mtanga

Beau James

In today's excerpt--the beloved bon vivant James John Walker (1881 - 1946), often known as Jimmy or Beau James, was the outlandish and ultimately disgraced mayor of New York City during the Jazz Age:

"No New York City politician ever reveled in the adulation of its people or endeared himself as much as Jimmy Walker. Whether strutting along Broadway or Fifth Avenue during a parade in a cutaway coat, striped pants, silk top hat, and a gleaming smile, or amusing neighborhood gatherings with off-the-cuff speeches brimming with optimism and wise-cracks, 'Our Jimmy,' as practically all New Yorkers called him, was the personification of New York and its open rebelliousness toward social restraints during the Jazz Age. No politician in memory had ever brightened the city's spirits as Walker did, as he dashed about town to civic ceremonies, neighborhood festivals, and funerals of people he had never met, or broke from the ranks of the St. Patrick's Day Parade to sprint up the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue to kiss the archbishop of New York's ring with a flair that delighted the crowd. ...

"He was a rogue, but a charming one, and in a city where most citizens went to a church or synagogue on a fairly regular basis, he managed to carry on a very public affair with an actress named Betty Compton while he was married without getting pilloried for it either by the public or even his extremely forgiving wife. ...

"If he wasn't at a fight, a ball game, or a civic gathering, Walker was apt to be found at fashionable restaurants like the Casino in Central Park, Rector's, Delmonico's, or Tex Guinan's 300 Club rather than at City Hall, where he spent as little time as he could, usually showing up around noon and leaving before five. When his mayoral opponent in 1929, Fiorella La Guardia, criticized Walker for accepting a raise from $25,000 to $40,000 (the equivalent of more than $100,000), Walker responded, 'That's cheap. Think of what it would cost if I worked full time.' It was a cynical rejoinder, but it was typical Walker and most New Yorkers loved it.

"Eventually, New York's love affair with Walker began to wane. In the face of growing editorial criticism of Walker's travels abroad, his affair with Betty Compton, and his alleged misconduct of city business, ... three separate investigations were begun. ... After testifying before [an investigative] committee that August, Walker abruptly resigned as mayor on September 1, 1932, saying he was doing so to spare himself from 'an un-American, unfair proceeding.'

"Nine days after resigning, Walker left for Paris, both to avoid possible prosecution and to join Betty Compton, whom he would eventually marry. As he boarded the liner Conte Grande, a reporter said to him, 'Everyone is for you, Jim. All the world loves a lover.' 'You are mistaken,' Walker, a master of the pithy quote, replied. 'What the world loves is a winner.' "

excerpted from Richard Vague's superb Delancy Place blog

Cross Your Fingers

It is worth remembering where the blame for this neutering of fiscal policy lies: squarely with the Bush administration. At the start of this decade, the budget stood in surplus to the tune of 2.4 per cent of GDP. On unchanged policy, this was expected to grow to a surplus of 4.5 per cent of GDP by 2008. This year's actual deficit of 3 per cent of GDP therefore represents a worsening of more than 7 per cent of GDP, or roughly $1,000bn. Almost all of this deterioration is due to policy: to tax cuts, spending increases, and their associated debt-service costs.

That projected surplus was a priceless gift to the White House. It offered the Bush administration ample scope for outlays on homeland security and other unforeseen priorities, and moderate tax cuts as well, all within a budget balanced over the course of the business cycle. Instead, the administration knowingly opted for outrageous fiscal excess - adding insult to injury with its phony tax-cut sunset provisions, designed for no other purpose than to disguise the long-term fiscal implications. Eight years on, this startling record of fiscal irresponsibility has all but taken fiscal policy off the table as an available response to the slowdown.

The US economy had better have luck on its side. Luck is about all it has left.

read conservative Clive Cook's full piece in the Financial Times

RAND Confirms The Obvious

The RAND Corpration, long associated with conservative and pro-military figures and analyses, has now completely and utterly rebuffed the essence of the Bush administration's fundamental post 9/11 policy – the idiotically named (and conceived) "War on Terror".

