Arkansas Blog

There ya go, Maxwell. Got another good smoking argument started and bailed out on us.

My brother sent this video from The Daily Show. Funny stuff (roughly 4 1/2 minutes). Enjoy.

How about a little rain dance? Click on name!!

Anybody here know what accounted for an estimated $147 billion in medical bills last year, double the amount a decade ago? Taxpayers picked up about half the $147 billion tab in 2008 through Medicare and Medicaid. It was responsible for 9.1% of all medical spending ion 2008, up from 6.5% in 1998. Patients with this disorder last year had $4,871 in medical bills compared with $3,442 for other patients. This malady is the single biggest reason for the increase in health care costs. What is this terribly expensive health condition? The answer can be found on my blue name for those who care to know.

PS: I still get queasy when I think about that burger photo Max posted a couple days ago. Gross!

"A recent study out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cites what animal studies have hinted at for years: MSG (aka monosodium glutamate) could be a factor in weight gain.

"The study focused on 750 Chinese men and women, ages 40-59, living in 3 rural villages in north and south China. Most of the study subjects prepared their meals at home without commercially processed foods and roughly 82 percent used MSG. Those participants who used the highest amounts of MSG had nearly 3 times the incidence of overweight as those who did not use MSG, even when physical activity, total caloric intake, and other possible explanations for body mass differences were accounted for.

"How prevalent is MSG in the U.S. diet? Americans consumed about 1 million pounds of MSG in 1950, and today that number has increased by a factor of 300!

What are the five tastes and how many of those tastes get satisfied each day with American corporate food?

Salt
Sweet
Pungent
sour
bitter

MSG is necessary to satisfy taste-bud cravings. If you attempt to get the above tastes satisfied at each meal you will eat less.

Americans are saturated with the first two, salt and sweet. Then a little pungent (garlic, oregano,
pepper, etc) very little sour and bitter comes from coffee which is now mostly drowned with dairy products and sugar. Lemons are good sources of sour. Dark 70% chocolate for bitter and certain seeds/herbs and fruits (pomegranate).

If that photo makes you queasy, DurangoK, make sure you don't read Lindsey Miller's review of the Bistro at Prospect Terrace in this week's edition. He flatters it by writing that it doesn't smell of ass.

I didn't need to read that in a restaurant, or any other kind of review. What on earth? Not even the Village Voice or, let's see -- well, maybe Hunter Thompson might have written that way, and HE was considered a journalist, and a good one, too, although maverick.

So I guess that places Lindsey in the pantheon along with Hunter S. One could always hope for that sort of exalted status, couldn't one?

Of course, Gonzo wasn't writing restaurant reviews.

Me, I'll take my reviews free of references to ass smell.

gracious, eLwood, you done left out lard! ;) dont most people eat fat because it tastes good to them? and its more filling? i really dont know if its just habit or what. I just cannot tolerate grease or fast food since I was sick, not ever, and that's been the only good thing to come out of nearly dying. i lost 50 pounds in 3 weeks. it was not a good diet, i just couldnt eat anything. no energy to eat and nothing I could eat in the house or running itself back to my bedroom anyway. never thought I'd see the day I couldn't eat. But there are still lots of things I can't eat. like jazzy said, its just gaggy.

one of my friends still fries all her meat in at least 2" of oil, I keep telling her just to stop, quit cold turkey..........but her problem is that she is a wonderful cook.

if you could just surgically remove the costs of postop complications related to obesity, you'd have yourself a good start, but of course you cant. much easier said than done. the next time you're at the mall, or a hospital, or really any public event, just notice the percentage of people who are morbidly obese. Not just a few extra pounds like most of us, myself included now, but fat enough that it's a medical condition all of itself for them, and damned hard to cure, as we all know.

I thought the reason fast foods were so tasty and almost if not downright addictive is the fat gives them so much flavor, and you do get full......real full. who ever heard tell of putting fried chicken on top of a salad in the first place, thats what I want to know. Baked, broiled, ok, but fried?

and on that note has anyone tried kentucky broiled chicken? it looks good on tv but i havent had any yet. is it still full of fat anyway?

silver bells, my younger son uses that phrase too and i always cringe and ask him just exactly why that has any place in daily conversation? one thing that boy DOES have is a very large vocabulary. He used to tell telemarketers (while I was working in the next room) that Mom was out on another 3- to 4-day drunken binge and he and brother didnt know when she would be back. No worries!! she does this all the time!!!!

