Eat Right, Be Happy

Foods in the Mediterranean diet (USA Today)

What we eat can dispel sadness; scientists say, sadly for some of us, it's not ice cream or chocolate cake:

a healthy diet—high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish and unprocessed lean red meat—can prevent depression. And an unhealthy diet—high in processed and refined foods—increases the risk for the disease in everyone, including children and teens. [snip]

Depression has many causes—it may be genetic, triggered by a specific event or situation, such as loneliness, or brought on by lifestyle choices. But it’s really about an unhealthy brain...A bad diet makes depression worse, failing to provide the brain with the variety of nutrients it needs.

These assertions about eating right are supported by a study that observed the diets and moods of 67 people diagnosed with depression:

Half of these people were given nutritional counseling from a dietitian, who helped them eat healthier. Half were given one-on-one social support—they were paired with someone to chat or play cards with—which is known to help people with depression.

After 12 weeks, the people who improved their diets showed significantly happier moods than those who received social support.

"Nutritional psychiatrists" are developing an understanding of how diet affects mental health.

A bad diet makes depression worse, failing to provide the brain with the variety of nutrients it needs, Dr. [Drew] Ramsey says. And processed or deep-fried foods often contain trans fats that promote inflammation, believed to be a cause of depression...A bad diet also affects our microbiome—the trillions of micro-organisms that live in our gut. They make molecules that can alter the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter found in the brain.

The science is somewhat new, so I'm still holding out hope for ice cream and chocolate cake.

Good Friday

On Good Friday the cross is shrouded in black, and the altar is bare.

Members of the congregation read aloud their part in John's Passion Gospel.

At the end of the service there was no recessional hymn, everyone filing out quietly. The mood is somber but not one of hopelessness. We know that the tomb is not the end of the story.

Maybe Their Time Has Not Passed

Added to the reasons against dining out (excess sugar, fats, and calories in general) is higher ingestion of phthalates. [bold added]

the phthalate levels of those who dined out often were nearly 35 percent higher than those of people who reported eating food purchased at the grocery store, and fast-food restaurants are a particularly strong source of the chemical

Phthalates affect the endocrine system. Forbes:

scientific studies...have shown how phthalates may interfere with sex hormones and suggested links between consuming phthalates and a variety of health problems such as birth defects, infertility, cancers, childhood asthma, obesity, and autism.

Phthalates are not a substance added to food but arise from contact with wrapping and other plastics.

phthalates are chemicals used in many plastic items to help them become more flexible. Therefore, phthalates may be leeching from all of these plastic items into the food that subsequently goes into your mouth.

Plastic-wrapped meats (kirwens)

Apparently we should patronize fast-food restaurants less in order to avoid phthalates. Cooking and dining at home carry their own risks, however. Meat, chicken, and fish must be inspected not only for spoilage but for the manner in which they are wrapped. (Plastic wrapping seems like progress because consumers can examine the shielded product without contaminating it.)

Supermarket butchers who wrap the orders in paper--maybe their time has not passed after all.

Shore Up Your Home Front First

Something tells me that these Orange County stories are related, but I can't figure how exactly.

Orange County Was Set to House the Homeless, and There Was a Popular Revolt [bold added]

Encampment in Orange County (OC Register)

All three cities where temporary shelters had been proposed—Irvine, Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel—threatened to file their own lawsuits against the county if the plan were enacted, arguing that it placed an unfair burden on their communities.

Quote #1 - Santa Ana school board president Valerie Amezcu: “We’ve taken the brunt...our kids can’t use the libraries. Our kids go to school in the morning, and somebody is sleeping in front of our schools.

Quote #2 - Irvine mayor Christina L. Shea: “Because the county has chosen to close their eyes and not solve the problem, all of a sudden they’re saying, just build a tent here next to $1 million homes.”

Comment: in olden times caring was optional. Now, you will be made to care.

California Faces Pushback From Towns on Sanctuary State Law

OC Residents against the sanctuary state law.(OC Register)
See the women and non-white men--looks like America!

