The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Religion ... Zen ...

I haven’t gotten around to posting anything here lately, this is my first post in almost 2 weeks. What have I been doing with myself lately? Oh, cooking, cleaning, going to work, paying bills, and thinking about life and death. I mentioned in a previous blog that I had a “direct-to-consumer” DNA evaluation done a few years ago on 23andme.com, and along with the genealogy information, 23 also gave you an assessment of your genetically-related health risks. (Since then, the US FDA has stopped them from providing health reports — 23andme still offers genealogy tests). My own results on 23 seemed fairly benign — one or two things that might eventually become an issue, but nothing all that terrible.

Recently, however, I learned that you can access your digital DNA results from 23andme and upload them onto a site called Promethese.com, and for $5 they will give you a very detailed list of how your “SNP pairings” stack up against the SNPedia.com “wiki” database of health-related genetic studies. This seemed like a good idea to me, since my health reports from 23andme were based on a pool of gene studies that appears to have last been updated in 2011 (many months before I sent in my saliva, in mid-2013; incidentally, that was only about 6 months before the FDA shut 23’s health service down). A lot of new knowledge about genes and health must have come out since them. So, I got my results from Promethease (it takes only a few minutes, actually) and have spent a lot of time pouring over them in the past few weeks. Bottom line . . . in great detail, they paint a much darker picture of my susceptibility to a wide variety of diseases than 23andme did.

In comparing some of the Promethease / SNPedia results with the 23 reports, it turns out that 23andme wasn’t always considering the full range of DNA studies available up through 2011, and in some instances, it misinterpreted them!!! For one condition involving eyesight » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 2:26 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Monday, October 12, 2015

◊ Brix City Sunday

Food / Drink ... Photo ...

Finally, a new pic! This is a Sunday afternoon scene at Brix City, a small microbrew factory and visitors center (complete with a rudimentary bar offering a choice of 8 different brews at $4 a glass; I had the porter, and it was very nicely done, lots of vanilla notes with some coffee and cocoa, lightly hopped with a firm, malty body). There’s also a wall you can write on, right behind the woman in the pic. You can find Brix on an industrial backstreet in Little Ferry, NJ (just north of Route 46). Worth a visit, if you like microbrewed beer.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:34 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Monday, October 5, 2015

◊ Avoiding Diabetes: Genes and Fructose

Health / Nutrition ... Medicine ...

Like many, many other people, I come from a family with a history of Type 2 diabetes. One study estimates that about 30% of Americans have a family history of diabetes. My grandfather was diabetic, my mother was diagnosed in her elderly years, and her brother (my uncle) developed diabetes at age 50. I’ve reached 62 and so far I’m still OK (my recent physical included both a fasting glucose test and a hemoglobin A1C test, and both came back in the normal range — thank goodness!). But diabetes is something that I’ve been aware of most of my life (when I was a kid, my mother would sometimes make me test my urine for blood sugar with some kind of yellow strips — not a very accurate way to test for diabetes, but perhaps the best that was available to the common person back in 1965). My recent tests inspired me to do some further research on the topic. I thought that I’d share some observations here from my readings. [WITH THE USUAL CAVEAT — I AM NOT A DOCTOR OR MEDICAL EXPERT, JUST AN INTERESTED LAYPERSON WHO HAS DONE SOME RESEARCH]

First off, type 2 diabetes is not one simple, easily defined condition. There are a variety of “flavors” to it. Each version, though, involves the process by which glucose enters the bloodstream from the stomach and intestines after food ingestion, and by which glucose exits, either through conversion into ATP to fuel the muscles and organs which do the body’s work (i.e., cellular respiration); or by being pushed into the fat cells as a storehouse for future ATP conversion if needed (e.g. if there is a famine — something that was once very common for many humans, up thru the 18th Century). Insulin from the pancreas helps to kick start and regulate that process, allowing glucose to enter the cells of muscles and organs in the right amounts. When there is more than enough glucose to cover the current cellular respiration needs, insulin does the dirty work of pushing the excess glucose into the fat cells (i.e., making you fatter, at least temporarily), and signalling the liver to cut back on production. If the glucose stays in the blood for too long and reaches high concentrations, it can start gumming up the works in sensitive places like the heart, eyes and kidneys, causing damage.

Diabetes type 2 occurs when insulin and its regulation mechanisms aren’t doing the job properly; either too much glucose builds up in the blood, or too much glucose is pushed aside by it and there isn’t enough to support the level of cellular respiration needed » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:07 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, September 27, 2015

◊ John Boehner and Joe Johnston, Reconsidered

Current Affairs ... History ... Politics ...

