For dinner I could resist having more of the delicious kona kampachi as sashimi. Then, to complete the meal, a bowl of quinoa cooked in chicken stock with the roasted cherry tomatoes—and I went with the olive oil, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, minced sweet onion, and minced garlic. Terrific.

A report worth reading. It begins:

It’s bad enough when the insurgents hide the IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in animal carcasses or, more ghoulishly, human cadavers. Worse is when they leave the bombs sitting in plain sight. “It makes the hair on the back of our necks tingle,” says Command Master Chief Pat McLean, the senior enlisted man in an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Mobile Unit 2 battalion in northern Iraq, the specialists who disarm bombs—and who lost three men to exploding IEDs in July. Insurgents sometimes want the Americans to find the IEDs—so they can draw them into an ambush.

The Iraqis are getting cleverer as the Americans try to shield U.S. troops with more and more armor. In a recent incident, insurgents used a small IED to blow out the tires of one vehicle. When the passengers scrambled out to transfer to another vehicle, a larger IED detonated, killing two. “Sadly, it seems that we’re the ones lagging behind. They’re getting better and better at it,” says Robert Lamburne, the director of forensic services at the British Embassy in Baghdad. The Brits and the Americans now have fancy forensic facilities, like the CSI labs on TV, to trace bombmakers. But Lamburne, who has inspected hundreds of devices, notes that the insurgents don’t try all that hard to cover their tracks. About one in five leaves behind fingerprints. “It’s not ignorance,” he says. “They just don’t care. They may believe they’re going to die fighting anyway.”

How do you defeat a foe who can destroy million-dollar machines with devices that can be built off the Internet for about the cost of a pizza, especially if that foe doesn’t particularly worry about dying? When the insurgency began, there were about five “master bombmakers” in Baghdad, each with a recognizable style. Their model was the roadside bombs that were used in Lebanon almost 20 years earlier by the Iranian-backed group Hizbullah. Primitive versions used rudimentary triggers—sometimes just a car battery and a long wire. Today’s IED makers have inexpensive gadgets like garage-door openers and disposable phones to detonate their bombs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Again, from the frequent reader:

A reader passes along this story, which provides one of the reasons most observers are extremely skeptical that the Surge will succeed.

Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command centre, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6am and tries to go to sleep by 2am or 3am. But there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up.

When he emerges from his naps there is something old and paper-thin about his skin, something sketchy about his movements as the days go by.

The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan - a combat outpost in Zafraniya, south east Baghdad - hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq.

Hanna and his men are not alone in being tired most of the time. A whole army is exhausted and worn out. You see the young soldiers washed up like driftwood at Baghdad’s international airport, waiting to go on leave or returning to their units, sleeping on their body armour on floors and in the dust.

Read the rest of this entry »

A wonderful and fascinating crackpot book by Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, talks about the role (as he sees it) of hearing voices in ancient times. Now there’s a more recent work on the phenomenon:

I’m just reading a fantastic book called Muses, Madmen and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination (ISBN 9781594201103) - a wonderfully written book on the complex science and history of ‘hearing voices’.

Annoyingly, the book is published under the name ‘Hearing Voices’ (ISBN 041377645X) in the UK. Annoying, because its the same title as many other books, many of which are on completely different topics.

The book looks at the history of the experience, from some of the most influential ‘voice hearers’ in history, such as Socrates and Joan of Arc, to its classification by psychiatry as a key diagnostic sign of schizophrenia, to its reconsideration as part of the normal diversity of mental phenomena.

We now know that there are many more people who hear voices and never become mentally ill compared to those who become acutely impaired or distressed by the experience.

The book look at the recent research on the neuropsychology of hallucinated voices but also takes wonderful detours into the significance of the experience for understanding notions of free will and intentionality, creativity and inspiration, and madness and the divine.

The author, ex-editor of Atlantic Monthly, brings an interesting personal angle into the work, as both his father and grandfather heard voices to differing degrees.

So far, I’ve found it poetic, wide-ranging and difficult to put down.

If you’re interested in hearing more, Smith discusses his book and investigations on Boston WBUR Radio which you can listen online.

