin, and nails), as well as a few other micronutrients, such as biotin, and MSM. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are also often included in beauty supplements.

On the reverse side, problems with hair, skin, and nails can be indicative of a lack of protein in the diet, such as slow-growing nails. If you have hair loss, especially after pregnancy, extra protein can help counter it. Beyond mere aging, insufficient protein can contribute to loss of elasticity in skin.

To look—and feel—your best, be sure to get enough protein in your diet.

Resources

Biodiesel? Ethanol? Hemp Seed Oil? Oh My—a Primer on Alternative Fuels

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Myth: You have to have a special converter or a special engine to run alternative fuels.

Truth: If you have a regular engine, you can run 15% ethanol (E-15) right now, with no conversion. If you want to use 85% ethanol (E-85), you would need to have your engine converted or own a car that is a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV).

If you have a diesel (compression-ignition) engine, you can run biodiesel right now. That is, the biodiesel you can find sold in gas stations across the U.S., the fuel that has already been refined. (Biodiesel has had the glycerin removed and is therefore ready to pump.)

What's the difference between ethanol and biodiesel?

Ethanol is an alcohol rather than an oil, where the primary substance that comprises it is a grain, usually corn, sometimes wheat or barley. Ethanol can come from many sources, but in the U.S., right now, it's mostly corn.

Biodiesel is an oil-based fuel where the primary substance that comprises it is soybeans. Like ethanol, biodiesel can be made from other sources: recovered used cooking oil (which must be strained and processed to remove the glycerin), hemp seed oil (right on!), and other oils.

Both ethanol and biodiesel are made from renewable resources, help decrease dependence on foreign oil, and are, for the most part, environmentally sound (with some exceptions for corn-based ethanol).

What are the Pros and Cons of Ethanol?

The beef against ethanol is that growing corn is a horticulturally intensive process that requires plenty of chemical interventions. But, ethanol can be made from other grains as well. Also, a lot of controversy about ethanol stems from what is known as a low energy-use balance. In other words, it still takes a good bit of energy to produce the grains to be used in ethanol. With more research, this energy-use balance is expected to improve.

The great part about ethanol is that we can grow it ourselves and become independent of the Middle East and other politically tricky regions of the world. Also think positive farm income. The other great thing is that we can use it now in a standard vehicle, which most of us already own. Again, 15% ethanol (E-15) without conversion. 85% (E-85) with conversion is a rule of thumb. To learn if your car model is a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) that can accept E-85, check here.

Iowa is getting in gear to be our primary source of ethanol in this country. Canada is excited about ethanol too. I love the idea of growing our own fuel and thumbing our noses at the oil barons (Bye, bye, Bush. Bye bye, Cheney) whom I hope will soon go the way of their dinosaur brethren whose body oils have dominated the 20th century and are helping destroy the Earth they once populated. Ethanol made from corn may not be the perfect solution. But it seems like a worthy stop-gap measure and with more research, perhaps some better substance than corn can be used for ethanol. Don't give up on it yet!

What are the Pros and Cons of Biodiesel?

Biodiesel is righteous. You can use it now in a diesel engine without doing anything at all. It's currently made mostly from soybeans, which, as you know from fourth grade science class, are a blessing to our environment. Soybeans fix nitrogen in the soil. They actually leave the soil in better shape than before they were grown. Soybeans do not require much chemical intervention and they yield beautifully in terms of labor vs. return. Soybean-based biodiesel also has a great energy-use balance. Soybeans could save the world, I am convinced (I lived in Japan for five years and ate a lot of soybeans) in terms of both fuel and food.

"Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics." In other words, it's great on the environment and it isn't stinky. "It is less toxic than table salt and biodegrades as fast as sugar."

As to price, biodiesel usually costs a bit more than regular grade petroleum. The biodiesel pump near my house sells it for about $.25 more per gallon, which doesn't seem like a lot for a clean0burning fuel. If I had a diesel engine, I'd be pumping there right now. Can you imagine your tailpipe smelling like french fries? Yeah!

Now, you might have heard of someone filtering their own used veggie oil and using it in their diesel engine--but this is a no-no. Commercially available biodiesel is refined and treated to make it usable in a diesel engine.

The only con I can think of to using biodiesel is that most of us don't own diesel engine vehicles (hopefully that will change), and that using biodiesel will piss off the oil mega-industrial giants such as Exxon Mobile, which, by the way, made $39.5 BILLION U.S. in profit in 2006. (You read that right. Almost $40 Billion.) If you work for them, you might not like biodiesel. Other than that, I cannot think of why not to use biodiesel.

To find a biodiesel pump near you, see Biodiesel.org. There are three biodiesel fueling stations in Ventura county, and three in Santa Barbara county, for instance. If you favorite gas station doesn't have it yet, ask the manager to get biodiesel. They can have it replace a diesel fuel pump without any special retrofitting.

To learn more about biodiesel:

Biodiesel: The Basics

Biodiesel Community

Canada Renewable Fuels Association

How Would You Like Your Next Car to Run on Air?

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:55:00 +0000

Compressed air. That's what fuels this teensy mini at left, as well as the larger "taxi" pictured below. And zero emissions—no stinky tailpipes on this futuristic car. Plus, it goes for only about $12,700. What's the catch? Well, there are two: "The Air Car," as it's called, will be available only in India at first; and the car parts are held together with glue. Sounds like a sticky deal, but hey, the technology is worth looking into.

Designed by a Formula One race car engineer, The Air Car uses forced air to propel its pistons (instead of internal combustion, which uses a mixture of gasoline and oxygen to make the mini-explosions that propel pistons). Yes, compressing air does require energy. But how much energy? And how does the energy usage compare to an internal combustion car?

The car manufacturer, Moteur Developpment International (MDI), a Belgian firm, claims the cost to fill the air-fuel tank will be about $2.00 to $2.50. Yes, less than the cost of one gallon's worth of gasoline would fill 'er up. And one fill up will propel the car 125 miles. $2.50 for 125 miles. Sign me up! Need to look into the glue construction, though, that's a bit weird to me. Naturally, US automakers are appalled by the possibility and swear never to allow such a vehicle through their gates. BUT, if The Air Car is a smashing success (sorry!) overseas, won't demand domestically force automakers to reconsider? And perhaps the Japanese, the Germans, or other irresistibly powerful auto-making countries will craft the technology into something better suited to an American market (no glue, puhleeze!).

