In a dramatic break from the Democratic Party, Miguel Lausell has endorsed John McCain.
The move by the Puerto Rican businessman and longtime Democratic activist and fundraiser is a significant departure and a bruise for Senator Obama’s campaign, reminiscent of the erosion Senator Clinton faced in the waning days of her Democratic primary bid.
In a September 18, 2008 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Miguel Lausell said, “I find McCain to be a sound person and a man with a track record. I know where he is coming from.”
Mr. Lausell also added that he believes Senator Obama “doesn’t really regard the Hispanic community as important.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanics comprised 15% of the overall U.S. population in 2006 – or 44 million people. The 2006 composition of Hispanic origin in the United States breaks out as follows:
Mexican 64%
Puerto Rican 9%
Central American 8%
Other Hispanic 8%
South American 6%
Cuban 3%
Dominican 3%
This is a very important community. It is important in terms of size and in terms of their impact on election strategy. Referencing a 2007 study from the Pew Hispanic Center, the Hispanic community represents a key swing vote: “Hispanics constitute a sizeable share of the electorate in four of the six states that President Bush carried by margins of five percentage points or fewer in 2004 – New Mexico (where Hispanics make up 37% of the state’s eligible electorate); Florida (14%); Nevada (12%) and Colorado (12%).”
In a campaign stop in New Mexico, Senator Obama urged Hispanics to get out and vote. “Don’t stay at home,” he told them.
But if Miguel Lausell’s departure is an indication of bigger erosion among Hispanic thought leaders, Senator McCain may be the happier candidate to see the Hispanic community at voting centers across the country.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
On Pigs, Churchill, and Sarah Palin (originally published in Ground Report on September 14, 2008)
I understand that Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, is a pig. I have seen pictures of her – both moving and still – and am not so sure.
This is a line of definition that Illinois Senator Barack Obama has drawn for me and for all of us. It is his mark. He has come to this line and come from it; had it written for him; spoken it himself. I have read it in the newspapers and on the internet, and I have heard it on the radio, and I have seen it on television and on YouTube. So it is.
And it is a dangerous line, drawn in lipstick.
Here’s how it seems to have gone down: Governor Palin, in speaking at the Republican National Convention and in accepting the Republican Vice Presidential nomination, portrayed herself in part as a hockey mom and said, “You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull, lipstick.”
This may be why American football is my sport of choice.
A couple of days later, Senator Obama snickered to a group of supporters and said, “You can put lipstick on a pig…it is still a pig.”
I would have let her be a dolled-up pitbull. I would not have let her become a pig. But I am not running for a government position. So this is somewhat fun for me and for my clan of nihilists.
Newsweek recently featured Governor Palin. In the cover photograph, she rests a thick-barreled firearm on her shoulder, her hair piled casually on the crown of her head, a Fargo-like smile playing on her lips. The issue was called Palintology.
Paleontology is the study of the fossil record and of long-ago life. Because of this branch of science, I am certain that we can find the ancestors of pigs and of pitbulls in certain stone collections. This might make for an important parallel. Then again, paleontology is a celebration of the dead.
I must admit that our common Alaskan pig holds my interest. She could make a fine Vice President. I have mentioned this interest to my wife and to a few friends of the family. They have expressed a variety of concerns. But we’re cool now.
I closed the deal with a quote from Winston Churchill. A long time ago, he said, “Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal.” I am not sure if this is true in the slaughterhouse. Regardless of the truth, I am uncertain that anything is equal.
I have heard that pigs could consume anything. And what is equal to the desire for universal consumption? It is likely best to keep secrets among omnivores. It has been suggested that hungry pigs in a pen offer a good environment for the disposal of a body. They will devour the entire carcass, including teeth and bones.
Ruby Schrecengost, spokesperson for the National Hereford Hog Record Association, told me that a hog could eat nearly anything. “The environmentalists won’t let them. They frown on that now.”
This could be a campaign slogan – or possibly a full-on movement. Let omnivores be omnivores. Well, maybe not all of them. But there should be some degree of choice. Just don’t tell the environmentalists.