I also just discovered that Neurophilosophy has a great post on a recent case study of a person with brain injury that affected their speech areas who heard hallucinated voices that had a speech impediment.

Link to book info.
Link to discussion on Boston WBUR radio.
Link to Neurophilosophy on ‘Hearing speech impaired voices’.

Another one:

In a prospective study involving 11,699 postmenopausal women aged 50 years or more, an inverse association was observed between folate intake and breast cancer risk. During a mean follow-up of 9.5 years, 392 incident invasive breast cancer cases were identified. Using proportional hazard regression, the highest quintiles of dietary folate intake and total folate intake, including supplements, were independently associated with 44% reduced risks of invasive breast cancer, compared with the corresponding lowest quintiles of folate intake. Similarly, the highest quintile for dietary folate equivalents was associated with a 64% reduced risk of invasive breast cancer, compared with the lowest quintile. Thus, the authors of this study conclude, “A high folate intake was associated with a lower incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in this cohort.”

“High folate intake is associated with lower breast cancer incidence in postmenopausal women in the Malmo Diet and Cancer cohort,” Ericson U, Wirfalt E, et al, Am J Clin Nutr, 2007; 86(2): 434-43. (Address: U Ericson, Nutritional Epidemiology, Clinical Research Center, Building 60, floor 13, Malmö University Hospital, entrance 72, SE-205 02 Malmö, Sweden. E-mail: ulrika.pettersson@med.lu.se ).

It’s been known for some time that turmeric—a component of most curry powders—helps prevent cancer. And it doesn’t take much, either. Now the mechanism has been discovered:

In this study, the effects of curcumin - the active ingredient found in the commonly used curry spice, turmeric - on hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) activity and expression were examined in cancer cell lines and xenografted tumors. HIF-1 is a transcription factor composed of HIF-1alpha and ARNT (aryl hydrocarbon receptor nucleus translocator). Results of the experiments found that curcumin inhibited HIF-1 activity, which then downregulated genes targeted by HIF-1. ARNT was found to be destabilized by curcumin in several cancer cell types. Curcumin stimulated the proteasomal degradation of ARNT via oxidation and ubiquitination processes. Furthermore, ARNT expression was found to rescue HIF-1 repression by curcumin. When experiments were carried out in mice bearing Hep3B hepatoma, curcumin retarded tumor growth and suppressed ARNT, erythropoietin, and vascular endothelial growth factor in tumors. The authors conclude, “These results suggest that the anticancer activity of curcumin is attributable to HIF-1 inactivation by ARNT degradation.”

“Curcumin inhibits hypoxia-inducible factor-1 by degrading aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator: a mechanism of tumor growth inhibition,” Choi H, Chun YS, et al, Mol Pharmacol, 2006; 70(5): 1664-71. (Address: Dr. Jong-Wan Park, Dep’t of Pharmacology, Seoul Nat’l University, College of Medicine, 28 Yongon-dong, Chongno-gu, Seoul 110-799, Korea. E-mail: parkjw@snu.ac.kr ).

I find that you can add turmeric to many foods. Just keep the little jar of it handy, and if you use cloth napkins, buy the yellow ones.

I assume that this will apply to few of you, but I thought it was interesting:

In a single center, randomized, double-blind, comparative clinical trial involving 96 elderly subjects over 70 years of age, supplementation with acetyl-l-carnitine (ALC) was found to significantly reduce physical and mental fatigue and improve cognitive and physical function. Subjects were randomly divided into 2 groups, in which one group was given ALC (2 g, twice a day, per os) and the other group was given a placebo for a period of 180 days. Fatigue was measured using Wessely and Powell scores and the Fatigue Severity Scale. After receiving supplementation with ALC, subjects experienced reductions in physical fatigue (6.2), mental fatigue (2.8), and severity fatigue (21.0), and improvements in functional status (16.1) and cognitive functions (2.7). Subjects who received ALC experienced reductions in: daily activity reductions, muscle discomfort, prolonged fatigue after exercise, sleep disorders, physical fatigue, mental fatigue, and fatigue severity. Improvements wer e found in functional status and MMSE scores. The results of this study suggest that supplementation with ALC may help to reduce fatigue in elderly individuals. Considering that fatigue is one of the most common complaints found among the elderly, these results are significant.

