You Are What You Eat - And Who You Know

See below about an interesting article about how your weight is related to the weight of the people you hang out with on a regular basis...yikes!

WSJ.com

You Are What You Eat–And Who You Know
Posted by Jacob Goldstein

Detail from a diagram of the relationships in the study It may be time to start thinking of obesity as an infectious disease.
Among more than 12,000 people in a decades-long study of heart disease, a person’s chances of becoming obese increased by 57% if he or she had a friend who also became obese, and by 37% if a spouse became obese. In a twist reminiscent of the pop-culture game six degrees of Kevin Bacon, researchers found that if your friend’s friend became obese, it increased your chances of becoming obese by 45%. If your friend’s friend’s friend became obese, it increased your chances by 20%.

Nearly as striking as the findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was the method: social network analysis. The technique looks for patterns in human relationships and has become popular in the social sciences. But the approach isn’t used widely by health researchers.

The statistics were adjusted every which way to account for age, sex and education, and the results suggest that who your friends are is a more important factor in weight gain than your genes.

“These results are going to shift the way we think about some of these supposedly non-communicable diseases — we’ll start thinking about network dynamics,” said Richard Suzman, a researcher at the National Institute on Aging, which funded the study. “There are going to be studies of how patients interact in networks, how physicians interact in networks. Perhaps that will give some understanding of the geographic variability that we see in many diseases.”

The authors, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler, a social scientist at the University of California, San Diego, mined data from the Framingham Heart Study. That study has tracked the health of thousands of people in Framingham, Massachusetts over the course of many decades, collecting a dizzying array of information — including a list of friends of each participant, as well as family relationships.

When a friend or spouse on a participant’s list was also a participant in the study (which happened often, because so many Framinghamians have been enrolled in the study) Christakis and Fowler were able to track the weight of both friends (or both spouses) over time. One limitation: Framingham is a mostly white, mostly middle class town, so it’s unclear how the results would generalize to more diverse populations.

Sporadic power failures darken wide swaths of downtown San Francisco - Los Angeles Times

Yes, I don't get it. Living in Silicon Valley this summer has really caught me off guard in terms of the stability and predictability of power - electric power that is. For some reason, this region is consistently plagued with recurring power failures. If it's not in Silicon Valley, it's in San Francisco. See the article below for some general follow up on these rolling blackouts.

Sporadic power failures darken wide swaths of downtown San Francisco - Los Angeles Times

Summers in San Francisco

I never would have guessed that summers in San Francisco are actually quite chilly. In fact, apparently, it gets so hot during the summer that the heat inland makes the fog roll in from the ocean. And roll in it does. I have never seen fog dance and maneauver its way around hills, slopes and valleys as it does in the San Francisco Bay. It's utterly ridiculous how amazing the topography looks when you are driving on highway 280 north and you can see this white blanket slowly moving its way across the landscape, as if covering the City of San Francisco with linen-like cover. And when you're in the actual city, you can't help but grab some cafecito or chocolate to warm you up. Here, I am having some chocolate caliente with Hurricane and Stacie in North Beach (they were just here about 3 weeks ago for Hurricane's bday). Definitely, post-Keroac North Beach. Although it would have been nice to be around, or at least passing by, the old North Beach...just like fog...rolling in...and rolling out. Saludos from the City by the Bay. And for the record...this picture was taken in the summer of 2007...don't know what's up with Hurricane's camera!

Go Bruins Go

For many of us, the turn of the century represented more than just updating all of our computers in hopes of avoiding the mythical Y2K crisis (namely, all computers needed to be updated for the 2000 year because there was large fear that at the official turn of the century, all computers would crash because they were stuck on a 19_ _ annual calculating mode). Back in 1999 we were finally partying like Prince had demanded us to do, and more importantly, we were in Westwood soaking it up at UCLA for all that it was worth! Pictured: Edu, Hurricane and John Henry! And of course, some shameless promotion for Romulo!

American brothers gored in Pamplona festival - International Herald Tribune

This is such an insane story, and quite possibly one for the "coincidence" mystics. Not only are these two "hermanos" gored at the same running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, it's by the same bull, and at the same time. Increible! One of them is from Hermosa Beach, CA and the other from Philly!

American brothers gored in Pamplona festival - International Herald Tribune

The Obama Wagon to the White House...

So far, I am a big fan of the Obama wagon to the White House, but I am also mindful that his campaign needs to be careful about how they allow mass media tools and instruments, like Newsweek, to portray their star player. Below is a funny, and informative, article from L. Brent Bozell III of the Media Research Center.

Favorite Lines:

"Newsweek is not an honest, nonpartisan broker for voters in the 2008 campaign. It is a transparent Tiger Beat fan magazine for Democrats, for "expanding America's sense of possibility" by promoting race and gender as the excuse for electing another liberal president."