Orange County officials on Tuesday voted to condemn...California’s so-called sanctuary state law, which strictly limits when and how local authorities can cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Comment #1 (an imagined dialogue):
California: "You can take your Washington immigration law and shove it."
Orange County: "You can take your Sacramento immigration law and shove it."
California: "You can't because that's different."

Comment #2: before you go to war, shore up your home front first.

The Final Act Begins

Elizabeth Holmes (Fortune image)

Like many followers of Bay Area tech, we were guardedly excited when we first heard about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos in 2013:

By extracting a few drops, not vials, of blood, instantly analyzing them, and charging much less for its service than a standard lab, Ms. Holmes' company threatens a vast industry that performs "6.8 billion lab tests annually in the U.S."

1) It does seem too good to be true.

2) Nevertheless, I wish Theranos were a public company; it would be perfect for the small speculative portion of my investment portfolio.

In 2015 the Wall Street Journal ran an exposé on Theranos' blood-testing technology:

the Journal’s article argued that [Theranos'] tests are not reliable, and revealed that it does only a few tests with its own devices, using other firms’ technology for most of them.

In 2016 it became clear that the technology was a will-o'-the-wisp, and Theranos' estimated value (it had not gone public) plunged to zero.

In 2018 began the final act ("the Reckoning"):

It now turns out that Ms Holmes’s claims were deceptive, according to the SEC. She allegedly exaggerated her startup’s capabilities. Theranos only reliably performed a dozen of the 200 tests it offered with its own technology. It also lied about its portfolio of clients. For example, investors were told that its technology had been used by the American military on the battlefield, when it had only been used in studies; and that it was poised to be rolled out by a grocery chain even when the deal had collapsed. The financial figures were apparently concocted, too. Ms Holmes told one investor that Theranos had $108m in revenue in 2014; the real figure was $100,000.

Elizabeth Holmes has been fined $500,000 by the SEC and prohibited from being an officer of any public company for ten years. The story--a self-made female entrepreneur disrupts an industry and becomes a billionaire, she was a college dropout like Steve Jobs and even wore black turtle necks like Steve Jobs---didn't play out as expected. Alas, we were the victims of our own desire.

Getting Off From Of Social Media

(From Saida Online)

Divorce lawyer James Sexton offers another reason to get off of Facebook--it tempts you to cheat on your partner: [bold added]

Facebook is the single greatest breeding ground ever for infidelity. Nothing that has come before — not swingers’ clubs and key parties, not chat rooms, not workplace temptations, not Ashley Madison, Tinder or Grindr; no, not even porn — comes within a thousand miles. I don’t keep detailed statistics on these things, but if I had to estimate I would say I get two or three new cases per week that feature infidelity that started or was made easier to perpetuate by Facebook. [snip]

There’s a popular saying in Alcoholics Anonymous, meant to discourage people in recovery from hanging around bars: “If you sit in a barbershop long enough, eventually you’re going to get a haircut.”

Quit Facebook. You don’t need the temptation and you don’t need to create the temptation for someone else. Let the past be the past.

The internet has conferred enormous benefits, but it has made a few bad things worse.

Palm Sunday, 2018

We marched around the block at the start of service.

Recently there's been a lot of marching.

In January was the March for Life against abortion. This weekend was the March for our Lives against guns.

On Palm Sunday Christians of all political persuasions marched in a 2,000-year old tradition that will continue long after those evanescent issues are consigned to the dustbin of history.

We are marching, marching,
We are marching, marching,
We are marching in the light of God.
-----Siyahamba

Gun Control: Going National

I've already commented enough about guns, a subject about which I have no first-hand experience (I suppose I'm lucky?). Excerpts from past posts:

2012:

I have never owned a gun. The last gun I fired was in high school ROTC, and I doubt that I'll use one again. For me owning a firearm carries too much risk of an accident, of it being stolen, or, in the worst case, of me or someone I love being tempted to use it in a moment of weakness.