But the question of choice itself is a pig, so we likely need to dress it up. I asked Ruby Schrecengost to provide some advice on how one might best dress up a hog. “They have to be washed,” she said. “Some people oil them. They don’t like to be oiled.”
This is a line of definition that Illinois Senator Barack Obama has drawn for me and for all of us. It is his mark. He has come to this line and come from it; had it written for him; spoken it himself. I have read it in the newspapers and on the internet, and I have heard it on the radio, and I have seen it on television and on YouTube. So it is.
And it is a dangerous line, drawn in lipstick.
Here’s how it seems to have gone down: Governor Palin, in speaking at the Republican National Convention and in accepting the Republican Vice Presidential nomination, portrayed herself in part as a hockey mom and said, “You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull, lipstick.”
This may be why American football is my sport of choice.
A couple of days later, Senator Obama snickered to a group of supporters and said, “You can put lipstick on a pig…it is still a pig.”
I would have let her be a dolled-up pitbull. I would not have let her become a pig. But I am not running for a government position. So this is somewhat fun for me and for my clan of nihilists.
Newsweek recently featured Governor Palin. In the cover photograph, she rests a thick-barreled firearm on her shoulder, her hair piled casually on the crown of her head, a Fargo-like smile playing on her lips. The issue was called Palintology.
Paleontology is the study of the fossil record and of long-ago life. Because of this branch of science, I am certain that we can find the ancestors of pigs and of pitbulls in certain stone collections. This might make for an important parallel. Then again, paleontology is a celebration of the dead.
I must admit that our common Alaskan pig holds my interest. She could make a fine Vice President. I have mentioned this interest to my wife and to a few friends of the family. They have expressed a variety of concerns. But we’re cool now.
I closed the deal with a quote from Winston Churchill. A long time ago, he said, “Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal.” I am not sure if this is true in the slaughterhouse. Regardless of the truth, I am uncertain that anything is equal.
I have heard that pigs could consume anything. And what is equal to the desire for universal consumption? It is likely best to keep secrets among omnivores. It has been suggested that hungry pigs in a pen offer a good environment for the disposal of a body. They will devour the entire carcass, including teeth and bones.
Ruby Schrecengost, spokesperson for the National Hereford Hog Record Association, told me that a hog could eat nearly anything. “The environmentalists won’t let them. They frown on that now.”
This could be a campaign slogan – or possibly a full-on movement. Let omnivores be omnivores. Well, maybe not all of them. But there should be some degree of choice. Just don’t tell the environmentalists.
But the question of choice itself is a pig, so we likely need to dress it up. I asked Ruby Schrecengost to provide some advice on how one might best dress up a hog. “They have to be washed,” she said. “Some people oil them. They don’t like to be oiled.”
Listening to the Noise – New View on Stem Cell Differentiation (originally published in Ground Report on May 28, 2008)
It is often comforting to think in linear terms and to believe that the universe operates in those terms; that complex processes are best discerned on a plane or when moving along a line; that the driver you are following will press the gas pedal when the light turns green – the irregularity of traffic patterns disassembling linear forecasting with a disconcerting regularity that questions the very idea of “patterns.” In fact, traffic patterns are infinite outcomes that are set in motion as responses to random changes in the environment.
They are reactions to motions in a moving environment.
A new study on stem cell differentiation, published in the May 22 issue of Nature, explores the influence of environmental interference and the “noise” that interference creates with respect to cell differentiation.
The conventional scientific view on stem cell differentiation holds that cells are instructed to progress along certain predetermined pathways. This linear position has long been dogged by the unknowns of gene expression noise – and biologists have been encountering that noise in laboratories around the world while trying to glean cures from the promises of stem cell research.
According to ScienceDaily, the new study “supports the idea that cells differentiate through the collective behavior of multiple genes in a network that ultimately leads to just a few endpoints – just as a marble on a hilltop can travel a nearly infinite number of downward paths, only to arrive in the same valley.” In this example, the marble chooses the path based on the terrain: it does not go through the terrain on pre-set coordinates.
