{"id":445,"date":"2011-03-11T02:08:05","date_gmt":"2011-03-11T07:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/?p=445"},"modified":"2011-08-25T13:46:32","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T18:46:32","slug":"cynicismbasketball-cigarettes-oil-joe-mccarthy-backislamic-hearings-in-washington-diabetes-theory-of-universe-debate-listsbest-restaurants-least-toxic-cities-march-11-2011-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/cynicismbasketball-cigarettes-oil-joe-mccarthy-backislamic-hearings-in-washington-diabetes-theory-of-universe-debate-listsbest-restaurants-least-toxic-cities-march-11-2011-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynicism(basketball, cigarettes, oil) Joe McCarthy back?(Islamic Hearings in Washington) Diabetes. Theory of Universe Debate. Lists(best restaurants, least toxic cities) March 11, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fcbk_share\"><div class=\"fcbk_button\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Cal Schwartz\"\ttarget=\"_blank\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img src=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/facebook-button-plugin\/images\/standard-facebook-ico.png\" alt=\"Fb-Button\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><div class=\"fcbk_like\"><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/cynicismbasketball-cigarettes-oil-joe-mccarthy-backislamic-hearings-in-washington-diabetes-theory-of-universe-debate-listsbest-restaurants-least-toxic-cities-march-11-2011-2\/\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\" layout=\"button_count\"  share=\"false\"><\/fb:like><\/div><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MV5BMTg5NDk5MzQ3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgyMDUyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR10214317_2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0Large Hadron Collider\u00a0(LHC) is the\u00a0world&#8217;s largest and highest energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions\u00a0of physics, advancing humanity&#8217;s understanding of the deepest laws of nature.(Located at the French-Swiss border near Geneva, some 575 feet deep) A while back, when they were gearing up, I lost a night&#8217;s sleep thinking they were going to create a tiny little black hole right here on the good earth that would grow and wipe out all my hopes of eating at the &#8216;Heart Attack Grill;&#8217; a hamburger place in Chandler, Arizona that fry potatoes in lard, offers jolt cola, has some four-deck hamburgers that hit 8000 calories and offer free food to anyone over 350 pounds(you have to weigh in first). A young spokesperson (500 pounds) died recently of complications, duh!<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MENU3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-446\" title=\"MENU\" src=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MENU3-300x270.jpg\" alt=\"Cynicism\" width=\"300\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MENU3-300x270.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MENU3-1024x921.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MENU3.jpg 1201w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What an affront to the obesity epidemic. Somebody&#8217;s eating there since they&#8217;re opening a branch in Dallas soon. Speaking of obesity; on the diabetes front; by 2020, 52% of Americans will be either diabetic or pre-diabetic. Advice; hop on an exercise bike (lengthen telomeres); peddle for an hour a day and Google &#8216;magnesium&#8217;; a good deal of research available on how the mineral facilitates sugar metabolism. I do both and have no diabetes when I should have it. All four of my grandparents had diabetes and genetically it&#8217;s an F2 familial, skipping a generation; four genetic guns aimed at my cerebral temple. Why did I bring up the Collider? My head aches from recent news events. Not enough melatonin to bring normal sleep patterns; hey, sometimes the stuff works. Oh and do lots of fiber a day; promotes longevity. Oh, but most don&#8217;t care.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday was the darkest day in American college basketball history. Rutgers University played St. John&#8217;s at Madison Square Garden and the forces of evil, Darth something, decided Rutgers must lose if it can be orchestrated; the 3 refs failed to make at least 7 flagrant no-calls near the end of the game and even walked off the court with time still on the clock. Bless Youtube.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YlOWkNBxlTo\">watch?v=YlOWkNBxlTo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I watched in horror and disbelief. Imagination percolates; I profess being a writer of fiction. Borrowing a line from &#8216;Cool Hand Luke&#8217;, &#8220;What we got here is a failure to communicate.