Newsweek's Obama ogling

By L. Brent Bozell III Sunday, July 15, 2007

The 2008 presidential campaign could be one of the most critical in recent history. As things now stand, it could also be one of the most tiresome.

Nowhere is media snobbishness more evident than when the big picture begins with the snide liberal elitist take on America: Is the country "ready" to elect a black like Barack Obama or a woman like Hillary Clinton?

If Americans reject the icons of liberalism and vote Republican, apparently they will be proving the country is stuffed with benighted bigots who refuse to "expand America's sense of possibility." Those gauzy words came from Newsweek in its Barack-and-Hillary cover at the end of 2006. Obama's back on the cover of Newsweek again for the July 16 edition, photographed in black and white, with another question from left field: Will Obama be black enough for blacks and yet conciliatory enough for whites?

Reporters Richard Wolffe and Daren Briscoe apply all the usual goo to the Obama cause. "Many of Obama's supporters are enthralled by the content of his character -- by his earnest desire to heal the nation's political divisions and to restore America's reputation in the world." Many also are "excited by the color of his skin" and the "chance to turn the page" on American racism, Wolffe and Briscoe add, but blacks are wary that whites might go soft and self-satisfied and think the "playing field is leveled."

Here's another sappy line: "On the campaign trail, Obama doesn't seek sympathy: He evokes hope." The reporters tell the story of how once-segregated Cairo, Ill., greeted Obama warmly during his 2004 Senate campaign. Pass the Pepto, please.

It's not very difficult to demonstrate that Newsweek doesn't provide this fluffy pillow and after-dinner chocolate to every candidate. Take its March 12 cover story on Rudy Giuliani: "Giuliani can be arrogant, abrasive and imperious, an average-size man trying too hard to prove himself to be a giant."

Reporter Jonathan Darman told of Giuliani's father being an enforcer for loan sharks, dug up Giuliani screaming petulantly in Washington and quoted former Mayor Ed Koch "sticking up" for his colleague: "Blacks and Hispanics would say, 'He's a racist!' I said, 'Absolutely not, he's nasty to everybody.'"

There was praise in the article, too, for his revival of New York and crisis leadership on 9/11, which raises the salient point: Just what has Obama accomplished in his brief period in the Senate that in any way matches the Giuliani turnaround in New York?

Newsweek recycles the Obama campaign's favorite publicity themes: how he won over "conservative whites" at the Harvard Law Review (how hard was that?) and named them to posts there, as if he'd ever name conservatives to his Cabinet; how his wife, Michelle, overcame her "misperceptions" about him and discovered he was wonderful; how former opponent Rep. Bobby Rush compares him to Moses for his talent at winning powerful people over.

Newsweek is whistling past what may very well trip up the Democrats in 2008 -- that their nominee, whoever it is, will appear to be pandering to the radical-left base of their party at the expense of, well, everyone else.

Wolffe and Briscoe trip all over themselves to deny that Obama or his backers are leftists -- even as their piece begins by touting how Obama won over far-left black professor Cornel West, a man last glimpsed in the public eye traveling in a junket with Harry Belafonte to meet and greet radical Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. (Newsweek used no ideological label for West, either.)

Late in the article, they note that Obama was talked out of letting his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, deliver an invocation before his big announcement speech because Wright was "caricatured as a 'radical' for his Afrocentrism and his focus on black issues -- a strange criticism, perhaps, of a preacher on the South Side."

"Caricatured"? When New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor profiled Wright and Obama on April 30, she reported that Wright had gone to Libya in 1984 to meet with Moammar Gadhafi -- alongside Rev. Louis Farrakhan. (Why are all of Obama's allies enthralled with anti-American dictators?) Kantor described Wright as the man who converted Obama to Christianity, a "dynamic pastor who preached Afrocentric theology, dabbled in radical politics and delivered music-and-profanity-spiked sermons." So, according to Newsweek, Wright was "caricatured" as a radical -- even by The New York Times?

Newsweek is not an honest, nonpartisan broker for voters in the 2008 campaign. It is a transparent Tiger Beat fan magazine for Democrats, for "expanding America's sense of possibility" by promoting race and gender as the excuse for electing another liberal president.

L. Brent Bozell III is president of the Media Research Center.

A Latino Star Shines Less Brightly

THE STATE
A Latino star shines less brightly
LA Times
His career may survive, but many are disappointed by Villaraigosa's involvement in scandal.
By Maria L. La Ganga and Sam Quinones, Times Staff WritersJuly 6, 2007

Felipe Mares groped for words Thursday morning as he tried to explain his complicated feelings about the mayor he voted for with such high hopes just two years ago."I feel like a kid. I'm confused," said the Boyle Heights jewelry store owner, lamenting recent revelations of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's affair with a Telemundo newscaster.