How do terrorist groups end? The evidence since 1968 indicates that terrorist groups rarely cease to exist as a result of winning or losing a military campaign. Rather, most groups end because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they join the political process. This suggests that the United States should pursue a counterterrorism strategy against al Qa'ida that emphasizes policing and intelligence gathering rather than a “war on terrorism” approach that relies heavily on military force.

[snip]

What does this mean for counterterrorism efforts against al Qa'ida? After September 11, 2001, U.S. strategy against al Qa'ida concentrated on the use of military force. Although the United States has employed nonmilitary instruments — cutting off terrorist financing or providing foreign assistance, for example — U.S. policymakers continue to refer to the strategy as a “war on terrorism.”

But military force has not undermined al Qa'ida. As of 2008, al Qa'ida has remained a strong and competent organization. Its goal is intact: to establish a pan-Islamic caliphate in the Middle East by uniting Muslims to fight infidels and overthrow West-friendly regimes. It continues to employ terrorism and has been involved in more terrorist attacks around the world in the years since September 11, 2001, than in prior years, though engaging in no successful attacks of a comparable magnitude to the attacks on New York and Washington.

Al Qa'ida's resilience should trigger a fundamental rethinking of U.S. strategy.

Of course, this was quite clear to many at the very beginning of this long, sordid, misguided, and still ongoing "war". But it is somewhat heartening to see RAND produce such a clear and stinging rebuke.

read the full rasearch brief at the RAND site

Half a House, Yet So Much More

It must be the smallest Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories: just half a house. But Palestinian officials and Israeli human rights groups are concerned that it represents the first stage of a plan to eradicate the historical neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, cutting off one of the main routes by which Palestinians reach the Old City and its holy sites.

The home of Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd has been split in two since 1999 when the Israeli courts evicted their grown-up son Raed from a wing of the property. The elderly couple has been trying to regain possession, but were stymied last week when an Israeli high court backed the petition of a group of settlers and ordered the immediate eviction of the Khurds. The decision paves the way for the takeover of 26 multi-storey houses in the neighborhood, threatening to make 500 Palestinians homeless.

The verdict has been denounced by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and in the past few days the Khurds have been visited by foreign diplomats, including from the United States.

In a letter to consulates in Jerusalem, including those of the United States, Britain, France and Germany, Rafiq Husseini, Mr Abbas’s aide, warned that the takeover of the Khurds’ home was part of a wider drive to change the geography of Jerusalem by forcing out Palestinians and replacing them with Israeli settlers. Such a development would deal a death blow to already-strained peace negotiations, he wrote.

Today there are 250,000 Israeli Jews living illegally in East Jerusalem, and the Israeli government has announced that thousands more apartments are to be built — despite promises to the US government to freeze settlement growth.

Israeli human rights groups and Palestinian solidarity activists, meanwhile, have been staging a 24hour vigil at the Khurds’ home in the hope of preventing the order’s enforcement.

the rest of Jonathan Cook's piece at Dissident Voice

"Blue Head", by South African artist Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993)

In 1940, Sekoto became the first black artist to have a painting accepted by the Johannesburg Art Gallery. The above work is to be sold at Bonhams in September (Estimate: £10,000 - 15,000)

Is your Money Safe in a Bank?

A pervasive sense of gloom has crept into the television studios just like it has into the stock exchanges and the luxury penthouses on Manhattan's West End. It's palpable. That same sense of foreboding is creeping like a noxious cloud to every town and city across the country. Everyone is cutting back on non-essentials and trimming the fat from the family budget. The days of extravagant impulse-spending at the mall are over. So are the big ticket purchases and the trips to Europe. Consumer confidence is at historic lows, disposal income is a thing of the past, and credit cards are at their limit.

In the last three months bank credit has shrunk faster than any time since 1948. The banks aren't lending and people aren't borrowing; that's a lethal combo. When credit-creation slows, the economy falters, unemployment rises and the misery index soars. That's why Bush will mail out a new batch of stimulus checks whether he wants to or not; his back is up against the wall.