&#8221; No, what we got here are refs and Mr\/Ms. Mxplcxhyt fixing a game (if it could be fixed); and it probably was. &#8216;Fix&#8217; is herein used to connote, despite the &#8216;odds&#8217; of the game; that the &#8216;no-calls&#8217; were so numerous\/egregious by all 3 refs, that there has to be another reason why Rutgers wasn&#8217;t allowed to win.\u00a0It can&#8217;t be human error. Maybe it was an &#8220;organized&#8221; mistake. &#8216;They&#8217; know, because they&#8217;re smart, that the furor dies down in a few days, everybody forgets and the refs get a payday. If Kenneth Starr could only come back and look deeply into college sports, especially the Big East, so closely nestled near &#8216;John&#8217;s,&#8217; the best veal in the city. If I were a rich man; if only; if I were a smoker, I&#8217;d be doing three packs a day now in frustration and disgust at a head of a college basketball\u00a0&#8216;big&#8217; east&#8217;\u00a0league\u00a0entity. Ah cigarettes, the perfect segue. \u00a0Ah but nobody cares. Ah, and few remember what happened in the gulf. Ah gee. Remembering is a tough profession.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_448\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/hell2.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-448\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-448\" title=\"John Marinatto\" src=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/hell2-300x171.jpg\" alt=\"Cynicism\" width=\"300\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/hell2-300x171.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/hell2.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-448\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">the 3 refs and big east head<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_449\" style=\"width: 261px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/back0310111.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-449\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-449\" title=\"back031011\" src=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/back0310111.jpg\" alt=\"Cynicism\" width=\"251\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-449\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NY Post back page sport section 3-10-11<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A while back there was a movie about conspiracy theory with an actor who just cut a domestic deal to get out of jail free. Wow, do cigarettes companies conspire. But do countries conspire too? A thought while eating tuna fish with hot peppers, onions and ketchup; maybe countries need tobacco to get rid of excess population legally, conveniently, without war.\u00a0 Five million people a year die (600,000 from 2nd hand smoke) from cigarette smoking while our (I love to use the possessive) cigarette companies take in $60 billion in revenue. What confusion I have; a product (crop) which kills is legal the world over. But America has made smoking more difficult; got to like NYC Mayor Bloomberg, trying to outlaw it on the city streets. Bloomberg is 2nd richest New Yorker coming in at $18 billion. Koch, (not the former mayor) a conservative is worth $20 billion. Movies make it tough on smoking; if you show it, you risk a higher less profitable rating like &#8216;R&#8217; and &#8216;PG.&#8217; You can&#8217;t pay to have cigarettes in movies anymore.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/the_kitsch_bitsch_vintage_its_chesterfield_poster-p228453140058332830vhyue_5251.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-450\" title=\"the_kitsch_bitsch_vintage_its_chesterfield_poster-p228453140058332830vhyue_525\" src=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/the_kitsch_bitsch_vintage_its_chesterfield_poster-p228453140058332830vhyue_5251-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Cynicism\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/the_kitsch_bitsch_vintage_its_chesterfield_poster-p228453140058332830vhyue_5251-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/the_kitsch_bitsch_vintage_its_chesterfield_poster-p228453140058332830vhyue_5251-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/the_kitsch_bitsch_vintage_its_chesterfield_poster-p228453140058332830vhyue_5251.jpg 525w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But cigarette companies like to spend less on advertising (save money) and find creative ways to get their message out there; like Sigourney Weaver lighting up a cigarette in &#8216;Avatar;&#8217; wonder how many kids(4 million underage smokers) were influenced. America has fared well in war against smoking; still don&#8217;t get the rationale of considering it a legal crop. For a few thousand farmers that are left here in America, we let 5 million people a year die. But alas our cigarette companies are pulling up stakes and heading overseas (85% of some tobacco farmer&#8217;s crop goes overseas) Krakow, Poland has twice the percentage of smokers as USA. 210 broad measures to curb Polish smoking failed. A billion people smoke world wide; 50 million in USA and 320 