Ed note: A Bellevue friend mentioned this video to me and was amazed why I would tolerate the drug related homelessness in Seattle. I was a bit defensive but after watching the video and reading John Carlon’s take, Seattle badly needs some changes both in law enforcement and addiction intervention. Do you agree?
From Crosscut by John Carlson: If Eric Johnson’s recent KOMO news special on drugs and homelessness had gotten it wrong — bad info; distorted portrayals of people, places and events; out-of-context interviews — the city’s political establishment would have pounced on him. After all, it supposedly revealed an out-of-touch mayor, a clueless Councilmember Mike O’Brien, and an obtuse City Attorney Pete Holmes appearing impervious to any connection between the proliferation of property and other drug-related crimes and refusing to prosecute the same.
But that is not happening. In an era where it’s hard to draw a mass audience for anything, it seems that virtually everyone in the country has seen all or at least parts of the KOMO special Seattle is Dying. Far more people have watched it online than on the tube. The chairman of Mary’s Place told me recently, “It’s all anybody’s been talking about.” The Oregonian wrote about how it mirrors a reality that many people complain about in Portland. A business friend told me over coffee earlier this week that a friend from Californiasent him a copy of the show. It aired intact in San Antonio. I have lived here for well over half a century, have been involved in news media for over 30 years and don’t recall a television news special provoking such an ongoing, sustained conversation as this one.
Now we’re seeing some pushback, in the form of a much-discussed Crosscut essay by Catherine Hinrichsen, project director at Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness. Meanwhile, hundreds of other Seattle progressives reassure each other that the piece was little more than propaganda dictated or influenced by KOMO’s parent company, Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Ed note: This article from the NYT reminds us that we’re never too old to begin even a mild form of exercise like lifting weights. Have you noticed your muscles thinning with age. This is called sarcopenia, the muscle equivalent of what bones go through – osteoporosis (osteopenia). Strength helps balance and confidence. We’re so fortunate here to have fitness and wellness programs pointing us in the right direction.
From the NYT: “Weight training by older people may build not only strength and muscle mass but also motivation and confidence, potentially spurring them to continue exercising, according to an interesting new study of the emotional impacts of lifting weights.
The findings intimate that people worried that they might be too old or inept to start resistance training should perhaps try it, to see how their bodies and minds respond.
We already have plenty of evidence, of course, that weight training can help us to age well. By our early 40s, most of us are losing muscle mass, at a rate of about 5 percent a decade, with the decline often precipitating a long slide toward frailty and dependence.
But older people who lift weights can slow or reverse that descent, studies show. In multiple experiments, older people who start to lift weights typically gain muscle mass and strength, as well as better mobility, mental sharpness and metabolic health.
But lifting helps only those who try it, and statistics indicate that barely 17 percent of older Americans regularly lift weights.
So, as part of a larger study of weight training and the elderly, scientists at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland recently decided to see if they could discover how weight training changes the minds as well as the musculature of people who had not done it before.
To start, they turned to 81 older men and women who were part of their health database and who had agreed to begin resistance training. These volunteers were all between the ages of 65 and 75 and, like many Finns, healthy and physically active. But they did not lift weights.
After three months, the group was randomly assigned to continue training once, twice or three times a week, while a separate, untrained group served as controls. Periodically, the researchers checked the volunteers’ strength, fitness and metabolic health, and also their attitudes about the workouts, including whether they found them daunting or inviting and how difficult it was for the volunteers to find the time and resolve to show up.When the Dominatrix Moved In Next Door
But then, after the months of supervised lifting, the exercisers abruptly were on their own. The researchers explained that they could no longer have access to the university facilities and provided them with information about low-cost, suitable gyms in the area. But any subsequent training would be at their own volition.
The researchers waited six months and then contacted the volunteers to see who was still lifting and how often. They repeated those interviews after an additional six months.
They found, to their surprise, that a year after the formal study had ended, almost half of the volunteers still were lifting weights at least once a week.
“We had estimated a rate of 30 percent,” says Tiia Kekalainen, a project researcher at the University of Jyvaskyla who led the psychological study with the senior author, Simon Walker, and others.
Also surprising, the researchers discovered little direct correlation between muscle and motivation. The people who had gained the most strength or muscle mass during the study were not necessarily those most likely to stick to the training.
Instead, it was those who had come to feel most competent in the gym. If someone’s self-efficacy, which is a measure of confidence, had risen substantially during the study, he or she usually kept lifting.
