equilugubrium

Salon (and everyone else under the sun) now report that Diabetes, and obesity are becoming an epidemic. An increasingly sedentary culture--in addition to the usual high-calorie, high-fat food climate--is taking the blame. Of course, as is usually mentioned, computer use is a part of this trend. More important in my mind, however, is the much-overlooked automobile-centricity of our culture, which has only become more and more pronounced as the growth of the economy has allowed people of all income groups to purchase cars, and as population centers have shifted to the far outskirts of cities. People who live in the suburbs have to drive to get anywhere--work, the grocery, entertainment. In Asheville, North Carolina, I recently had a chance to observe the teenage ritual of joining --as weekend entertainment-- a large, slow-moving serpent of traffic traveling in tedious, smoggy circles back and forth past a few blocks of strip malls and car dealerships. This is the case in many smaller cities--young people, unused to exerting themselves and with no incentive to do so, entertain themselves by driving or riding in cars. I may be accused of oversimplifying here, but unless a young person in this society (one who doesn't do manual labor for a living) makes some concerted effort to get exercise at a health club or some other strange and incongruous venue, when, exactly, is he or she going to burn calories? Walking to the car in the driveway? Walking from the parking lot at work to the office? In the aisles of a grocery store? Parents now believe--probably correctly--that it's not safe to let their children walk anywhere, and as a result most of the kids I know have never been transported from one place to another under their own power. A portion of the populace even considers vehicles necessary for recreation--snowmobiles, jet-skis, boats, dirt bikes, etc. Why are young people overweight? The same reason air quality continues to deteriorate. Will this change soon? Not a chance.

For those who are still neophytes to the blogging world (and I number myself among them), here is a link to the ballot page for the Bloggies, annual awards given to weblogs that are deemed the best in various categories. I highly recommend it, if only as a launching pad to explore some truly interesting sites (as well as a few tedious ones).

Bigger really is better, as far as babies go, anyway.

A sad story. I just hope this teenager isn't prosecuted.

Castro says he hopes Bush "not as stupid as he seems" (from CNN).

According to this NYT article, it seems that after a long day learning to navigate a maze placed before them by sadistic, godlike researchers, rats are then likely to dream about the experience. From this researchers conclude that rats are more like humans than previously thought Or is it the other way around?

Very interesting topic: the reluctance of people who are ill to take drugs that affect their dispositions, such as anti-depressants, along with the corollary evidence that after having done so these patients are likely to say, 'they feel more like themselves.' (via Follow Me Here--which, by the way, has added an item-by-item discussion feature that I would dearly love to steal for this blog). The author also makes some wry observations about some of the contradictions he observes in patients, such as their willingness to imbibe toxic, psychoactive substances such as alchohol and cigarettes while disdaining the use of thoroughly tested prescription drugs. It ain't about reason, doc.

For Mr. J. and many other patients, taking the antidepressant was tantamount to ceding the supremacy of consciousness in controlling who we are and what we do. Hidden in my apparently harmless suggestion was a subversive new notion of the self. It removed consciousness from the dominant center of the brain to merely one among many mental constellations. If Copernicus had removed us from the center of our solar system and Darwin from the apex of the natural world, this was the final indignity. By proposing medication I was suggesting that we were not even the masters within our own minds.

An early human ancestor is now thought to have supplemented his salad with termites.

The NYT this week features a special section on the work of Raymond Carver, including the reviews that greeted the publication of his first collections:

His effect, which suggests but does not in any way duplicate the effect of Harold Pinter, is a function of accumulation. No single sentence lodges in the memory, but, taken together, Mr. Carver's locutions, exact and suggestive as they are, insinuate themselves into a reader's imagination and provoke startling, even shameful, expectations.

Sanders emailed this a couple of days ago, but I just found an actual link to the story (courtesy of Drudge):

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian men boast longer penises than their American counterparts, at least according to a survey of male genitalia conducted by a Brazilian urologist.

