FYI 2017
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When I began my career in journalism--back in the Middle Ages--we put out two editions, one in the morning and one in the evening, six days a week. A website is different. What's put there stays there unless the creator (in this case, me) deletes it. Initially the FYI page was going to be just that: a page. However, it occurred to me it might become a very long page, so now I'm organizing it into years before matters get out of hand.
Remember: these are mainly tidbits that strike me as newsworthy, quirky, or politically significant. If you find items that fit into any of those categories, please feel free to send them along via one of the contact boxes on the "Background" and "Your Turn" pages. As I write (7/9/17), we're just barely past the midpoint of 2017 and I only recently set up this website so there's not much from the first half of the year. What will happen next? |
Make Your Voice Heard: Contact Your Legislators
It's tempting to feel powerless in political affairs. However, doing and saying nothing only serves to ensure that remains the case. We all need to go beyond casting our ballots these days--and we shouldn't make the mistake of relying on pollsters to make our opinions heard. It's easy to contact those who purport to represent you in Washington. In case you don't know who they are, find out here. On that site you will enter your address to bring up the names of those you represent you (senators and congressperson), their office phone numbers in Washington, and links to their websites for more information, including email addresses. Then you can use whatever mode suits you best to tell them what you think.
CONTENTS OF FYI 2017
(listed in order in which items appear)
(listed in order in which items appear)
Good News for Dieters (12/31/17): The relationship between time of eating and weight control
Sex is Not Addictive (11/27/17): Research on the relationship between sexual and brain activity
Theological Malpractice (7/15/17): Rev. William Barber on pastors praying for the president
Uh-oh! A Biological Annihilation (Seriously) (7/11/17: The earth's sixth major "extinction event"
And Now, Another Trump Tax ... On (of all things) Health Insurance Premiums? (5/26/17): A crazy tax proposal
What You Need to Know About Trade Economics (5/26/17): The relationship between deficit spending and trade imbalance
Sex is Not Addictive (11/27/17): Research on the relationship between sexual and brain activity
Theological Malpractice (7/15/17): Rev. William Barber on pastors praying for the president
Uh-oh! A Biological Annihilation (Seriously) (7/11/17: The earth's sixth major "extinction event"
And Now, Another Trump Tax ... On (of all things) Health Insurance Premiums? (5/26/17): A crazy tax proposal
What You Need to Know About Trade Economics (5/26/17): The relationship between deficit spending and trade imbalance
Good News for Dieters
12/31/17
12/31/17
Closing out the old year, we have good news for those who make one of the most common New Year’s resolutions: To lose weight. You can eat whatever you want (well almost); you just can’t eat whenever you want. A diet regimen being studied by university researchers indicates that restricting eating to a 10 to 12-hour period each day may result in weight loss. If your first meal is at 7 o’clock in the morning, for instance, you should finish your last meal by 7 at night.
In addition to assisting with weight control, this regimen is believed to lower the risk of diabetes, increase longevity and lower blood pressure. The beneficial effects are believed to be due to the fact that the 12 (or more) hours of fasting give the body more time to repair cells, break down toxins and food coloring agents, and repair damaged DNA in the skin and stomach lining. Those repair processes peak about 12 hours after fasting starts, researchers report.
Other plusses, according to participants who reduced their daily eating span from 15 to the recommended 12 hours or less was more restful sleep and greater energy.
Sources:
Wall Street Journal
London Telegraph
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In addition to assisting with weight control, this regimen is believed to lower the risk of diabetes, increase longevity and lower blood pressure. The beneficial effects are believed to be due to the fact that the 12 (or more) hours of fasting give the body more time to repair cells, break down toxins and food coloring agents, and repair damaged DNA in the skin and stomach lining. Those repair processes peak about 12 hours after fasting starts, researchers report.
Other plusses, according to participants who reduced their daily eating span from 15 to the recommended 12 hours or less was more restful sleep and greater energy.
