Indian Mascots

The mascots don't bother me as much as the double-standard. Can you imagine a sports team called the Mexicans? The Jews? If someone suggested it, heads would roll.

It's unsettling to watch someone who is not Native American present their interpretation of a culture they are not a part of for entertainment value. The majority if these mascots throw on some buckskin, beads, war paint and prance around the field and consider that authentic.

Via Baylor Lariat

Time To Open A Bar

This is an article about a mozzarella bar opening in NYC. I love fresh mozzarella and I acknowledge that I've probably never even had the real deal so I bet I'd love this. It just sounds funny to me. Like what if I started a dried fruit bar or a pinto beans bar?

Via NYT

New Trend: "Positive Eating"

The stupid article patrol has taking over today’s Dining In (NYT).

AFTER decades of obsessing about fat, calories and carbs, many dieters have made the unorthodox decision to simply enjoy food again.
That doesn’t mean they’re giving up on health or even weight loss. Instead, consumers and nutritionists say they are seeing a shift toward “positive eating” — shunning deprivation diets and instead focusing on adding seasonal vegetables, nuts, berries and other healthful foods to their plates.

As of 8am Pacific time there are 131 comments confirming that this crazy “positive eating” thing works. NYT

Freshman Fifteen

When I was a girl it was the Freshman Five but for me it was more like the freshman 20 and I didn't lose for a long time after.

When fall classes at the University of California, San Diego begin on Sept. 25, freshmen will be on their own for the first time to spend endless hours on the computer, play video games and eat whatever they want, a recipe for weight gain. However, several UC San Diego wellness, weight-management and counseling programs will help students beat the dreaded “freshmen fifteen.”

Via Science Daily

Mandatory Organ Donations?

It is a problem faced by countries the world over. How do you close the gap between demand for human organs for transplantation and the number of people willing to donate them?

Such is the scale of the problem in the UK, where less than half of the 8000 people needing a transplant each year receive one, that the government is considering changing the law to presumed consent - so that everyone is a potential donor unless they opt out.

Via New Scientist

But Who Decides What's "Too Much"?

More than 15 million Americans drink too much, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. New research on rats may help them curb that addiction.

At present, there are three approved drugs for battling alcoholism, none of which work very well. Among them: naltrexone, which is effective for some alcoholics (as well as opiate addicts) because it blocks a pain pathway in the brain associated with the pleasures of drinking.

Via Scientific American

Never Enough Mad Cow Disease

Oops. Neglecting this blog.

At last, who gets tired of Mad Cow Disease?

New findings about the causes of mad cow disease show that sometimes it may be genetic.

Via Science Daily

And! There's a new form that could infect humans! Faster than ever!

JUST when it looked as if we had mad cow disease licked, a new threat may be lurking down on the farm - bovine amyloidic spongiform encephalopathy. First discovered in Italian cows in 2003, BASE has infected a monkey, suggesting that the disease may also be capable of spreading to humans. Alarmingly, the disease took hold - and killed - the monkey faster than strains of classical BSE and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human version of mad cow disease, injected into other monkeys as part of the same experiment.

Via New Scientist