Dr. Paulo Palma said on Friday the average erect Brazilian penis reaches 5.7 inches (14.5 cm) -- about the length of a Nokia cellular telephone with the antenna..

Palma said that compares with an average erect American penis of about 5 inches (12.9 cm) -- the length of a Nokia cellular phone without the antenna..

``The tendency is that Brazilian penises are bigger,'' Palma said in a telephone interview with Reuters. ``But American men shouldn't be upset about this small difference.''

Info on the raising of the Hunley, a civil-war submarine, in Charleston that includes video footage of it being lifted from the ocean floor (url courtesy of Robot Wisdom).

Instead of a Palm Pilot, Dubya will be using this handy Presidential Palm Helper (courtesy of Follow Me Here).

This is a new one on me: Naked News. I remember reading that the most popular news broadcasts in Russia employ topless women reading the day's headlines, but who knew that our own country was so enlightened (if that is the word)? Where have I been? Anyway, it's a must see. And I should add that, not surprisingly, the weatherwoman is quite talented. (courtesy of Boing, boing)

Every other blog has linked to some sort of article about the invention known as Ginger, so I may as well, too. Here is a page with all the most recent news stories. Hard to believe this won't end up being a letdown.

A Washington Post reporter, Gene Weingarten, crashes the Britney Spears chat room to sample the political climate. Hilarious. The reporter, using the moniker "Weinpost", asks another chatter about Bush:

ChickDx: He's just a jerk lier wannabe. Why do you like him.

Weinpost: I don't like him, totally. I just think he's hott.

ChickDx: GROSS!!!

Weinpost: um, how old are you, Chick?

ChickDx: 14 u?

Buki7: n e one got naked pics of Spears?

Weinpost: i'm 49

ChickDx: wow

GymnastKatie2000: ewwww

Check the new Onion, if you haven't yet: Clinton Not Expecting To Collect White House Security Deposit

The original mullet-lovers' web site. And its spawn.

[for snobs only]

What passes for news in the UK: Couple save bullock they met on holiday. My favorite line in the story:

Mr Brunsden, a retired artificial leg maker, said: "When we first met Ferdinand he was like a big old dog because he had such a friendly nature and he let me pat him on the nose."

Listening to the new REM song, "She Just Wants To Be" (already available on Napster in a live version), I am struck by a couple of things. One is that Stipe appears to be working hard lyrically, which is an admirable but not always rewarding impulse. Another is that the group appears to have abandoned the idea of experimentation with their sound (this may or may not be the case in the production-process once the song is actually finished) and settled into the early to mid-nineties power pop sound that seems to come most naturally to them at this point in their lives. It's not a very impressive song, but then again what I am listening to is a live bootleg of its first performance, so I will reserve final judgement.

An article on the written record of civilization in the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk, 2,500 years ago (via Arts & Letters daily):

Writing on clay gave Uruk enduring influence, and abundant texts bring the vanished city to life in diverse tongues and places. As many as half a million cuneiform tablets, hand size up to book-page size, are now stored in the museums of the learned, from Baghdad upriver out to Moscow and Berkeley. Surely many more are waiting to be found. Those samples are of every quality: once prized accounts and receipts, schoolboys' lessons, litigation profound or droll, literary essays, erotica, mathematics--and entire ancient epics, centuries older than Father Abraham's. A mostly unread treasury, comprising the equivalent of tens of thousands of large printed volumes.

Dope on the new Spiderman flick, which is still in the making (Pearls via Ghost in the Machine)

Also via Pearls: the Victorian Sex Cry Generator (this one is going in the permanent links).