Sources:
Wall Street Journal
London Telegraph
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Sex is Not Addictive
11/27/17
11/27/17
NEWS FLASH! Sex is not addictive. This, from researchers studying the brains of those who engage in sexual misconduct, then claim their behavior is the result of uncontrollable addiction.
Scientists identify addiction by noting the part of the brain “lights up” as the result of the claimed addictive behavior. When a drug addict uses his drug of choice, the part of his brain connected to need lights up. When those claiming an addiction to sex engage in sexual activity, the part of their brain connected to pleasure, not need, is stimulated.
Actually, “sex is not addictive” isn’t a news flash, but it seems like news to many who have heard a spate of sexual abusers excuse their behavior as an addiction—and, sometimes, then enter some sort of therapy program claiming to cure that affliction. As far back as 2012, the American Psychiatric Association removed “sex addiction” from its fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the reference mental health practitioners use in diagnosing disorders.
“Psychologists refer to narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy as the as the ‘dark triad’ of negative characteristics that often show up in people with tendencies toward exploiting others sexually,” writes Paige Winfield Cunningham in the Washington Post. She goes on to say that research has revealed a link between men in powerful positions and the willingness to exploit women.
Now that the issue is being more openly addressed, we have no excuse for not demanding accountability and change.
To read more complete accounts, click on the source below::
Washington Post
Psychology Today
Scientists identify addiction by noting the part of the brain “lights up” as the result of the claimed addictive behavior. When a drug addict uses his drug of choice, the part of his brain connected to need lights up. When those claiming an addiction to sex engage in sexual activity, the part of their brain connected to pleasure, not need, is stimulated.
Actually, “sex is not addictive” isn’t a news flash, but it seems like news to many who have heard a spate of sexual abusers excuse their behavior as an addiction—and, sometimes, then enter some sort of therapy program claiming to cure that affliction. As far back as 2012, the American Psychiatric Association removed “sex addiction” from its fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the reference mental health practitioners use in diagnosing disorders.
“Psychologists refer to narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy as the as the ‘dark triad’ of negative characteristics that often show up in people with tendencies toward exploiting others sexually,” writes Paige Winfield Cunningham in the Washington Post. She goes on to say that research has revealed a link between men in powerful positions and the willingness to exploit women.
Now that the issue is being more openly addressed, we have no excuse for not demanding accountability and change.
To read more complete accounts, click on the source below::
Washington Post
Psychology Today
Theological Malpractice?
"AM Joy," MSNBC 7/15/17
"AM Joy," MSNBC 7/15/17
Speaking on MSNBC's AM Joy, Rev. William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach, a member of the national board of the NAACP, and pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC, reacted to a photo showing a group of pastors praying for Donald Trump in the White House. "It is a form of theological malpractice that borders on heresy. When you can p-r-a-y for a president and others while they are p-r-e-y, preying on the most vulnerable, you’re violating the most sacred principles of religion. You know, there is a text in Amos Chapter 2 that says religious and moral hypocrisy (is) when a nation of political leaders will buy and sell upstanding people, when they will do anything to make money, when they will sell the poor for a pair of shoes, when they will grind the penniless into the dirt and shove the luckless into the ditch and extort from the poor. That is an actual text.
“There’s a text that says when you do not care for the sick you are actually violating the principles of God so we have this extremist Trump Republican agenda that takes health care, transfers wealth to the greedy. That’s hypocrisy and sin. 700 billion dollars? You haven’t seen that kind of transfer of wealth on the backs and the bodies of people since the days of slavery."
See a more complete account here.
“There’s a text that says when you do not care for the sick you are actually violating the principles of God so we have this extremist Trump Republican agenda that takes health care, transfers wealth to the greedy. That’s hypocrisy and sin. 700 billion dollars? You haven’t seen that kind of transfer of wealth on the backs and the bodies of people since the days of slavery."
See a more complete account here.
