Good News! Get a shot, lose your fat! (maybe) I just came upon an article from 2004 by Peter Jaret. He writes how Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, a nutritional biochemist, thinks that a virus may cause obesity in some people. The human adenovirus-36 (or AD-36), when injected in monkeys causes significant weight gain.
When fat cells are exposed to AD-36m they begin to multiply. A check of overweight people found that those with AD-36 antibodies (indicating that they have at sometime been infected with AD-36) are more likely to be overweight than those people who were never so infected. So, maybe a vaccine could be developed that would counteract this infection (like the Flu virus) and make us all thin again.
Ah... to be thin again.. maybe I could start to wear all of those clothes that I have been saving for a thinner day. For instance.. I have 42" waist pants that I could wear.. also 40" waist pants.. and 38" waist pants. I can remember when my waist was in the 30" waist range... my step was more lively, I seemed to float when I walked. Now.. I plod..
I even bought some Haggar pants that have a waist mechanism that allows a 42" waist set of pants to fit a 46" waist. Imagine that!
But, why is that a problem? It's like elevator shoes. The best of them can only add 3" to your height. This is the same as I can get from my boots. Over the years, I have lost about 4" in height. This usually happens to people as they age. So, I probably should wear my boots all the time if I want to be like I was before.
Now, all of my children and grandchildren are taller than I am. Some of them ask "Prepop, when did you join the 'little people' club?" As I have mentioned before in this blog, at one time I was above average in height, later I was average height, now I am a short person. So what. People expect old folks to be short.
However, I know some eighty year old friends who are still taller than six feet and have no indication that they will ever be shorter. I also know some old friends who are so short they are about to disappear from view. Ain't genetics funny.
The best thing to do is accept what nature has done to you. You can't change it.. right? As Popeye says: "I yam what I yam, and that's all what I yam." So, relax, take life easy.. you're a long time dead.
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Showing posts with label height. Show all posts
Showing posts with label height. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Has the News gotten Better or Worse?
As is often the case in 2009, the news is particularly depressing. Entertainment icons leaving us; Women being killed protesting in Iran; Governors messing around in South America; Parents of sextuplets divorcing; Swine flu cases increasing.... Was the world always this way? I have a collection of old newspapers and I like to look at them from time to time to see if the world has improved since then. (What do you think?)
The following items were included in the Sunday February 21, 1937 issue of the New York Times. This was the birthdate of the late Elaine Langlois Vaughan.
01. General Motors employees went back to work last week after a six-week sit-down strike.
Senator LaFollette reported that from 1934 to 1936, General motors spent 839 million dollars for detective services. He said that it was spent so the company could keep abreast of the labor situation.
02. President Roosevelt threw his "shock troops" into the campaign to drive through Congress his plan to change the Supreme Court by adding a justice for every present member past 70 who refused to retire.
03. In Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain called upon Europe to choose war or peace. He promised either a one and one-half billion pound rearmament budget for Britain or a move for a mutual assistance pact for the Nations of Western Europe.
04. Hitler ordered the election of a National Synod which would draft a new constitution for the German Evangelical Church. This was a victory for Nazi "German Christians" and creation of a church dictatorship by Hitler's religious advisor, Rev. Ludwig Mueller.
05. In Japan, Yukio Ozaki, a noted liberal, denounced the recent anti-Communist pact with Berlin and expressed amazement that Japan could "shake hands" with a country like Germany.
06. Clothes-horse German General Hermann Goering supposedly changes uniforms several times a day. It is rumored that a thief once stole 37 of his uniforms and he never even missed them.
07. Work progressed on the plan to bring the 200 separate Protestant sects in the United States under a central organization called "The Church of Christ in America."
08. The "handsomest Governor in America" Paul V. McNutt of Indianapolis, pushed by some to become a candidate for President, was appointed High Commissioner to the Philippines by Roosevelt. (To get him out of his way?)
09. Miss Jane M. Hoey of New York became head of the Bureau of Public Assistance.. this was the office charged with administering Federal funds for the aged, blind and dependent children.. some parts of which became the current SSI (assistance for the aged, blind and disabled ineligible for regular Social Security.) Miss Hoey said that her office helps provide assistance for one and one-half million persons and will ultimately cost 200 million dollars per year. (A little bit under estimated of course.)
10. Ten thousand youngsters were asked to give their movie preferences. The order was: 1: G-Men (read FBI or similar); 2: Mysteries (Charlie Chan?) ; 3: Child stars (Shirley Temple); 4: Musicals (New Faces of 1936; Fred and Ginger); 5: Gangsters (Dillinger; Bonnie and Clyde); 6: War. (It doesn't say if the survey was given to boys and girls, but if it had been given to all boys, War would have had a higher order I'm sure.)
