Notebook Entries November 2007
Notebook Entries November 2007
Notebook entry, November 29th, 2007
Diana, my wife, gave me this article from and decided that it was too important to dismiss. It was found under the SECOND OPINION column of the November 25th, 2007 paper edition of The Denver Post. Sorry, the page number was missing.
"Fat-bottomed girls are smarter. Take that, skinny chicks."
By The Chicago TribuneWe hope the Nobel Prize committee didn't miss last week's release of a groundbreaking study titled, "Waist-hip ratio and cognitive ability: Is gluteofemoral fat a privileged store of neurodevelopmental resources?"
Translation, for the benefit of you size zeros out there: Are fat-bottomed girls smarter? Answer: Yes. They also have smarter kids, according to researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Middle-age women reated with glee - "We're getting smarter every day!" and men with trepidation. (What's the right answer to the question, "Does this Ph.D. make my butt look big?") Skeptics, most of who likely tend toward the skinny side, seem to want to file the wider-9s-wiser theory with that old baloney about men with bigger noses having bigger, um, noses. We've never seen any empirical evidence on that one.
The data on the brain/butt theory, though, is pretty convincing. In a study of more that 16,000 women, the curvy girls consistently outscored their slender counterparts on cognitive tests. Their kids out-scored the skinny moms' kids, too.
But the researchers don't posit that bigger is automatically better. What matters is the size of the hips relative to the waist. That's because fat stored around the buttocks and thighs is high in omega-3 acids, which promote brain growth, while fat stored around the middle is loaded with omega-6 acids, which make your pants too tight.
Women with "pear" or "hourglass" shapes have greater reserves of omega-3, which nourishes their own brains and is essential to fetal brain development in the third trimester of pregnancy.
So grab a tape measure, girls, and see how your IQ stacks up. Just divide your waist size by your hip size. The smaller your answer, the better.And go ahead and gawk, guys. We know your're just searching for signs of a deep and genetically transferable intellect. And ladies, pass the nachos. Those size 4 jeans would just make you look dumb."
I'm going to keep this article as is in the Notebook section until I can
do more research, but once again, I thought that it was too interesting
not to pass alone.
Notebook entry, November 8, 2007
Well the local elections are over and I am happy to report that all the candidates that I supported won. The bitter mayoral race was won by the Mayor pro-tem, Bob Murphy, and my Ward 2 council candidate, Cindy Baroway won easily. Bob had a tough campaign even though he had the "machine" behind him and all newspaper editorials endorsed him. The voters were just in this foul mood of "throw the bums out" attitude and with a controversial city manager at the helm who had some negative press a year ago, the vote was very close. In fact Mr. Mruphy won with only 48% of the vote.
I return to my Civics 101 class on Tuesday, Nov. 13th and look forward
to seeing both these elected officials sworn in on November 26th, 2007.
I am also looking forward to January of next year when the advisory commissions
to the City Council will once again meet.
Notebook entry, November 2, 2007
Because of the pause before the election returns here in Lakewood, Colorado, and the need for me to focus on that path and beyond, I decided to finish part 2 of the "re-thinking Posse Comitatus" essay that I started back in August. I made it shorter than I originally planned, but, what the heck -- the idea is so radical that it really is meant to be a "raise the idea up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes" sort of thought experiment. I may have gone overboard a bit on my distaste for the current CONservative control of the steering wheel of power - but, you don't bring a butter knife to do hand-to-hand-combat with evil.