Metabolic Mayhem

This post is another from a good friend of mine, Marlene Harris.

Marlene's Note: There's a number of general factors that affect our metabolic rate, among them, height, body structure (small, medium, or large frame), age, gender, and activity level. However, there's also a number of smaller, day-to-day type factors that can affect it as well, and that's the focus of today’s article from INH Health Watch.

Metabolic Mayhem: Stop these habits now to boost your calorie-burning potential! 

Need another reason to love your body? It burns calories all by itself—as long as you don't get in the way. See, every cell in your body plays a role in energy metabolism—the process of turning the food you eat into energy that keeps your heart beating, lungs pumping, and muscles moving. The faster your metabolism, the more calories you burn. And just like there are ways to speed it up—by working out, for instance—certain habits can hit the brakes on your natural calorie-churning engine.

Here are things to avoid in order to keep your metabolism humming.

Marlene's Note: Notice that it said to AVOID doing these! :-)

1). Skipping Breakfast: When you miss breakfast, you don't just set yourself up to overeat at lunch. You actually tell your body to conserve energy—which means it burns calories more slowly. That's one reason of the many reasons a study from the American Journal of Epidemiology found that people who skip a morning meal were 4.5 times more likely to be obese. 

 2). Dehydration: All of your body's cellular processes, including metabolism, depend on water. If you're dehydrated, you could burn up to 2 percent fewer calories, according to researchers at the University of Utah.

Marlene’s Note: Now, 2% fewer calories may not seem like much, but let’s do the math: for the sake of simplicity, if you need 2,000 cal/day to function, by just not drinking enough water, you’ll burn 40 calories less each day, 1,200 calories less each month, and 14,400 calories per year, which amount to 4 pounds of flubber (divide by 3,500 cal/lb.). All that by simply not drinking enough 0 calorie water!

3). A Weird Eating Schedule: In a 2012 Hebrew University study, in animal studies groups fed high fat foods sporadically gained more weight than mice that ate a similar diet on a regular schedule. Researchers suspect that eating at the same times every day trains the body to burn more calories between meals. Certainly what we eat has an enormous impact on our health and weight status. But did you know that when and how we eat also make a huge difference? Eating at the appropriate times throughout the day will help to maximize fat burning and keep hunger at bay.

Soultions:

   Aim to eat every 3 to 4 hours. Timing your meals will improve your fat loss by preventing excess insulin, allowing leptin to work its magic on appetite control and metabolism, and by balancing the stress hormone cortisol. Try to schedule your meals at the same time every day.
  
   Eat within 1 hour of rising. Your mom was also right when she told you breakfast was the most important meal of the day. When you skip breakfast, you lose its stimulating benefits on your metabolic rate. You also become more likely to eat unbalanced meals, more calories, and larger amounts of saturated fat throughout the day. Plenty of research shows that those of us who skip breakfast are heavier. Missing out on a healthy morning meal also increases your stress hormones.

   Start the day with protein. For better appetite control throughout the day, try combining your starchy carbs at lunch, dinner, or after your workouts rather than at breakfast. Stick to eggs or whey protein smoothies for breakfast and you'll eat less throughout the day.
   
   Don’t eat within 3 hours of bedtime. Eating too close to bedtime raises your body temperature, increases blood sugar and insulin, prevents the release of melatonin, and cuts down on growth hormone release. All these factors interfere with the quality of your sleep and the natural fat-burning benefits of a good night’s rest. Furthermore, sleep deprivation leads to more cravings and a greater likelihood of overeating the next day. If you must eat before bed, opt for something light that's high in protein and low in carbohydrates and fat. 
  
   Always eat within 45 minutes of finishing your workout. This meal or snack is the only one of the day that should not contain much fat and should be higher in carbohydrates. For example, have a smoothie made with juice, fruit, and protein powder, but no flaxseeds or oil.

     Never do your weight training on an empty stomach. You need energy from your foods to perform optimally. You may, however, complete your cardio before eating if your session will be less than 30 minutes.

     Eat protein first. Eat the protein on your plate first to help speed the signal to your brain that you are full.

3). Skimping on Sleep: A 2012 study found that people who sleep less move less the next day, which means they burn fewer calories. But it gets worse: Sleep deprivation actually reduces the amount of energy your body uses at rest, according to the German and Swedish researchers.

4). Eating Too Little: When you skimp on calories, your body slows your metabolic rate to conserve on fuel. There's no getting around this fundamental truth: You can't have weight-loss success unless your calories burned are more than your calories in. Leslie Bonci, M.P.H., R.D., a sports nutritionist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, recommends the following formulas for figuring out how many calories your nutrition plan should include. Use them to get a basic idea of how many calories you should be eating for both active and inactive days.

Marlene's Note: The following calculations should be considered "quick and dirty" type references, and not taken "written in stone"!

Lazy-Day Calorie Goal: Use this on days when you're taking it easy/not exercising:

A. Your weight, in pounds: ____

B. Ans. To A x 15 = _____

C. Ans. To B - 500 = _____

Active-Day Calorie Goal: Use on days when you're active/exercising:

A. Your weight, in pounds: ____

B. Ans. To A x 18 = ____

C. Ans. To B - 500 = ____

Aim for these numbers and you'll set yourself up to lose 1 pound per week, a weight-loss rate that's healthy and easier to maintain.

5). Sitting Too Long: It takes only 20 minutes in any fixed position to inhibit your metabolism, according to Carrie Schmitz, an ergonomic research manager for Ergotron. Develop a game plan to get up from your work station more frequently and move around. You can walk, or even develop a little body weight exercise routine to do to augment your fitness program.

6). Not Getting Enough Calcium: Another reason to drink your milk: Calcium plays a key role in regulating your fat metabolism, which determines whether you burn calories or store them as fat. A diet that's high in calcium could help you burn more fat, according to research conducted at the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

It must wait...

This is something you need to watch from start to finish, and then ask yourself is texting and things like this worth it when so much is on the line, and a split second can make a world of difference. It's a film by Werner Herzog that shows what can happen when you become distracted for even a few seconds.