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Uh-oh! A Biological Annihilation (Seriously)
Farad's Global Briefing, 7/11/17
Farad's Global Briefing, 7/11/17
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The earth is experiencing a period of biological annihilation in its sixth major "extinction event," according to a team of scientists. In a summary of their findings, Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and a Washington Post columnist, writes:
"Conservatively almost 200 species of vertebrates have gone extinct in the last 100 years. These represent the lost of about 2 species per year. Few realize, however, that if subjected to the estimated 'background' or 'normal' extinction rate prevailing in the last 1 million years, the 200 vertebrate species losses would have taken not a century, but up to 10,000 years to disappear, the scientists say." The researchers attribute the catastrophic decline in both common and rare vertebrate species to habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive organisms, pollution, toxification, and the interactions among all those factors. (View Fareed's post here and for an insightful look at the issues of the day with probing interviews, tune in to Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN Sunday mornings: 10 AM eastern/9AM central/8AM mountain/7AM Pacific and repeated three hours later (as of 7/11/17). |
Quotes from Fareed . . . . . . In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors. The great drama of Russian history has been between its state and society. Put simply, Russia has always had too much state and not enough society. It is not possible for two countries to be the leading dominant power at the same time. |
And Now ... Another New Trump Tax? ... On (of all things) Health Insurance Premiums
Washington Post, 5/26/17
Washington Post, 5/26/17
"This week the Trump administration managed to impose a massive tax increase on middle-income families beginning in 2018." This is the opening sentence in an attention-grabbing Washington Post piece regarding what's happening to the cost of policies purchased through the individual-market health insurance exchanges. Other pertinent excerpts:
"The new tax, 19 percent or more of premiums, will be added on top of the cost of policies purchased through the individual-market health insurance exchanges. It is a result of Trump’s decision to create as much chaos as possible in the health-care market — in this case by not committing to continue to reimburse billions of dollars of cost-sharing payments owed to insurers just as they set prices for next year. ...
"There is something even more troubling about this tax. In an unusual twist, it will not be paid to the government but to insurance companies. That’s because, under the ACA, 83 percent of people who are insured on the exchanges are protected from premium increases by tax credits provided by the government. If premiums go up, government payments to insurers go up with them. Trump is even willing to sacrifice federal dollars to sink the ACA. ..."
In other words, as I understand this, your premium will go up, but we'll call the increase a tax. That way, you (not your empathy-challenged, fool-the-folks government) will bear the entire cost of the increase.
Click here to read the entire Washington Post article cited.
"The new tax, 19 percent or more of premiums, will be added on top of the cost of policies purchased through the individual-market health insurance exchanges. It is a result of Trump’s decision to create as much chaos as possible in the health-care market — in this case by not committing to continue to reimburse billions of dollars of cost-sharing payments owed to insurers just as they set prices for next year. ...
"There is something even more troubling about this tax. In an unusual twist, it will not be paid to the government but to insurance companies. That’s because, under the ACA, 83 percent of people who are insured on the exchanges are protected from premium increases by tax credits provided by the government. If premiums go up, government payments to insurers go up with them. Trump is even willing to sacrifice federal dollars to sink the ACA. ..."
In other words, as I understand this, your premium will go up, but we'll call the increase a tax. That way, you (not your empathy-challenged, fool-the-folks government) will bear the entire cost of the increase.
Click here to read the entire Washington Post article cited.
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What You Need to Know About Trade Economics
Washington Post, 5/5/17
Washington Post, 5/5/17
If a country consumes more than it produces, it must import more than it exports. That’s not a rip-off; that’s arithmetic.
If we manage to negotiate a reduction in the Chinese trade surplus with the United States, we will have an increased trade deficit with some other country.
Federal deficit spending, a massive and continuing act of dissaving, is the culprit. Control that spending and you will control trade deficits.
--by George P. Shultz, former U.S. secretary of labor, treasury and state, and Martin Feldstein, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and president of the National Bureau of Economic Research
If we manage to negotiate a reduction in the Chinese trade surplus with the United States, we will have an increased trade deficit with some other country.
Federal deficit spending, a massive and continuing act of dissaving, is the culprit. Control that spending and you will control trade deficits.
--by George P. Shultz, former U.S. secretary of labor, treasury and state, and Martin Feldstein, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and president of the National Bureau of Economic Research