Stay tuned because this is more than a lot of hot air. And by the way, this is NOT a hoax. The Air Car does exist and is ready to roll—check this out:

How a compressed-air engine works

The manufacturer, MDI

Air car versus electric car

Air car ready for mass production

Where Were You When you Started to Doubt the Official 9/11 Story?

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:42:00 +0000

Note: On another sunny Tuesday morning in September, eight years ago today . . .

For other September 11, posts, check here.

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Normally, I don't get my news from television. I'm not saying that proudly—as though I'm too good to absorb the din and clamor of the opiate of the masses, predigested spin-doctored effluvia that's seasoned heavily with propaganda. Nope, I'm saying that because I have a secret—the images of daily news are too horrific for me. What I see flashes straight through to my soul, bypassing the usual editorial board obstacle course that reason and logic have constructed over the decades. I mostly get my news from online, especially Google News (“untouched by human hands”), Truthout, and from my favorite blogs, Huffington Post, or OpEdNews . I'm also fond of Newsweek (I simply filter out some of their Conservative leanings).

But when September 11 hit with a giant smash on the psyche of the world, I became a televisio-drombie-zoid. I hardly slept or ate for days. I simply stared vacantly at the screen, surfed channels, and cried. The images of those little bodies casting themselves out of the towers into certain death, well, they are seared into me indelibly.

Out of all the troubling events of that day—the ones that actually got broadcast, anyway—the one that haunted me for the longest was the image of then Chief of Staff Andrew Card leaning over Bush's shoulder (as Bush sat in a Florida elementary school, reading "My Pet Goat," no less) and whispering in the presidential ear. The expression on Bush's face—that's what killed me. Card was informing Bush that the second World Trade Center tower had just fallen to "terrorist" attack. Bush looked, well, like you had just told him he was going to have veal cordon bleu for supper instead of filet mignon. A little bummed, a little concerned—but that was all.

Over and over I replayed that moment in my head. How could any human being—one who is ostensibly not in any way connected to the atrocities—hear that news for the first time and not be shocked and upset and, well, made to dash boldly from the room and rush to take care of his country during a crisis of unprecedented proportions? In fact, after Bush "heard the news" for the first time, he sat there—for 15 minutes. He picked up reading the story to the children. He paused for a photo op with the teacher. He carried on, business as usual.

No way could I digest that information—that casual, cavalier demeanor of Bush's in any way other than to believe that he knew. The more I thought about how Bush knew about the events of 9/11, the sicker I felt. Months went by before I thought of or even had the courage to do some research online—after all, I was recovering, mourning, in my own way, the loss of innocence and the belief of the United States as the "Good Guys." And how would I do my research, anyway? What would I look under, um, "suspicious lack of amazement on Bush's face when told about attacks"? But I did start to scrounge around. Scared though I was, I had to know more. Well, it didn't take much scrounging to undercover more insidious and more horrific information—fact, speculation—all of it. Conspiracy theories of many ilks. The ones that made most sense pointed toward, not passively "allowing the attacks to happen," but worse. Far worse. An inside job. Deliberate planning. Controlled demolition. The creation of a New Reality.

I'm still researching, I'm still learning and wondering, but the most convincing and erudite treatise I have found so far is this: Joseph P. Firmage's Interesting Facts and Theories on 9/11 essay, in which he analyzes the mountainous debris of evidence and pulls out 42 "facts of significance," intersecting them across three possible theories about what happened. The most overwhelmingly cogent theory is the one that, sadly, points to Bush administration officials as having "architected and caused them [the attacks] to happen." Firmage is a heavy—scientist, CEO, writer, visionary of our times—a great thinker. Not the kind of person to be swayed by flighty theories that are espoused by fringe crazies. His scientific pedigree is rock solid. His essay is available online, free, in PDF format at the Journal of 911 Studies. Please read it. Please let me know how you feel. Please tell me I am not alone.

Going Green, One Lawn Mower at a Time

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:28:00 +0000

[Photo above: Me mowing our lawn this morning--and enjoying it for the first time ever.]

Does mowing your lawn with a gasoline-powered lawn mower drive you crazy? The noise. The exhaust fumes. Having to lug noxious chemicals around. Scaring the family dog. Well, there is a cure in site. If you can afford the extra up-front cost, a battery-powered cordless or a plug-in lawn mower might work for you.

Given the choice, we opted for a battery-powered beauty from Neuton Power (NeutonPower.com), the Neuton CE–5, retailing for $399.00. The Neuton's sleek green body and super-cool lizard logo-tires make it the most stylish grass-mower in the neighborhood. But spending your entire time trimming your lawn in relative peace, enjoying the smell of cut grass only--is priceless.

If you live in Ventura County or Los Angeles County, you are in luck--these two counties have air-quality control agencies that run programs to provide huge discounts when you trade in your old gas-guzzling, stinky lawn mower and opt for a quiet, stink-free mower. Ventura County's trade-in program lets you pick either the Black & Decker corded or cordless lawn mowers or the Neuton CE-5 or the CE-6 (a larger mower). We ended up paying only $89 for our lawn mower, with free shipping--and we got rid of the old machine that was simply taking up space (your trade-in mower does not have to be in working order). The Neuton mowers were more highly rated and by far the most stylish, so it was an easy choice.

Thanks, Stan Cohen at the VCAPCD for making the process so easy, and thanks, Ventura County, for doing a beautiful thing to promote clean air, one green lawn mower at a time!

RIP Michael Jackson, Age 50

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:56:00 +0000

This just in: Michael Jackson has been reported dead--by TMZ, and now other media sources, although most news outlets are still reporting that he was hospitalized due to cardiac failure.

Jackson had been in poor health lately. (Who ever gets real details about him? He's always shrouded in secrecy). But his upcoming tour sold out within hours of tickets going on sale, so he still had a lot of fan support.

So strange. Not that I was a fan of Michael Jackson's, but he's been so much a part of the cultural zeitgeist for my entire life, it seems weird for him not to be around any more. Only 50 years old--and he lived for a while just north of Santa Barbara, in Santa Ynez. A colleague of my husband's was hired to design the landscape at his Neverland estate. She later resigned because she said he was too crazy.

Crazy. Sad. However you see it, RIP, Michael. Hope you are in a happier place now.