One Second to the Next

Spread this around. It's the one thing you can do to help.

Volcanos of Mexico

Looking at this, I can hardly believe I once climbed this mountain. It's one of two peaks that I reached the summit on during my trip to Mexico. It's also a fair bet that nobody will have a chance to do it again in my life time.

Popocateptl - erupting in 2013

This is the other one I climbed. Higher by 1000 ft.

Pico de Orizaba

Both were exciting and challenging, and a highlight of my adventures.

It's one thing in my life that I am pleased to have accomplished.

Seoul, Korea Trip 2013

We just returned from a trip to Seoul, Korea and I thought I would share a few observations.
For those of you who know me, you know I have a deep connection, but every trip serves to offer a few more insights, as well as reinforce old ones. And you need to know as you read through this, I really do love the place. It is a city of contrasts and life, and offers just about anything you are looking for, and maybe some things you weren't.

The cost of living has hit here like everywhere else. The cost of food, whether buying at a grocery store or eating out is more expensive, forcing people to make wiser choices. That doesn't stop the people from buying something, it just means that they have to compensate. When they want something more on one side, they give up something on the other.
Housing is almost prohibitively expensive, and their system of jeonse would freak out the average American. It would make coming here to live pretty difficult. Most of us don't have that sort of money ($500,000 plus) on hand. If you want a reasonable place to live, that's what its going to cost.

The food is one reason I love coming to Korea. I have accumulated a number of places and dishes that you can't get anywhere else. I have tried to find places in Arizona that are similar in some way, but nothing even comes close to measuring up (except maybe our house). So when I get the chance to come to Korea, I make sure I get all of my favorite spots at least once during my stay, while on the lookout to add to my list with another great place. The food is basically healthy and low in the bad stuff. Of course you can get your Big Mac, Whopper, KFC, Krispy Kreme, Papa Johns, etc., if you want, but with all the choices of great Korean style cuisine, why would you want to? I find that I don't even give these places a second look.

Driving here is only for the brave or mildly insane. Koreans give new meaning the the phrases "every man for himself" and "go for it." It seems to be a perpetual game of chicken, and I found myself wondering, why do they even bother painting lines on the road (and for that matter, traffic lights about half the time), because nobody pays them any attention. I've seen city busses run red lights. If there is nearly a car length between you and the car in front of you (and often even if there isn't), you can be sure someone will try to insert their car in it. They can be the best and the worst  drivers I have ever seen, and all at the same time. And what we might call a California stop is time wasted waiting in one spot. I'm truly amazed there aren't more car accidents. It's a good thing guns aren't allowed in Korea, but horns are used with enthusiasm.

There are about a zillion motorcycles there of varying sizes, primarily used for transporting goods and food. From what I observed, there is no place where they won't drive, including the wrong direction down a busy street, sidewalks, and threading the needle between cars. It's more like two-wheeled anarchy, and they use their horns freely to tell YOU (the pedestrian) to get out of the way. Although there are traffic laws for motorcycles, I've never witnessed a cop citing one for anything.

Their use of technology and connectivity is far beyond the USA. They find it hard to believe that people in America still use any sort of dial-up, or low speed service. Our average internet speed is slow compared to theirs, and actually more expensive to boot.

Nearly everyone in Seoul has some sort of smart phone and it seems like they (especially kids and young adults) are connected almost continuously. To me this can be rather annoying, since they hardly look up to see where they are going when walking down the street. I observed a lot of young people only have one free hand, because their smart phone is usually in the other.
In one case, I was riding the bus (actually standing, because the bus was a little crowded), and an elderly lady got on. A young guy purposely stared into his phone, trying to look too busy to notice the lady could have been given his seat... so she stood next to him while he played with his smart phone. I guess manners and reverence for age in not as universal in Korea as is led to believe, or times for stuff like this has changed. If it was my seat to give, I would unquestionably got up and offered it to her. As I have seen in the USA, Korea is no different. It's "all about me", and I was here first, so manners and respect are dying out all over. Maybe I was just brought up in a different time and place.

I am definitely a guy who appreciates the female form. I'm not outwardly overt about it, but I do enjoy the view as much as the next guy, and just keep it to myself. The woman in Korea set the bar high, as attractiveness and sophistication is measured (just my personal opinion, I assure you, but based on many, many years of observational experience). You see no overly amply exposed muffin-tops, although I'm sure there might be an exception out there somewhere. The women there appear to be more conservative, and quite conscious of their outward appearance, taking to time to look good, if even going to the corner bakery for a loaf of bread. There are no Walmart people types to witness in Korea (although I'm sure they probably exist), but in the time I was there, I never saw anything close. There maybe one in 20 that they would consider overweight here, but by our standards, they are still reasonably proportioned. I think times are changing slowly though. With the introduction of KFC, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, etc, etc, the overall Americanized diet is creeping into the Korean diets, so it's just a matter of time before we begin to see its effects, but for now it's a girl watching Shangri-la, and life is good.

If you appreciate a great pair of legs, there is no place better. I would venture to say that after a few days, you might be a leg-man convert in short order. Fashion styles have changed over the years, but short skirts always seem to be in style there (and getting shorter, if that's possible), making the supply of shapely legs an ever present display. Is it any wonder I love to get out and walk around. It's a miracle my head doesn't spin completely around sometimes. There are some who see issues. Check out this report from March 2013.
I am just a guy after all. When I stop looking, you might as well fill in the hole, because I have probably died.

Koreans are quite brand conscious, and the more famous the brand, the more exposure it seems to get. Actors and actresses, and models from America are in many of their advertisements, promoting cars, clothing, alcohol, what-have-you. Places like the Hyundai and the Shinsegae Department stores are something wild to behold. Nothing we have (that I have seen) measures up. Of course out of 11 floors in the Hyundai Department store, six of them are fully dedicated to women's fashions and three of them are for groceries and restaurants. Guys, kids, and the rest of the stuff they sell get the rest of the floors. I guess we know now why women there look so good.