February 14, 2018:

As one who has the highest respect for the Constitution but at the same time doesn't regard the right to bear arms as essential to my being, I--and I suspect many Americans--am willing to consider drastic solutions, including a ban on gun sales and even a ban on gun ownership. I think either of those goals will be too difficult to attain, but if someone can put together a plausible plan that people will get behind, let's listen.

February 17, 2018:

Gun-confiscation and banishment advocates---I meet them every day in the Bay Area---have no answer to the following questions: 1) Why would passing such a law solve the mass shooting problem, when the laws don't work in stopping illegal immigration? 2) ....Or in curing the drug epidemic? 3) Shall police invade the homes of millions of owners who refuse to turn in their guns? 4) Just what is the plan to repeal the Second Amendment, which requires the assent of 38 state legislatures?

After watching some of the demonstrations earlier today, I am convinced that some conservative blogs were correct in their assessment: Was Gun Control Rally Just A Big Voter Registration Drive?

Politicians have a habit of saying whatever it takes to get elected, then not doing what they promised. Many Republican voters were sorely disappointed that a budget bill bursting with spending on Democratic causes like Planned Parenthood and nothing for the President's southern wall was signed yesterday.

As for the Democrats, they were never more dominant than from 2009 to 2010 when they had a liberal President and a filibuster-proof Congress---and they did nothing for gun control. (Another example of Democrats placing power over principle: President Trump has said that he is willing to solve the limbo-like status of the DACA children in exchange for curtailing future illegal immigration; illegal immigrants are a source of future Democratic votes, i.e., a building block to a permanent majority, while the DACA kids are already in the Democratic camp. No surprise, the President's negotiation offer has so far been rejected.)

A final note: California has some of the most restrictive gun-control laws in the nation. Wikipedia: [bold added]

The gun laws of California are some of the most restrictive in the United States. A 5-year Firearm Safety Certificate, obtained by paying a $25 fee, submission of applicant data to the state, and passing a written test proctored by a DOJ Certified Instructor, is required for the sale, delivery, loan, or transfer of any firearm. Handguns sold by dealers must be "California legal" by being listed on the state's Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale. This roster, which requires handgun manufacturers to pay a fee and submit specific models for safety testing, has become progressively more stringent over time and is currently the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit on the basis that it is a de facto ban on new handgun models. Private sales of firearms must be done through a licensed dealer. All firearm sales are recorded by the state, and have a ten-day waiting period. Unlike most other states, California has no provision in its state constitution that explicitly guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Semi-automatic firearms that the state has classified as assault weapons; .50 BMG caliber rifles; and high-capacity magazines (magazines that can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition) may not be sold in California.

Despite these laws, mass shootings still occur in California (2013--Santa Monica, 5 dead; 2014--Isla Vista, 7 dead; 2015--San Bernardino, 14 dead; 2017 - Tehama County, 4 dead.)

SF March for our Lives (KTVU image)

SF Chronicle: Thousands protest in Oakland, SF to demand an end to gun violence. The demonstrators can't be talking about California, because we already have the laws that gun-controllers want (a Democratic governor with a filibuster-proof Democratic legislature can do whatever they please). Maybe California's doing so great we want to go national?

Particularly Vexing

(Chronicle illustration by John Blanchard)

With all the other important events (stock market drop, gun control demonstrations, Federal budget signing, North Korea, possible trade war) that the Chronicle could cover, your humble blogger was surprised to see the Friday headline Alarming Study of Garbage Patch. [bold added]

The giant mass of floating plastic that has imperiled birds and wildlife between San Francisco and Hawaii contains 1.8 trillion pieces of trash covering an area nearly four times the size of California....

A team of scientists from the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, based in the Netherlands, said the debris field, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, covers about 618,000 square miles of deep ocean and weighs 80,000 metric tons.

Two years ago we commented how scientists weren't certain about how much this massive plastic garbage heap could affect human health. Furthermore, there was some evidence that sunlight and bacteria were degrading "micro-plastic" particles, making the pollution less permanent than had been believed.