An article by Malcolm Gladwell from the May 19, 1997 issue of the New Yorker on The Sports Taboo, modern society's reluctance to discuss differences in athletic performance in racial terms. Here is a provocative excerpt:

According to the medical evidence, African-Americans seem to have, on the average, greater bone mass than do white Americans-a difference that suggests greater muscle mass. Black men have slightly higher circulating levels of testosterone and human-growth hormone than their white counterparts, and blacks over all tend to have proportionally slimmer hips, wider shoulders, and longer legs. In one study, the Swedish physiologist Bengt Saltin compared a group of Kenyan distance runners with a group of Swedish distance runners and found interesting differences in muscle composition: Saltin reported that the Africans appeared to have more blood-carrying capillaries and more mitochondria (the body's cellular power plant) in the fibres of their quadriceps. Another study found that, while black South African distance runners ran at the same speed as white South African runners, they were able to use more oxygen- eighty-nine per cent versus eighty-one per cent-over extended periods: somehow, they were able to exert themselves more. Such evidence suggested that there were physical differences in black athletes which have a bearing on activities like running and jumping, which should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who follows competitive sports.

Over the years since this article came out, I have found myself engaged in a number of conversations about Gladwell's premise, so I thought I'd dig up the original article for the blog. Gladwell--a journalist whose work I admire--is one of the only New Yorker writers whose work can be found online, as the magazine remains stubborn in its dedication to print.

What a coincidence! Two days after I posted alluding to misguided apprehension about microwave ovens comes this interview in the NYT with Eleanor Adair, a scientist who specializes in educating people on that very subject. I found this informative. It may sound like a bad joke at first:

Q. You began studying the physiological effects of microwave radiation in 1975, putting squirrel monkeys in a microwave chamber, heating them up so they would either feel slightly warm or noticeably hot. Were there any adverse effects?

A. Never. As a matter of fact, the animals would really thrive on the microwave radiation. If we finished an experiment and went on to something else and had to use a different set of animals for the next microwave experiment, the animals that were taken out of the microwaves would sort of pine way. It was as though they were saying, "Come on. It's about time to go back in the box."

As it turns out, she herself got in the microwave before she put the monkeys in. She even points out that microwave radiation would really be one of the more effective ways to heat a house. I would wager that very few people would go for that, though. People seem to like their ultraviolet radiation just fine.

Of Tubers, Fire and Human Evolution, an interesting NYT article from the Science section. This is the kind of thing that inflames the imagination:

Dr. Wrangham's group theorizes that a population of australopithecines, the apelike ancestors of Homo erectus, gained control of fire and began cooking tubers and roots in East Africa about 1.9 million years ago. Within several hundred generations — a short time in evolutionary terms — the australopithecines had evolved into Homo erectus. "Evolution is driven by a cultural event: the capture of fire," Dr. Wrangham said.

Ten superior technologies that were passed over by the forces of history, as reported in TechReview.

More interestingly, a lifetime reading list compiled by the famous Sanders, who may be the best-read individual I have ever known.

Server problems today, apparently. Sorry about that.

The other day I had my hair cut at a place up the street from my house. The woman who did the work was amiable, and chatted with me about a number of things, including an upcoming trip to Atlanta to attend a conference for people who, like she and her husband, sell a particular brand of vitamin products as a side business. She explained to me that both she and her husband are from Durham, originally, but simply shuddered when I asked her what she thought of the current state of the city. Her family has moved to Creedmoor, a country suburb of Raleigh, where they feel safe, although she still gives her husband a hard time about failing to lock the door on occasion. They had both been quite paranoid while living here in Durham. I nodded appreciatively. In Cary, she noted (this is another country suburb), there is no crime. By this I think she meant no murders. Durham, on the other hand, she explained excitedly, has three murders a night. At least. Hmmm. I remembered reading about the (comparatively) very high murder rate in Durham, but knew that the number was nothing like what she was suggesting. At that rate, after all, over a thousand people a year would be disappearing from this tiny city! By comparison, only (!) 15,500 murders were recorded in the entire country in 1999. A thousand murders in Durham would have made it a famous city indeed, but that number had not stretched the credulity of the nice woman cutting my hair, apparently. I suggested as diplomatically as possible that her number might be somewhat inflated, and afterward made a mental note to actually check the murder rate here in my recently adopted home, shuddering myself at how many people must sit in the same seat I had just been in, absorbing uncritically the suggestion that as they go about their business in Durham each day three murders are taking place unnoticed. 2000 numbers are not yet available, but as you can see in the table below, we haven't approached three murders a month in the two years preceding this one.