I continued to work out while we were there, and would jog several miles in the early mornings. We were staying next to a fairly upscale part of town, and I would always get a chuckle (and I felt a little strange) as this older guy dressed in sweats, would jog through this section of the city, passing shops you might find in Beverly Hills, including a Rolls Royce dealership. Stranger in a strange land to be sure.

I guess that about sums up my latest visit. The family time there was the best, and getting to know the new generation of the family is always fun. Being the only non-Korean on that side of the family has its downside to be sure, because I tend to get left out of some conversations. However, the rewards of the little smiles and playtime with them, and visits with good friends makes it all worth the effort, and I look forward to the next opportunity to travel that way.

Cheers!  :o)

Billion? trillion? The wonder of incomprehensible sums

Do the big numbers our government spend bother you? They should. In 2005, there were 1607 government funded programs, costing us nearly $2 trillion, but don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself here. The list is staggering enough. but look over the names of some of them. I have no idea what their purpose is, or how they manage to still get funding every year... and you are paying for it. 

Getting your mind around such big numbers is tough at best, but maybe the following article will help.

A commentary by Tom Purcell

I remember when a billion used to be a number so big nobody could comprehend it, though it is still a massive number.

According to Snopes.com, 1 billion seconds equals 31.7 years. A billion seconds have elapsed since 1981.

One billion minutes is equal to 1,901 years — which would take us back, almost, to the time Jesus Christ roamed the Earth.

One billion hours is equal to 114,000 years — which would take us back to the Stone Age.

In more recent times, our inability to comprehend the sheer magnitude of 1 billion has been eclipsed by our inability to comprehend 1 trillion.

One trillion is equal to one thousand billion.

Our federal deficit has been averaging nearly $1 trillion since the collapse of 2008 — causing us to rack up more than $5 trillion in new debt.

In order to cover our nearly $4 trillion annual budget, the U.S. Treasury spends about $1 billion every two hours — accumulating $1 billion in new debt about every eight hours.

ABC’s Jake Tapper tried to simplify these incomprehensible numbers. He compared America’s finances to a typical American’s finances. By removing eight zeros from America’s $3.8 trillion budget, he came up with a sum of $38,000.

Now if you are a retiree, you are probably getting by OK if you are able to spend $38,000 a year — unless your finances are as messed up as America’s.

Though you are spending $38,000 annually, your income is only $29,000 — you are growing your debt by $9,000 every year.

What’s worse is that you already owe nearly $170,000 to creditors. Paying off that amount of debt with $38,000 in income would be hard under any circumstances.

But of course your income is $29,000, not $38,000, so you must borrow about $175 a week to keep up with your expenses.

In other words, the U.S. government is growing our debt by $175 billion a week, which is producing around $1 trillion in new debt every year.

Still not comprehending how much $1 trillion is? Then you’ll like this description by Bill Bryson, one of my favorite authors, from his book “Notes from a Big Country.”

Bryson asks his readers to guess how long it would take to initial and count 1 trillion dollar bills if you worked without stopping.

“If you initialed one dollar bill a second,” writes Bryson, “you would make $1,000 every 17 minutes. After 12 days of non-stop effort you would acquire your first million. Thus, it would take you 120 days to accumulate $10 million, and 1,200 days — something over three years — to reach $100 million. After 31.7 years you would become a billionaire. But not until 31,709.8 years elapsed would you count your trillionth dollar bill.”

We all understand that very large numbers are OK so long as they add up. So long as we have trillions of dollars coming in to the government to balance out the trillions of dollars we have going out, we should be OK.

But that is the frightening part. We are not even close to covering our spending. Our economy has not recovered enough to generate the growth and tax revenue we need to pay our bills.

Piling on new entitlement programs and lots of new regulations, rules and mandates certainly isn’t helping the recovery.

And so we limp along racking up debt and our leaders are doing little to address this incredible challenge. In fact, we have racked up more than $11 trillion in new debt since George W. Bush assumed office in 2002. We are the proud owners of nearly $17 trillion in debt, a startlingly incomprehensible sum.

Yet too few people worry about it. Who can blame them? After all, $17 trillion is only 17,000 billion dollars.

Tom Purcell, a freelance writer, is also a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Top 5 Reasons to Eat Chocolate Every Day

This post comes from a good friend of mine, Marlene Harris. I post things of hers and welcome her informative inputs on things fitness and health.
Not that we need another reason, but what she passes on is not just tasty news, there is science behind it, and I love science.


From the dept. of “nutritional news we love to read” comes this tasty morsel from INH Health Watch.

It really was one of the best discoveries of modern science when researchers discovered dark chocolate is healthy. While not exactly a vegetable, chocolate is plant-based. It’s full of health-enhancing flavonoids, antioxidants, and polyphenols. You shouldn’t overload on it but you’ll benefit from eating a moderate amount. And by “moderate amount” we mean about an ounce a day of plain, dark chocolate, the darker the better, but at least 70% cocoa. Not white or milk chocolate, that stuff doesn’t bear any resemblance to healthy dark chocolate.

Yes, it’s delicious and healthy, but in addition, dark chocolate can actually improve the quality of your life. Here are 5 reasons why…

1)      It’s brain food – You know that healthy fats are good for your brain… But can chocolate really help keep your mind sharp? The answer is yes! According to one study, people who had two servings of hot cocoa every day for thirty days were able to complete timed cognitive testing 30 percent faster than the non-cocoa drinkers.(1) Patients with restricted blood flow to the brain at the beginning of the study saw an 8% improvement in blood flow at the end of the study.(2) Eat more chocolate if you want to make the honor roll.

2)      It helps prevents sunburns – Eating chocolate can actually keep you out in the sun longer. Eating chocolate rich in flavanols protects the skin from harmful UV rays.(3) The less processed the chocolate, the more flavanols it will contain. Of course, this isn’t an excuse to bake out in the sun (or to eat a pound of dark chocolate).

