Big League Chew

This past weekend I discovered the greatest gum I've ever had!


I speak of Big League Chew. A Wrigley product that was, according to the advertising, "dreamed up in 1980 by two ball players, Big League Chew has been a favorite of baseball players for over 25 years. Today, Wrigley offers 4 great flavors, all in the classic stay fresh pouch."


Not only does BLC pack a sugar filled punch but, unlike many other gums, it also delivers no jaw aches or headaches. It's a bubble gum which tastes exactly like a bubble gum and is, oh-my-god soft! The gum comes shredded in a pouch just like chewing tabacco. It was made as a substitute for chewing tobacco for ball players.


Try it, you'll be hooked on it!

Rest Your Eyes

Ajit Singh, a farmer, inspects his sunflower crop at Dharar village near Amritsar, India.

Munish Sharma/Reuters

Fareed Zakaria On Pakistan

Serendipitously, I've come upon a review of Benazir Bhutto's book, RECONCILIATION: Islam, Democracy, and the West, on Fareed Zakaria's website. You may know Zakaria from his CNN show, GPS. Zakaria is, inter alia, the editor of Newsweek International.

In the article, reprised from Zakaria's review of Bhutto's book for the New York Times, Zakaria writes, the book was

written while she (Bhutto) was preparing to re-enter political life, it is a book of enormous intelligence, courage and clarity. It contains the best-written and most persuasive modern interpretation of Islam I have read.

Just on the strength of these words, coming as they do from an esteemed source, I think it would be a worthwhile cause to eventually track this book down.

The Idiot's Guide to Pakistan

Foreign Policy is a sometime favourite read of mine. Check out this worthwhile primer on the politics of Pakistan.

***

Coincidentally, I happened upon Aatish Taseer's book, Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands. The book is a travelogue of the Islamic nations of the world and an exploration of what it means to be a Muslim growing up in the West. The Guardian reviewed his book in March of this year.

Tarah Says:

On Allergies...Everyone in our house has allergies. Some have seasonal allergies, others are allergic to pets. Except for Tarah: She has no allergies to speak of and I guess she feels let out, so this morning, on our way to have a Mother's Day brunch, Tarah says, "Mom, I don't have any allergies."
Mom: "Yeah, you don't."
Tarah: "But my imagination sister has allergies. She's allergic to rhinos.

While I am taking a shower, Tarah walks in to the bathroom and asks? "Does Fatema (cousin) speak India?"
Me: "You mean, does she speak Indian?"
Tarah: "Yeah, is she speaking Indian?"
Me: "Yeah, she speaks in Indian, but just a little."
Tarah: "Is it because she's pretty that she doesn't speak Indian?"
Me: "No. She just likes to speak English more."

The Gym

I just returned from the gym. Usually I return relaxed from the gym ready to read a little and then go to bed. Unfortunately, today I had the unusual pleasure of an 18-year-old punk telling me what to do in the changeroom. A bizarre event.

As is my routine after a workout I was going to take a shower before heading home. As I headed to the shower with nothing but my towel and flip flops on...this 18-year-old muscle-head wondered out loud to no one in particular, "Why do people have to walk around naked, man?"

As I'm walking past him, I say incredulously, "It's a changeroom!"

I haven't been in a good mood lately. In fact, I'm downright angry. The one thing that really pisses me off is when people treat other people, and especially me, unfairly. Don't talk down to me, don't tell me what to do and don't treat people unfairly. Nobody likes to be pushed around, least of all me. I guess this loud mouth muscle-head didn't get the memo.

At five yards past him I hear him say, "Yeah, but why do you have to walk around naked? Its all men in here!" A truly weird bit of logic.

