Kick Start Your Heart

Great News! New studies are showing that coffee drinkers have far less of a chance of developing dementia and Alzheimer's later in life. Two cups seems to be the magic number. They have no conclusive evidence as to what effect 8 to 10 cups of coffee per day might do. That worries me a little because that's my dosage- a full pot every morning. It takes that much to get my heart kick-started. I suspect this is somewhere between 1500 and 1800 mg's of the morning's punctuation mark. But just think, if 2 cups is that beneficial, might not 10 cups create a higher I.Q.? Or maybe, improve my chances of solving Super Sudoku's?

For the non-coffee drinker, take heart. There is also medical proof that tea provides anti- oxidants that are good for the body. Red wine has the same effect. These two I try to drink in moderation, unless certain friends stop by. They tend to over-serve us. And right in our own home! Of all the nerve. We've talked to them about it, always over a glass of wine. Well, one thing leads to another and there you go. They do it again.

My addiction to coffee started in the Navy. Standing watch over a building that no communist would ever think of breaking into, you get pretty bored in the wee hours on watch. I had never liked coffee growing up. But after 2 or 3 hours of watching file cabinets (no computers in the Navy for us back then), one needed help. Of course, there was always the fear that if you ever did fall asleep, you would have to stand before the Man (at a Captain's mast). There was always free coffee available, so that's when the whole thing started. I probably wasted dozens of your taxpayer dollars learning just how best to get the stuff down at first. I settled on just a little sugar. I don't think the Navy provided saccharin. There wasn't Splenda, Nutrasweet, etcetera back then. It also took a while to get the dosage just right. After a few nights of having the euphoria of the coffee buzz keep me up for days at a time, I finally decided how many cups kept me alert, without sending me to the gym to try and sweat it all out.

The hardest thing for me to understand as the years progressed was how Starbucks ever made it. How in the world could anyone justify spending $4 on a cup of coffee? Then, like most Americans, I tried some of their Super Vendi Mocha Latte with a swirl and got hooked. This went on, like the extra pounds, for years until I read somewhere what the calories were in one of those bad boys. After quitting Starbucks and cutting out the sausage biscuit every morning I dropped 20 pounds like I'd had liposuction. It was a difficult divorce. Two of my favorite things had to go away.

Which brings me to the next point. Coffee drinkers have a lower incidence of Type 2 Diabetes. I don't think they included Starbucks patrons in the study. But it stands to reason that if you're bouncing off walls and doing back flips at the office, your weight stays down, which is the real demon when it comes to Diabetes.

My wife doesn't drink coffee. Never has. She does drink tea, which makes me feel better about the potential for dementia later on. And, she gets quite a kick when I do back flips through the house when I overdose on java. So, though unemployed, I still get up in the morning and fire up my new Krups coffee maker and grab the paper. I enjoy reading it, knowing that when I finish, I'll remember at least some of what I read. Now, where was I?

Zealots Make Me Nervous

Zealotry makes most of very uncomfortable. Philosophically, that doesn't make it necessarily wrong or right. I guess I'm like most people and try to get along with everybody, without discussions ever becoming heated and mortal wounds being inflicted on friendships. Also like most, I try to keep my religious beliefs to myself and expect others to do the same, unless asked. Like politics, religion can spark some really hard feelings among otherwise civilized people. This also may be why most of us in the West can't quite get our arms around the problems in the Middle East.

Whenever I think of zealotry I think of the history of such intensity: Nazi Germany, al-Qaeda, et al. Zealotry based on hatred usually ends up killing a few million people, most of them innocent of any crime other than being a certain faith, nationality or color. But what of religious zealotry? There are religious scholars who can point to historical precedent of zealotry based on faith having wreaked a good bit of havoc over time, as well. So, then, is zealotry itself a crime? Is it synonymous with terrorism? Why do Islamic zealots hate the West so much?