“Nature has created an incredibly elegant and simple way of creating variability, and maintaining it at a steady level, enabling cells to respond to changes in their environment in a systematic, controlled way,” said Hannah Chang, a co-author of the finding.
Stem cell research offers broad potential for human civilization. In the same May 22 issue of Nature, UCLA researchers have announced their discovery of Leukemia stem cells, and there have been recent advances against paralysis and families of degenerative diseases with stem cell applications.
The key is in the understanding of the mystery of differentiation and the noise that this mystery speaks – and this new study advances that understanding.
They are reactions to motions in a moving environment.
A new study on stem cell differentiation, published in the May 22 issue of Nature, explores the influence of environmental interference and the “noise” that interference creates with respect to cell differentiation.
The conventional scientific view on stem cell differentiation holds that cells are instructed to progress along certain predetermined pathways. This linear position has long been dogged by the unknowns of gene expression noise – and biologists have been encountering that noise in laboratories around the world while trying to glean cures from the promises of stem cell research.
According to ScienceDaily, the new study “supports the idea that cells differentiate through the collective behavior of multiple genes in a network that ultimately leads to just a few endpoints – just as a marble on a hilltop can travel a nearly infinite number of downward paths, only to arrive in the same valley.” In this example, the marble chooses the path based on the terrain: it does not go through the terrain on pre-set coordinates.
“Nature has created an incredibly elegant and simple way of creating variability, and maintaining it at a steady level, enabling cells to respond to changes in their environment in a systematic, controlled way,” said Hannah Chang, a co-author of the finding.
Stem cell research offers broad potential for human civilization. In the same May 22 issue of Nature, UCLA researchers have announced their discovery of Leukemia stem cells, and there have been recent advances against paralysis and families of degenerative diseases with stem cell applications.
The key is in the understanding of the mystery of differentiation and the noise that this mystery speaks – and this new study advances that understanding.
Antimicrobial Personal Care Products and the Ecology – a Penalty in Cleanliness (originally published in Ground Report, May 20, 2008)
We have a rule in our house: showing up at the table with unwashed hands will set you back a dollar. Now while this infraction is likely not properly indexed to inflation, the penalty acts as a reminder that germs trump the more mindless eagerness to consume whatever calorific delights rest steaming on a plate.
But it appears that there is a higher order. Antimicrobial products may be more detrimental than previously considered.
Researchers at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University are investigating the active ingredients in common antimicrobial products and are coming to some disturbing conclusions.
“Our group has shown that antimicrobial ingredients used half a century ago, by our parents and grandparents, are still present today at parts-per-million concentrations in estuarine sediments underlying the brackish waters into which New York City and Baltimore discharge their treated domestic wastewater,” said Rolf Halden of the Biodesign Institute’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology.
At issue is the longevity of chemicals that have not been broken down or eliminated by wastewater treatment plants or by nature itself. The amplifying effect is demonstrated in shellfish, microorganisms, and other bottom feeders that are charged with cleaning estuarine beds.
“If we continue to use persistent antimicrobial compounds at the current rate, we are outpacing nature’s ability to decompose these problematic compounds,” Halden said.
While the issue is not at all abstract, it is – as all frontline research – largely academic.
How can the average household – that is increasingly familiar with the microbial world and concerned about the migrations of that small and determined microbial world – change its hygienic behaviors?
“The irony is that these compounds have no measurable benefit over the use of regular soap and water for hand washing,” offered Halden. “The contact time is simply too short.”
In 2002, a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – and presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) – found that antibacterial soaps are no better at killing germs than regular soap.
The rise of antibacterial products is a reflection of inadequate usage of regular soaps. In studies conducted by the Harvard Health Letter, large numbers of people failed to wash their hands regularly or to dry them properly. These behaviors have yielded the idea that regular soaps do not adequately protect against germs.