Villaraigosa is "a person in a very important position," Mares said. "I think it's embarrassing. It's not supposed to be like that. He's supposed to be pro-family."Over the last decade, the city's government has finally started to reflect its demographics. Los Angeles, with a Latino population of nearly 50%, has a city attorney named Rocky Delgadillo and a City Council on which five of 15 members are of Mexican descent.But the telegenic Villaraigosa, one of the highest-profile Latino politicians in America and a likely future candidate for governor, has been the undisputed star. Shortly after his election as the first Latino mayor of modern Los Angeles, he made the cover of Newsweek, with the headline: "Latino Power."

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton bragged in May when she snared his endorsement. In recent weeks, though, pride has turned to disappointment and wariness among some Latino voters as two promising political stars landed in the headlines at the same time for all the wrong reasons — Villaraigosa for his infidelity and Delgadillo for a widening scandal that included his wife's banging up a city car, driving with a suspended license and ignoring a warrant for her arrest.It is too early to tell whether their troubles will cost the two men allegiance among Latinos, who voted en masse for Villaraigosa in 2005, helping to hand him a landslide victory over Mayor James K. Hahn.

Some voters, however, worried Thursday that the City Hall scandals could harm future Latino candidates and other Democrats.Their misdeeds taken together "are giving more power to Republicans," said Doris Barrillas, owner of Time 4 You women's clothing in Boyle Heights, who said she voted for Villaraigosa in his mayoral race but won't the next time. "Believe me, it'll have a big effect. It does disillusion you a little."Victoria Torres, a member of the executive board of the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, said the mayor and the city attorney should have known better: "They are not setting a good example for other Latinos to climb up the ladder."

Political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe said that the current uproar at City Hall is, in a perverse way, proof that Latino politicians have made it to the big time here."Latinos have reached a certain level in politics," Jeffe said. "They are visible, powerful, numerous and open to the kind of media scrutiny they haven't had to deal with before."Mario Hernandez, a 32-year-old administrative assistant in downtown Los Angeles, worried that the extramarital affair the mayor admitted to earlier this week could hurt his image and possibly hurt his political chances — whether for reelection or a run for governor in 2010.

Hernandez was less forgiving of Delgadillo, whom he called a hypocrite for insisting that socialite Paris Hilton serve her full sentence for driving on a suspended license, even though his wife had also driven without a license and failed to show up in court.Delgadillo "was going out of his way to make Paris an example, and here he was not being honest about his wife and then having [staffers] baby-sit his kids," Hernandez said.

"He was abusing his power and using city money improperly."Hernandez and other Latinos interviewed in the Pico-Union district worried Thursday that the politicians' ethnicity might become part of the discussion in the scandal. "I mean, I don't think there's a politician in office who doesn't have some sort of bad marks on their record," he said.

Former City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who left public office after pleading guilty to tax evasion in 2001, was one of the few current or former Latino elected officials willing to talk on the record about the City Hall furor that has riveted Los Angeles. While the recent revelations aren't unique to Latino politicians, he said, he believes that Latino leaders are held to a higher standard of behavior.

"I don't think it speaks to a problem of leadership in the Latino community," Alatorre said. "We all make mistakes…. It just so happens that it happened all in one week."

Gustavo Arellano, author of the book "Ask a Mexican" and a contributor to the Times Opinion section, said he is angry that the mayor is perpetuating the stereotype of the womanizing Latino."

He is the most high-profile Latino politician in the United States and this is what he does? Jeesh," Arellano said. "For somebody who has so carefully crafted his image as this golden boy of Latino politics, I find it astounding that Antonio could be so reckless in his personal life, especially when he campaigns as a family man."

At the Brooklyn Hair Styler on Cesar Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights, Delgadillo's woes didn't even register with owner Maria Garcia. But she had little patience for the mayor's problems."I can understand human weakness. Anyone can look for something new. But it doesn't seem like he has any roots," Garcia said.

"He lets himself be blown around by emotion. After 20 years of marriage, to fall in love with another woman like that. It's crazy."And his future? Only time will tell whether Villaraigosa has done himself in, Garcia said."Maybe he'll keep on going as a politician," she said. "But everything goes hand in hand, the personal and the political."

Antonio Gonzalez of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project sees the last few painful weeks as a "bump in the road" for two capable politicians and part of the learning curve for Latino voters, whose clout in the region's politics has been growing for a generation."We want heroes," Gonzalez said.

"No one is perfect. When you find out that someone is not perfect, there is a letdown." But "the voters are forgiving if you do a good job. Latino voters will be more forgiving of Latino leaders if they do a good job."