million in China (more than our total population). Hey, according to my friend Ebenezer Scrooge, cigarettes are doing a wonderful job at decreasing surface population in a world that doesn&#8217;t have enough of anything. Forecast: tobacco is going to be around a long time, through climate change and the singularity. Hey again; in the Woody Allen movie &#8216;Sleeper,&#8217; it&#8217;s depicted that in 500 years, cigarette smoking is finally proven to be good for you (even though it has 599 bad chemicals in every puff) and a third world war(nuclear) was started by the head of the NYC teacher&#8217;s union, Albert Shanker, a nice guy who cared about teachers and took them out on strike every few years. Wisconsin needs Al Shanker; maybe Jersey too.\u00a0 Ah, but nobody cares.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s in the blog title. Oil: but not a lot to say. I did notice that rising oil prices has precipitated fears of the recovery faltering, so all of a sudden, mysteriously the price of a barrel drops 3%. \u00a0When news broke that Saudi Arabian police fired shots to break up a protest Thursday afternoon, prices soared $3 per barrel in just 12 minutes, erasing most of what had been a 3.6 % decline.\u00a0The whole thing reminds me of a scene from &#8216;Sound of Music;&#8217; the marionettes, lonely goatherd and manipulation. Ah gee; a lot of oil in them there hills out west. Have a nice day. Life is like a box of chocolate; you never know or do you, what you get. But I just laid some good cryptic cynical stuff on yawl. But nobody cares.<\/p>\n<p>I was too young to understand Senator Joe McCarthy, the communist hysteria and blacklisted artists in the 1950&#8217;s whose lives were ruined because they didn&#8217;t or did talk. &#8216;The Front&#8217; is a 1976 movie dealing with those issues; check it out; good stuff; you walk away uplifted at the end. Tell Danny LaGattuta, &#8220;Calvin sent you.&#8221; \u00a0I just ran into the downstairs bathroom and threw cold water on my face.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MV5BMTg5NDk5MzQ3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgyMDUyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR10214317_3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-452\" title=\"MV5BMTg5NDk5MzQ3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgyMDUyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR1,0,214,317_\" src=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MV5BMTg5NDk5MzQ3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgyMDUyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR10214317_3-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"Cynicism\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MV5BMTg5NDk5MzQ3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgyMDUyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR10214317_3-202x300.jpg 202w, http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/MV5BMTg5NDk5MzQ3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgyMDUyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR10214317_3.jpg 214w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/a>Deja-vu is all my over my life.\u00a0 In Belmar, New Jersey, there&#8217;s a safe secure jetty for meditation. Deja-vu and my friend Ruth from Seattle make me feel I was around the Jersey shore a few hundred years before McCarthy. Cold water droplets are sliding under my chin line and I&#8217;m letting two in particular, engage in a race of reality. \u00a0Rep. Peter King concluded a House Homeland Security Committee hearing today that investigated the radicalization of Muslims in America; the New York Republican said he hoped it put to rest the &#8220;mindless hysteria&#8221; that preceded it. Was this hearing necessary? We&#8217;re all Americans. Joe McCarthy; are you hiding in my cold water faucet? \u00a0The water droplets disappeared at my throat. Is Peter McCarthy back again? Did we recently put our Japanese-American citizens in internment camps? \u00a0Wisconsin passed a state senate bill taking away collective bargaining without the democrats present? \u00a0Oh. Oh. Joe McCarthy was a senator from Wisconsin. Wait. I&#8217;ll be right back; more water. Rush Limbaugh earns $ 58 million a year; Glen Beck, $33 million; Sean Hannity, $22 million; Don Imus, $11 million( and he got fired from NBC a few years ago for saying racist things about the Rutgers Women&#8217;s basketball team) and I write a free, spirited blog that manages to throw in techniques on extending your life. Oh well. Nobody cares.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday night March 7th, my son and I went to the American Museum of Natural History Hayden Planetarium to listen to the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate on &#8220;The Theory of Everything, Still Searching?