Tumerica's Tightwad Tips for Stretching Your Budget

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Food & Kitchen

Institute a "beans-and-rice" night once a week. Buy dried beans and rice in bulk. You can vary the beans with spices, fresh garlic, greens, tomatoes, onions, carrots, celery, ham, bacon, etc.
To reuse leftovers for suppers, change the format—roast chicken one night becomes chicken tacos or enchiladas or soup the next night. Otherwise, use leftovers as is for lunches instead of eating out.
Instead of buying dishwasher dishwashing liquid (which costs about $6.50 per month--no small expense), use a tiny amount of the liquid dish soap you normally use for hand-washing dishes. The key is TINY amount. For one load, approximately two teaspoons is about right for my dishwasher--you may need to experiment. This should keep the sudsing to a minimal level. You'll know it's the right amount if after the cycle is offer, all suds are gone. Your dishes will be sparkling and your expense will be minimal.
Buying in bulk goes without saying, but if you don't live near a membership warehouse, you can buy at great prices from BulkFoods.com.

Grooming & Beauty

Instead of buying leave-in conditioner, use a small amount of the conditioner you already have and work it into your wet hair, mostly on the ends. This works exactly the same as leave-in conditioner. Just don't use too much to avoid an oily look.
Instead of buying pricey department store cosmetics, check to see if your favorite brands are available for cheap on eBay (mine include M.A.C. and Jane Iredale and are easy to find on eBay).
Also, check EyesLipsFace.com for a cheap make-up fix. Right now they are liquidating stock and selling almost everything for $1.00 each. This is not Wet 'n Wild, this is good quality make-up at giveaway pricing.
Don't throw away used-up tubes of lipstick. Use a needle to scoop the remaining amount out of the tube and into an empty, closable container. Put the container with the salvaged lipstick chunks in the microwave for 30 seconds or so in order to melt the chunks down into a smooth consistency. When it cools, it will harden back and be easily portable.

Bad Place to Visit, Wouldn't Want to Live There

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:29:00 +0000

My colleague, Robert Lindsay, a progressive journalist in Oakhurst, California, sent me a writing prompt—something like, "Tag, you're it. Write on the topic of 'Bad Place to Visit, Wouldn't Want to Live There.' " Easy. I know a lousy spot to visit when I experience one.

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Two weeks after I arrived in Japan for the first time—with every intention of working there to sponsor my youth-driven wanderlust—I left the Tokyo I had fallen in love with to go visit in Osaka with a Japanese college girlfriend of mine. She begged and pleaded for me to come stay with her and her new husband. During college, I had happily helped her with her tricky English-language essays whenever she asked—for two years. Heck, I thought it was fun and no big deal. She, however, saw it as a social obligation. So, to work off her karma, she had to "take care of me" while I was in her native country. I would much rather have stayed in Tokyo—the lights, the funkiness, the sheer, alien chic of it all—and, with a city the size of New York—a fun place for foreigners to hang out. Sure, I was a "henna gaijin" (strange foreigner) there, same as everywhere in Japan, but because Tokyo had plenty of other henna gaijin running around, and because Tokyoites are so sophisticated, it was wildly exciting rather than annoying when they'd surreptitiously stare. I felt like a rock star. Even the kids found me amazing. A slim young woman in my early 20s—sexy, fresh, brazen—quite different from "the nail that sticks out will be beaten down" Japanese mentality, as applied to Japanese young woman in the 1980s (I've heard it's much more risque there now).

Reluctantly, I took the shinkansen, the bullet train to Osaka, about three hundred miles away. The ride took about three hours. (It's not called a bullet train for nothing.) I arrived in a gray, industrial, polluted metropolis. I traveled to my friend Noriko's gray, industrial-looking neighborhood, and rode the elevator in her gray, industrial-looking apartment building in a complex of gray apartment buildings, ad infinitum. Gray, gray, gray. To escape what I imagined was just a bleak neighborhood, I took frequent walks. Choking with exhaust fumes and industrial spumes and smog, I'd gasp for breath, while passing, bleak, bleaker, and bleakest neighborhoods, just like Noriko's. She tried her damnedest to entertain me—and I felt for her, I really did. She and her husband took me to the big tourist attraction—Osaka Castle, which was indeed marvelous. But other than that, Osaka has got to be the gosh-awful ugliest place I have ever been on earth. Manila may have piles of rotting garbage in the streets, and the lights may flicker and go out from time to time, but it also has its beautiful sights and its green, lush areas. Osaka has, well, industry. And housing—all in shades of gray. Inescapable gray that seems never to end.

On top of that, a week after I got to town, I became deathly ill, probaly from some fsushi I ate. I wanted to be one of those adventurous visitors who tries everything the locals try--when in Rome, and all that. Instead, I almost died of food-borne poisoning. Ten days I suffered in a skanky hospital. (The hospital smelled like poop and pee the whole time. The paint was peeling over my bed. Everything was rusty or dirty. The staff and other patients were nice, though. One lady even bought me a Japanese phrase book that I still have. I finally got to go back to—you guessed it—gray, industrial life again. I could not wait to leave Osaka, and eventually made my way back to Tokyo , where I spent much of the next, mostly enjoyable, five years.

So, I have to say, if you can avoid a trip to Osaka, please do. See if you can turn it instead to a
trip to nearby Kobe or Kyoto—two marvelous cities. Kyoto, being one of the great wonders of the world, and a must-see while on planet Earth. But Osaka, well, even the local cuisine is rancid. Osaka sushi has to be one of the worst culinary experiences I've ever suffered through (the other was yard-bird with yams on a small island in the Philippines—but that's another story). The fish is marinated in vinegar, cooked, and then cut into little rectangles. It's a food only a child growing up eating it could love. And I do love sushi in general. Just say, "Mo, kekko desu" (no, thank you) to Osaka sushi, and to Osaka.

Single-payer Health Insurance Demystified

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:15:00 +0000

My amazing, French friend, Suzanne White, writes this essay to help Americans conceptualize single-payer health insurance. As usual, she cuts right to the heart of the matter--we tend to shy away from that which we don't understand.

Here single-payer health insurance is in simple terms. I get it now. I like it. And I think it's the only fair way to go. Some mighty big organizations--the AMA, pharmaceuticals, not to name any names--are gonna bust their butts to fight this plan--just the way the car companies once fought public transportation. But let's make sure companies do not control our lives. Please.

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SINGLE PAYER HEALTH INSURANCE

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTON that many Americans do not understand what SINGLE PAYER HEALTH INSURANCE is.

Not understanding something can cause one to fear it.