While it is certainly understandable to seek protection against unseen microbial threats, it is far more calculating – in a long-term manner – to adjust to those same threats without undermining the estuarine ecology and the intricate food chains that we have yet to fully appreciate or to understand.
But it appears that there is a higher order. Antimicrobial products may be more detrimental than previously considered.
Researchers at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University are investigating the active ingredients in common antimicrobial products and are coming to some disturbing conclusions.
“Our group has shown that antimicrobial ingredients used half a century ago, by our parents and grandparents, are still present today at parts-per-million concentrations in estuarine sediments underlying the brackish waters into which New York City and Baltimore discharge their treated domestic wastewater,” said Rolf Halden of the Biodesign Institute’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology.
At issue is the longevity of chemicals that have not been broken down or eliminated by wastewater treatment plants or by nature itself. The amplifying effect is demonstrated in shellfish, microorganisms, and other bottom feeders that are charged with cleaning estuarine beds.
“If we continue to use persistent antimicrobial compounds at the current rate, we are outpacing nature’s ability to decompose these problematic compounds,” Halden said.
While the issue is not at all abstract, it is – as all frontline research – largely academic.
How can the average household – that is increasingly familiar with the microbial world and concerned about the migrations of that small and determined microbial world – change its hygienic behaviors?
“The irony is that these compounds have no measurable benefit over the use of regular soap and water for hand washing,” offered Halden. “The contact time is simply too short.”
In 2002, a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – and presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) – found that antibacterial soaps are no better at killing germs than regular soap.
The rise of antibacterial products is a reflection of inadequate usage of regular soaps. In studies conducted by the Harvard Health Letter, large numbers of people failed to wash their hands regularly or to dry them properly. These behaviors have yielded the idea that regular soaps do not adequately protect against germs.
While it is certainly understandable to seek protection against unseen microbial threats, it is far more calculating – in a long-term manner – to adjust to those same threats without undermining the estuarine ecology and the intricate food chains that we have yet to fully appreciate or to understand.
Processed Meats Are Carcinogens – Who’s Telling America? (originally published in Ground Report, April 13, 2008)
The World Cancer Research Fund recently announced that eating just one sausage a day increases the chances of developing bowel cancer by 20 percent. The recommendation from the UK-headquartered cancer charity amounts to an outright avoidance of all processed meats: bacon, ham, pastrami, hot dogs, bologna, sausage, pepperoni, beef jerky, liverwurst, and certain kinds of ground beef and meatballs.
The World Cancer Research Fund’s assertion effectively catalogues these meat products as carcinogens.
I asked a spokesperson for the National Meat Association to provide me with some guidance as to why these processed meat products should remain on store shelves, and he said that he had only heard of the report “tangentially” and pointed me to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. However, I did not receive a return phone call from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in time for this report.
I have been jogging slap-footedly off and on – one of my sloppy attempts to burn off the residue from the many years of processed food products that I have consumed. But the aerobic activities I have long considered protection for the heart. Cancer is entirely another matter. While exercise certainly helps reduce the cancer risk, environmental cellular mutations – such as too much sun or poor food choices – are reflections of exposures.
Too many exposures eventually breed mutations.
Meat is a fabric of American culture, and processed meat products in particular are endemic to the society.
The cultural demand for processed meat products include everything from baseball parks to Fourth of July cookouts to the broad swaths of American breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner choices. The breadth of availability of these products – and the volume of their consumption in the U.S. alone – is enough to support bowel cancer rates for generations. In 2005, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimated that Americans would consume 150 million hot dogs on July 4th of that year alone – that is roughly one hot dog for every two people.
How many pepperoni pizza slices are consumed in a given day in America? How many bologna sandwiches are sent off in children’s lunch bags daily?
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is now suggesting vegetarianism. “Vegetarians are about 40 percent less likely to get cancer than non-vegetarians, regardless of other risks such as smoking, body size, and socioeconomic status.”
Vegetarianism is not at all akin to apple pie and baseball in America. According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, only 2.5 percent of the U.S. population can be considered vegetarians. Given this, the likelihood of tofu dogs at the ballpark is quite slim.