3)      It helps prevent heart disease – Are you at risk for heart disease? A study out of Scotland finds that out of nearly 5,000 participants, those who ate chocolate more than 5 times a week lowered their risk for heart disease by 42 percent.(4)Again, this doesn’t mean you should load up on candy bars… But it does mean that you should make friends with quality dark chocolate for your heart’s sake!

4)      It helps lower inflammation – Inflammation can lead to some nasty problems in the body. These can include high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. An Italian study shows that people who ate a serving of dark chocolate every three days had an average of 27 percent lower C-reactive protein levels in their blood than those who never ate it.(5) C-reactive protein in the blood is a marker for inflammation, so the lower you can keep it, the better.

5)      It helps lower stress – Here’s a benefit that everyone can enjoy. Researchers in Switzerland found that eating 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate per day for two weeks can reduce cortisol levels. (6) Cortisol, known as the stress hormone, can mess with healthy hormone function. It also increases inflammation and can raise blood pressure. So next time you throw your feet up to relax, bring some dark chocolate with you. You’ll get double the cortisol-lowering benefit.

These are some impressive benefits to eating dark chocolate. To reap the rewards, remember to go for a small quantity, just an once or so, and  eat chocolate that’s at least 70% cocoa and preferably organic. Once you get used to eating 70% cocoa, try moving up to 80 and higher. The higher the cocoa content, the more the benefit you get.

Free Tilly

The following is a reprint from the Wednesday, September 11, 2013 edition of eSkeptic Magazine. Donald R. Prothero reviews Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s film Blackfish (Magnolia Pictures, 2013), about Tilikum — a killer whale in captivity at SeaWorld responsible for the deaths of several people.

Watch the movie trailer here.

Free Tilly

By Donald R. Prothero

Every year, millions of people visit marine theme parks, especially those run by the giant SeaWorld Corporation, including three in the U.S. in San Diego, San Antonio, and Orlando. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars not only in admissions and rides, but also food, merchandise, parking and many other expenses. My own family used to have an annual pass to SeaWorld San Diego, because we visited so frequently. The centerpiece of each visit was the killer whale (or orca) show, where “Shamu” (a role played by many different whales) goes through its tricks, splashes the audience, and astonishes us with its apparent “tameness” despite their scary size. But after watching Blackfish, I can no longer stand to go there. I cannot imagine watching the killer whale show ever again.

Blackfish is a gripping documentary film that follows a series of recent events concerning the abuse of orcas in captivity, especially as they have long been used in shows. First released at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013, since July it has gone into wider release in large cities with movie houses that specialize in indie, foreign, and documentary films. It has received universal rave reviews, and rated a 98% “Fresh” ranking on the RottenTomatoes.com movie site. Unlike some exposés, this movie (“blackfish” is the name that First Nations people gave to orcas) obtained an incredible amount of information and access, and interviews nearly all the people close to the story (including a number of former SeaWorld trainers who quit when they could no longer live with themselves). Through the details provided by these many trainers and other witnesses, the film shows in gut-wrenching and painful detail how inhumane it is to keep a huge marine predator that is adapted to large complex social groups, and capable of swimming in packs hundreds of miles each day, and confining them for decades among other hostile whales in something that feels like a bathtub.

The movie begins with a teaser about the tragic death of senior SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau on February 24, 2010, when she was performing with a 12,000-pound, 23-foot-long bull orca named Tilikum (“Tilly” to the trainers). It then jumps back in time to 1983, interviewing the man who captured Tilikum by tearing him away from his mother as a young calf in Iceland, killing many other whales in the pod, and covering up the crime. The film then traces Tilikum’s history: first, in a poorly run facility called SeaLand in Victoria, B.C. where he was brutalized by the older whales, confined to a very small pool, and eventually killed a trainer. When that incident caused SeaLand to close in 1992, Tilikum was sold to SeaWorld, where he became the star of the Orlando park. None of the staff knew of Tilikum’s traumatized past or his previous killing, and he became a regular in more and more shows as trainers took greater and greater risks. Yet the film documents many close calls where trainers nearly died, but the incidents were all covered up. In 1999, Tilikum killed a man who had hid after park closing, and apparently tried to get too close to the whale during the night (he was allegedly not detected, even though they have security cameras everywhere). His body was found naked and maimed, floating atop Tilikum, the next morning.

Still from the documentary Blackfish

Interspersed with the story of Tilikum are interesting interviews with marine biologists about orcas in the wild, describing their incredibly complex social structure, with a wide range of vocalizations that can be rightfully called “different languages.” Again and again, the movie demonstrates not only how intelligent these creatures are, but also how they are tightly bonded to their family units in the pod. The offspring never leave their mothers for their entire lives—unless death or a marine park separates them. Although SeaWorld is the primary focus of the story, the film takes a brief tour to another similar park in the Canary Islands west of Spain, where a marine park abused its animals, and eventually an orca killed a trainer. The film then concludes with the details of the death of Dawn Brancheau, and shows that Tilikum without provocation suddenly dragged her to her death, and then ate her. (You see a lot of gut-wrenching footage, but no actual killings or maimings).

This incident led to an OSHA investigation, with SeaWorld trying to escape liability by blaming it on “trainer error”, even though the video footage of the incident, the eyewitnesses, and the trainers who knew her, clearly demonstrate that she did nothing wrong. OSHA ruled against SeaWorld, and concluded that orcas were too dangerous to be handled this way. SeaWorld employees now must keep barriers between themselves and the whales at all times, and no longer enter the water with them. But there is a much larger issue here. At one time, we thought of orcas as frightening, terrible “killer whales” and they were the subject of numerous low-budget exploitation films. Now we understand that they are as intelligent, or more intelligent, than any other wild animal, with complex social behaviors and tight mother-offspring bonds—yet we treat them as “dumb fish” to be cooped up in tiny pools, and moved around from park to park, disrupting their family bonds that are seldom broken in the wild.