I notice some Americans faces go blank when I mention Single Payer. But rather than ask what it means or trying to find out, they resist the very idea and sputter defensive words like "socialism" and "government control". That's too bad. The US government is not trying to inflict something on the American people by adopting single payer. It's only trying to help them get full coverage for a modest premium.

I will try to explain here how it works for me in France. Please read ahead. See how it works and then draw your conclusions about whether or not you want something like this in the U.S.

Single Payer Health Insurance is (with variations) a system wherein the govt owns a health insurance company. Not the ONLY health insurance company. There are many private carriers as well.

In France, just about everybody chooses the national company because the premiums are based on their incomes. Employers pay a % of our income (publishers, film productions,dance companies as well as businesses) so that everybody is covered. We pay premiums ( a % of what we make) to the govt company every month or, maybe every trimester. But health insurance does not come out of our taxes. Premiums are, in fact, tax deductible.

So everyone pays something different based on his or her family situation (many kids or handicapped etc. would probably pay less) and income. But... everyone is equally covered.

The care one receives is not based on the amount he or she pays in. But rather care is based on how ill one is. There are 19 or 20 major diseases (cancer, diabetes, MS etc) which guarantee 100% coverage for everything to do with that illness so long as you have it. Otherwise, in most cases, there is what Americans call a co-pay. The govt company may pay 80% of the 20 Euro doctor visit. But we pay the extra 20% out of pocket.

The basic difference in feeling when you live in a place with Single Payer is that you don't live in fear of yourself or your children or your family members falling ill. If they get sick, they get care. The sicker they are, the more they get cared for.

Logically, when there is a govt health insurance company whose job it is to keep people healthy, the govt spends lots on encouraging preventive health care. Commercials on TV and ads in the Métro and buses give advice and the phone numbers of free clinics to stop smoking and curb alcohol abuse etc.

Naturally too, when a government owns a health insurance company, it wants to save money. How does it save money? By keeping the people healthy. Disallow genetically modified foods. Fewer pesticides and fewer chemicals in the prepared foods and indeed fewer prepared foods. Ads about exercise and ads about careful driving etc abound. The govt also control prices on medicines. Nowhere is medicine cheaper than in France. The pharmaceutical companies don't like this practice. But it's obliged to accept it. One cannot advertise prescription medication on TV. Only alternatives or homeopathic (comfort) medicines which can be bought over the counter are allowed to be advertised.

Lastly, private insurance companies compete with the govt company. Their first job is to absorb the rich people who don't want to join the national company because paying a % of their income would be too dear. So rich people often buy private coverage. Secondly, private insurers serve as co-payers. If you have both public and a small private additional policy, the latter will pay the co-pay and sometimes dental and eye care too. ( The govt plan pays only a minimum for dental and eye care) .

What Obama meant when he said he wanted a govt company to compete with private insurers in order to keep the private insurers honest, he meant that if the myriad private insurers in the U.S. had to compete with a govt health plan which covers everything for a % of income, the private companies would have to offer more coverage for less money. That's what he means when he says single payer keeps private companies "honest".

Compare it to the BBC competing with Private TV in England. The BBC is free and without commercials and, as we know, has wonderful programs for all sectors of society. The BBC's excellence keeps the private TV stations on their toes. They too have to make great documentaries, offer hilarious sitcoms and dramas and give great news coverage too - or else the Brits will prefer the BBC.

It's a sound policy and it works.

Is it in debt? Yes. Constantly. But I ask you, would you prefer your government to be in debt from spending too much on TV or health care? Or would you prefer the government be in debt from overspending on wars and bank bailouts?

By Suzanne White

Firm Your Butt, Tone Your Thighs, Smooth That Cellulite—all with a Shoe?

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:28:00 +0000

Remarkable new technologies in footwear design—and some not–so–new—promise to transform your physique in a number of ways. But are these shoe shape–changers all they are cracked up to be? Or are they simply a shot of cool in your shoe collection? Here’s a short list to help you decide.

Old Shoe Renaissance

Earth Shoes—from Clunky to Chic
Remember Earth Shoes? I had a pair—as a girl—in the 70s. I was so proud of them, despite their clunky, over–built foot bed. I wore them until they cracked in the middle. Did they improve my posture and reshape my butt? Dunno. I was a kid, so probably had good posture and butt shape then anyway. More likely it was the jolie laide factor—the beautiful–ugly thing that made them so appealing to me. Like a squat, drooling English bulldog that makes you just want to tweaks its widdle floppy cheeks, that's how I loved my Earth Shoes. Over the past few years, Earth Shoes—originally designed by a Danish yoga master—have undergone a hip replacement and are now more cute than Herman Munsterish. (A little over $100.)

Birkenstocks—Always in Style
Birkenstocks may have been around forever, but remarkably, they are not just for granola–heads and academics any more. These days, anyone might be seen wearing the shoes affectionately known as Birkeys: surfer dudettes, trustafarians, and grannies included. When I lived in Japan, I special–ordered a pair of the clog–style straight from Germany. 20 years later, I still wear that pair (when the soles wear out, you can have them replaced). Do they tone my feet and act as a "personal trainer"? Not sure. My feet do like them—the lifted arch, the toe–spreading—and they are adorable. Like Earth Shoes, Birkenstocks are enjoying a renaissance, with fun versions like the one pictured. In the $50 to $180 range, Birkeys maintain a fervent following. Once you've worn them, you get hooked—it's hard to explain how a fashionista like me would pass on the more stylish flats and go straight to the Birkeys for a quick trip to pick up my kid at preschool, but this is the case, and it’s not just nostalgia.

The Drop of a New Shoe
If we're open to the jolie laide factor in footwear—as long as there is some promise of a physiological benefit, then here come a mind–altering assortment of odd shoes to reform your derrière, tone your cellulite, smooth your abs, and make you walk like an Egyptian, no, a Masai. Not kidding about this—at least that's some of the hype.

FiveFingers
These really ought to be called FiveToes, because they fit live snug gloves around the toes of each foot. Designed for a minimalist feel, especially for those who prefer to go barefoot, but still want protection and a grippy sole. The maker of FiveFingers footwear, Vibram, claims its famous toe–shoe “acts like a second skin to offer a gecko–like grip over a variety of terrain.” Increased strength, balance, better posture, like the other far–out footwear denizens, the list of purported body improvements for wearing FiveFingers is long. Style–wise, they come in cute or plain colors and in either all–open, mary jane, or boot styles (for $80 to $100). Although Vibram does not recommend it, some runners have enthusiastically taken to wearing FiveFingers while training and in races. The company does recommend their shoe for windsurfing, mountain climbing, kayaking, and other low–impact recreation.