On Friday, after the market had closed, the FDIC shut down two more banks, First Heritage Bank and First National Bank. Kaboom. Two weeks earlier, regulators seized Indymac Bancorp following a run by depositors. The FDIC now operates like a stealth paramilitary unit, deploying its shock troops on the weekends to do their dirty work out of the public eye and at times when it will least effect the stock market. The reasons for this are obvious; there's only one thing the government hates more than seeing flag-draped coffins on the evening news, and that's seeing long lines of frantic people waiting impatiently to get what's left of their savings out of their now-deceased bank. Lines at the bank signal that the system is broken.

Banks-runs are a shock to the collective psyche. When depositors see a bank run they realize that their money is not safe. People aren't fools; they can smell a rat. When their confidence wanes, it extends to the whole system. Suddenly they start questioning everything they once took for granted. They become skeptical of the institutions which, just days earlier, seemed rock-solid.

Bank runs are a direct hit on the foundation of the free market system. Unchecked, the tremors can ripple through the entire society and trigger violent political upheaval, even revolution. The public may not grasp their significance, but everyone in Washington is paying attention. They take it seriously, very seriously.

read the rest of Mike Whitney's piece at Counterpunch

Interesting Little Suckers

WHEN Mehdi Jaffari was told his left carotid artery was so severely blocked he faced the risk of an imminent stroke, he turned the clock back to medieval times.

The 52-year-old counsellor, from Chatswood, bought more than 35 leeches from a Victorian farmer and applied them to his body daily. Within five days, a CT angiogram showed the artery had cleared, stunning staff at Royal North Shore Hospital and his family.

Leech therapy, first documented in Greece more than 4000 years ago, is not new in Sydney. More than 50 Richardsonianus australis leeches are kept in a tank at Liverpool Hospital for use on patients who have had skin grafts or severed digits because their saliva contains hirudin, a chemical that acts as a powerful anticoagulant and vasodilator.

read Kate Benson's full piece in the Sydney Morning Herald (via 3 Quarks Daily)

Surprise, Surprise: Wars Generate Terrorism

It now seems clear that war -- at least these two wars -- generates the additional threat of increased Salafist terrorism, according to an important and ongoing study by an American scholar.

Stephanie Kaplan’s PhD research at MIT has explored the linkages between war and terrorism, from the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I had a chance to chat with her a few days ago at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, where we are both serving as visiting fellows and writing texts. What she had to say was enlightening, and should be heard by all Americans who care about how their leaders conduct foreign policy, including foreign wars.

Starting from the premise that Iraq had never been a major front in the “Global War on Terror” before the US-led invasion in March 2003 made it so, now five years on, she wanted to explore a critical question for scholars and policymakers alike: Has the Iraq War increased or decreased the jihadist terrorist threat?

She notes that American, European and other officials sometimes offer contradictory assessments of this matter, suggesting both that Iraq is a main driver of global terrorism or that blowback from Iraq is overstated. Assumptions prevail, she says, because empirical data and reliable research on the matter are in short supply. She touched on these issues in a brief article published in the spring 2008 issue of précis, the newsletter of the MIT Center for International Studies. Among the key points she makes:

1. We cannot assume the blowback from the Iraq war will exactly mirror the Afghanistan war. The quality and quantity of combat experience in Iraq are very different from the Afghan precedent, and many more jihadis went to fight in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

2. The Iraq war poses a threat in part through the linkages it has with other centers of jihadist activity, and by its generating and transferring capabilities (bomb-making and suicide bombers, for example) to other conflict zones (Algeria, or European cities where attacks have been launched). Counting the number of attacks globally is not a good measure of how the Iraq war impacts on terror threats elsewhere, because quantitative data alone cannot adequately measure Iraq’s impact on global jihadist movements.