Clearly, it makes no sense to put humans in harm’s way, because these creatures are always “wild animals” that could turn on you and kill you in a few seconds. (Just ask Siegfried and Roy). But the film makes it clear that keeping them in these inhumane conditions is incredibly cruel and traumatic for them, and there is no real justification for it. They are not threatened in the wild, so (unlike some endangered animals in zoos) the marine parks are not protecting them from extinction. Nor does the “educational value” of letting a few people see them close-up justify the inhumanity of their confinement for decades. Some would argue that SeaWorld could build them bigger pools to swim in, although this is ludicrous when you realize they swim hundreds of miles a day in the wild. And what has SeaWorld been building instead? Roller coasters!

So why does SeaWorld do it, and why did they try to blame the victim whenever tragedy occurs? As you might expect, it’s all about money. Not only are the orca shows the biggest draws in SeaWorld (generating revenue not only with their shows, but especially with all the merchandise), but Tilikum in particular is valuable as a stud. His sperm is worth thousands of dollars, and consequently he is the father of a large number of the whales currently in the collections. (We even get to see how they stimulate the semen out of a bull orca in graphic detail). Clearly, SeaWorld views the orca show as critical to their entire business model. No wonder they refused to cooperate with the filmmakers. When they did respond to the film shortly before its release, their PR statement mostly misrepresented what the film actually says, or repeated the false claim that Dawn Brancheau was to blame for having a ponytail that the whale could grab (clearly debunked by the actual video footage). Corporations clearly want to protect themselves, but you emerge from the film disgusted with SeaWorld’s well-documented pattern of covering up dozens of dangerous incidents and close calls, and trying to play down or cover up the deaths that Tilikum alone caused—or blame the victim after she is dead and cannot defend herself.

The ancient Romans enjoyed brutality, watching gladiators fight to death in their arenas, and lions eat Christians. Animals of every kind were forced to fight and kill each other—all for entertainment. A few centuries ago, bear baiting was considered fun and acceptable as a sport. Bull fighting, dog fighting, and cock fighting are still found around the world, although they are illegal in most of the developed countries. We look on these practices and cannot imagine how people could derive enjoyment out of such horrendous treatment of animals. Perhaps some day soon, we’ll look back and have the same attitude toward depriving and torturing orcas, and keeping them in prison for our own enjoyment as well. After all, most research on chimps is over or nearly phased out. Sometimes we do make progress.

Levels of Nothing

The following is a reprint from the Wednesday, August 28, 2013 edition of eSkeptic Magazine. The subject of Nothing is something that is actually hard to get your mind around. As simple as the concept is, the more you think about it, the less you realize you really know. This article attempts to quantify it in some small way. However, if this article doesn't cause your brain to cave in, read it again. I think you missed something. But if it's any consolation, Steven Hawking's 'Brief History of Time' did the same thing to me.

Levels of Nothing

There Are Multiple Answers to the Question


of Why the Universe Exists

BY ROBERT LAWRENCE KUHN

Nothing, of late, is something of a scandal. Physicists and philosophers debate the efficacy of quantum physics, and the value of philosophical analysis, to explain why there is Something rather than Nothing.¹ In Skeptic magazine Vol. 13 No. 2 (2007), I confronted my life-long obsession with Nothing. Entitled “Why This Universe: Toward a Taxonomy of Ultimate Explanations,” the article described my existential angst and offered some 27 possible “ultimate explanations.” I suggested that while “Why Not Nothing?” may seem impenetrable, “Why This Universe?”, energized by remarkable advances in cosmology, may be accessible. While they are not at all the same question, perhaps if we can begin to decipher the latter, we can begin to decrypt the former.

After the article was published, Skeptic editor Michael Shermer encouraged me to expand the article into a book. I approached the philosopher John Leslie, who for decades had focused on Something/ Nothing and whom I had come to know through our discussions on Closer To Truth, the PBS television series that I created and host, and we set about to co-edit a book of readings and commentaries on the ultimate question.

The Mystery of Existence: Why is there Anything At All? (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), long in gestation, presents the ideas of contemporary thinkers as well as some others throughout intellectual history, grouped under five possible “solutions” to the “Why-is-there- Something-rather-than-Nothing?” puzzle:

1. a blank is absurd;

2. no explanation needed;

3. chance;

4. value/perfection as ultimate; and

5. mind/consciousness as ultimate.

In this article I shall explore the essence of Nothing, or what I call “Levels of Nothing,” especially in light of recent debates and public interest.² Why “Levels” of Nothing? That’s where the confusion lies.

What is it About Nothing?

Lump together everything that exists and might exist—physical, mental, platonic, spiritual, God, other nonphysicals. As for the physical, include all matter, energy, space and time, and all the laws and principles that govern them (known and unknown); as for the mental, imagine all kinds of consciousness and awareness (known and unknown); as for the platonic, gather all forms of abstract objects (numbers, logic, forms, propositions, possibilities— known and unknown); as for the spiritual and God, embrace anything that could possibly fit these nonphysical categories (if anything does); and as for “other nonphysicals,” well, I just want to be sure not to leave anything unclassified. Lump together literally everything contained in ultimate reality. Now call it all by the simple name “Something.” Why is there “Something” rather than “Nothing”?

Why Not Nothing? What guides me here is gut feeling, not clever reasoning, which is why no argument has ever dissuaded me from continuing to think, following Leibniz,³ that Nothing, no world, would be simpler and easier than any world, that Nothing would have been the least arbitrary and “most natural” state of affairs.

As I have continued to think about Nothing, I have continued to think that Nothing “should,” in some sense, have obtained, and the only reason I accept the fact that Nothing does not obtain is not because of any of the arguments against Nothing,⁴ but because of the raw existence of Something—because in my private consciousness I am forced to recognize that real existents compose Something. In other words, an a priori weighing of Nothing v. Something (from a timeless, explanatorily earlier perspective) would, for me, tip the balance heavily to Nothing, but for the fact of the matter.

Thus, since I have no choice but to recognize that there is Something, I have no choice but to conclude that there is foundational force, selector, productive principle or type of necessity—some deep reason—that brings about the absence of Nothing. I cannot rid myself of the conviction that Nothing would have obtained had not something special somehow superseded or counteracted it. Yes, I know that seems circular—and many well-regarded philosophers say, “So there’s a world not a blank; what’s in any way surprising about that?” But I just can’t help feeling that they are passing right over the problem most probative of ultimate reality.