I turn to face him, fully angry, cut the gap between us to two yards and in the loudest voice ever heard in any change room say, "Why does it matter, are you fucking gay? This is a fucking change room, you're gonna see people naked!" I sense people have stopped and are wondering what the hell is going on?
I don't think he expected me to react quite as loudly as I did. I read in his face an instant re-calculation of his position. He then tells me to get out of his face. We exchange expletives. He calls me a 'skinny fuck' and we call it a draw.
I turn around walking back to the showers, while repeating my point that in a change room, you will see people naked. I can hear him making his point to his friend and the 5-6 other people in the changeroom who happened to be present.

To be truthful, I could have gotten a severe beating at the hands of the aforementioned muscle-head, but the sheer absurdity, the audacity of him telling a 44-year-old man (me) how I should dress in a change room, while I'm on my way to take a shower, was simply too much to bear.

I am at a wonderful time in my life as far as people's opinion of me are concerned. I am at the gym for my own purposes. I am not there to make friends, or pick up chicks or boost my ego: I am there to keep myself somewhat fit and de-stress. And I don't give a flying fuck that I don't look like the ideal gym-type, I don't care that you're not impressed with me taking a shower naked, I don't care whether my shorts match my socks and t-shirt or shoes. And I don't want to know what you think of me. Quite simply, people's opinion on these matters does not matter to me. I wear what I am comfortable wearing, I say what needs to be said, and if your opinion of my behaviour is negative than so be it.

I am at my best when I exercise my self-determination. And I intend to execise as often as possible!

Global Warming: Article of Interest

"The Kyoto Protocol divides the world into two groups. The roughly 1.2 billion citizens of industrialized countries are expected to reduce their emissions. The other 5 billion—including both China and India, each of which is about as populous as the entire Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—aren’t. These numbers alone guarantee that humanity isn’t going to reduce global emissions at any point in the foreseeable future

...

If we’re truly worried about carbon, we must instead approach it as if the emissions originated in an annual eruption of Mount Krakatoa. Don’t try to persuade the volcano to sign a treaty promising to stop. Focus instead on what might be done to protect and promote the planet’s carbon sinks—the systems that suck carbon back out of the air and bury it. Green plants currently pump 15 to 20 times as much carbon out of the atmosphere as humanity releases into it—that’s the pump that put all that carbon underground in the first place, millions of years ago.

Source: City Journal

The Vicissitudes of Vitamin D Deficiency

It was probably in October or November of last year when I noticed that I was feeling very tired all through the day, every day. No matter how much rest I got, I was always drained of any physical energy.
I put this tired feeling down to being, well, tired. Sick and tired. I was plagued by neck and shoulder tightness and headaches. By December, my symptoms of aching muscles and tiredness bloomed into complete loss of energy, still aching muscles and now, joints. My mood as well turned south.
In an attempt to explain my symptoms, I began to think that maybe, no, for sure, I was burnt out and needed a break. By January, I decided to take a week off and head south to Florida. I hoped that being away from family demands and work life would help me to re-charge my batteries. Unfortunately, I returned home only somewhat refreshed. My overall symptoms did not improve.
I finally consulted my family doctor, who put my symptoms down to possible depression. It seemed a plausible diagnosis. Achy, tired, lack of motivation, needing to sleep for longer and longer periods of time and the concurrent low mood due to months of experiencing the same old symptoms. But I did not feel sadness, was not especially bothered by any one or constellation of problems. I was not crying but was in fact feeling down because of the annoying physical symptoms I've mentioned.
I went back to my G.P. and he relented and had a slew of tests completed, including an abdominal ultrasound, and an x-ray of my chest. There was only one test which gave any direction to my physician. I had a very low level of vitamin "D".
I was prescribed 1000 iu of Vitamin D3. Still, none of the three doctors whom I consulted gave any indication that my physical symptoms had anything to do with my vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D can only be had from a few sources. As I later learned, people with darker skin tend to end up being deficient of the vitamin in northern latitudes during the winter months. I suppose most people get by as I have for the past 35 years in Canada. The two major sources of vitamin D in my life would be egg yolks and milk with my cereal. Unfortunately, neither of these two sources turned out to be enough this winter. Exposure to the suns rays, of course, is the primary mechanism by which people are able to produce vitamin D.
What exactly is Vitamin D good for? It is essential in aiding bone growth and maintenance, however, more recently there has been indications that it may prevent certain cancers, fortify the immune system, etc. Read about it at USA Today or at the CBC website.