&#8221;\u00a0 Six physicists\/astro-physicists participated in debate whether the entire universe can be explained with a single unifying theory (string theory); good bonding for a parent\/child to do together. Walking on Columbus Avenue, I remembered promising my Facebook friends I&#8217;d do a beer and a banana on the way to the debate and I did; wish there were better documented uses for banana peels. A question remains unanswered, unrequited, un-asked; the line was too long and I felt like a lay person Kentucky tobacco farmer but here goes (anybody out there?). Recent radiation findings seem to suggest the universe was recycled so does Hugh Everett&#8217;s 1951 Princeton PhD dissertation on parallel worlds being proven mathematically have any bearing on that? I marveled how fast we caught a cab heading downtown and how &#8216;cool&#8217; all of the astrophysicists really were; a brave new world. Can&#8217;t wait to go back and learn about cars riding in the air one day and beef being grown in a lab dish.<\/p>\n<p>Lists time. The best restaurants in America (and I&#8217;ve never been to any. You see I&#8217;ve got this theory; Lettuce is lettuce) #1. French Laundry, Yountville, California. #2 Per Se, NYC. #3. Le Bernadin, NYC. #4. Daniel, NYC #5. Alinea, Chicago.\u00a0 #7 Chez Panisse, Berkeley, Calif. # 13. Peter Luger, Brooklyn, N.Y.\u00a0 #14 Katz&#8217;s Deli, NYC (huh?) Now to America&#8217;s Least toxic cities (remembering Philadelphia, St. Louis, New York(North Jersey are the worst)(air quality, water quality, superfund) McAllen, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Raleigh, North Carolina; Orlando, Florida, Las Vegas. (all southern\/ western cities; I recall flying into Newark Airport some years ago, looking at grey, brown, tired and old, reconciling Columbus landed near Jersey(sort of)not Las Vegas so Jersey has a leg up on toxic logic because it&#8217;s been settled longer. Am I a Jersey settler?)<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s all folks; another blog, another day. I do need to express how physically sick I was watching the end of Rutgers-St.John&#8217;s basketball game yesterday; been watching and playing basketball since two years after the McCarthy hearings; a long time ago. What happened at that game was more than tragic; seven NON calls by the refs; flagrant and egregious but it wasn&#8217;t human error by 3 separate refs but somebody poised to lose if Rutgers won; How sad; commentators and reporters all over America are silent about the &#8216;f&#8217; word. Things happen. Remember Madoff? Remember McCarthy. Remember the Alamo. Remember Pearl Harbor. Things happen; never think they can&#8217;t. Remember, that we&#8217;ll forget what happened at Madison Square Garden in just a few days. The refs will go back to being refs. Thing is, nobody cares and somebody knows that and counts on it.<\/p>\n<p>Contact Information:\u00a0 website:\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/vichywater.net<\/p>\n<p>Facebook:\u00a0 Cal Schwartz<\/p>\n<p>Twitter:\u00a0\u00a0 Earthood<\/p>\n<p>Email: <a href=\"mailto:earthood@gmail.com\">earthood@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>VIDEO of Rutgers &#8211; St. John&#8217;s Basketball final 1:09<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YlOWkNBxlTo\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YlOWkNBxlTo<\/a>\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>BOOK TRAILER YOUTUBE VIDEO;\u00a0\u00a0 65 seconds long:<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qj2ko9gcC_M\">book trailer<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbk_share\"><div class=\"fcbk_button\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Cal Schwartz\"\ttarget=\"_blank\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img src=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/facebook-button-plugin\/images\/standard-facebook-ico.png\" alt=\"Fb-Button\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><div class=\"fcbk_like\"><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/cynicismbasketball-cigarettes-oil-joe-mccarthy-backislamic-hearings-in-washington-diabetes-theory-of-universe-debate-listsbest-restaurants-least-toxic-cities-march-11-2011-2\/\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\" layout=\"button_count\"  share=\"false\"><\/fb:like><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Large Hadron Collider\u00a0(LHC) is the\u00a0world&#8217;s largest and highest energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions\u00a0of physics, advancing humanity&#8217;s understanding of the deepest laws of nature.(Located at the French-Swiss border near Geneva, some 575 feet deep) A while back, when they were gearing up, I lost a night&#8217;s sleep [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[202,201,204,203],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1397,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/1397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vichywater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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