Levels of Nothing

Defining “Nothing” may seem simple—no thing, not a thing. But what’s a “thing”? I invoke the term “thing” in the most general possible way, and therefore, given some possible notions of Nothing, it is no contradiction to find “things” that compose these different kinds or levels of Nothing. Teasing apart these constituent things, as if scaffolds or sinews of Nothings, may help enrich understanding of the nature of Nothing, yielding a taxonomy that arrays opposing kinds of Nothing that could be conceived and might have existed.

This taxonomy is structured as a deconstruction or as a dissection, as it were, a reverse layering, a peeling, a progressive reduction of the content of each Nothing in a hierarchy of Nothings. As such, this taxonomy takes its heritage from the so-called Subtraction Argument, which seeks to show that the absence of all concrete objects would be metaphysically possible. (Stated simply, the Subtraction Argument works by imagining a sequence of possible worlds each containing one less concrete object than the world before, so that in the very last world even the very last object has vanished. It is no surprise that complexities emerge.⁵)

Developing this way of thinking, there might be nine levels of Nothing, with a general progression from Nothing most simplistic (Nothing One) to Nothing most absolute (Nothing Nine). There are criticisms of each of these Nothings. My point here is not so much to argue the legitimacy of any one kind of Nothing but rather to construct an exhaustive taxonomy of all potential or competing Nothings, and perhaps a taxonomy in which those Nothings are mutually exclusive. Following are nine levels of Nothings.

1. Nothing as existing space and time that just happens to be totally empty of all visible objects (particles and energy are permitted)—an utterly simplistic, pre-scientific view.

2. Nothing as existing space and time that just happens to be totally empty of all matter (no particles, but energy is permitted—flouting the law of mass-energy equivalence).

3. Nothing as existing space and time that just happens to be totally empty of all matter and energy.

4. Nothing as existing space and time that is by necessity— irremediably and permanently in all directions, temporal as well as spatial—totally empty of all matter and energy.

5. Nothing of the kind found in some theoretical formulations by physicists, where, although space-time (unified) as well as mass-energy (unified) do not exist, pre-existing laws, particularly laws of quantum mechanics, do exist. And it is these laws that make it the case that universes can and do, from time to time, pop into existence from “Nothing,” creating spacetime as well as mass-energy. (It is standard physics to assume that empty space must seethe with virtual particles, reflecting the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, where particle-antiparticle pairs come into being and then, almost always, in a fleetingly brief moment, annihilate each other.)

6. Nothing where not only is there no space-time and no mass-energy, but also there are no preexisting laws of physics that could generate space-time or mass-energy (universes).

7. Nothing where not only is there no space-time, no mass-energy, and no pre-existing laws of physics, but also there are no non-physical things or kinds that are concrete (rather than abstract)—no God, no gods, and no consciousness (cosmic or otherwise). This means that there are no physical or non-physical beings or existents of any kind—nothing, whether natural or supernatural, that is concrete (rather than abstract).

8. Nothing where not only is there none of the above (so that, as in Nothing 7, there are no concrete existing things, physical or non-physical), but also there are no abstract objects of any kind—no numbers, no sets, no logic, no general propositions, no universals, no Platonic forms (e.g., no value).

9. Nothing where not only is there none of the above (so that, as in Nothing 8, there are no abstract objects), but also there are nopossibilities of any kind (recognizing that possibilities and abstract objects overlap, though allowing that they can be distinguished).

Nothings 1 through 7 progressively remove or eliminate existing things, so that a reasonable stopping point—a point at which we might well be thought to have reached (what I hesitatingly call) “Real Nothing”, the metaphysical limit—would be Nothing Seven, which features no concrete existing things (no physical or non-physical concrete existents) of any kind.

Nothings 8 and 9 go further, eliminating nonconcrete objects, things, existents and realities. Do they go too far? Many philosophers assert that neither Nothing 8 nor Nothing 9 is metaphysically possible, arguing that the claimed absence of abstract objects and/or possibilities would constitute a logical contradiction and hence abstract objects and/or possibilities exist necessarily. This could be important because, as John Leslie points out, among the realities which aren’t concrete things, or which do not depend on the existence of concrete things, and thus cannot be eliminated, there may be some realities that are plausible candidates for explaining the world of concrete things.⁷ In this way of thinking, the crucial distinction is between realities that seemingly can be eliminated and realities that seemingly cannot be eliminated, rather than any particular way of distinguishing between levels of nothingness or particular ways of defining nothingness.

Note that among all these levels of Nothing, one of the “lesser Nothings”—that is, a kind of Nothing with more “things” in it—is the Nothing of physicists. What physicists contemplate—the sudden emergence or “tunneling” of universes from “Nothing”—is fascinating and indeed may be cosmogenic, but the tunneling process or capacity is not Nothing.⁸ The Nothing of physicists is thick with the complete set of the laws of physics, and so between physicists’ Nothing and Real Nothing lies a vast, unbridgeable gulf. On this taxonomic scale, physicists’ Nothing is Nothing Level 5, barely half way to utterly Nothing. If physicists’ Nothing were in reality Real Nothing (i.e., ultimate reality), the laws of quantum physics (or whatever might turn out to be the most fundamental physical laws underlying quantum physics) would have to be either impossible to remove (meaning that eliminating them would involve logical contradiction) or a brute fact about existence beyond which explanation would be meaningless. I doubt I could ever get over the odd idea that something so intricate, so involved, so organized and so accessible as the laws of physics would be the ultimate brute fact.

As a separate consideration, some philosophers of religion argue that God is a “necessity”—meaning that it would be impossible for God not to exist— thus precluding Nothing 7 (which has no non-physical concrete things such as God but still has abstract objects) and crowning Nothing 6 (which has no space-time, no mass-energy, no laws of physics but still has God and other nonphysical things) as the metaphysical limit of what is to be explained.⁹ I find the move challenging. Moreover, based on the levels of Nothing in this taxonomy, it would seem less of a leap to imagine a world without God (Nothing 7) than to imagine a world without abstract objects (Nothing 8). For the traditional God, that won’t do.¹⁰

Why Not Nothing?