Victory” in Iraq will not necessarily erase the years of damage caused by the war. “That damage,” she says, “will take the form of additional jihadist capabilities generated on and off the battlefield. As an episode of organized violence, wars simulate the terrorist experience and prepare the surviving mujahedeen for a lifetime of post-war terrorist activity… Wars train a new cadre of battle-hardened fighters and leaders who return from the frontlines armed with a rolodex full of the most violent contacts on the planet. And wars serve as a magnet for money and weapons that can be deployed in the war zone and beyond. If the Iraq conflict creates more jihadist resources than it destroys, then the defeat of Al-Qaeda in Iraq will be tantamount to winning one of many battles but losing ground in the war against Islamist extremism.”

more from Rami G. Khouri

Confused About Obama's Stance on Iraq?

Not surprisingly, it requires a foreign citizen and news organization to spell it out.

As November's American presidential elections approach, Barack Obama's message on Iraq is being widely interpreted as "flip-flopping" and a "retreat" from a previously unequivocal stance of fully withdrawing the US occupation forces. This is to misunderstand Obama, who is not someone who shoots from the hip. There is much more to his words than cursory reading could unravel.

His remarks before the 2003 invasion resonated well within the American antiwar movement. His scathing references to the Bush administration's folly and his demands for "ending the war" were probably decisive in winning him the Democratic party nomination against Hillary Clinton, whose vote for war in 2003 ultimately crippled her credibility as the commander-in-chief who would bring it to an end.

Obama himself has reacted angrily to claims of a policy U-turn: "For me to say I'm going to refine my policies is I don't think in any way inconsistent with prior statements and doesn't change my strategic view that this war has to end and that I'm going to end it as president." Earlier this month he resorted to an op-ed article in the New York Times to emphatically state: "On my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war."

As always in examining the words of politicians, let alone Obama (who now has 300 foreign policy advisers), the devil is in the details. Here, Obama's "ending the war" declarations begin to look far from reassuring, even before he "refines" his line after meeting the US commander, General Petraeus, in Iraq.

Obama sees Iraq as part of a wider theatre of war and potential wars engulfing the entire Middle East, where US strategic goals and interests are at stake. So his obvious shift on the "surge" operations in Iraq (underlined by deleting criticisms of it from his website last week) is strengthening his call for "redeployment" from Iraq to Afghanistan. His current strategy could be summed up as: de-escalate the war in Iraq, escalate it in Afghanistan, and talk to Iran. On Iran, his offer of talks was coupled with an alarming, Bush-style threat. "I'll do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything," Obama told a gathering of the pro-Israel lobby group, Aipac, in April. He is echoing the sentiments of his famous anti-Iraq war speech in 2002, in which he repeatedly stressed that he was not opposed to all US wars.

read the rest of Sami Ramadani's piece in The Guardian (U.K.)

Red Wine: More Good News

FINE food sings on the palate, but pairing it with the right wine creates a chorus. Among those in the know, the plum, chocolate and spice flavours of Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots, Pinot Noirs and Sangioveses best accentuate the rich flavours of red meats. Now, however, a group of researchers led by Joseph Kanner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has discovered that pairing red wines like these with red meat appears to be more than just a matter of taste. If the two mix in the stomach, compounds in the wine thwart the formation of harmful chemicals that are released when meat is digested.

The idea that red wine is actually good for your health is irresistible to the average tippler. But it appears to be true. In particular, red wines are rich in polyphenols, a group of powerful antioxidants that are thought to protect against cancer and heart disease by destroying molecules that would otherwise damage cells. How the polyphenols in wine exercise their beneficial effects, though, has been mysterious. That is because they do not seem to travel in any quantity from the stomach into the bloodstream.

The answer, Dr Kanner has found, lies in the stomach itself.

read on in The Economist

The Many Contradictions of Le Courbusier

Le Corbusier is difficult to get a hold on. He's still admired, even worshipped, in architectural circles, but practically forgotten everywhere else. He's arguably had more of an influence on the form of the modern world than any other architect - you could even argue there was no modern world before Le Corbusier - but stop someone on the street and ask them to name one of his buildings and you're unlikely to get a correct answer. And if people have heard of him, it's usually in the context of failed 1960s housing estates.