Despite greater awareness plastic trash is growing "exponentially."

Researchers said that will continue to grow exponentially unless drastic measures are taken to reduce the proliferation of plastic garbage and litter back on land, and to prevent it from flowing out storm drains into waterways that lead to the ocean.

The huge sprawl of junk is particularly vexing to environmentalists in San Francisco and other eco-friendly population centers in California, where much of the debris probably originated.

More and more of our store-bought food and goods are sealed in plastic. And we wrap our non-recyclable trash in plastic bags--easier to carry and less messy--and dispose of them in the proper receptacle. It's no surprise that plastic waste from California continues to pour into the Pacific.

Hey, but we banned plastic bags at the supermarket. Give us a medal.

Not Taught About Much

The Wall Street Journal's intrusive, irritating pop-up afflicts subscribers daily.

When website memberships were new, I furnished the minimum information necessary to gain access; often it was just a name, which could be a pseudonym, and an email address.

I was more forthcoming with Amazon, Netflix, and iTunes, which required real credit cards, names, and addresses, but when the requests became more intrusive, say with a birth date, I left it blank if it would let me, or inserted a fake birthdate.

Lately I've been declining to join any website that wants more than basic contact information. That means no rewards clubs for restaurants, hotels, and other merchants, even those that are frequented often.

A number of websites are always displaying nagging pop-ups to "complete [my] profile". Now, given the revelations about how personal data has been used, I am glad not to have filled out the forms.

But there's no outrage. Facebook and other sites are not subject to strict privacy laws (in America, not Europe) like financial institutions, hospitals, or the IRS, which demand sensitive information while providing necessary services. Social media members voluntarily provided Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. with personal information and posted trip photos. Control was lost once the file was uploaded.

The source of much of this mess was boastfulness and pride, in other words users' look-at-me-ism. The ancients considered pride to be the deadliest of the sins, but they aren't taught about much any more.

Less Steak, More Spam

Whether he planned it or not, recent economic developments have helped Donald Trump in his battle with coastal elites.

One source of wealth, high-end real estate, will stop increasing and may even fall. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act reduces the deductions for state and local taxes and for mortgage interest. The elimination of these tax subsidies may well cool off the overheated real estate market in New York and California.

The drop in the stock market, whether due to the threat of a trade war, Facebook's woes, higher interest rates, political uncertainty, or all of the above, hammers the other major source of wealth for the coastal elites.

It's ironic that these developments will reduce the stark economic wealth inequality of the coasts versus middle America much more than occurred under President Obama, yet Donald Trump will never get a smidgeon of credit from progressives.

Related: it's time for Costco's semi-annual sale on Spam, so I picked up a package. Less steak, more spam--time to watch my pennies.

The Dam is Breaking

TWTR: We've had a nice run for two years, but it's time to take profits.

I don't trade stocks based on daily events, but this time I'm making an exception. I sold my 2-year investment in Twitter stock on Monday.

Having missed out on Facebook (I thought in 2012 that its IPO valuation was pricey at $100 billion--owning FB would make sense if the company was worth a crazy $200 billion by 2015, now it's north of $500 billion!), I did buy some Twitter in March, 2016, at $15.95 per share as an entrée to social media investing.

TWTR had continually disappointed analysts since its 2013 IPO at $26 per share. I rationalized the purchase by thinking that it did not have much further to fall; if it continued to under-perform someone would buy it for its brand recognition. Whatever the reason, it's been a happy ride to $36.80 last week.

Then the dam broke. Facebook has been called on the carpet by media and government officials not only because data on millions of users was "harvested" by the Trump campaign but also for allowing outside companies access to that data as well. Congressional hearings have been called, and its clear that both Democrats and Republicans are gunning for the social-media giant, albeit for different reasons which we won't get into here. The selling wave affected all social-media stocks, including Twitter.

