Month: April 2012

by Zoë Pollock

Isn't pretty:

The average man's body fat rises from 23 per cent to 29 per cent over the fifth and sixth decades of his life, while women's will reach 38 per cent. We've always called it 'middle-aged spread', which is both accurate and vivid, though science calls it sarcopaenia. It's a dangerously deceptive process, since many men of sixty proudly tell you they weigh exactly the same now as they did at twenty-five. But this is irrelevant if much that was muscle is now fat, which it almost certainly is. The question you should ask yourself is: do you still have the same waist measurement now that you did at twenty-five?

A bright side:

Brain-imaging suggests that the young seem more inclined to favour either the left or right hemisphere of the brain when problem-solving, whereas the middle-aged brain, though slower, tends to work more as a whole. This again would constitute a kind of empirical-science confirmation of what common sense and common knowledge have told us for centuries: that the young are sharper yet often fail to 'see the whole picture', while the older have broader, fuzzier, perhaps more tolerant horizons. 'The middle-aged human brain', triumphantly concludes David Bainbridge, aged forty-two, 'is the most powerful, flexible thinking machine in the known universe.'

by Patrick Appel

Andrew is taking the week off for a much-need rest, but he was on Face The Nation yesterday to discuss his cover essay. He mixed it up with Rev. Richard Land over the power of the religious right:

by Patrick Appel

A recent study provides yet more evidence that repressed homosexual urges increase homophobia:

"Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves," explains Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex and the study's lead author."In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward," adds co-author Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester who helped direct the research.

Phoenix, Arizona, 2.09 pm

by Patrick Appel

Pareene peers into the future: 

The “MSNBC is bigoted against Mormons” meme is spreading far and wide, though the real, full-throated defense of Mormonism on the right (which I am willing to bet money will frequently involve Evangelicals who have a history of Mormon-bashing) won’t really get going until the general election campaign begins in earnest.

p>It will involve a lot of manufactured umbrage over nothing, because that is what modern campaigns are largely built on. And it will trivialize actual damaging or hateful anti-Mormon bigotry by making every dumb joke a vicious slur. We did already have a small preview: When the Obama campaign stupidly announced its plan to call Mitt Romney “weird,” because he is sort of weird, the outrage machine cranked into gear and asked if “weird” is “code” for “Mormon.” 

Waldman, on the other hand, expects that religion will not have a major role in the general election.

Ask Tyler Cowen Anything

by Chris Bodenner

Dish regular Tyler Cowen has a new book coming out, An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies. Patrick took a look at the book earlier today. An overview:

Food snobbery is killing entrepreneurship and innovation, says economist, preeminent social commentator, and maverick dining guide blogger Tyler Cowen. Americans are becoming angry that our agricultural practices have led to global warming – but while food snobs are right that local food tastes better, they're wrong that it is better for the environment, and they are wrong that cheap food is bad food. … Tyler Cowen discusses everything from slow food to fast food, from agriculture to gourmet culture, from modernist cuisine to how to pick the best street vendor. He shows why airplane food is bad but airport food is good; why restaurants full of happy, attractive people serve mediocre meals; and why American food has improved as Americans drink more wine. And most important of all, he shows how to get good, cheap eats just about anywhere.

Want specifics? Submit a question for Tyler in the Urtak poll embedded above (ignore the "YES or NO question" aspect in the text field and simply enter any open-ended question). We have primed the poll with questions that you can vote on right away – click "Yes" if you are interested in seeing Tyler answer the question or "No" if you don't particularly care. We will air the answers in daily segments soon.

by Maisie Allison

On Fox News Sunday Gingrich became suddenly pragmatic, conceding the inevitability of Romney's nomination:

"Well, I think you have to be realistic, given the size of his organization, given the number of primaries he's won. He is far and away the most likely Republican nominee," Gingrich said, adding a preemptive endorsement. 

His campaign is "slightly less than" $4.2 million in debt. Michael Brendan Dougherty is nonetheless surprised by Newt's change in tune: 

This is a huge comedown from his previous talk about turning the the GOP convention into a "Big Choice" (i.e. a do-over) and casting a Romney nomination as a near apocalyptic event for the Republican party. Instead, Gingrich is going out like a lamb.  “If I end up not being the nominee, I have already talked to Chairman Reince Priebus at the Republican National Committee,” he said on the morning show, “I’d want to work this fall to help defeat [President Barack] Obama any way I could. Whatever the team thinks I can do to be helpful, I would do.”

Previous coverage of Newt's "long game" here. 

by Chris Bodenner

A reader emphasizes a key distinction:

Leading with the helmet is a problem in football, but it is not the primary reason there has been a rise in a recognition of concussions and their long-term effects.  Helmet manufacturers claim – and they are correct – that helmets are not designed to prevent concussions.   Helmets are designed to prevent skull fractures, and the advances in their design and manufacture has pretty much done that.  Along with this added level of safety has come the increased use of the helmet as a "weapon" in tackling.  That has produced some instances of spinal injury from compression of the vertebrae in the neck of the player who lead with his helmet. Concussions are the result of a brain injury that happens from "inside-out" – they are caused by the brain impacting against the inside of the skull as the player's head suddenly stops. No helmet technology will ever prevent that.