All that might change, though. The grandaddy of modernism is up for re-exposure and reappraisal in the coming months. A substantial exhibition, Le Corbusier: The Art of Architecture, moves from its current home in Paris to the crypt of Liverpool's Metropolitan cathedral in October. And this month an enormous new book, Le Corbusier Le Grand, is published, which collects together his diverse achievements for the first time. You couldn't make a book like this about just any architect. Leafing, or rather hefting, through the slab-like tome, it's astounding to see just how much Le Corbusier accomplished. He executed more than 300 designs on every scale, from small huts to entire cities (though only 78 of those designs were ultimately built). He also wrote 34 books, gave countless speeches, lectures and interviews, drew, painted and sculpted, designed furniture, ran businesses, travelled the world, had love affairs, co-edited a magazine, invented his own system of proportions and wrote to his mother at least once a week. Where on earth, you wonder, did he find the time?

Beyond the architecture, Le Corbusier Le Grand reveals a great deal about the man himself. There are some surprisingly pornographic sketches - clearly not designed to be seen by his clients (or, one suspects, his wife Yvonne). There is ample proof of his enthusiasm for modernity: there he is posing inside a mocked-up biplane in a 1920s photographer's studio; here's a souvenir from his transatlantic flight to Rio de Janeiro aboard the Graf Zeppelin, and a postcard of a Lockheed Constellation on which he has doodled himself sitting on the wing. There are also snaps of him with the great and good, from Albert Einstein to Josephine Baker (contrary to rumours, it's unlikely they had an affair). And there are tender sketches of his father, mother and wife on their deathbeds. It all points to a life lived enviably fully.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons Le Corbusier is not as publicly recognisable as he should be: he simply did too much. Rather than sticking to a single, easily identifiable style, his work continually evolved. And, as the man who set the stage for modern architecture, his buildings have all but been drowned out by the noise of countless diluted imitations. Compared to the work of today's celebrity architects like Frank Gehry or Norman Foster or Zaha Hadid, much of Le Corbusier's architecture is practically anonymous. He didn't build flamboyant art galleries or concert halls or triumphant skyscrapers. Many of his defining works were private residences for wealthy patrons and his grandest schemes were never built at all. But his influence is detectable in the DNA of virtually everyone who came after him.

By all accounts, as a person he was shy, hesitant, even under-confident, but - another contradiction - he was a canny self-promoter. His public image was as cultivated as that of Ziggy Stardust. He had the trademark look: dapper suit, spectacles and bowtie, which became the standard uniform for the profession. Especially the glasses. Thick, owl-eyed, horn-rimmed eyewear was adopted by many an architect who should have known better.

more from Steve Rose in The Guardian (U.K.)

A War of Convenience?

President Bush and Vice President Cheney could have reacted to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in lots of ways. What they chose to do was launch a global war on terror -- potentially a war without end.

This decision now seems like a big mistake. In the name of the war on terror, we have invaded and occupied a country that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11, we have emboldened our enemies, we have lost and taken many lives, we have spent trillions of dollars, we have sacrificed civil liberties, and we have jettisoned our commitment to human dignity.

But was it an honest mistake? Did Bush and Vice President Cheney declare war because they believed it was the best way to guarantee the safety of the American people? Or did they do it in a premeditated -- and ultimately successful -- attempt to seize greater political power?

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer's new book, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals," offers evidence of the latter. (See yesterday's column for an overview.)

In an online interview with Harpers blogger Scott Horton, Mayer sums up her findings this way: "After interviewing hundreds of sources in and around the Bush White House, I think it is clear that many of the legal steps taken by the so-called 'War Council' were less a 'New Paradigm,' as Alberto Gonzales dubbed it, than an old political wish list, consisting of grievances that Cheney and his legal adviser, David Addington, had been compiling for decades. Cheney in particular had been chafing at the post-Watergate reforms, and had longed to restore the executive branch powers Nixon had assumed, constituting what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called 'the Imperial Presidency.'

