DIET/FRAWLEY/BOS/EGYPT/BB/OTHER STUFF

The Bogo diet has started. Every year around this time I manage to gain about five pounds. Now to many that is nothing but to the real BB (Buffed Bogo) it is so why accept it? My body just seems to want a layer of winter fat despite that I have a fairly high exercise activity level and really always have except when I am in rehab mode for an injury or surgery so that part of the puzzle is in place. But the weight? So I cut way back by eliminating all sweets and breads and concentrating on smaller portions. Snacks consist of diet tea or soda and fruit or crackers. Maybe not top notch on the Dr. Oz scale but filling. In a week that five pounds has vanished but I will go on a bit longer and trim another five or so - maybe.

On the diet front or is that behind I just get a load of all the gimmicks for weight loss. It really is quite basic: Eat less. Eat right. Exercise more.

But with the diet I use I live for Sunday. Sunday is the very, very best day since that is treat day. The treat is a Honey Dew coffee roll. I savory Sunday and that coffee roll. I microwave it for ten seconds. Each bit of frosting is devoured and licked off my fingers. I know - visual - but you all do it. Admit it. I take that treat in bits and pieces as I slowly work my way to the center. That is my reward. This will probably be a three or maybe a four Sunday diet. When it is done I will resume my normal eating patterns and not worry about any gains since exercise burns about a 1,000 extra calories a day.

The nanny state of Massachusetts is doing enough meddling into how we make choices in just what we are going to eat. The perception is that the citizenry is waddling around - especially children - as borderline obese. Not true for this state as we are ranked among the very healthiest in the nation. Go concentrate on Mississippi or Alabama.

If Michelle Obama wants to be the obesity police maybe she can start with her good friend Oprah.

I consider the continual ranting of the provocateurs of the nanny state diet and foods division way out of bounds. Quite intrusive to tell restaurants what they should serve and how we should eat since there is enough information available for people to make healthy choices and restaurants have certainly responded to their customers wishes by balancing menus. I will not be shocked if childhood obesity becomes a legitimate reason for having DCF look into the rotund family and classify junior being a porker as a form of child abuse.

Call centers are starting to again be located back in the United States as customers have expressed frustration over dealing with representatives for whom English is a second language, do not understand the nuances of our form of English and have no concept of our culture. Cost cutting was fine but the blunt realization is too many customers have expressed their ire over this so bad news for foreign employment but good news for domestic employment.

The more I listen to Sarah Palin the more it seems like she belongs to the woman’s contingent of our BOS.

Allin Frawley is listed on my sidebar as he now has a web site to inform on his campaign for BOS. You know Allin as a regular and quite persistent in both attending and requesting information from the sitting BOS. I will vote for Allin and it is quite simple why. He is willing to invest time, learn, do diligent homework, has a notable work ethic and has gone 100% on record as allowing access.

The two members up for re-election have - IMHO - had their shelf life expire. Marsha Brunelle has displayed a culture of arrogance since the days of the casino issue and that has not changed. The final token for me was her ill fated attempt several months ago to limit access. She can frame it any way she wants but the bottom line it looks bad - really bad - when six former and quite well respected BOS members show up for a verbal lynching. I saw some real backtracking but no apology. Then toss in the ongoing drama with the IT Director. MiMi I have referred to as a political version of the appendix since no one knows what it does and if removed does no harm. After watching meetings on TV the term “empty suit” comes to mind.

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) has closed their doors. This is the last vestige of pragmatic Democrats - the kind a moderate to liberal Republican could vote for. Blue Dogs as they were likely to be called. I guess the party wishes to return to the days of McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis.

Egypt has a world of troubles going on as another iron fist attempts to maintain control as various factions will certainly use this convoluted mess to prop up their own “politics,” especially politics immersed in religion.

There will be spill over and I am sure the Saudi’s and their pampered and oil drenched royalty will be center stage and right now this is having an eerie comparison to the domino effect of the fall of communism back a few decades ago. Maybe this will have similar consequences or it just might be the turmoil that seems to surface occasionally in so many nations of questionable democratic principles or none at all.