Cosmic visions are overwhelming, but I am sometimes preoccupied with another conundrum. How is it that we humans have such farsighted understanding after only a few thousand years of historical consciousness, only a few hundred years of effective science, and only a few decades of cosmological observations? Maybe it’s still too early in the game. Maybe answers have been with us all along. This is a work in process and diverse contributions are needed.

Setting aside my taxonomy and consulting my gut, I come to only two kinds of answers. The first is that there can be no answer: Existence is a brute fact without explanation. The second is that at the primordial beginning, explanatorily and timelessly prior to time, some thing was self-existing. The essence of this something necessitated its existence such that non-existence to it would be as inherently impossible as physical immortality to us is factually impossible.

Various things or substances could conceivably contain this deeply centered self-existing essence, from the most fundamental meta-laws of physics to diverse kinds of consciousness, one of which could be God or something like god. Perhaps even these explanations are so mundane and bedrock is so bizarre that abstract objects or pure possibilities somehow harbor generative powers.

Why is there Something rather than Nothing? Why Not Nothing? If you don’t get dizzy, you really don’t get it.

The best news I've heard all year

I always knew this, but maybe it's just my taste buds talking. Check it out.

Who's got the monkey?

This little gem comes from the Harvard Business Review from 1999, but the original actually dates back to about 1974. 

It's a time management tool about the burden of subordinates to their managers, but the concepts can work both ways, and even when working with associates in other organizations or business groups.  The application is simple, and if you find yourself stressing out from things out of your control, then give this a look. It may give some hints in how to deal with your situations.

I was given this many years ago, but I am glad to find it still out there and just as appropriate now as it was then. We still find ourselves asking Who's Got The Monkey?

My heavy problem

I've been wanting to trim my weight for a while now, but despite my (what I thought were) good efforts, I just haven't been able to crack through the barrier and really start losing,

I started Nutrasystem plan a little over two weeks ago, in hopes of reducing my weight (aka gut, etc). My gut isn't especially large, but I have had it for about 6 to 7 years, and knowing it's not a healthy sign in looks, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. I decided to try Nutrasystem as an alternative to what I have been doing.

In the first two weeks I have been on the program, I have stayed the course faithfully, and only added to it as necessary to eliminate the energy crash I was experiencing after my workouts. My daily average intake after the adjustment is on average about 1500 calories.

Well, two weeks on, I have basically remained at the same weight for the entire time. My weight can fluctuate as much as 3 lbs. during any particular time, so plus or minus the pound I lost and then gained back, was hardly noteworthy.

I had a previous tendonitous problem for about six months, so I decreased my workouts during that time. However, during that period I did not gain or lose any more than the percentage I have always experienced. In other words, I stayed the virtually the same. Before I got on the Nutrasystem plan, I got back into my workout routine, which is a combination or cardio and weight training, that works best for me. Each run anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes, depending on the what that day's schedule demands. I workout nearly every day, but each day has a different schedule.

Since I have been on the NS plan, and after I adjusted my intake to account for my energy crash problem (and the tendonitis being gone), I have increased the intensity of my workouts, which now exceed the length and intensity of what I was doing before I had my tendonitis problem.

Like I said, I have weighed almost exactly the same for about seven years. My wife and I already have a good diet, so there actually isn't much difference in calorie count from before I got on the system. I was taking in possibly 500 to 600 calories a day more, but it is all basically good stuff. More that a year ago, I stopped drinking sodas, eating french fries, and eliminated any excess sugar, fat, and carbs from my diet. This has resulted in no change whatsoever.

What I do believe is that my other variables are keeping me from losing the mass. I'm beginning to believe that the diet  and exercise variables are basically about right for me, but it's all the other things that are preventing me from making a dent in my quest.

All the time I went through my brain tumor gig and during the following recovery period, I did not gain or lose a pound. As soon as I was able, I started playing racquetball and working out. This had no effect on my mass. I work on a computer for my job, which means I spend about eight hours sitting at a desk. The job has it's stress, so sitting all day with the stress as an added factor, does not help my case. During Spring and Fall months I would walk the nearby industrial park at lunch, but this was more to get out of the office, and had no real effect on my weight.

What I now am coming to believe is that the whole cancer and its associated effects has altered my physiology. That in combination with my age, my sedentary job and its stress, are more of an influence in my inability to alter my appearance than tweaks in my diet and exercise, which are actually doing well. I really don't quite look like I'm the weight I am, but I could look a lot better. Muscle is certainly denser that fat, so this may account for some small amount of this.

My kids tell me that I am in pretty good shape for someone my age, and in fact, my ability to row, bike, and push weight, is in some cases right on par with theirs, maybe better. I'm just a little slower on the court, because of the added mass.

This is a relatively full picture of where I am. Now that two weeks have passed and I have seen zero progress, I can't really say that Nutrasystem has helped, although it seems to do well for others.

I've studied a lot on the subject and tried numerous things over the years, but haven't broken through my personal barrier. I just started doing some other things to get me moving more, and found that I'm not as good as I think I am, or at least as good as I should be.

I'm open to suggestions, but I'm committed to get the excess off. Steady as she goes.

Alien Invaders

The following is a reprint from the Wednesday, July 3, 2013 edition of eSkeptic Magazine. Humans are a paranoid bunch, and Orson Welles showed us just how much that is so. You only have to study history to understand it. If I were an alien, this is the last place I would want to be.

Alien Invaders!

BY DANIEL LOXTON

All living human beings everywhere on Earth belong to the same species, Homo sapiens. Those whose ancestors lived in different parts of the Earth may look or sound different from each other, but in every important way we’re the same. People are people. We all have an incredible amount in common with one another.