Durham County Crime Statistics, 1998-99
Index Offense	Year	Number Actual Offenses	Number Offenses Cleared	Percent Cleared
Murder	1998	28	13	46%
Murder	1999	14	4	29%
Rape	1998	103	42	41%
Rape	1999	80	53	66%
Robbery	1998	1,107	198	18%
Robbery	1999	1,103	273	25%
Agg. Assault	1998	795	279	35%
Agg. Assault	1999	816	325	40%
Subtotal	1998	2,033	532	26%
Subtotal	1999	2,013	655	33%

The current fray in Europe over the idea that depleted Uranium causes cancer is a lesson in the power of fear as a way of manipulating public opinion. I have heard it reported that this story has been stirred up, in part, by opponents of the NATO presence in the Balkans. But its power comes from invoking a mythical configuration: the magical substance that causes injury. Any number of things that coexist with us in our daily lives are 'magical' in that the average person (myself emphatically included in this group) does not understand them, their properties or how they work. In Europe (or so I read) children receive for the most part a better scientific education than we do here in the United States. If it is easy to see waves of fear caused by ignorance of basic science roll over Europe, how much easier would it be to see the same thing happen here? I once watched a reasonably educated man yank his toddler son away from a Microwave that was heating a cup of coffee, explaining calmly to me his fear that all Microwave ovens leaked radiation, and that the radiation itself that heated the food was harmful. The same fellow then took his son out to the beach on a hot day and spent a long afternoon without applying an ounce of sunscreen to the little boy's fair skin. Not that it is absurd to pose the question of whether or not a device is safe, but which of these two things--the Microwave or the sun--do we actually know with certainty causes cancer? I know it is tempting to say that educating children better is an answer to this sort of thing, and I am all for it. But on the other hand, as science continues to evolve at dizzying speed, there is no way we can avoid exacerbating the tensions between those who hold the knowledge and those who don't. And, if I can be forgiven for concluding with a rather dire cliche, when injury is believed to have been done the people are going to look for a witch's house to burn.

Great story on complex spy facility abandoned by the National Security Agency in the Pisgah National Forest (via Follow Me Here). Can you imagine coming upon this by accident on a hike?

More and more planets are being discovered, and astronomy is wrestling with how to reconcile the new information with the existing model of the universe. In the words of John Noble Wilford, the NYT's science writer, "Are there more kinds of planets in the heavens than scientists have dreamed of?"

Matt sends this reply to my post from a couple of days ago:

Songs by the same artist should never be consecutive. However, on a mix tape, it is allowable to have the same artist appear once on each side, creating a sort of reflection between sides A and B.
With a mix CD, however, this is impossible. One could create a blank track signifying the separation between sides a and b, I suppose. More clever would be to dub the first 5 seconds of "I Want the One I Can't Have" from The Smiths' Meat is Murder LP, which is itself a recording of a tape being flipped over in a boom box and then building up to speed.

These are laws, though. Immutable.

But then again, the more immutable the law, the more tempting it becomes to flout it, no?

Interesting stories from Africa this week:
A Nomad Deserts the Desert; His Garden Blooms
Listening to elephants speak to one another.

This article seems a bit behind the curve: in San Francisco during the mid-nineties, I remember thinking that heroin use could not possibly be more prevalent among the young. But according to the NYT, the number of users is still rising.

Check your biorhythm for today. According to my chart, my intellectual rhythm is particularly low at the moment. Hmmm. What does this mean, exactly? I have a job interview later today--what if I can't answer their questions? Maybe I shouldn't even be blogging. Hey, does anybody know what's going on in football right now?