Worldwide, the broad consumption of animal flesh across a society’s population is considered a luxury. America – as the global poster child for affluence and consumerism – can certainly be found at the pinnacle of such well-endowed societies.
Considering the dangers posed by processed meat products and the vast consumption of those products by the U.S. population, should the Food and Drug Administration or some other responsible and rightful government body step in and – at a minimum – sound the alarm?
Well, maybe not.
Meat is big business in America. IBISWorld pegged the U.S. meat, beef, and poultry processing industry at $150 billion in 2005. That kind of money can certainly buy silence.
The World Cancer Research Fund’s assertion effectively catalogues these meat products as carcinogens.
I asked a spokesperson for the National Meat Association to provide me with some guidance as to why these processed meat products should remain on store shelves, and he said that he had only heard of the report “tangentially” and pointed me to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. However, I did not receive a return phone call from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in time for this report.
I have been jogging slap-footedly off and on – one of my sloppy attempts to burn off the residue from the many years of processed food products that I have consumed. But the aerobic activities I have long considered protection for the heart. Cancer is entirely another matter. While exercise certainly helps reduce the cancer risk, environmental cellular mutations – such as too much sun or poor food choices – are reflections of exposures.
Too many exposures eventually breed mutations.
Meat is a fabric of American culture, and processed meat products in particular are endemic to the society.
The cultural demand for processed meat products include everything from baseball parks to Fourth of July cookouts to the broad swaths of American breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner choices. The breadth of availability of these products – and the volume of their consumption in the U.S. alone – is enough to support bowel cancer rates for generations. In 2005, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimated that Americans would consume 150 million hot dogs on July 4th of that year alone – that is roughly one hot dog for every two people.
How many pepperoni pizza slices are consumed in a given day in America? How many bologna sandwiches are sent off in children’s lunch bags daily?
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is now suggesting vegetarianism. “Vegetarians are about 40 percent less likely to get cancer than non-vegetarians, regardless of other risks such as smoking, body size, and socioeconomic status.”
Vegetarianism is not at all akin to apple pie and baseball in America. According to the Vegetarian Resource Group, only 2.5 percent of the U.S. population can be considered vegetarians. Given this, the likelihood of tofu dogs at the ballpark is quite slim.
Worldwide, the broad consumption of animal flesh across a society’s population is considered a luxury. America – as the global poster child for affluence and consumerism – can certainly be found at the pinnacle of such well-endowed societies.
Considering the dangers posed by processed meat products and the vast consumption of those products by the U.S. population, should the Food and Drug Administration or some other responsible and rightful government body step in and – at a minimum – sound the alarm?
Well, maybe not.
Meat is big business in America. IBISWorld pegged the U.S. meat, beef, and poultry processing industry at $150 billion in 2005. That kind of money can certainly buy silence.
On Threespine Sticklebacks and Other Reversals (originally published on Ground Report - May 18, 2008)
The threespine stickleback, a tiny freshwater fish native to Lake Washington, has gone retro.
In what researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are labeling a case of “reverse evolution,” the species has reinstated a bony plated armor it once utilized to survive attacks from predators – and it has accomplished this reversal in an unusually fast period of time and in response to dramatic changes in its environment.
While evolutionary biology is not a linear process from “lesser” to “greater,” (as it is often conveyed, even in some scientific circles), the threespine stickleback’s reintroduction of a feature it once deployed against predatory threats should likely be celebrated instead for its agile adaptation to a rapidly changing environment.
Less can be said of the polar bear, for example, having very recently joined the endangered species list due in large part to the narrow scope of icy habitat it requires.
The plight of the polar bear is uniformly tethered to climate change, a macro-topic that has experienced a notable reversal of its own. Tom Knutson, a renowned meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fluid dynamics lab in Princeton, New Jersey, has long held that the number of Atlantic hurricanes correlates to global warming through the amplified effect of an increasingly warmer ocean. His new study, published today in the journal Nature Geoscience, argues “against the notion that we’ve already seen a dramatic increase in Atlantic hurricane activity resulting from greenhouse warming.” In fact, his computer models now predict that by the end of the century Atlantic hurricanes will decrease by 18 percent.