Another:

Your reader wrote, "In my opinion, it might not be a bad idea to get rid of helmets altogether, as that would probably discourage a defensive player from throwing his head full force into an offensive player’s left temple." That argument usually comes up in discussion and is summarily dismissed when the number of concussions in rugby is shown – and it's higher than in tackle football. See this article from TIME in 2010:

Back in January, in the course of reporting a TIME cover story on ways to make football safer, one idea I kept hearing, and that several readers subsequently championed, was to take a look at rugby. … Rugby, as it turns out, has plenty of problems with head injuries. According to one study, in South Africa about 14% of high school rugby players and 23% of professional and club players annually are diagnosed with concussions. Further, Michael Keating, the medical director for USA Rugby, says that a review of the scientific literature indicates that the number of incidences of concussions among rugby players and American-football players are similar. Some data suggest rugby incidence is 5% higher.

Another reader:

One other important factor I hadn't seen mentioned in the football/head injuries discussion is the factor of the field. The vast majority of pro football fields are now turf. This enables the players to run much faster and plant their feet more confidently and cleanly, all of which results in greater speed, acceleration and impact. The landing is also that much harder.

Another:

There's another factor here that is somewhat difficult to judge. For older players, especially before the introduction of free agency in the early '90s, except for superstars, their salaries weren't large enough to really provide compensation for the risks they were unknowingly taking. Players into the '80s often had to work multiple jobs in the offseason to stay afloat. Today the minimum NFL salary is approximately $375k, and an average around $800k. There's a feeling of unfairness, that today's players benefit on the backs of older players who are suffering the effects today.

Another:

I grew up in the South, mostly Texas.  I played high school football.  My brother played high school football.  My father and uncle played and my grandfather played. My wife currently works in college football.  Both of my grandmothers were serious football fans who could discuss x's and o's with any coach as are most of my aunts. Two of my cousins have coached state championship teams in Texas.  To say the sport runs in my blood is to say it gets a little brisk in Montreal during January.

Despite all this, I refused my oldest son's requests to play football until he was in junior high.  His first year of tackle football was this year and my wife and I made every game.  Last week, he informed me he wasn't going to play next year.  I should have been crushed (and there is a part of me that wants to require him to play some sport).  But I was secretly thrilled.  He's an exceptionally bright kid and as far as I can tell a brilliant musician (something I had to give up in junior high because of conflicts with sports).

The reader who submitted the above video notes:

Aikman has said he suffered as many as 10 concussions during his career. It's pretty telling for one of the game's biggest stars, and now it's lead on-air game analyst, to say he may not let his own sons play the game based on what we are learning about brain injuries. 

The entire "Big Football" thread here, here, here, here and here.

by Maisie Allison

Drew Grant isn't impressed with the firing:

Ironically, Mr. Derbyshire was actually considered much more liberal than some of his fellow National Review coworkers: he was critical of George W. Bush and advocated against keeping Terri Schiavo in a vegetative state. While Mr. Derbyshire did screw up with the Taki’s Mag post, we’d still give him the benefit of the doubt in that it was at least partly tongue-in-cheek: the real racism at the Review is still going strong, as evidenced by a recent piece by Victor Davis Hanson entitled Walking Back the Trayvon Martin Hysteria … Ah yes: the vastly higher incidents of black-on-white crime and the carnage of African-American males in our cities! How did we forget about that stuff during our mass grieving for Trayvon Martin?

David Sessions similarly doubts that the move will inspire much soul-searching among conservatives. He points to the "type of dialogue that surrounds NRO": 

It is usually far from racist, and sometimes less far. It can be described as consistently skeptical that white racism is relevant to contemporary politics despite its own evident fascination with the topic. It shows no reservation about caricaturing/over-interpreting a black president’s statements and policies to paint him as a racial aggressor. It consistently addresses the topic of racism in a glib, dismissive, or superior tone. I cannot recall—and could not find in several hours looking through the NRO archives—one substantial piece of writing that addressed racism in the U.S. as anything besides a minor, unimportant problem. With a big stretch of generosity, one could say National Review treats the subject casually. 

Friedersdorf is more sanguine: 

Derbyshire saw, in the younger generation of conservatives, a determination to make a multiracial society work. It is unsettling that a longtime contributor plugged in enough to hobnob on the National Review cruise perceived himself to be writing for a subscriber base of which a significant part wasn't determined to make a multiracial society work. … That overdue evolution showed the limits of "standing athwart history yelling stop." So it goes today. Parting ways with Derbyshire isn't going to do anything to improve race relations in America. But it has brought National Review a step closer to relying on the younger rather than the older generation of conservatives. On subjects related to race that's a very good thing.

More on the Derb implosion here, here and here. Recent Dish on the right's race problem here.  

by Chris Bodenner

Well, a trainer at least – the penguin cam is currently taking questions. It's a captivating MHB at all hours.