Tiny Titan

We walked to Blockbuster today. It's about a half kilometre walk from our house to the store. On the way back young Tarah decided she wanted to pull the wagon with her brother in it. She surprised this pundit by pulling the wagon almost all the way from Blockbuster. The third picture below is the muscle-bound princess close to home and still full of beans! Seth is lying down in the wagon on a comfy blanket.


In her own words: "It's okay dad...I'm a big girl...I can handle it!"


Walking away from me because she still wanted to go around the block and not home.

From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy by Kenan Malik

I think the headline says it all...read it at TimesOnline.

Articles of Interest

Guernica Magazine has an interview with African author and economist Dambisa Moyo on ending western aid to Africa in the next five years.

Dambisa Moyo is a unique voice in the debate over African aid. In a conversation dominated by white, male westerners—and most conspicuously by celebrities such as Bono or Bob Geldoff—Moyo is a black, African woman. Born in Zambia to a banker mother and a father who now runs an anti-corruption organization, Moyo earned her master’s from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Economics at Oxford.

If you follow my blog you may remember me posting an article about Michael Crichton's contrarian views on global warming. Namely, that it don't exist. Now comes an article about in the New York Times Magazine site profiling

eminent physicist Freeman Dyson (who) has quietly resided in Prince­ton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, (America's) most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him.
...
Dyson is well aware that “most consider me wrong about global warming.” That educated Americans tend to agree with the conclusion about global warming reached earlier this month at the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (“inaction is inexcusable”) only increases Dyson’s resistance. Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology and has a withering aversion to scientific consensus.

Bird on a Wire

"Leonard Cohen has spent much of the past decade in solitude, exploring his own spirituality and his place in an ever-changing world. But in July of 2008, he took the stage at London's 02 Arena and gave a stunning performance, as part of his first tour in 15 years. The concert included some of his most influential and best loved songs, including "Hallelujah," "Bird On A Wire" and "Dance Me To The End Of Love." The historic performance was recorded and will be released as a two-CD set on March 31. Until then NPR Music will stream the entire album online, as an Exclusive First Listen, beginning at 11:59 p.m. March 23."

Are Green Cleaners Really Effective?

When I used to work at group homes I was known by some as the "germ boy." Why, you might ask? Well, it wasn't because I am a walking talking vector for germs; rather it was because of my propensity to use chemical dis-infectants around the group home for everything from the floors to the counters and door handles.
I have often touted, especially to young mothers, the wonders of a product known as Benefect which is 100% natural (and by the way, Canadian) and 99.9% effective in killing all those nasty household germs. The kicker is you can spray Benefect directly into your mouth and it will do you no harm whatsoever. Which means you clean any given surface, wipe and then spray Benefect and forget about it. It is even safe on kitchen counters.
I was happy to come across this very informative article at slate.com which explores and explains which "green" cleaners work and which may work.
Read, enjoy, kill!

Everything's Amazing, Nobody is Happy!

Comedian Louis CK's appearance on Conan O'Brien.

Photo Update

Seth and Tarah on our trip to Niagara Falls


Marsh getting breakfast at the hotel

At the Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara Falls

I rented a scooter for a day of sight seeing in the Fort Lauderdale area

Tarah and Seth up to the usual antics

Seth and Mom relaxing at home

Tarah at her recent ballet recital

Tarah and classmates at ballet recital. That big kid is actually a teacher

Tarah at ballet recital

Seth at his 8th birtday party at Chuck-e-Cheese

Tarah may just have a career in spying as she was pretty good at locating the moles

Seth and his friend, Britanny, at Chuck-e-Cheese

Tarah on the tiny carousel