(One of the many) Misheard-lyric archives:
"I'll never be your beast of burden" as heard by a woman named Sarah: I'll never be your big Suburban

This is probably the sort of thing that I should post on an Uplister discussion board, but does anyone (Matt?) have an opinion about whether or not it is appropriate, when making mix-tapes, to put songs by the same artist back to back? I have this problem with the likes of Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Vic Chesnutt; having gotten to the stage of a mix where I want to put one song by one of these guys, I am generally seized by the desire to then put a second or third before changing tone again. Is it even appropriate, in a true mix tape, to have more than one song by any artist?

By the way, Google offers a permanent search bar that attaches to the toolbar at the top of your browser and allows you to launch a Google-search from any page you may be looking at. I recommend highly.

Any suggestions for getting a bargain flight to London in April? Anyone? Fares go up at the end of March. British Airways seems to be offering a few bargains for April through American Express.

Isn't it odd that the people most likely to say they don't trust the government to make decisions that control peoples' lives also seem to be the most likely to favor the death penalty? Death is an error that can't be redressed:

Mr. Burrell and Mr. Graham bring to eight the number of wrongfully convicted death-row inmates exonerated nationwide in the past year. Ninety-two death-row inmates have been exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973.

A truth darker than any fiction, to be sure. A British doctor who killed upwards of three hundred people, mostly older women. What to make of this? Does the mind of this man even warrant scrutiny?

Clinton's last days.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 — President Clinton left the White House one night this week to listen to a band at a dingy downtown rock club packed full of his past and present aides.

"If I don't sleep for the next 16 days, it will seem like four more years," the president joked.

Turns out he was at the 9:30 Club. They don't tell us what band he went to see, but it is a safe bet that the musicians were kind of freaked out, no? And who was buying the drinks?

Stress ages you, in case you doubted it.

Listening to: Johnny Cash's cover of Nick Cave's song, "Mercy Seat"; Fred Astaire singing "Dancing Cheek to Cheek"
Reading: the latest Harry Potter book; Paul Theroux's Kingdom By the Sea
Running: thinking about the Uwharrie Trail Adventure Run, a 20-mile trail run at the beginning of February.

Well, today's post was deleted due to Blogger's fucked-up server problems. Really, really annoying.

Town Becomes a Laboratory for Rule by Greens. This will be an interesting story to follow. And, in a vaguely related article, eco-terrorists (love those hyphenated villains) take on developers in New Jersey.

So little time lately devoted to blogging. But perhaps this speaks well for me. Anyway, apologies. I plan to redesign this vessel again soon, perhaps on Saturday, so as to make it more readable, a possibility that becomes more realistic as I slowly gain proficiency at the most basic concepts of web design. Also on the horizon is the addition of a guest book. And eventually, of course, a webcam and nude photo gallery. Ahem.

I think I have a new favorite blog. My first impression is that, apart from an easy to follow and pleasant-looking design, this fellow has crafted a journal that is genuinely thoughtful and interesting. I always found the idea of blogs as nothing more than public diaries to be distasteful, but it is clear that the medium can also be much more substantial than a mere list of links. Anyway, I found this likable on first read. At the same time, the first (and only, really) blog I ever followed religiously has really put me off recently, as it's author revealed himself to be a spectacular asshole. Prior to that, I had simply suspected him, occasionally, of being a glibly self-righteous twit. Anyway, I am very disappointed with Robot Wisdom right now.

After slamming Robot Wisdom, I am stealing a link. Because I must. Xena pops out of her dress while singing the national anthem at a sporting event. An historic moment.

Less striking to me than this article in the NYT about a man trying to handcuff himself to the Archbishop in St. Patrick's (make up your own joke), was the reference in it to an incident that apparently occurred several years ago in which a naked man ran into the cathedral during a service and bludgeoned to death an usher. My god. That is a lingeringly gruesome image.

Durham County Crime Statistics, 1998-99