FitFlops
Advertised as “UK's hottest new shoe,” and “The FitFlop, with the gym built in." (Someone gets paid to write these slogans? Sheesh—I want that job.) Reputed to tone your thighs, calves, and glutes, and may even help you lose weight. (Do they work? I could ask my sister—she wears them, but she's always been about a size 4, so maybe that’s not a fair question.) Sort of a clunky, athletic–inspired marriage of sneaker and flip–flop, these puppies are a reasonably priced $50 to $60, although they are currently back–ordered, and not easy to find.

Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT)
With the list of benefits the pricey MBT footwear promises, it's tempting to think they are too good to be true. With a uniquely designed lifted, curvy heel that forces your foot to roll forward, MBTs are by far the clunkiest body–improvement shoes out there—and the most costly, at around $250 a pop. Naturally, they are beloved by an increasingly long list of celebs. Despite having the sex appeal of a set of grandpa's false teeth soaking in a glass of water, MBTs are catching on. The idea behind the technology is to simulate the effect that the Masai people (who are known to have fabulous posture) experience as they roll forward while walking on sandy soil, ironically, barefooted.

Yoga Sandals
Toe separators cause an opening and straightening of your toes when you wear the Beech Yoga Sandal—which is supposed to be a good thing. These uncomfortable–at–first–but–you–grow–to–love–them modified flip–flops, are reputed to increase "foot flexibility, balance, and body alignment" and the "gentle spacing of the toes aligns the feet with the ankle, the knee, the hip and posture" I simply thought they looked cool, so I bought a pair for my hubby for about $35. He wears them everywhere but the beach—who'd want to get beach tar on these? Yes, they look weird, but cool–weird.

One Man’s Feast is Another Man’s...

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sat, 30 May 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Have you ever eaten anything really strange? What was it and how did you feel about eating it? Let me know.

Here’s a ditty about some of my strange and stranger dining experiences—plus thoughts on why we humans eat the things we do. It ain’t always just about taste.

Tumerica.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Americans ate heartily of horseflesh,

a mere century ago.

The English still eat with impunity

Christmas Pudding (the more lard the merrier)—

That is years old.

They lack disdain for internal organs,

Like some Native American tribes,

The Japanese, and Central Americans as well

(Menudo: Tomato-intestine soup).

Terrapin soup, though

Not appetizing to me

is an aphrodisiac to the Japanese,

Who also treasure the slightly-to-deadly

Toxic puffer fish flesh—

Raw or otherwise.

An ardent Afghanistani admirer

Once made me goat stew.

And was it dog or not,

I dared not ask at the cafeteria in Manila.

Chinese are perfectly pleased

To eat most anything

That once moved—or still does.

The Japanese are fanatics of freshness, too.

Gui-odori, “eat-dance”

Means eating something that's still living.

A charming kimono-clad lady once

Served me a still-struggling

Skewered sashimi of who-knows-what fish.

The Japanese also have a penchant

For the contents of crab crania.

It comes in little jars like jam—

all the better department stores carry it.

What’s inexplicable

Outside one’s culture,

is the association that makes food pleasing—

vigor, prestige, memories of childhood.

Is Hawaiian poi innately appealing?

Or fermented soybeans (natto)

With the gooey texture of okra

And the smell of high school locker room?

These may be foods only a mother could love,

Or the former child of same

who grew up with them.

Let’s admit at least this . . .

One man’s feast is another man’s, well,

Would you mind passing the potatoes?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do You Hide Your Mental Light Under a Basket or Do You Let It Shine?

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:11:00 +0000

My brilliant friend sent me a funny video of a smart kid who wins a spelling bee being treated by news hosts as a freakazoid. My friend admitted to being both a brilliant kid--like that boy--and having to hide his brilliance.

I thought about it and realized I was always a mental show-off—I was in spelling bees and math competitions, and proud of it. Plus, I knew that no matter how smart I thought I was or anyone said I was, my sister who is two years older, is smarter still. It helps to be around those who are better, faster, and stronger than we are. Our five-year-old, as an only-child, doesn’t have that humility reinforcement and is convinced she’s a genius. Instead, she comes across as a bit of an annoying know-it-all. Luckily, she’s in a hip-funky-artsy school, so at least gets her creative jollies out.

But one wonders what would have happened to folks like us if we’d been more encouraged to use our smarts at an early age.

Here's the smart kid as freak clip.

That Today Now! show is a spoof from The Onion, the fake news company. I’ve loved The Onion’s books for years, now, but can’t leave them lying around where our kid might get a hold of them (“Mommy, what is a chicken-shit asteroid?”)

The Onion

A similar fake news source that’s popular is on HuffPost, called 23/6. The Onion and 23/6 both work by exposing uncomfortable truths, tarted up as humor. Exposure is a good thing.

Have you ever felt like you had to hide your intelligence? To be liked, to fit in?

Wanda Sykes Slays the Old Demons and Ribs the New Ones at White House Correspondents' Dinner

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:21:00 +0000

If you haven't seen this yet, hold everything, check it out, and then resume normal life with a smirk on your face. She's brilliant. Scary good.

Swine Flu Nondemic: How to Make Money Using Media Scare Tactics

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:48:00 +0000

In 1976, two humans actually contracted Swine Flu. But in the resulting media froth surrounding the flu, and the resulting panic to get vaccinated against it, 25 people died. Hundreds more suffered from horrible diseases caused by the vaccine and many became paraplegic as a result of taking the vaccine. That is, the cure was many orders of magnitude worse than the ailment.

In this iteration of the Swine Flu, so far, 25 people have died, most in Mexico, with little or no information about the condition of the victims before they contracted the illness (were they elderly? infirm? etc.). One person has died in the U.S., and the victim was not a U.S. citizen. Almost everyone who is diagnosed with Swine Flu experiences mild symptoms and then recovers.

The new strain of Swine Flu has never been seen before in pigs and you cannot contract it from eating pork. But amazingly enough, it seems to respond well to an anti-influenza medication called, Tamiflu, and the stock in companies that supply Tamiflu has flown up in value recently--surprise, surprise. By the way, this Tamiflu stuff is dangerous, only delays symptoms of the Swine Flu for a day or two (does not cure or alleviate symptoms), and is banned in Japan for use in children (14 children have died from taking Tamiflu). And lastly, this potentially lethal, Swine Flu-delaying med costs $100 a pop.

