DIET | DETECTIVE^®

I am currently shopping around for a new car. Of course, I am taking into consideration the many realities of our economy, and looking for a vehicle that consumes as little gas as possible. I set my sights on a Scion TC and was enthused to find an advertisement for a 2007 model with only four thousand miles on it… better still… it was within my price range. Could it be - an almost new car for just about $10,000?

Today is the 40^th anniversary marking the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At the present time in our history, an African American male is a Democratic contender for the 2008 presidency. Indeed, our attitudes and behaviors as a nation have evolved in forty years, slowly but surely. And slowly but surely is the key to moving forward – in evolution, in life, in weight loss and maintenance.

Blond, thin, desired, and by all accounts – a specimen of health – Jenny McCarthy has most recently used her celebrity status to call attention to what she considers to be an epidemic of Autism amongst children in the US. During the past six years, the Centers for Disease Control, lead by Dr. Julie Gerberding, has been criticized for making little mention of this supposed epidemic, nor of the studies linking childhood vaccinations and diet to the disease. McCarthy has said that “…Gerberding has stood by and watched self-interested parties more than triple our vaccine schedule and I’m certain her inactivity to help our kids will continue.”

As a child at summer camp, I would be forced to take a swimming test in the lake to assess my abilities. Lifeguards would determine how far out we were permitted to swim and then brand us with a beaded bracelet, color coded, just to be safe. The swim test was the sort of thing for which I would take 2 full milligrams of Klonopin today. The beach was expansive, and a far walk from where we were to leave our things and assemble for our tests. Woody Allen would probably liken this to something reminiscent of a holocaust procession to the showers. Fat, shirtless, exposed for a walk to my death. I was to tread water for ten minutes, and swim twenty laps. The ten minutes felt like an eternity. The laps were unthinkable. The water was cold and I could barely breathe. If you fell short of these goals, you would get only limited access to the water, and could not go kayaking. I loved kayaking, but I would always strive for a goal just shy, and make do with a canoe.