In effect, Ms. Kekalainen says, people who discovered that they enjoyed and felt capable of completing a weight-training session subsequently sought out and joined a new gym and showed up for workouts, despite no longer receiving nudges from the researchers or encouragement and companionship from their fellow volunteers.
“They found out that resistance training is their cup of tea,” Ms. Kekalainen says.
Most of them also told the researchers that weight training had provided them with renewed confidence in their physical abilities beyond the gym.
“They could do things that they thought they could not do before,” she says.
Of course, about half of the volunteers had told her and the other researchers that “they preferred other types of exercise,” Ms. Kekalainen says, and those men and women, for the most part, no longer lifted weights.
Ms. Kekalainen and her colleagues hope in future studies to explore the issues of what drew some people to the lifting and left others uninspired, and how weight-training routines might be structured to appeal to the skeptical.
For now, people interested in starting to lift weights should look for classes or trainers specializing in beginners and learn to lift safely.
But the overarching lesson of the study, she says, is that to discover how you feel about weight training, you need to weight train.
Posted inFitness, Health|Comments Off on Why Lifting Weights Can Be So Potent for Aging Well
Years ago, I asked a Cardiologist friend if he took a baby aspirin daily to prevent heart attacks or a stroke. He said, “No, I don’t have any risk factors and the risk of bleeding is more than any benefit.” It turns out that he was right. Thanks to Al MacR for sending this along.
Below is a summary of key points from WACCRA leadership to help refute the obfuscating opposition to the CCRC legislation in process in the State Senate. 1296 has already passed the house and is opposed by Leading Age even though SHB1296 is very light on regulation and maily addresses badly needed financial transparency for CCRC residents. Please consider using these points in reaching out to State Senators.
From Pam P: I know all you wine lovers out there are going to love this video, and if you figure out how he does it, please let me know. It’s enough to drive you to drink ! I probably will anyway. For all wine lovers this trick has me stumped.
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The Irish are famous for two things. One, they can drink like a fish and keep the spirit flowing. Two, they know how to take a joke. The Irish also love to joke, especially about themselves. They don’t care about political correctness and other such mumbo-jumbo. For them, a below-the-belt barb is an expression of endearment.
The Irish are also noted for their tremendous sense of humor. Their quick-wittedness is evident in these Irish sayings and quotes. Some famous witty Irishmen like Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Conan O’Brien and F. Scott Fitzgerald have achieved global fame for their extraordinary wit and wisdom. Their words reveal their brilliant imagination. Embrace Irish humor on St. Patrick’s Day. The Irish love their culture, history, and traditions. They love cracking jokes and drinking beer (like Guinness) and Irish whiskey (like Jameson’s or Bushmill’s). However, if you don’t have an appetite for insults, watch out for their sharp tongue — the Irish spare no one in their quick comebacks. If you are celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, arm yourself with witticisms to level the playing field.
Quotes About The Irish
Sidney Littlewood “The Irish don’t know what they want and are prepared to fight to the death to get it.”
Oliver Herford “The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven’t seen the joke yet.”
Winston Churchill “We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.”
John Pentland Mahaffy “In Ireland, the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.”
Irish Blessing “May God bless and keep in good health your enemies’ enemies.”
Brendan Behan “If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.”
Ann Kennedy “The one thing us Irish have is the ability to laugh at ourselves. God bless us all.”
Stephen Colbert “The shamrock is a religious symbol. St. Patrick said the leaves represented the trinity: the Father, the son and the holy spirit. That’s why four-leaf clovers are so lucky; you get a bonus Jesus.”
Ed Note: Could anyone please enlighten us as to what’s really going on in the existential crises called Brexit. Are they really dreaming of a lost empire? Is it white nationalism? Is it mainly reflecting the long simmering differences between the Brits and the Continent? What’s going to happen in Ireland? Will Scotland break away. The process seems even more convoluted that our very weird American politics-of-the-moment. What’s your take?
From the NYT: “The June 2016 Brexit referendum left Britain a divided nation. That much we know. But the referendum didn’t create division. It exposed something that was already there, latent. This was hard to see if you attended to people’s conventional political views about taxation or public spending; even the issue of immigration, by itself, wasn’t “it.” Nor was it to be found in something as vague as “feelings” or “emotions.” It lay elsewhere, in the realm of the individual political psyche, that blending of personal, family and nonacademic history, casually informed reasoning, clan prejudice, tribal loyalty and ancestor worship that forms the imaginative framework in which, as we represent it to ourselves, our lives relate to events in the wider world.