"Before September 11, 2001, these extreme political positions would not have stood a change of being instituted -- they would never have survived democratic scrutiny. But by September 12, 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney were extraordinarily empowered. Political opposition evaporated as critics feared being labeled anti-patriotic or worse."

Andrew J. Bacevich called attention to this point in his review of Mayer's book in The Washington Post on Sunday: "Mayer recognizes . . . the intimate relationship between the global war on terror and Addington's new paradigm. The entire rationale of the latter derived from the former: no war, no new paradigm. Hence, the rush to declare that after Sept. 11, 2001, everything had changed. The insistence that the gloves had to come off, that the so-called law enforcement approach to dealing with terrorism had failed definitively, that only conflict on a global scale could keep America safe: These provided the weapons that Addington's War Council wielded to mount its assault on the Constitution -- all of course justified as necessary to keep Americans safe.

Dan Froomkin's full piece can be read in The Washington Post

Jimmy Carter, 29 Years Ago

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never...

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas...

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel...

I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay...

Point four: I'm asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation's utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source...

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board...

Point six: I'm proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems...

Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation's strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives...

I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation's problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act. We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

Doesn't quite match up with his right-wing, media driven reputation, does it? via Jon Schwarz's Tiny Revolution

Tilapia? Not So Good For You, Perhaps

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Farm-raised tilapia, one of the most highly consumed fish in America, has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and, perhaps worse, very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The researchers say the combination could be a potentially dangerous food source for some patients with heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other allergic and auto-immune diseases that are particularly vulnerable to an "exaggerated inflammatory response." Inflammation is known to cause damage to blood vessels, the heart, lung and joint tissues, skin, and the digestive tract.

"In the United States, tilapia has shown the biggest gains in popularity among seafood, and this trend is expected to continue as consumption is projected to increase from 1.5 million tons in 2003 to 2.5 million tons by 2010," write the Wake Forest researchers in an article published this month in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

They say their research revealed that farm-raised tilapia, as well as farmed catfish, "have several fatty acid characteristics that would generally be considered by the scientific community as detrimental." Tilapia has higher levels of potentially detrimental long-chain omega-6 fatty acids than 80-percent-lean hamburger, doughnuts and even pork bacon, the article says.

"For individuals who are eating fish as a method to control inflammatory diseases such as heart disease, it is clear from these numbers that tilapia is not a good choice," the article says. "All other nutritional content aside, the inflammatory potential of hamburger and pork bacon is lower than the average serving of farmed tilapia."

The article notes that the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, known scientifically as "long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids" (PUFAs), have been well documented. The American Heart Association now recommends that everyone eat at least two servings of fish per week, and that heart patients consume at least 1 gram a day of the two most critical omega-3 fatty acids, known as EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid).

But, the article says, the recommendation by the medical community for people to eat more fish has resulted in consumption of increasing quantities of fish such as tilapia that may do more harm than good, because they contain high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, also called n-6 PUFAs, such as arachidonic acid.

"The ratio of arachidonic acid (AA) to very long-chain n-3 PUFAs (EPA and DHA) in diets of human beings appears to be an important factor that dictates the anti-inflammatory effects of fish oils," the researchers write. They cite numerous studies, including a recent one that predicts "that changes in arachidonic acid to EPA or DHA ratios shift the balance from pro-inflammatory [agents] to protective chemical mediators … which are proposed to play a pivotal role in resolving inflammatory response" in the body.

For their study, the authors obtained a variety of fish from several sources, including seafood distributors that supply restaurants and supermarkets, two South American companies, fish farms in several countries, and supermarkets in four states. All samples were snap-frozen for preservation pending analysis, which was performed with gas chromatography.

The researchers found that farmed tilapia contained only modest amounts of omega-3 fatty acids – less than half a gram per 100 grams of fish, similar to flounder and swordfish. Farmed salmon and trout, by contrast, had nearly 3 and 4 grams, respectively.