Knutson cited the variable beyond the linear equation of warmer = more as “wind factors.”
There has been a good deal of intellectual investment on the part of the meteorological community around the warmer = more equation – and others have come out to dispute the new Knutson report. And while Knutson said his new computer model provides merely a “coarse overview,” it is a reversal nonetheless in his earlier predictive confidence.
The creation and deletion of equations and of truths defines the uncertain nature of science – and reversals, while sometimes painful, usually offer rewards in terms of meaningful insights. This is found often in the objective study of economics or of warfare – where the most disorderly retreats yield intellectual treasures that can be applied for future advancements.
It is a common misperception to equate a reversal to a loss. This is particularly true while one is in the midst of a struggle. Ask an oncologist about the cruelty of a prior “win” being overturned by an enigmatic foe – the reversal is experienced in the eyes of the consumed patient, and the emotion that is inevitably attached to that reversal colors it a most dark loss.
But follow the study of martial arts and reversals are raw opportunity.
We should likely thank the threespine stickleback for having taught us something. It has become less desirable for the predators that would happily devour it. In this regard, it has successfully gone from “greater” to “lesser.” It is an opportunist, but one that does not discard its prior lessons. And it is an antihero – a cunning collector of seemingly perishable losses for the greater and more sustainable wins, reversals for the bolder move forward.
In what researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are labeling a case of “reverse evolution,” the species has reinstated a bony plated armor it once utilized to survive attacks from predators – and it has accomplished this reversal in an unusually fast period of time and in response to dramatic changes in its environment.
While evolutionary biology is not a linear process from “lesser” to “greater,” (as it is often conveyed, even in some scientific circles), the threespine stickleback’s reintroduction of a feature it once deployed against predatory threats should likely be celebrated instead for its agile adaptation to a rapidly changing environment.
Less can be said of the polar bear, for example, having very recently joined the endangered species list due in large part to the narrow scope of icy habitat it requires.
The plight of the polar bear is uniformly tethered to climate change, a macro-topic that has experienced a notable reversal of its own. Tom Knutson, a renowned meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fluid dynamics lab in Princeton, New Jersey, has long held that the number of Atlantic hurricanes correlates to global warming through the amplified effect of an increasingly warmer ocean. His new study, published today in the journal Nature Geoscience, argues “against the notion that we’ve already seen a dramatic increase in Atlantic hurricane activity resulting from greenhouse warming.” In fact, his computer models now predict that by the end of the century Atlantic hurricanes will decrease by 18 percent.
Knutson cited the variable beyond the linear equation of warmer = more as “wind factors.”
There has been a good deal of intellectual investment on the part of the meteorological community around the warmer = more equation – and others have come out to dispute the new Knutson report. And while Knutson said his new computer model provides merely a “coarse overview,” it is a reversal nonetheless in his earlier predictive confidence.
The creation and deletion of equations and of truths defines the uncertain nature of science – and reversals, while sometimes painful, usually offer rewards in terms of meaningful insights. This is found often in the objective study of economics or of warfare – where the most disorderly retreats yield intellectual treasures that can be applied for future advancements.
It is a common misperception to equate a reversal to a loss. This is particularly true while one is in the midst of a struggle. Ask an oncologist about the cruelty of a prior “win” being overturned by an enigmatic foe – the reversal is experienced in the eyes of the consumed patient, and the emotion that is inevitably attached to that reversal colors it a most dark loss.
But follow the study of martial arts and reversals are raw opportunity.
We should likely thank the threespine stickleback for having taught us something. It has become less desirable for the predators that would happily devour it. In this regard, it has successfully gone from “greater” to “lesser.” It is an opportunist, but one that does not discard its prior lessons. And it is an antihero – a cunning collector of seemingly perishable losses for the greater and more sustainable wins, reversals for the bolder move forward.
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