health – Page 3 – Complaint Hub

My Country Tis of Corn

So, the large, scary government agency that indirectly pays my salary is celebrating America Recycles Day today. That’s a good thing. Raising recycling awareness is nearly always a positive thing. It’s probably always positive, but I’m just being cautious here.

Anyway, to celebrate this, they “will be handing out biobased corn products and informational brochures”.

I won’t discuss the grammar of the sentence beyond being glad that I don’t work for the public school system. Wait, I will. Do you think the informational brochures are biobased? I think they are. But do you think they are also corn products? The sentence construction leaves it open to interpretation. I love interpretation! It lets me berate you for disagreeing with me even if we’re both right.

What I will discuss, however, is the use of corn. We eat corn. We eat corn in almost everything. Next time you’re at the grocery store. Check the ingredients on everything you’ve purchased. You will likely be shocked at how many of the items contain corn in some form or another. A disturbingly high percentage will contain high fructose corn syrup. Most loaves of bread do (Not the good bread at Whole Foods and, to a lesser extent, Harris Teeter. And probably other stores, too, but those are the ones I usually go to. Anyway.).

We should just replace the stars on the flag with corn kernels. We could replace the stripes with ears. The ‘Ol Corn and Corn, we could say. The Yellow, Yellow, and Yellow. It would be great.

In fact, let’s replace everything with corn. Stop raising cattle and chickens! They just eat all our corn! We can grind corn into a pulp, add artificial flavors and colors, and voila! We have steak! Stop buying imported products! We can make everything we need out of corn! It’s BIOBASED! That must be good because it has “bio” in the name!

Thanks for the reminder – give blood

DCist: Morning Roundup: Answering ANSWER Edition

Summer blood shortage worse than usual (click here to find donation opportunities).

The wife and I talked about this a little while ago and haven’t done anything about it. Maybe after our houseguests (arriving today and Friday, I think) are gone, we’ll actually go give blood. Neither of us is really thrilled with the prospect. I gave blood once, during a high school blood drive. I didn’t feel faint, I didn’t pass out, but the nurse nearly took out the needle. I’ve never liked thinking about what goes on underneath my skin. It all seems too complicated, and if I think about it, it might stop working. So I like to pretend that I’m solid skin all the way through.

It’s not the blood that bothers me. I don’t get freaked out at the sight of blood. But while giving blood, I was shaking a bit. I sucked it up and finished, though. And I should do it again. I don’t remember my blood type, and I don’t think it’s one of the rare or really versatile ones, but I’m sure someone can use it.

Anyway, I’m going to give blood. You should, too. You really don’t need ALL the blood you have. There’s bound to be someone who needs it more.

I dont want to be eaten by a lion

MIT finds cure for fear | Press Esc

Inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5 facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context, Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and colleagues showed.

This is interesting. If I’m reading the article right, they have chemically prevented a fear of a particular thing. They shocked the mice whenever they went to a certain spot until they were afraid of it. The more Cdk5 activity in their brains, the more fear. But when they cut down the activity, the mice were okay.

I’m not quite sure how this translates to humans, though. For example, I am quite rationally afraid of being eaten by a lion. I have never been close enough to a lion to really express that fear, but it is a fear nevertheless. Now, let’s say you have inhibited the Cdk5 in my brain. Will I now happily approach a hungry-looking lion?

No, I won’t. My fear of the lion, or lack thereof, has no bearing on whether or not it will eat me.

I suppose that what they really mean is that they could prevent me from being paralyzed by fear if I were ever in close proximity to a lion. But, I suspect I could prevent myself from being paralyzed by fear by spending a lot of time with lions and learning to avoid being eaten.

The article mentions soldiers with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and panic attacks, which “stem from the inability of the brain to stop experiencing the fear associated with a specific incident or series of incidents”. I guess I never realized that they were so technically precise.

It seems unlikely that they can stop rational fears. That is, I don’t believe that they can inhibit my Cdk5 and allow me to waltz through a war zone, explosions and people trying to kill me all around. But if I come home and still find myself waking up at night, screaming and remembering that experience, that seems like something they could turn off.

Anyway, I don’t mean to second guess MIT researchers. They probably know what they’re talking about.

City wildlife

I saw a deer! In DC! I was out running (Well, running and walking. It’s hot out, and I haven’t really run in three weeks) down along the Rock Creek Parkway path, and across the creek, behind a big tree, there was a deer. Well, its rear end, anyway. I couldn’t really see the rest.

Other than that, the run pretty much sucked. A hole is wearing in the heel of my left running shoe, and the shoes are only two months old or so. Maybe I’ll take them back and see if Fleet Feet can send them back to the manufacturer or something. I know I have skinny, bony feet, and I tend to be hard on shoes, but this is a little ridiculous.

Honestly, I would pay $300-500 for a nice, custom pair of shoes that would last me five years. Maybe not running shoes. I don’t know if they could make them last that long. But a nice pair of work shoes, lightweight, comfortable, and sturdy, that really fit my feet, would be great.

Can I get that somewhere? Or am I looking at more like $3000?

A partial explanation

I got an explanation on health insurance from my mother-in-law. She tells me that “anything taxable to the employee is generally taxable to the employer”, which I guess I knew but didn’t really think about, since I’ve never been the employer. So, if health insurance is not taxable, then it becomes a relatively cheap benefit for the employer to offer.