Chef Mark Ferrante listens to Skyliners’
suggestions. The “Mr. Caplow Burger,”
the new item on the lunch menu, came out of a discussion in the Dining Services
Committee. Chef Mark was aware of this new product and had already included it
in a vegetarian chili. He was receptive to my suggestion that the burger be
included in the menu and I’m hopeful that Skyliners will flock to this
wonderful alternative to real meat. In addition we can spread the word on a way
to save the planet from greenhouse gas methane released by cows.
The Caplow Burger is made by the Impossible Foods Corp.
The meat substitute is sold for $12.00/pound and is available at Whole Foods on
Roosevelt Ave; it’s not available at the store on Madison and Broadway. At the upscale café at the Chihuly Garden and
Glass at the Pacific Center the burger goes for $22.00. Some White Castles sell
a mini-Impossible burger.
The real name for the “Mr. Caplow Burger” is the
IMPOSSIBLE BURGER. It came from research
on determining the origin of the unique flavor of cooked beef. Of course it was a caveperson who discovered
that meat taste is enhanced by cooking, but it took decades of research by food
scientists to confirm that this results from the heat-destruction of meat’s
blood hemoglobin. From this discovery,
Silicon Valley researchers, bankrolled by Bill Gates, figured out how to create
a vegetarian burger that tastes like meat. The hard part, finding a vegetarian
source for hemoglobin, came from longstanding knowledge that legumes contain
trace amounts of this oxygen-carrying molecule.
Despite the fact that soybeans, lentils, peas and lentils don’t look
like meat, they contain a trace amount of hemoglobin. Bacterial living within
the roots of legumes have the remarkable ability to convert nitrogen in the air
to ammonia, which provides fertilizer to the accompanying plant. The role of
hemoglobin here is not to circulate within the plant, but to act as a sponge to
bind up oxygen that would otherwise poison the nitrogen fixation machine. Using
sophisticated molecular biology the gene for legume hemoglobin was moved into
yeast which could be coaxed into producing massive amounts of this protein. The
hemoglobin is combined with pea and potato proteins to make the burger. This
not a “Frankenfood”; it contains real foods combined in a new way. Careful
immunological studies have confirmed that there are no allergens in the
product.
Impossible Foods is promising an Impossible Steak in the
near future. Until then, I urge you to
try the Mr. Caplow Burger to explore the tastes of the future.
Posted inAnimals, environment, Food, Health|Comments Off on The “Mr. Caplow Burger,” the new item on the lunch menu
Whether it’s yourself or you are caring for an aging loved one, falling is a very serious concern for a lot of people. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control estimates one in four people 65-years-old or older fall each year. It’s a scary reality that can lead to a host of other health problems.
Nicole Cundy is an occupational therapist with Consonus. She recommends people do a ‘fall prevention’ of their homes. Cundy says it’s important people leave themselves plenty of space to get around their home and enough space for a walker to get through without bumping into anything.
Furniture is also important.
“We ask our client to sit in their favorite chairs,” said Cundy. The goal is to make sure furniture is at an appropriate height. For example lower chairs are harder to get out of. Higher chairs are a little easier to stand up from, according to Cundy.
In the kitchen, Cundy recommends people arrange their space so they don’t have to bend down too low or reach up too high. In the bathroom, raised toilet seats, grab bars and a shower seat are also important to install to reduce the risk of injury.
Finally, Cundy says pay special attention to rugs as they can cause people to trip and fall. If you can get rid of rugs, do so. However, if you prefer to have a rug around, Cundy suggests securing it to the floor with non-skid strips.
The New York Times has an interesting article reporting on exercise vs. drugs. Lifestyle modifications are difficult sometimes, but I think our Wellness and Fitness Programs were a major step in helping us jointly conquer Rt. 66. See this article to read more.
Exercise can lower blood pressure and reduce visceral body fat at least as effectively as many common prescription drugs, two new reviews report.
“The upshot of the review is that “lifestyle changes such as exercise should be the first step” when people set out to reduce visceral fat, says Dr. Ian Neeland, an assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, who oversaw the new review.
He and his colleagues also found that aerobic exercise trimmed visceral fat more effectively than strength training, although most of the exercise trials were small-scale and had no placebo control.
Taken together, the new reviews indicate that exercise can equal or exceed the effects of drugs on high blood pressure and visceral fat. But they also underscore that clinical exercise science could stand to raise its game and develop greater rigor in testing exercise as medicine.”
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Exercise vs. Drugs to Treat High Blood Pressure and Reduce Fat
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