There will undoubtedly be a lot of Congressional grandstanding over the next few months. There will be calls to regulate internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. None of this will be good for those stocks, whatever one believes about their growth prospects.

I was happy to sell Twitter at $33.14 and will look to buying it back if it goes under $30.

Going Full Carb

On the way back to the Bay Area I stopped for a jolt of caffeine. Next to Starbucks was a bake shop with the intriguing name BAD Bakers. Naturally, I had to check it out.

BAD (Bread and Doughnuts) Bakers offers discounts on orders of a half-dozen pastries or more. I ordered six of their $3 cronuts for $15, and five managed to survive on the trip to Foster City.

BAD Bakers does not cater to the health-food crowd. Unlike stores that offer sugar-free versions of their products, it provides syringes to add sugar to the cronuts. The cashier said that the frosting could be injected into the buns' hollow pockets, which I did later that night.

If you're going to carb, you may as well go full carb.

Small-Town Church

It's been a rough week with the deaths of two elderly relatives and last night's chauffeuring of a friend to ER. I went to bed at two, woke at six, and knew that it was futile to try to get back to sleep.

So I decided to go to a local church. A priest once told me that there were only two types of prayer--help me, help me, help me and thank you, thank you, thank you; this Sunday it was an occasion for both.

Five minutes late for the 8 A.M. service I thought I would sneak in. No luck.

Both members of the congregation rose to introduce themselves, as did the lady minister. That's what I get for going to a small-town church where strangers can't hide in the back.

The community garden, where you don't need to be a
church member to plant a patch of land.

At 8:15 a.m. the morning sun shone through the red-glass cross above the altar and created a halo around the minister's head. Ten minutes later, when I took the picture (right, top), the sun had moved and the moment had passed.

A young family arrived even later than I. The kids ran around the altar while the minister celebrated Holy Communion. The Episcopal Church has loosened the liturgy quite a bit over the decades, but this was the most relaxed that I had seen.

I chatted with the grey-haired parishioners after the service. They said that couples with children have started coming. Attendance is growing, unlike most Episcopal churches in Northern California.

I hope they have room for old-timers. The next time I'm in the area I'll stop by again.

The Need Appeared Genuine

The ER waiting area on a Saturday night

A friend of ours is on a tight budget. And she's possibly hypochondriacal---though having witnessed supposedly mild diseases and injuries cascade catastrophically in the aged, I'm beginning to feel that way, too.

She said that she had a pain in her abdomen--on her left side, so it wasn't appendicitis--and needed to go to the Sutter Hospital emergency room.

From Safeway in Sacto: Dinner
and snacks for the trip back

No, an ambulance was too expensive, and she had trouble activating Lyft, which her Medicare Advantage plan said they would pay for if she could only figure out how to use it. Her siblings lived outside California, and, having moved a year ago, she had no friends nearby.

I packed an overnight bag. Our friend lived near Sacramento, 2½ hours away. True, I'm easily manipulated, but the need appeared genuine.

Arriving, I asked how she was feeling. The pain wasn't crippling.

She walked me through the instructions on how to take care of her dog and small animals in case the doctors wanted to keep her overnight. She kept using the phrase "if I should die", which seemed overwrought since she was moving about her house with twice as much energy as I. All the same, the prospect of tending to her pets long-term added fervor to my appeals to the Healer in the Sky.

At Sutter Hospital my friend 1) waited an hour, 2) gave blood and urine samples, 3) waited another hour, 4) had her abdomen scanned, 5) waited some more, and 6) was released after a final interview . The diagnosis was dehydration and constipation. All told, she was very lucky. The entire process took five hours, and the doctors didn't find anything that merited hospitalization.

She disagreed with the diagnosis. She assured me that she wasn't constipated. You should see a gastroenterologist, and you should get a colonoscopy. (She had had a bad experience with one years ago and had never been back.) Okay, but the procedure is much easier nowadays. Please think about it.

I am not eager to repeat this experience, but if she does have a colonoscopy I'll drive up to take her.