At the same time, the tilapia had much higher amounts of omega-6 acids generally and AA specifically than both salmon and trout. Ratios of long-chain omega-6 to long-chain omega-3, AA to EPA respectively, in tilapia averaged about 11:1, compared to much less than 1:1 (indicating more EPA than AA) in both salmon and trout.

The article notes that "there is a controversy among scientists in this field as to the importance of arachidonic acid or omega-6:omega-3 ratios vs. the concentration of long-chain omega-3 alone with regard to their effects in human biology." Those issues are raised in an editorial in the same issue of the Journal.

The Wake Forest article anticipates that criticism and notes that one human study involving AA showed a probable gene-nutrient connection to coronary heart disease in a specific group of heart disease patients. In another study, four subjects were removed after consumption of high amounts of AA due to concerns about the effect of the acid on their blood platelets.

Floyd H. "Ski" Chilton, Ph.D., professor of physiology and pharmacology and director of the Wake Forest Center for Botanical Lipids, is the senior author of the Journal article. He said that in next month's Journal, he will publish a rebuttal to this month's editorial.

"We have known for three decades that arachidonic acid is the substrate for all pro-inflammatory lipid mediators," Chilton said in an interview. "The animal studies say unequivocally that if you feed arachidonic acid, the animals show signs of inflammation and get sick.

"A New England Journal of Medicine article three years ago said if you had heart disease and had a certain genetic makeup, and you ate arachidonic acid, the diameter of your coronary artery was smaller, a major risk factor for a heart attack," said Chilton. "My point is that it's likely not worth the risk in this or other vulnerable populations."

Chilton said tilapia is easily farmed using inexpensive corn-based feeds, which contain short chain omega-6s that the fish very efficiently convert to AA and place in their tissues. This ability to feed the fish inexpensive foods, together with their capacity to grow under almost any condition, keeps the market price for the fish so low that it is rapidly becoming a staple in low-income diets.

"We are all familiar with the classical Hippocratic admonition, Primum no nocere, 'First, do no harm.' I think it behooves us to consider this critical directive when making dietary prescriptions for the sake of health," Chilton said.

"Cardiologists are telling their patients to go home and eat fish, and if the patients are poor, they're eating tilapia. And that could translate into a dangerous situation."

via Muck and Mystery

Why not?

IF YOU want to understand the policy of a country, look at the map - as Napoleon recommended.

Anyone who wants to guess whether Israel and/or the United States are going to attack Iran should look at the map of the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.

Through this narrow waterway, only 34 km wide, pass the ships that carry between a fifth and a third of the world's oil, including that from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

MOST OF the commentators who talk about the inevitable American and Israeli attack on Iran do not take account of this map.

There is talk about a "sterile", a "surgical" air strike. The mighty air fleet of the United States will take off from the aircraft carriers already stationed in the Persian Gulf and the American air bases dispersed throughout the region and bomb all the nuclear sites of Iran - and on this happy occasion also bomb government institutions, army installations, industrial centers and anything else they might fancy. They will use bombs that can penetrate deep into the ground.

Simple, quick and elegant - one blow and bye-bye Iran, bye-bye ayatollahs, bye-bye Ahmadinejad.

If Israel attacks alone, the blow will be more modest. The most the attackers can hope for is the destruction of the main nuclear sites and a safe return.

I have a modest request: before you start, please look at the map once more, at the Strait named (probably) after the god of Zarathustra.

THE INEVITABLE reaction to the bombing of Iran will be the blocking of this Strait. That should have been self-evident even without the explicit declaration by one of Iran's highest ranking generals a few days ago.

Iran dominates the whole length of the Strait. They can seal it hermetically with their missiles and artillery, both land based and naval.

If that happens, the price of oil will skyrocket - far beyond the 200 dollars-per-barrel that pessimists dread now. That will cause a chain reaction: a world-wide depression, the collapse of whole industries and a catastrophic rise in unemployment in America, Europe and Japan.