Another one of the “not entirely crazy” Republican leaders has bitten the dust. I’m talking about House Speaker John Boehner, who on Friday announced that he was giving up his Speakership position and resigning his seat as a Congressman from Ohio in about a month. Boehner is 65 years old (will be 66 in November), and was first elected to the House in 1990. He beat a Republican incumbent named Buz Lukens in a primary and then defeating the Democrat candidate by a 60-40 margin. (“Buz” . . . now there’s a real middle-American name! Although lunar astronaut Buzz Aldrin hails from the same part of metropolitan New Jersey where I am based. I can’t say that I know of any other Buz[z]’s from this neck of the woods.)

Since then, Boehner has maintained a safe seat, beating his Democratic alternative by margins close to 70-30 every two years. Boehner’s biggest nightmare of course is from within his own party. He could well face a strong primary challenge in 2016; the defeat of seven-term Republican Congressman Eric Cantor last year to a Tea Party primary candidate casts a dark shadow on Boehner’s prospects (recall that Cantor was the House Majority Leader). So, Boehner is getting out while the getting is good.

I never thought much of Boehner. He appeared to dead set on blocking President Obama at every turn, with no regard for the merits. Whenever Obama took action, you could depend on seeing or hearing Boehner on the news that night criticizing whatever was ordered (sometimes in an annoying, whiny fashion). And yet . . . all of that just wasn’t good enough for the “conservative base” of the GOP. They expected that Boehner would get the House » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:56 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, September 20, 2015

◊ Risky Business With Iran

Current Affairs ... Foreign Relations/World Affairs ...

I’m not feeling entirely optimistic about the Iran nuclear deal. Sure, there are a lot of good things to be said about it; avoiding a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East would be quite an accomplishment for civilization (the word “holocaust” itself has its ultimate origins in the ancient Middle-Eastern Hebrew language, i.e. “olah” meaning burnt offering). Still, I wish that Obama, Kerry and the Dems were totally honest about what the JCPOA agreement with Iran ultimately is: i.e., a huge bet that politics in Iran are going to fundamentally change over the next decade, such that the pro-western urban secularists will take charge as the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard fade into a genteel irrelevance, sort of like the British monarchy. Unfortunately, we’ve been waiting for an Iranian regime change to happen since the last days of Jimmy Carter.

My heart really hopes that Obama is right and that an opening to the urban secularists by the USA will finally put them over the top in Tehran. But my head and my knowledge of history, however limited, is a bit more cynical — it’s a big crap shoot, a real “Hail Mary” pass. I guess that we shall find out how it goes.

The JCPOA has a lot of very optimistic supporters in the liberal big media, not surprisingly. A typical supporter is Tom Friedman of the NY Times, who focuses on the Middle East. I must give Friedman credit for hinting in one of his recent articles that he too realizes that Iranian regime change is a necessary condition for the agreement to really work as the Obama Administration hopes. Friedman was in a bit of a whimsical mood » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 2:04 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, September 17, 2015

◊ Big Gods for Big Government?

Religion ... Society ...

A recent book written by an anthropologist says that as humans transitioned from small hunting and gathering tribes (up to around 15,000 years ago) to bigger and more organized societies (based at first around agriculture, and later also on crafts and trade), they needed to develop “big gods”. Big gods who always keep an eye on us were supposedly needed to inspire people to cooperate with the social and governmental networks that started to develop around the year 8000 BCE. Eventually, one really big “God” was imagined, and monotheism was in business. As was the growth of earthly empires. Other researchers have been pondering this idea, but argue that perhaps societies only needed mini-gods (e.g., magic or nature spirits, or personal superstitions) to keep societies growing. The monotheistic God of Islam and Judeo-Christianity arguably came about by some other process.

The overall idea here is that growing social networks with increasing centralized power (i.e. led by kings and pharaohs) invents god and religion so that it can foster voluntary cooperation among the masses, an internal mental policing to build and maintain trust. The king and his men can’t keep an eye on you all the time, so they rely on a popularly-imagined “big power in the sky” to make sure you stay in line, by threatening you with a cursed life here on earth, or eternal damnation in the next life, if you don’t play nice.

Hmmmm. Interesting idea, one very popular in today’s academic climate where evolution is believed to have the power to explain every social and personal behavioral pattern and belief. THE PROBLEM WITH THE THEORY: unless “big god / big religion” is simply a social meme that was cleverly invented and intentionally promoted by those trying to start big government structures (kingdoms, Pharaohs, etc.) — possible, but were the ancient rulers really all that smart? — it goes against the principle in evolutionary genetics that individuals are NOT selected for traits that cause them to sacrifice for the group (i.e., the disfavored theory of “group selection“). This idea is expressly rejected » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 5:22 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Monday, September 7, 2015

◊ Remain Calm and Ignore . . . Donald Trump?