Sadly, one of the many things that humans have in common is a potential for violence. We can be peaceful—trading and negotiating and working together—but we can also be fierce. Sometimes one group of people decides to fight another for things that they want, such as resources or territory. Depending on the size of the groups involved, we may call this “piracy” or “banditry,” or we may call it “war.” It’s a sad part of human nature, but it’s not unique to us. Other animals make war between groups, including chimpanzees. They’re very close relatives to humans, so it’s not surprising that chimps share some of our behaviors—cooperative and destructive. (Even animals as distantly related to us as the ants wage war against other nests or invade neighboring territories.)

Because humans can sometimes be dangerous, groups of people often distrust or fear strangers. People may feel that those who look or sound different must really be different, deep down. Sometimes people even come to believe that those that seem different must be bad people. This tendency is called “tribalism”: feeling it is important for those in your own “tribe” to be treated with respect, while outsiders can be treated badly.

Which brings us to an ancient idea that has long terrified humankind: the fear that the place we live could be invaded by cruel strangers from somewhere else. This has happened often in human history, with armies taking over other lands and displacing or oppressing the people who already lived there. Europeans invaded the New World, to the sorrow of many Native Americans. Even the mighty Roman Empire fell to “barbarian” invaders….

Space Age Paranoia

With the development of science, humankind began to realize that ours is just one planet among many. We learned that the twinkling stars in the sky are really mighty suns like ours. At the same time, we learned that our own planet was an almost unrecognizably different place at different periods in the distant past. Prehistoric times were like a series of alien worlds, right here on Earth. (“Alien” means “of an extremely different kind” or “foreign” or “belonging to another place.”)

This new knowledge changed the way we told stories about some of our most ancient fears. To express our anxieties about wars and invasions between countries, writers began to imagine invasions of really “alien” beings from outer space. For example, the 1897 Martian invasion story The War of the Worlds was a clever new twist on stories that imagined military invasions by other countries, which were a very popular type of fiction at that time.

In the 1950s and 60s, UFO legends and science fiction stories were inspired by the Space Age (the period of human exploration of space by astronauts and robotic vehicles) and the Cold War (a long period of military tension and spying between the United States and a then-powerful Communist state called the Soviet Union). Millions worried that a war using unimaginably powerful “atomic” (or later, “nuclear”) bombs could erupt at any moment and devastate the entire globe. Writers and Hollywood filmmakers made good use of these fears of Space Age atomic destruction, producing countless stories about alien invasions. In some, such as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) the aliens arrive as an unstoppable conquering military force. In others, such as Invaders from Mars (1953) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) the aliens invade by stealth, controlling or replacing their human victims—a reflection of American fears about Communist spies. (“They’re already here,” screams the hero of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. “You’re next!”) And in still other movies, the invaders were atomic monsters created or transformed by radiation. Radiation is a dangerous and terrifying side effect of exploding atomic bombs.

Over time, some alien invasion stories came to reflect fears of environmental destruction rather than atomic war. In the television miniseries V (1983) the aliens come to steal the Earth’s water (and also, while they’re at it, to eat all the humans). But whatever their purpose, alien invaders bring ruin—and take whatever they want in return.

Martians Invade the Earth

The grandaddy of alien invasion stories is The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Published first in installments in a British magazine in 1897 and then collected as a book in 1898, War of the Worlds is a science fiction tale about an attack upon the Earth by merciless invaders from Mars. In the story, tube-shaped spacecraft 90 feet wide crash down in the English countryside. Crowds gather to marvel at these “meteorites”—only to learn the truth when the Martians lash out with their devastating “heat ray.”

Towering, tentacled, three-legged war machines emerge and march across the countryside. Britain’s army and navy are no match for these “vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred feet high.” People can only flee before the terrible Martian weapons—not only the “flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat” but also black clouds of poison gas that the aliens launch against the defenders of London.

Realistically told as one survivor’s personal eyewitness account, War of the Worlds is a very scary book. It may be over 100 years old, but it is as much a horror story as it is science fiction—a harsh, gruesome tale of panic and destruction and grim survival. As the San Francisco Chronicle said in an 1898 review,

Nothing in all literature is more instinct with horror and dread than the advance of these Martians across the peaceful English country… The contrast between the pastoral land and the steel-clad visitors who stalked like giants over the landscape, burning and destroying everything in their path, is so powerful that it can never be blotted from the memory.

A lot of the scariness comes from the aliens’ ghastly indifference to human life and suffering. Wells described the Martians as “intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic” who viewed humans the way “a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.” The Martians took no more notice of attempts to communicate or make peace than we would “of the lowing of a cow.” Their calm, methodical purpose was simply to wipe out human civilization as efficiently as possible.

Yet for all their power, the Martians had no natural defenses against Earth’s microscopic bacteria. Without any immunity, Wells wrote, the invaders “must have begun to rot almost as soon as they arrived.” In the end, the Martians’ own bodies were invaded—and destroyed—by alien germs!

Radio Panics

In 1938 a young actor named Orson Welles adapted the already-classic H. G. Wells story as a radio play for American audiences. In an extremely realistic radio broadcast, actors portraying news reporters, military commanders, government officials, and scientists told radio listeners that Martians were attacking the United States—and instructed the population of New Jersey and New York City to evacuate. Although the show was introduced as a play, many thousands of people were bewildered or frightened by the performance. Some were terrified. The New York Times reported that 875 people phoned the newspaper in concern. Thousands more called the police, or even fled to the closest police station. Thankfully, it seems no one was seriously hurt in the confusion. The next day, a visibly shaken Orson Welles told reporters,

It came, of course, as a great shock to us that the old H. G. Wells fantasy, a classic original for so many adventure stories, romances, and even comic strips should have had so profound an effect upon radio listeners. The invasion by mythical monsters from the planet Mars seemed to us to be clearly in the realm of the fairy tale. Deeply regretful that this is not so.

A 1949 Spanish-language version of Orson Welles’ radio play ended in greater sorrow. Broadcast in the capital city of Ecuador, it caused not only widespread panic, but also a savage riot. An enraged mob burned down the newspaper building where the radio station was located, killing as many as 20 people…