Thank God he never got child services called on us. It was pretty funny, really, though....I am of the opinion that telemarketers who try to sell crap to a kid deserve whatever they get.

if there is even a standard definition of that particular term, (smells like ass), I dont know what it is and am happy this way. that's just gross and also kind of a broad definition.......I am happy to say I personally dont know anyone who makes a hobby of smelling that particular feature.

Well, Tina, thanks for your comment...I'm fairly sure the term means exactly what it implies. I wouldn't be in a huff over an adolescent using the phrase, but a journalist, in a formal restaurant review, in any publication in the land? Just can't see it. It's not in reality, somehow. An attempt to be clever, maybe?

Tomorrow will be the end of a chapter in Arkansas broadcasting, when BJ Sams hangs up his jacket for the last time. Folks are comin' out of the woodwork... feels like a strange sort of backwards high school reunion. It'll be just as interesting to see what everyone's up to as it will be to be able to enjoy one more morning with that unmistakeable voice. Anyway, off to bed, and here's hoping the girl allows me to get up and over to see the festivities. Heaven knows she's already claiming the furniture as her personal play yard. Yeah, sure enough, pic on bluename.

Maybe a big dog who hasn't had his nose bopped enough yet, Tina?
The phrase has to mean something to the younger set other than what it brings to my mind -- the no-running-water potties at some state parks. That'll put you off your feed, too.

Now the mordidly obese? Well, I'm not admitting to anything since y'all can't see me, but yeah, I gained a few pounds a year for quite a while there, almost all of it a direct result of dieting. Lose a few pounds, then go nuts one day and keep eating until I had that back and five more.
I finally said enough, no more dieting -- to myself, to family, even to my doctor (who didn't take to the idea at all). Funny thing is that I'm now about 35 pounds below my heaviest weight. It's happened over a number of years and it's not a steady drop, but I'll take anything, thank you.
So now you know you don't have a Twiggy here.
On to the meat, or fat, of my comment: I am appalled at the number of young women, some barely out of their teens, who are so out of shape that they must hold tight to the shopping cart to bend slightly and reach in to take their purchases out. A little of this "exercise" and they're gasping for breath.
How on earth did this come about? Even at my heaviest, I could unload feed, stack hay, carry a 90 pound dog to the truck (once, in an emergency), and outpace almost anybody around.
True, my lifestyle was unusual, and I'm certainly not quite as fit as I once was. But I simply cannot understand how a young woman gets to the point that she doesn't have enough stamina to do her grocery shopping.

>>But I simply cannot understand how a young woman gets to the point that she doesn't have enough stamina to do her grocery shopping.<<

I cannot understand why a senior or mid-aged woman would do that either unless it's due to a chronic illness or real disability.

I hope mommas and poppas of all ages recognize they set the example for what's to come.

Tina, if you're still up and cranking out those summaries let me say that fat is not what puts the
weight on.
The main culprit is inactivity. You can eat all the fat you wish and not get fat. But when one's life becomes sedentary you best change your eating habits to lighter food cause your calorie needs go way down.
If you have food insecurities then seek a counselor, not a bag of potato chips and a gallon of ice cream.

Tonight's late meal was sauteed strips of steak with fresh ginger, cayenne pepper, green beans, carrots, and onions, topped with a garlic-vinegar-dark soy dressing. Steamed okra and sliced tomatoes on the side. I fixed the main course, sweetie fixed the okra/maters.

I am appalled at the number of young women, some barely out of their teens, who are so out of shape that they must hold tight to the shopping cart to bend slightly and reach in to take their purchases out.
************
Or the people who look to be in their mid-thirties who are using an electric scooter/cart to shop in Wal-Mart. I read that the current generation of children will be the first to have a life expectancy less than their parents...I think obesity and Type II diabetes were the two main reasons.

Wal-Mart may offer swine flu vaccinations
Stores possibly would serve as sites for inoculation campaign

Reuters 12:47 p.m. CT, Thurs., July 30, 2009

ORLANDO, Florida - Wal-Mart is discussing with U.S. health officials the possibility of putting vaccination sites at some of its stores for an H1N1 swine flu inoculation campaign this fall, a company official said on Thursday.

Federal officials met with Wal-Mart executives on Wednesday in Arkansas to discuss the issue, said Dr. John Agwunobi, president of health and wellness for Wal-Mart U.S., addressing public health leaders at a conference in Orlando, Fla.