What is happening in Egypt is a cry for democracy without any real operational experience in democracy. Without that a vacuum is easy to be created so something like the Muslim Brotherhood - banned for fifty or so years - can step in. The United States is attempting in both Iraq and Afghanistan to do the same things - seeds of democracy. Good luck with that! Our blueprint is not necessarily a strict rule of majority as much as it respect and protect the minority. In the mess that followed the hanging chad there was no revolution in the streets. Doubt if you can see that mind set transferred to countries with no background in it.

Back in 1990 communism was on life support anyways as all the half-truths that had been formulated for decades were beginning to unravel thanks to technology. Nothing like having underground video tapes by the millions floating around in various controlled counties that show that much of the propaganda was simply false. Sort of confirmed liars on an international scale. And now that carries over to Egypt where the first thing to do is attempt to control the flow of information my shutting down the internet. Communication - especially the visual and instantaneous kind - goes beyond the internet.

There was a great book written called “WW III - August, 1987” that detailed the fall of communism with the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. What the main focus was actually happened and that is the tenuous relationship between Russia and the various occupied nations of the “Communist Bloc.” In the book those nations quickly ignored or revolted against their “maters” from Moscow and that was later mirrored in the fall of communism in Europe.

President WOW is attempting to promote a new found centrist position regarding his approach to business. Had all the right platitudes tossed out in a recent speech before the Chamber of Commerce but a mountain of damage has already been accumulated by his administration. His speech had a less than enthusiastic response.

The Wheeling-LaBelle Nail Company of West Virginia has closed a victim of foreign competition and the recession and that leaves Acorn Manufacturing’s Tremont Nails of Mansfield as the only nail producer in the United States to carry the made in U.S.A. label. Tremont Nails manufactures traditional square cut nails and much of the process and craftsman can trace their skills back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

In Germany and Japan the school year is about 230 days. I know from personal experience that in Japan the students do not receive homework but are “encouraged” to join after school clubs which further hone the academic skills learned during the day.

We have had exchange students for an entire year and they have been from Japan and Poland (twice). Interesting approach to how behavior issues are handled in the classroom. As the students get older the accountability magnifies and if behaviors beyond the norm continue the students are simply tossed out. No second, third, fourth or fifth chance. No IEP. No appeal. No nothing. You are on your own. Obviously the United States has a more egalitarian approach but consider that when testing scores are given. Sometimes our scores are skewered by students who in other countries would not be given the exams (SPED) or have been tossed (behavior).

The exchange students we have had also preferred our methods of education as they thought they created an environment that encouraged independent thought, free exchange of ideas and the ability to explore areas of interest. Of course these were also students that had the ability to sustain their own education - driven would be the word.

Chrysler ran a two minute ad in the Super Bowl that feature rapper Eminem and the ad finished way down on the popularity charts. I thought it was a great ad as it focused as much on the city - Detroit - as it did on the product itself. Great visuals of a rust belt icon attempting to recovery and a industry on which it depends upon. Having a local kid do it was great.

I’ve been finding Pravda online English edition an interesting read.

A contractor in another town charged a senior citizen $4,800 for clearing a roof - a job that normally goes for $250. Fortunately others stepped in and the money was returned.

Thank you to Alex Rodriquez (AKA - “Slappy” or “A-Roids”) for his splendid display of up close and personal feeding by his between strippers gal pal Carmen Diaz while both wallowed in a luxury suite at the Super Bowl. Now in the great scheme of things this is trivial beyond trivial but to the A-Fraud and Yankee haters this is just more ammunition to bring to the baseball posting boards - not that I would partake in such activity.

BB will never be known as “Mr. Research” based on his latest column and his use of ONE study to make a determination on charter schools. This is too significant issue to point to ONE study as a determining factor. Studies from various other sources such as the Manhattan Institute, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Columbia and even Stanford show positive results. You can also look at testing results from National Assessment of Educational Progress that supports the Stanford study BB quoted. Fine on of success and find another that highlights failure. The results vary and can be linked to availability of resources, how the charter school is defined, the methods of data acquisition and a myriad of other possibilities. IMHO the bottom line is charter schools have been fine but not world beaters. I hope BB is not going to do any “classes” on research techniques.