Flu Tracker

WHO Pandemic Alert & Response

According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of The Great Bird Flu Hoax:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You may not know this, but all H1N1 flu's are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. The reason why the flu shot may or may not work, however, from year to year, is due to mutations. Therefore, there's no vaccine available for this current hybrid flu strain, and naturally, this is feeding the fear that millions of people will die before a vaccine can be made.

However, let me remind you of one very important fact here.

Just a couple of months ago, scientists concluded that the 1918 flu pandemic that killed between 50-100 million people worldwide in a matter of 18 months -- which all these worst case scenarios are built upon -- was NOT due to the flu itself!⁴

Instead, they discovered the real culprit was strep infections.

People with influenza often get what is known as a "superinfection" with a bacterial agent. In 1918 it appears to have been Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Since strep is much easier to treat than the flu using modern medicine, a new pandemic would likely be much less dire than it was in the early 20th century, the researchers concluded.

Others, such as evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald,⁵ claim that a pandemic of this sort simply cannot happen, because in order for it to occur, the world has to change. Not the virus itself, but the world.

In a previous interview for Esquire magazine, in which he discusses the possibility of a bird flu pandemic, he states:

"They think that if a virus mutates, it's an evolutionary event. Well, the virus is mutating because that is what viruses and other pathogens do. But evolution is not just random mutation. It is random mutation coupled with natural selection; it is a battle for competitive advantage among different strains generated by random mutation.

For bird flu to evolve into a human pandemic, the strain that finds a home in humanity has to be a strain that is both highly virulent and highly transmissible. Deadliness has to translate somehow into popularity; H5N1 has to find a way to kill or immobilize its human hosts, and still find other hosts to infect. Usually that doesn't happen."

Ewald goes on to explain that evolution in general is all about trade-offs, and in the evolution of infections the trade-off is between virulence and transmissibility.

What this means is that in order for a "bird flu" or "swine flu" to turn into a human pandemic, it has to find an environment that favors both deadly virulence and ease of transmission.

People living in squalor on the Western Front at the end of World War I generated such an environment, from which the epidemic of 1918 could arise.

Likewise, crowded chicken farms, slaughterhouses, and jam-packed markets of eastern Asia provide another such environment, and that environment gave rise to the bird flu -- a pathogen that both kills and spreads, in birds, but not in humans.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, naturally, one needs to look at the sources of the media feeds. Who benefits from the fomenting of mass hysteria surrounding Swine Flu? Who benefits from a rush to buy Tamiflu?

My Grand-Mère

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:29:00 +0000

Today, I received a rejection letter from an esteemed literary journal, explaining why they chose not to publish this poem. Well, rejection or not, I love this poem. It reminds me of my beloved grandmother (who passed away in the 1980s) so much that when I re-read it, I can feel her presence. In her honor, then . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Each day at three

my Grand-Mère

served cookies and iced tea

to two or three of us,

milk-gulping, dirty-ankled grandkids.

We’d eagerly run down the bumpy dirt road

in sneakers and shorts,

leaping over the mud puddle

always in the dip

and around the black heart cherry tree

she had planted,

around the petal-pink effusive peonies

also brought to life

by Grand-Mère hands.

We’d dash by the

candy-apple red rose bush

that grew up over the stone chimney

of the red house--

Grand-Mère and Daddy Ed’s

summer cottage in the whisper-cool

North Carolina mountains.

We’d make the final leap

up the hand-set rock steps

not paying attention to

the baby’s breath and the forsythia

whose oval waxy green leaves

we traded as play-currency.

We’d pause at the screen door to don our manners,

and knock politely,

certain she’d be waiting for us.

Grand-Mère would greet us at the door.

Small, womanly French-Catholic

with blue-rimmed black eyes

and a curly white halo of hair,

proud like her.

She would plant a light peck

on each cheek, French-style.

She could hardly remember our names

much less our birthdays,

But when she welcomed us in

we were her honored guests.

The cards would be set up

on the white-washed

rustic kitchen table.

We’d play Crazy 8 and Old Maid and

Gin Rummy and

Las Vegas-style Solitaire

while she told stories

of her trip to France

when but a stylish young lady,

of her stern (and wealthy)

Papa who would leave when he said he would

whether his girls were in the car or not.

How she worked for a while

when it was not proper

for a well-raised woman to do so.

How she was the first woman to swim

the Tampa Bay

that she later learned was

teeming with sharks.

Grand-Mère made the best

fresh vegetable soup

With tomatoes from the garden,

peeled and tossed with okra

and a pinch of sugar

like the Creoles.

She made sliced tomato

sandwiches with

salt and pepper

on fluffy white bread.

She taught us how to make sandwiches

(“Spread the mayonnaise

all the way to the edge”)

and how to crochet

and to suck the nectar

from a honeysuckle blossom.

She’d exhort us to

sit up straight and take

only one cookie at a time.

She painted tales of adventure and color,

never mentioning how she raised

six dark-haired children without any help.

Grande Mere and her

Catholic-guilty

baby-bearing belly.

We learned in family whispers

how her husband drank and forgot

and drained the car dealership away.

How she put her twins in an orphanage

one time when there

wasn’t enough to feed them,

My own Uncle Jack and Aunt Jill,

from riches to rags.

My father, the shortest child,

still complains of the rickets he had

when food was scarce.

But on those summer afternoons

she spoke of wanting to be a chef

Of etiquette and mien

Of how to make a bed properly,

and the latest silly joke

from her buddy Nette Nichols

of New Orleans, Louisiana,

while green beans and squash

would bubble on the stove.

She taught us French words

like robe de chambre,

petit, and merci

while we’d try out being grown-ups.

Her husband did come back,

and never drank again.

We called him Daddy Ed

And he’d chuckle quietly

in the background

tottering around in his Izod sweaters

and thin wool pants.

He called himself a Florida cracker

and used to chant,

“When I was a little girl,

I lived all by myself,

and every single thing I got,

I put up on a shelf.”

We forgave him

for still fighting the Civil War

and cursing dem Yankees.

He wasn’t Grand Mère,

whom we’d come to see

but he’d make sure

there were peaches and ice cream

when we visited.