Reference:    “Acetyl-L-Carnitine (ALC) treatment in Elderly Patients with Fatigue,” Malaguarnera M, Gargante MP, et al, Arch Gerontol Geriatr, 2007 Jul 19; [Epub ahead of print]. (Address: Centro di Ricera “La Grande Senescenza,” Universita degli Studi di Catania, Via Messina 829, I-95126 Catania, Italy. E-mail: Massimo Motta, mottam@unict.it ).

Yet another super-food. But note update below. Just received this note in an email:

In a single-blind, crossover design study involving 20 subjects (mean age = 64 years) with well-controlled type 2 diabetes, results indicate that long-term supplementation with Salba - a novel whole-grain (Salvia hispanica L.), rich in fiber, alpha-linolenic acid and minerals - may lower systolic blood pressure and certain other cardiovascular risk factors. Using a crossover design, the subjects were randomized to receive either 37 g/day Salba or wheat bran (control) for a period of 12 weeks, while remaining on their conventional diabetes therapies. Salba supplementation was found to significantly reduce systolic blood pressure (-6.3 mm Hg), hs-CRP (-40%) and von Willebrand factor (-21%), compared with the control. Additionally, significant decreases in A1c and fibrinogen were observed at Salba-intervention end, compared to Salba-intervention baseline. No changes in safety parameters were associated with Salba supplementation. Thus, the authors of this study conclude, “L ong-term supplementation with Salba attenuated a major cardiovascular risk factor (SBP) and emerging factors (hs-CRP and vWF) safely beyond conventional therapy, while maintaining good glycemic and lipid control in people with well-controlled type 2 diabetes.”

“Supplementation of Conventional Therapy with the Novel Grain Salba (Salvia hispanica L.) Improves Major and Emerging Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Type 2 Diabetes: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial,” Vuksan V, Whitham D, et al, Diabetes Care, 2007 Aug 8; [Epub ahead of print]. (Address: Risk Factor Modification Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Canada. E-mail: v.vuksan@utoronto.ca ).

More info on Salba. Or Google it.

UPDATE: Salba is a registered trademark for one particular (patented) variety of chia.

Is there a more dishonest person on TV than O’Reilly? Via TalkingPointsMemo:

As Rove rides off into the sunset—or perhaps leaves to head up the campaign for the GOP presidential candidate in the 2008 election—people are evaluating his contribution to our nation. James Fallows:

Yesterday I spoke with a Chinese-American scholar who I’m not sure at the moment I should name. (I need to check with him, since it was a chat rather than an interview.) Among other things I asked him why the Chinese leadership, skillful in so many ways, did so many other things that were pointless and self-damaging. Clumsy censorship, to take a recent example; or firing off an anti-satellite weapon early this year, which gave Japan, America, South Korea, Russia, and many other countries a whole new reason to wonder about China’s military plans.

My friend’s answer boiled down to: a Chinese version of the “tragedy of the commons.” It was bad for the “brand image” of China when the censors were heavy-handed or annoyed the foreign media. It was bad for the central Communist leadership too. But it was good for the censors in the propaganda ministry. No censor had ever been fired for being too restrictive, so they kept on doing it. The larger interest of the country, even the narrow interests of the regime, took second place.

I thought of that when I heard of Karl Rove’s departure. I suspect that historically he will be seen as a “tragedy of the commons” type. Or at least he should.

My colleague Josh Green, in his (well-timed!) new story* about Rove, makes clear what Rove’s divide-and-conquer strategy has done for his party. It has also done something terrible to the country, in particular in the change it wrought in George Bush some time early in 2002.

For the first three months after September 11, 2001, George W. Bush behaved as if he was President of all the United States. By the time the decision to invade Iraq was underway, early in 2002, he had in effect begun to act as president of “the base.” (Had the decision to invade been made that early? Yes.) There was less and less effort to engage all Americans, despite differences; more and more stress on de-legitimizing critics and criticism itself.