I still think saying that it “encourages employers to offer insurance” is a little strong. It encourages them to offer it instead of other benefits that might be taxable, but the real “encouragement” is that (another thing I learned from my mother-in-law) most states require it by law.

Certainly it seems likely that fewer businesses would offer health insurance if they had to pay taxes on the money. So I’m still not exactly clear on who this proposal is supposed to help. I’ve sent another email to my mother-in-law seeking further guidance, but I believe she’s out of town for the weekend. And I’m out of town starting Monday, so we may all have to wait.

Im trying to understand this

Bush Tries to Resuscitate Health Insurance Tax Plan

Under current law, workers who get health insurance through their jobs do not pay taxes on the value of the insurance, which encourages employers to offer insurance as part of their benefit packages.

So, why does this encourage employers to offer insurance? Clearly this encourages employees to want insurance through their employer in order to get the tax break. And, obviously, this is a benefit to the employee, which makes the employer more attractive. But the employee still benefits from the health insurance whether or not they are taxed on it. I’m just not seeing the extra benefit for the employer beyond being able to offer a slightly better deal to employees.

Anyway, more importantly, what effect would Bush’s proposal have on this?

The Bush plan, unveiled in January, would substitute that tax break with a standard deduction that would go to any taxpayer with insurance.

Bush has recently said that “he might be satisfied with replacing the existing tax break with a tax credit, rather than a tax deduction.”

So, let’s say we stop offering a tax break (And by that I include credit and deduction and whatever else) on only employer-provided insurance. Assuming that current practice actually does encourage employers to offer insurance, will changing the law discourage it? It seems like an important point that the article suggests but doesn’t address. And I can’t address it myself without seeing how it encourages employers to offer insurance in the first place.

Can anyone explain this to me?

Perhaps the biggest food surprise Ive had in a while

Salsa Walnut Meat recipe at Gone Raw

When served on a (non-raw, non-vegan) organic whole wheat tortilla, this “taco meat” is fantastic. I figured it would be edible, but this was way beyond edible. This was good enough to request again.

I’d like to find a substitute for the walnuts so my mom can try it. No matter how good it is, her walnut allergies would probably prevent her from enjoying it.

Lawyers Have Heart 10K

I ran the Lawyers Have Heart 10K yesterday. It was much more miserably hot and humid than the weather forecast had suggested. But my time was 56:04, only a minute slower than my previous 10K, which I ran in much cooler weather.

This race was much more crowded than my other one. The first mile was tough – not only were we baking in the sun, but it was like driving in rush hour traffic. There was always a slower person in your way, or a faster person cutting you off. But it cleared up later on.

I wore my flag football jersey in honor of our end-of-the-season cookout later that day. You probably can’t read the back of the jersey, but the name is FISTROCK, which is a reference to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that lampooned the movie Space Mutiny. The jersey was cooler before BLASTBODY moved to San Fransisco. But it’s still cool. To me, at least.

Anyway, I had one moment during the race when I wasn’t sure I was going to finish. Have you ever had one of those where it’s quite clear that your internal temperature gauge is just about into the red? When your body sends a little message to your brain saying, “Hey, stupid, if you don’t cool us off pretty soon, we’re going to shut down.” I had less than a mile left, and I was again baking in the sun. But the feeling passed, and I finished the race. It helped that the last quarter mile was in the shade, downhill, with a breeze.

Support the American Heart Association by running

LHH – Lawyers Have Heart

By participating in this event, you will not only help to strengthen your own heart through exercise, you will also help raise funds vital to the education programs and research of the AHA

On June 9th, I’m doing my second 10K. The first one was a success. This one is going to be hotter, and I’m going to the DC Improv the night before, so I should be all ready to run at 8 AM. Then we have our flag football end-of-season barbeque. Should be a good weekend. I may sleep all day Sunday, though.

I have to wonder how much this race actually helps the American Heart Association. It costs $30 to sign up. I get a t-shirt. They have to pay some people to run the event. I can’t believe that any more than $5 per person actually goes to help the cause.

On the other hand, I’m really running this race for me. If I want to help a charity, I’d rather just give them money.

Who needs cake?

Accidental Hedonist – The Smells of a Kitchen

When the aroma [of garlic and onions frying] filled the kitchen and then wafted into neighboring rooms, something happened that kicked any “new home anxiety” out of the door.

Some people say to bake a cake or bread when you’re trying to make your house seem as appealing as possible. I like garlic and onions better.

Smells do have a strange effect on people. For example, I found it very disconcerting today when I walked into the men’s room at the headquarters of one of the illustrious branches of the Department of Homeland Security. I can’t describe the smell, exactly, except to say that it reminded me strongly of a pet store. Hamster bedding, perhaps? I don’t know. It freaked me out a little.

But I’d never really thought about smells-as-therapy. It makes a lot of sense, though. If a smell can quickly generate a strong feeling of something, it’s logical that they could be used to turn unwanted feelings into something more comforting.

That’s not to say that I want to smell garlic and onions everywhere, or that I want to smell my grandmother’s basement all the time and be transported back to 1986, playing my uncle’s old hockey game. Sure, it’s a nice memory, but it wouldn’t be so comforting if I had it all the time.

Anyway, it seems like an interesting way of manipulating emotions.