Most western cultures have long since abandoned the notion that religion has any place in everyday life. Not so in the middle east. Almost since Abraham sired Isaac and Ishmael, there has existed a schism among the peoples of the Arab countries and Israel that has survived thousands of years and countless attempts to resolve. Isaac was the promised son of Sarah, his wife, both late in years. But some years prior to that, the tale says, Sarah, tired of waiting for God, gave her servant girl, Hagar, to Abraham. They bore a son, Ishmael. That God promised both heirs prosperity and that great nations would ensue from both of them was about the last time the two sons and their progeny agreed on anything. The break had to come later, though, because both religions write of Isaac and Ishmael both burying Abraham, sharing some sense of equality and entitlement from their mutual Father. Ishmael, according to Islam, is the forebear of Mohammad, and Isaac the "seed" of Judah, etc. Christianity shares the mutual ancestry of the Jew, hence Isaac, and so between these three religions, most of the world has a common thread. What went wrong?

One needs to get over one's reluctance to discuss religion to begin to understand the motivation of warring factions that purport religion as their impetus. Some will find it as uneasy a feeling as I do to even think about such things. The reality is, however, if we are to understand what lies at the heart of the problems in the Middle East, which has threatened each succeeding generation with annihilation of the human race, we must force ourselves to grasp the truth of why there is no peace there.

First of all, there needs to be a dispelling of some myths. There is no "Palestinian" race. The area of Palestine for millinea has been a crossroads of commerce, with untold numbers of nomadic tribes and traders having lived there or traveled through there at one time or another. It has been a corridor for trade that goes back thousands of years. That there were people living in the area known as Palestine when Israel became a state in 1948 does not confer some "national heritage" to people who lived there previously. Furthermore, there is historical precedent, agreed to by Islamic scholars, that lands were awarded by God / Allah at the time of Abraham. It may get fuzzy here according to the sacred scriptures of each, but Israel was land awarded to certain descendants of Abraham, namely Isaac's children, forebear of the Jews. And, what is now known as the Arabian Peninsula was awarded to others, primarily descendants of Ishmael and children from Abraham's third wife, Keturah, forebears of the Arabs. So, in assessing which people have which land, it's more important, in my view, that each party to the warfare in the Middle East consider this as a starting point when playing peacemaker.

Furthermore, logic dictates that if the Arab nations have 110 million square miles to play in, why can't Israel exist in only 10,000 square miles of their claimed homeland? Ah, there's the rub. It is arguable whether enmity of this sort can last thousands of years, but why else would so many (the Arab Zealots) with so much, want to exterminate so few (the Israelites) with so little? The unsettling truth is that this is nothing more than hatred masked in religious fanaticism. Not to digress into eschatology too far, it is unlikely that anyone other than God will be able to bring a lasting peace to the Middle East. That the CIA planted the seeds of the fanatical sects of the Islamic peoples in a unifying experiment "gone bad" is now widely known. Both we, and the moderate Arab states, wish that had never happened. Both the Western Cultures and moderate Arabs also are not bothered by allowing Israel their little swatch of land, to live in peace. So what of the Arab zealots?

We in America need to be a little more comfortable with addressing the religious aspects of the factions in the middle east, be better scholars of history and insist that our leadership, with other concerned states, create a diplomatic stand that though, unpopular in the Arab world, goes beyond the one tired, foggy principle of "being an ally of Israel". It goes much further than their being an isolated democracy. We should insist on Israel's historical right to their land and support them in their asserting that right up to, and including, driving out the factions and criminals that continually cause all of the trouble. Any diplomatic effort short of that end will inevitably fail.

Who Dat?

My lovely wife, Stephanie, was born and raised in New Orleans. Most of her family still lives there. As do many of her friends that she grew up with. Steffi, having lived in the Atlanta area for the past 30 or so years has no accent that would reveal her upbringing. She now has the typical Atlanta accent, a cross between Southern and whatever. Being an English major in college, she uses correct grammer which would confuse most people as to her topographical heritage. I still have enough Texan from my 20+ years in Houston to tickle her sensibilities from time to time. The word "can't" sends her into fits of laughter, which I apparently pronounce, "caynt", like every good Texan. I did get rid of "flustrated" permanently from my lexicon, after the 20th or 30th time being told that the word doesn't exist.