Three years ago I did a long cover story in the Atlantic called “Bush’s Lost Year,” about the change in America’s international situation as it went from hunting Osama bin Laden, at the start of 2002, to preparing for war in Iraq, at the year’s end. The next to last paragraph said this:

To govern is to choose, and the choices made in 2002 were fateful. The United States began that year shocked and wounded, but with tremendous strategic advantages. Its population was more closely united behind its leadership than it had been in fifty years. World opinion was strongly sympathetic. Longtime allies were eager to help; longtime antagonists were silent. The federal budget was nearly in balance, making ambitious projects feasible. The U.S. military was superbly equipped, trained, and prepared. An immediate foe was evident—and vulnerable—in Afghanistan. For the longer-term effort against Islamic extremism the Administration could draw on a mature school of thought from academics, regional specialists, and its own intelligence agencies. All that was required was to think broadly about the threats to the country, and creatively about the responses.

The change from that situation to the world we know has many authors. Bush himself; Vice President Cheney; the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Franks-Bremer team that brought us catastrophe in Iraq; Gonzales and Rice; so many more. But just as the Iraq policy probably needed Wolfowitz to have its air of righteous certainty, so the whole package probably needed Rove to provide the sense of historical mission, the task of building the permanent majority.

Political strategists are divisive; that’s their job. But there are different ways of dividing, and the master of the 51-49 “turn out the base” “screw the moderates” win leaves the country weaker, nastier, and more mutually suspicious than he found it.

Hail and farewell, Karl Rove. Officials here in the propaganda ministry send you a salute.

* Most Atlantic stories cited here are subscriber-only. Subscribe! That’s how we pay people to write ‘em.

Gretchen Rubin has an interesting personal post about anger in a relationship, and it reminded me of one surprise in my relationship with The Wife.

For some reason, which I don’t fully understand (maturity?), neither of us has ever taken the moods of the other personally. For example, if one of us is angry, the other doesn’t take it personally, even if the anger is directed at him/her—instead, the anger is noted and the cause discussed, and if it’s a transgression, an apology and a change is made. If I’m angry, or cranky, or in a funk, she notices, but she fully realizes that it’s me, not her—and vice versa. And if one of us is depressed or down, the other doesn’t take it personally—that is, the other doesn’t assume that he/she is the cause, nor feel total responsibility for solving the problem.

My moods thus end up belonging to me, not to her, and her moods are hers, not mine. We help each other, but we’re conscious—without trying, strangely enough—of whose mood it is—and whose it isn’t. This is new to me. In the past, I’ve gotten caught up in my partner’s moods, which just makes the situation worse.

I think in psychology this is discussed under the general heading of boundaries.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that one reason I seem to be able to not take things personally is that, for some reason, things are no longer all about me. Having everything being about oneself—where one is the center of all that happens—means that you think, if others are angry/depressed/fearful/etc., that you are the cause. And if someone makes a remark you don’t like, the remark was aimed at you.

Two examples: George Bush becoming angry when a reporter asked a question of the French head of state in French. Bush took that as an insult directed at him because he doesn’t know French.

Another: In the movie Bandits (highly recommended), a woman (Kate Blanchett) is kidnapped by two bandits (Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton). They are together watching the TV news where her husband is making an appeal. He concludes with a message to his wife: “Darling, wherever you are, if you see this, I want you to know that I’m all right.”

Remember this? Well, justice has been meted out to the reporter who wrote the story:

A Chinese court handed down a one-year jail sentence Sunday to a Chinese reporter convicted of faking a story about steamed dumplings whose stuffing included cardboard along with ground pork. Zi Bejia, 28, pleaded guilty to damaging the dumpling industry’s reputation, the official New China News Agency said.

Coming at the height of the scare over unsafe food, Zi’s video report last month attracted broad attention in China and abroad, adding to a sense that Chinese products were not to be trusted. After an investigation, Beijing authorities announced the report was concocted and put Zi under arrest. Several television executives were forced to resign and the government’s Propaganda Department issued a stern warning about reporters’ duty to abide by the tenets of Marxist journalism.