And Grand Mère served

tea and cookies and

cards and tomatoes

And knew how to make things grow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How I Became Tumerica, The Changer: A True Story

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:47:00 +0000

You are a little girl. You have a little curl, and yes, you are alternately horrid and affectionate, and all that rot. You are the indulged youngest of five in a noisy, Catholic, intellectual household, deep in the mountains of western North Carolina. Two of your sisters will go on to become professors, but you are a little bit wild and undisciplined, what might be called creative on a good day. You will go on to become, well, you do not know at that time--but you will have glamorous aspirations.

You will sail through school, having as much fun as possible, causing only occasional bouts of trouble, and milking the reputations of your good older siblings. You will go to college and realize, “Hey. Someone is paying for this. I better shape up.” You will make stellar grades and graduate at the top of your class with highest honors, blah, blah, blah. You will be certain you are destined to be a famous sex therapist and will plan your advanced degrees in psychology. You will read Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask in fifth grade, and will subscribe to Psychology Today in high school. You will take the psychology portion of the GRE and will surprise even yourself with your high score. You will fill out your application to graduate school at UC Berkeley and then you will come to a screeching halt. Wait.just.a.minute. You want to have fun before you get all serious and locked into your career track.

Being more adventurous than sensible, you will pack a couple of suitcases and fly to Tokyo, Japan, where you plan to stay for six months, but end up living for five years, flying home only when homesickness and enough yen will allow you. You will get sick from eating bad sushi and will almost die, but when you recover, you will refuse to blame your new country and will keep right on eating sushi. You will explore all over Asia and in so doing, you will become disenchanted with psychology, which you will find to be oh-too-Western-centric. But you won’t know what grand scheme will take its place.

Along the way, you will go through your artist phase, and will go to art school in Tokyo, but will realize the ordinary people on the streets of Japan probably have more visual ability than you do. You will go through your musician phase where you will perform in several bands, singing, playing tambourine, and wearing out your ears and your vocal cords trying to be heard over the electric guitars and drum sets. You will also, and with much greater joy, sing in quiet, smoky bars, accompanied by acoustic guitar or piano and will learn much of the old Jazz standard repertoire of the 30s and 40s. You will even audition for Columbia Records Japan, but they will not like you because you are not kawaii (cute) enough and are past the age of 20—practically middle-aged in Japan.

You will eventually tire of your glamorous life in Tokyo and will plot your return to your fatty, funny, spontaneous home country. You will bring home an enormous wardrobe of freaky-cool clothes and will realize with dismay that most of that will not work in the jeans-and-tee-shirt culture of the USA. You will also break it off with your Japanese fiancé and be utterly befuddled about what you will do with your life now that you speak Japanese, know how to sing, but know practically no one in this Rip-Van-Winkle-ish country that has changed so much in the five years you have been away.

Trying to fit in, you will join a low-key community band (thus meeting your future husband—who can resist a cute guy who plays sax, anyway?), will work out at the local fitness club, and will spend a lot of time in the downtown library combing the stacks for clues as to what you might do with your life. You will end up working as a secretary, a game tester, a research assistant, a graphic designer (which you will abandon because, although it is fun, you can barely pay the bills with the proceeds). Over the years, not wanting to become too self-absorbed, you will volunteer as an AIDS Buddy and the manager of a homeless shelter. You will learn way more than you ever wanted to about poverty and addiction.

Then, you will finally, finally find work as the managing editor of a tiny science journal (in which you will write, edit, and do graphic design). You will love your job so much, you will walk to work the day after a major blizzard just for the joy of being there. You will continue to love this job with a desperate and proud passion until the day you are laid off, only to find the owner’s college-aged daughter taking your place.

But never mind that--voila! You are a writer now--the perfect profession for those who dabble in everything and who do not wish to make up their minds what profession they will settle on. As a writer, you could end up writing some compelling ad copy for a fitness shoe that promises to firm your butt simply by wearing it. You could write a 250-page tome that teaches gazillionaire financiers how to keep track of their transactions. You could end up writing a book review in which you have to admit that the much-loved guru who wrote it spent the entire book rehashing his previously published ideas, cobbled together with lots of snazzy, new photographs. Having to call this out in public will keep you up at night and make you wonder why you became a writer after all. Clearly, writing comes in many flavas, and you will want to sample them all. And you will love your newly discovered profession. It will make you sing in many ways.

Lastly, you will lose track of how many blogs you have created, but will end up writing assiduously for two--a left-wing political blog (this one!) and a foodie blog (WhatEye8.com). You will keep up with the political blog because it will cathartically help you survive the madness that has overtaken the country for the last eight years, and the food blog because you will realize it both helps you find your elusive recipes, and because it seems to organically be growing into a cookbook. These blogs will give you great pleasure and almost no spending money.

You will even publish the occasional article about how to increase personal creativity, the occasional poem about lust, or the quotidian stuff of life, or even the power of boobs, and you will audaciously pen articles that offer to help other writers hone their craft.

And during all that time, you will find yourself being the wailing wall, the giver-of-advice, the shoulder for so many friends that you will be dubbed The Changer by one of your best girlfriends, who will assert that you attempt to improve and change and help everywhere you go. She will send you the silver totem of The Changer goddess (you will not even know there was such a thing), and you will realize your friend is exactly right.

Over the years, you will become, well, me. An only slightly frustrated non-sexual therapist writer-woman. A passionista. A changer.

Happy Easter and What Do You Believe in Anyway?

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:40:00 +0000

My friend, Dal, the golfer/philosophizer sent an essay from a writer who scourged the Islamic faith, making it sound as though Islamism is not a religion and that it's a total-mind-warp-cult with impossibly incontrovertible calls to violence.

Here's the anti-Islamic religion essay, if you are interested.

Honestly, I cannot say whether I think the writer’s right or not based on facts. I don’t have enough knowledge of Islamic beliefs. I’d rather not believe it’s true, and I suspect she’s lumping all Islamic believers in one basket—extremists and moderates alike—then basing her assumptions on the beliefs of the extremists without admitting it. Also, several, if not many of the damning tenets of Islamic faith she listed could be argued to be true of other religions, like Judaism or Christianity. How does one draw the line? If what she claims is really true, then what? Everyone else on the planet declare jihad against all Islamic peoples? I find such extremism as hers scary. But again, I don’t know enough facts to argue with much more than faith, flavored by intuition and dosed with conjecture. Perhaps a bit like the religious of any belief system.