Which brings me to purpose of my story. There is a chance we'll be moving to Steffi's hometown of New Orleans due to there being construction going on there, unlike any other metropolitan area in the world. That's a chance for me to keep building stuff. My main concern is not job-related. It's how I'll fit in. You see, I can't even decide how to say "New Orleans". For some residents there, it's pronounced "Nu Ahliyans". For others, it's "Nu Orleeyans". It is never, ever pronounced like it is in many parts of our country, "Nu Or-Leans". My point is, if I can't even pronounce the name of the city, how am I ever going to fit in?

There are many more challenges awaiting the newcomer. The entire geography is a challenge. There's Uptown, Downtown, Metairie, etc. to contend with. When asked by a prospective employer where we'll be living, I'll have no idea what to say, even if I already live somewhere. Maybe I'll just nod and laugh, like the Chinese do when they have absolutely no idea what someone is talking about. Maybe we'll just rent a dorm room at Tulane and then I can spin that little question right back to them. "Are you familiar with the area around Tulane"?, I'll query. That should shut them up.

Finally, being a tepid sports fan, I know I'll have to take sides. I did when I spent four years in the the RTP in North Carolina (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill). After being in a tornado of rival sentiments for about a year, I became a fan of Duke basketball. That alienanted half of my friends there. Of course, in Nu Ahleyans, not being from there, I can just plead ignorance and tell everybody I went to a "football-less" college in Atlanta. That might just provide some sympathetic grunts. The real test will come during professional football season. Sorry, I don't care a whit about pro basketball.

I hear Steffi talking to her brother, Parke on the telephone about the Saints. They always sign off with "who dat"? Scratching my head, I asked the first time I heard it, "who's who?", or "who's what?" My wife looked at me like I'd lost my mind so I just smiled, nodded and laughed so as not to be taken for a complete idiot. Honestly, I still don't know what that term means. It seems that if it was strictly translated, it would be "Who's that?" Which then would raise the question, "who the hell are you talking about?" Is it a player? The owner? A secret code about someone blown away in Katrina? The very first thing I'll have to do when arriving, if it works out that way, will be to steal away secretly, wandering the streets of Nu Ahleyans, asking just what "Who Dat" means.

It could be worse. If I were to move for New York, say, and someone came up and asked: "HowaboutdemYankees"? To which I would have to reply, "Who gives a crap?" I'm sure a fist fight would ensue. To get in a street brawl your first few days in your new city would be quite embarrassing. I'll be very careful in Nu Ahleyans to ask my questions with aplomb.

Nom De Obscaena

Atlanta's Sunday paper, the AJC, picked up and printed an article by Sarah Lyall in the New York Times. The title of the article was "Crapstone, now that's a name." It's all about some perverse sense of humor that Brit's have over places given bawdy names. There is, apparently, a village in Devon named "Crapstone". Crapstone is a one-shop village in which Stewart Pierce, 61 lives and endures. He is frequently called and asked to repeat the name of his village. When doing so, the caller, and often his co-workers, burst out in laughter. Sometimes they add, "Oh, we thought it didn't really exist".

There are others of course. Ugley, East Breast, North Piddle and, Spanker Lane, if you're interested, is in Derbyshire. There's also Pratts Bottom in Kent. A "Prat" being slang for a buffoon and bottom, you know, is one's buttocks. Streets are a favorite target as well of Brits who love double-entendres and this is a time-honored tradition in the UK. Hoare Road gets guffaws as does Gaswork Road.

Ed Hurst and Rob Bailey have co-authored "Rude Britain" and "Rude UK", which list these offensive place names. Hurst stated in an interview that "Place names and street names are full of history and culture and it's only because language has evolved over the centuries that they've wound up sounding rude". Bailey and Hurst got the idea for the books when they read about a couple who bought a house on Butt Hole Road, in South Yorkshire.

Being fair, the name most likely "has to do with the spot's historic function as a source of water, a water butt being a container for collecting water. But it proved to be prohibitively hilarious".

"If they ordered a pizza, the pizza company wouldn't deliver it because they thought it was a made-up name," Hurst said.

The couple moved away.