Zen Habits asked it readers to provide organizational tips, then listed them today. I imagine that you can find at least 3 good tips from the list, which isn’t bad. List here. The first 10 tips:

1. 3 Most Important Tasks. Writing down and making mental note of my top 3 tasks to get done for the day. Everything else seems to fall into place if I do that.
2. An easy and workable task list, or to do list. While I love all of these handy web 2.0 apps, computer software, very neat gadgets like palms and really cool cell phones, they just don’t work for me. I’m a lazy woman, with an even lazier attitude. I might put a task in Remember the Milk, another task in my palm, one in my Gcal and send another text to my phone. With all of these different ways of doing things, I end up spending much more time trying to organize my to do list, or consolidate it, that I don’t get much actually done.
3. Keep ubiquitous capture device. It might not be the same device for every location (I have a moleskine for work, but use my mobile for inspiration on the fly) but just being able to write stuff down when you think about it is key for me.
4. Choose one tool and stick with it.
5. Do one thing at a time.
6. Do it now.
7. Make use of the word no.
8. Use the recycling bin/trash basket. Organizing unnecessary items is wasted energy. It is amazing how much more in control I feel just by ridding myself of now outdated articles I’d like to read “someday,” or countless meeting notes from which relevant action items have already been extracted.
9. A (good) place for everything, and everything in its place. By finding places that are easy to get to for all the things I use most often, and places that are pretty easy to get to for the things I use less often, I spend less time dreading doing things and more time actually doing things. And the place for things you never use is elsewhere (trash can, place that accepts donations, etc.).
10. Simplify, simplify, simplify!

Ha! No sooner do I say it, than Em’s Place posts a notice:

We have posted two new informational video subjects on our companion site at shaveinfo.com

1) How to clean a shaving brush using vinegar or borax is a very frequently asked question and we hope this narrative and cleaning demonstration will be helpful to those interested in keeping their brush in top shape.

2) This second subject deals with using essential oil to custom fragrance unscented shaving cream or soap. This is a way to enjoy aromas that are not otherwise available for those products and give you control over choosing additional scent options.

UPDATE: I just cleaned the Rooney Style 3 Small Super Silvertip using the method (vinegar—and dishwashing detergent, conditioner, and glycerine) shown in the first video. It’s drying now. I’ll use it tomorrow and report.

Another good article in Salon. It begins:

 In October, Malaysia’s first astronaut will join a Russian crew and blast off into space. The news of a Muslim astronaut was cause for celebration in the Islamic world, but then certain questions started popping up. How will he face Mecca during his five daily prayers while his space ship is whizzing around the Earth? How can he hold the prayer position in zero gravity? Such concerns may sound absurd to us, but the Malaysian space chief is taking them quite seriously. A team of Muslim scholars and scientists has spent more than a year drawing up an Islamic code of conduct for space travel.

A very good article in Salon about the pervasive political corruption in Alaska and how it arose. One good graf:

But the relationship between pork and prosperity in Alaska has been long-lasting. The original deal that politicians cut in the early ’70s to permit oil companies to drill on federal land in the state requires the companies to pay into a state-run fund, which in turn cuts each Alaskan an annual check that has ranged as high as $1,963. By the time Stevens stepped down as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2005, Alaska was snaring federal pork at a rate 30 times the per capita national average. The New Republic’s Franklin Foer, in a 2002 essay, called Alaska the archetypal conservative welfare state. “Stevens and his fellow Alaskans like to think of themselves as embodying a kind of rugged, frontier libertarianism,” Foer noted. “If only it were all true.”

Continuing the rose theme, I used a Classic Shaving Rose shave stick this morning—one that I made with a container from Mama Bear and melting a puck of the Classic Shaving Rose soap. (That one didn’t melt nearly so well as the Honeybee Spa soaps I’ve tried, BTW.) The lather came up quite well with the Rooney Style 3 Size 1 Super Silvertip. The brush did seem a bit waterproof, so I’ll try cleaning later today.

I put a new Astra Superior Platinum in my Hoffritz Slant Bar—what a smooth and effortless shave! Not a nick or cut, just smooth, smooth, smooth. (I’m feeling my face—can you tell?)

Aftershave was Thayers Rose Petal Witch Hazel, an alcohol-free formulation.

My plan is to use a rose soap or shaving cream for the entire week. It’s always good to have a plan.