In order to avert this danger, the Americans would need to conquer parts of Iran - perhaps the whole of this large country. The US does not have at its disposal even a small part of the forces they would need. Practically all their land forces are tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The mighty American navy is menacing Iran - but the moment the Strait is closed, it will itself resemble those model ships in bottles. Perhaps it is this danger that made the navy chiefs extricate the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln from the Persian Gulf this week, ostensibly because of the situation in Pakistan.

This leaves the possibility that the US will act by proxy. Israel will attack, and this will not officially involve the US, which will deny any responsibility.

Indeed? Iran has already announced that it would consider an Israeli attack as an American operation, and act as if it had been directly attacked by the US. That is logical.

NO ISRAELI government would ever consider the possibility of starting such an operation without the explicit and unreserved agreement of the US. Such a confirmation will not be forthcoming.

So what are all these exercises, which generate such dramatic headlines in the international media?

continue reading Uri Avnery's piece at Gush Shalom

One of Many Problems

The new FISA Amendments Act nearly eviscerates oversight of government surveillance. It allows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review only general procedures for spying rather than individual warrants. The court will not be told specifics about who will be wiretapped, which means the law provides woefully inadequate safeguards to protect innocent people whose communications are caught up in the government's dragnet surveillance program.

The law, passed under the guise of national security, ostensibly targets people outside the country. There is no question, however, that it will ensnare many communications between Americans and those overseas. Those communications can be stored indefinitely and disseminated, not just to the U.S. government but to other governments.

This law will cripple the work of those of us who as reporters communicate regularly with people overseas, especially those in the Middle East. It will intimidate dissidents, human rights activists and courageous officials who seek to expose the lies of our government or governments allied with ours. It will hang like the sword of Damocles over all who dare to defy the official versions of events. It leaves open the possibility of retribution and invites the potential for abuse by those whose concern is not with national security but with the consolidation of their own power.

read the rest of Chris Hedges' Op-Ed in the L.A. Times

Regional Purity

In today's excerpt--country music was an oral history of the urban poor from California to New England, argues author Dana Jennings, not just the South-- especially in the pivotal period from 1950 to 1970. These were the years of Hank Williams, Sr., Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and many more now legendary performers:

"Country music for decades was poor-people music, made by poor people, and bought by poor people. It sprang from the heart and the gut, and, like R&B and soul, it was the music of exile, meant to make being banished to the margins, if not a matter of pride, then at least more tolerable. It never surprised anyone that the original Carter Family came from Poor Valley. In a sense, that's where we all came from. ... People forget, or never knew, the poverty that once suffused country music. There are the songs that are explicitly about being poor, like [Merle] Haggard's 'Hungry Eyes' and Harlan Howard's 'Busted,' but poverty is also the silent pillar of lots of other country songs. In America, it's poor boys who most often wind up in prison, and it's among the poor that alcoholism is an epidemic. When you're poor, cheatin' isn't just adultery, it's stealin'. ...

"Which brings me to 'The Myth.' The myth, perpetuated these days by Nashville music executives who probably believe that Garth Brooks represents 'classic country,' is that country music is purely a white, rural, and Southern art. ... There's no question that the South is vital to country music and its history. But the scholar D.K. Wilgus reminds us that while country music's manifestation was Southern, 'its essence was of rural America.' ... Country musicians come from all over: Hank Snow, one of the music's biggest postwar stars, was from Nova Scotia; Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, who owned the charts in the 1960s, defined the Bakersfield, California sound; Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings?-Texans through and through; and heck, Dick ('A Tombstone Every Mile') Curless hailed from Fort Fairfield, Maine.

"And the African-American influence runs strong and deep in musicians as diverse as Bill Monroe, Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Elvis Presley, whose first hits came on the country charts. Hank's breakthrough, 'Lovesick Blues' (1949), was written by a vaudeville piano player and a Russian-born Jew and popularized in the 1920s in the 1920s by minstrel Emmitt Miller. So much for regional purity."

via Richard Vague's excellent Delancey Place

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