Recently Newsweek published a cover article, Learning to Live with Radical Islam, by Fareed Zakaria, putting the American knee-jerk condemnation-via-ignorance of all things Islam in it's rightful place.

On religion, I’m leaning toward Buddhism, which, thank the gods, is a non-religion. A philosophy. And how about Sufism, with it’s mysticism? A new friend of mine admitted he is an “ignostic.” I had to look it up and am still not sure what it is. We plan to raise our five-year-old as a compassionate agnostic who practices yoga religiously. But she can certainly choose as she likes.

Compassion and do unto others and love. That’s what I believe in. How about you?

Happy Easter, anyway.

[Photo above: our Easter egg collection this year. Splendid, don't you think. I slept through the decorating party last night. Recovering from a head cold. Ugh.]

My Sweet Lord: Uncertain Future for Chocolate Sans Loincloth Jesus

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:24:00 +0000

Gallery owners are all in a dither. Should we display the newly sculpted 200-pound milk chocolate Jesus—or refrigerate him? And if we do not side with the artist, who obviously put extreme pride in his latest work, should we risk angering the artistic community? What about artistic integrity and freedom of expression? Why do politics and ardent religious groups and art have such stringent boundaries that step on each other so painfully, they must be wondering.

Manhattan's Lab Gallery spokesmen seem surprised by the volume of angry e-mails and threatening calls they have received. Just what is it that angers the mostly Catholic groups? The nudity of the sculpture, which shows Jesus' manhood in anatomically correct detail? The timing of the exhibit opening during a religiously sensitive holiday? (The life-size "My Sweet Lord," who stretches his arms as though hanging on an invisible cross, was slated to debut the Monday after Palm Sunday, with his final day on Easter Sunday.) The fact that the piece is made of chocolate and has a food tie-in (giving the Eucharist an entire new flava)? Maybe all of the above.

Surely, gallery owners must realize there are many of us who do not feel offended by a chocolate Jesus. Curiosity is my main emotion. As a fallen Catholic, I have no qualms about a Jesus depiction made of food. I could imagine worse construction materials. As a foodie, I'd be curious to experience (imagine the chocolate fragrance) the sculpture up close. As a former artist, I respect what must have gone into the creation.

Canadian artist, Cosimo Cavallaro has been known to use food to express his artistic vision, most recently involving mozzarella cheese and processed ham.

One Small Step for Iowa: One Giant Step for Amerikind

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:25:00 +0000

Corn and great basketball teams. Caucuses and severe winters. And now, the right for all legal-aged couples who are not related to each other to get married, if they so desire.

My sister, who lives in Iowa, reports there are more than 1,000 privileges that married people get that she and her partner could not get—until now. Until April 24, to be exact, when she and her partner, who have been together for at least a decade, will have their union sanctioned by the state. Luckily, my sister's employer is savvy enough to have provided domestic partner health care, which has to be one of the biggies on the list of 1,000 married couple privileges.

Iowa is now only the third state to make this move. The Iowa Supreme Court hammered the nail in the coffin of the haters this past Friday with a ruling that overturned the gay-marriage ban. Now listen up, California Supreme Court. If ever there were a state that needs gay marriage it is California. I feel certain the people would prefer gay marriage as a whole, and that the Prop 8 ruling that barely squeaked by last November was the result of a well-funded extremely determined effort on the part of the haters to tell whatever outrageous lies they could to get the electorate confwoosed enough to doubt that gay marriage could be a healthy part of our lives. Pathetic, huh? Hopefully heartland state Iowa will make Californians feel like a provincial backwater by comparison and get on with the sensible act of ridding the state of this ridiculously unconstitutional ruling.

Gay marriage is good for everyone. Security for same-sex partners, economy-boosting for the state, what's not to love? Thank you, Iowa, for boldly setting a good precedent. Maybe cool trends will start coming from the Midwest instead of the West from now on?

Michelle Obama vs. Carla Bruni Sarkosy: The Fashion Face-off

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:40:00 +0000

They are both utterly gorgeous and chic to the bone. Only I would say, Ms. Obama edges out Ms. Bruni-Sarkosy in this instance only because Ms. Bruni-Sarkosy chose a subdued color and style for this meeting. If anything, you could say this is not the best look for Ms. Bruni-Sarkosy. She has looked fabulous in nearly everything else she has worn. I admire that she was so . . . restrained. Restrained is cool. But for sheer glory and punch, Ms. Obama looked both regal and fun. The long jacket is cool, but when she takes it OFF to reveal the FABULOUS opposite color scheme matching sheath underneath, I think I swooned. A brilliant ensemble, don't you think?

What I don't understand, though, is why Ms. Obama wore such a drop-dead amazingly wonderful outfit this time, and wore a dead-dull outfit when she met HRH Queen Elizabeth II? Oh, well--if nothing else, it's a delight for the fashion-conscious like me to keep our eyes on Ms. Obama. All she really has to do is take off her jacket and reveal those fabulous arms. She's an amazing woman in many ways.

For the G20: Bank Corruption Advice from Thomas Jefferson

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:27:00 +0000

My wonderfully prescient and perhaps brilliant French writer and astrologer friend, Suzanne White, writes this:
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On the eve of the G20 conference, let us reflect on the quote below and hope that the leaders in London will be doing likewise.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, if by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

—Thomas Jefferson (Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, year 1802

Get Krugman on Your Team Already, Obama!

tumerica@gmail.com (Carolyn Blount Brodersen) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:57:00 +0000

Why on Earth Obama chose Timothy Geithner to be his financial czar/Secretary of the Treasury is beyond belief. The man has no experience. Just because he's young (my age!) doesn't mean he has fresh thinking, like Obama does. Geithner could not see a mountain-sized stinking pile of economic poop before falling in it.

Usually, Obama graciously surrounds himself with the best and brightest. But in choosing Geithner over, say, Dr. Paul Krugman, my personal hero, Progressive economist, brilliant, kick-ass writer, prophet (he foresaw the current economic disaster back in 2005), and unwithering critic of anything that stinks economically, is beyond belief.

Now that the Daschle-style mistake of appointing Geithner has been made, and if "Heckuva job, Geithie," is going to keep his day job, couldn't Obama at least have the wisdom to add Krugman to his team? Krugman should have been the first-round draft pick of any non-Conservative seeking to surround himself with the economic wisdom that exists in the country. Fix it, Obama, FIX IT!