Current Affairs ... Politics ...

OK, so it’s still “way too early” to think about the 2016 Presidential election and the state primaries that will select the main candidates. Nov. 8, 2016 is still 15 months away, and the first state primaries in New Hampshire and Iowa will happen in a little less than 5 months. So if you’re not a political junkie like me, ignore the rest of this post and get back to whatever else you were doing.

But if you do like national politics, then we need to talk about what happened on the GOP side over the summer. According to compilations of average polling data from Real Clear Politics, on May 27 (just after Memorial Day), Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul help the top 4 slots in the race, in that order. It looked like the GOP “Establishment” was well in control. Jeb Bush is considered the candidate with the strongest ties to the establishment, but Walker and Rubio are both seen as acceptable. Rand Paul is a little bit different, a bit more of an “insurgent” with his libertarian stance; but like the other three, Paul is nonetheless an experienced national politician (currently a US Senator from Kentucky). Ever since going to Washington, he has been known to compromise and dilute the strict libertarian stances that his father (Rep. Ron Paul from Texas) took. And anyway, Paul didn’t seem like a real threat; he had captivated a tranche of devoted followers sympathetic to his ideological leanings, but he wasn’t expected to generate a broad appeal across the Republican faithful. The Establishment seemed to have the situation well in control.

Now it’s Labor Day and the top four in the nationwide polls are Donald Trump (27.8%), Dr. Ben Carson (13.5%), Jeb Bush (9.3%) and Marco Rubio (6.8%), with Ted Cruz (6.5%) and Carly Fiorina (5.5%) not far behind Rubio. So out of the top 6, we have three people who have never held public office, and a first-term US Senator (Cruz) who previously held appointed government jobs in the state and federal governments (Rubio has one year more experience in the US Senate, but was an elected Florida legislator since 2000). In other words, the will of the potential primary voters seems to have shifted away from » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 1:18 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Friday, September 4, 2015

◊ To Everything There Is A Season . . . And Eternity?

Religion ... Spirituality ... Zen ...

It’s time once again to think about the Big Question: what should you ultimately believe about YOURSELF (and about the world around you)? About where you are heading, why are you here . . .

In the Zen tradition, there is no self, no eternity, no personal transcendence of death (although through karma, something of one’s behavior does achieve transcendent manifestation). Time is a mental abstraction, a product of the mind. As such, it is discouraged from any use other than making sure that you get to the dentist on time, and other such quotidian things. The ultimate psychological emphasis should be on the present, on the now, on living in the moment. The future, the eternal . . . that is all just “mind stuff”.

In a lot of ways, the Bible’s Old Testament isn’t all that far removed from Zen; at least the early stages of it (i.e., the core “Torah” books). There is little philosophy in it, little struggling with the nature of God and the Universe and the meaning of one’s existence. There is a creation story along with some stories of tribal deliverance, but after that, the Torah has little worry for the future. With all its codes and social edicts, the Torah is mostly about getting by in the present — and about getting along with God. No promises of eternal paradise, just » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:53 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, August 30, 2015

◊ Bottles in the Suburban Night

Photo ...

Here’s a simple little home decoration touch that I recently saw in my neighborhood during a night walk. A nice way to take advantage of a slanted window.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 1:42 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, August 27, 2015

◊ NOBODY for President: Revolution In The Air?

Current Affairs ... Politics ...

If you read the latest headlines on the national political front, you might think that Hillary Clinton is in trouble. And you might be right. The voters don’t trust her, and things could get even worse depending on what the FBI finds (or doesn’t find) on her e-mail server. Although the vote is still months away, recent polls hint that Clinton could lose the New Hampshire primary to Bernie Sanders. That would not be a good way to start the primary season.

So, it’s looking a bit less likely that Hillary will be the our next President, although it’s not yet to the point of being a lost cause. Perhaps the most cogent insight regarding this topic is that Barack Obama may well be the king or queen-maker; if Obama decides that he wants someone other than Hillary to “carry on his legacy” (say V.P. Joe Biden), Obama could have the FBI and Department of Justice throw the book at Hillary for any petty regulation that she may have violated regarding government records management (something like what they did with David Petraeus). So, we shall see what Barack decides. For now, he seems to be giving Joe Biden a great big “MAYBE”.

On the GOP side, however — the Republican faithful seems to have lost all faith in the “deep bench” of viable candidates that they have. I.e., Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz . . . since the first GOP debate, the three candidates who have picked up the most interest and the most support in the national polls are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina — three people who have never held public office. It doesn’t seem likely that » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:11 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

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