11. New York State Senator McNaboe sponsored a bill to compel the display of American flags, three feet by four, in all classrooms; it was defeated.
When I first entered school back in the late 1930's and early 1940's, we saluted the flag that was on a pole in each classroom by giving a kind of Nazi gesture, with the arm pointed upward at an angle as though we were about to say: "Heil Hitler".. as we got into WWII, the arm salute was changed to a palm on the heart gesture.
12. Japan dropped it's minimum height restriction for a soldier from 5 feet 1/2 inch to 4 feet 10 1/2 inches. The American Army's standard is 5 feet 4 inches.. but it can be lowered 1/2 inch in "exceptional cases." Recently, a 6 feet 10 inch recruit showed up and caused supply officers to have to order an extra long bed.
13. The original manuscript of "Old Mother Hubbard" has been discovered in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It dates from 1804 when it was invented by Sarah Catherine Martin. The names are now also known for the writers of "Mary had a little lamb" and "there was a little girl, who had a little curl..".. but people still want to know who wrote : "Hush-a-bye baby", "Twinkle, twinkle, little star", and "Little drops of water." (This was, of course, long before Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia.)
ok 13 is enough for now.
The following items were included in the Sunday February 21, 1937 issue of the New York Times. This was the birthdate of the late Elaine Langlois Vaughan.
01. General Motors employees went back to work last week after a six-week sit-down strike.
Senator LaFollette reported that from 1934 to 1936, General motors spent 839 million dollars for detective services. He said that it was spent so the company could keep abreast of the labor situation.
02. President Roosevelt threw his "shock troops" into the campaign to drive through Congress his plan to change the Supreme Court by adding a justice for every present member past 70 who refused to retire.
03. In Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain called upon Europe to choose war or peace. He promised either a one and one-half billion pound rearmament budget for Britain or a move for a mutual assistance pact for the Nations of Western Europe.
04. Hitler ordered the election of a National Synod which would draft a new constitution for the German Evangelical Church. This was a victory for Nazi "German Christians" and creation of a church dictatorship by Hitler's religious advisor, Rev. Ludwig Mueller.
05. In Japan, Yukio Ozaki, a noted liberal, denounced the recent anti-Communist pact with Berlin and expressed amazement that Japan could "shake hands" with a country like Germany.
06. Clothes-horse German General Hermann Goering supposedly changes uniforms several times a day. It is rumored that a thief once stole 37 of his uniforms and he never even missed them.
07. Work progressed on the plan to bring the 200 separate Protestant sects in the United States under a central organization called "The Church of Christ in America."
08. The "handsomest Governor in America" Paul V. McNutt of Indianapolis, pushed by some to become a candidate for President, was appointed High Commissioner to the Philippines by Roosevelt. (To get him out of his way?)
09. Miss Jane M. Hoey of New York became head of the Bureau of Public Assistance.. this was the office charged with administering Federal funds for the aged, blind and dependent children.. some parts of which became the current SSI (assistance for the aged, blind and disabled ineligible for regular Social Security.) Miss Hoey said that her office helps provide assistance for one and one-half million persons and will ultimately cost 200 million dollars per year. (A little bit under estimated of course.)
10. Ten thousand youngsters were asked to give their movie preferences. The order was: 1: G-Men (read FBI or similar); 2: Mysteries (Charlie Chan?) ; 3: Child stars (Shirley Temple); 4: Musicals (New Faces of 1936; Fred and Ginger); 5: Gangsters (Dillinger; Bonnie and Clyde); 6: War. (It doesn't say if the survey was given to boys and girls, but if it had been given to all boys, War would have had a higher order I'm sure.)
11. New York State Senator McNaboe sponsored a bill to compel the display of American flags, three feet by four, in all classrooms; it was defeated.
When I first entered school back in the late 1930's and early 1940's, we saluted the flag that was on a pole in each classroom by giving a kind of Nazi gesture, with the arm pointed upward at an angle as though we were about to say: "Heil Hitler".. as we got into WWII, the arm salute was changed to a palm on the heart gesture.
12. Japan dropped it's minimum height restriction for a soldier from 5 feet 1/2 inch to 4 feet 10 1/2 inches. The American Army's standard is 5 feet 4 inches.. but it can be lowered 1/2 inch in "exceptional cases." Recently, a 6 feet 10 inch recruit showed up and caused supply officers to have to order an extra long bed.
13. The original manuscript of "Old Mother Hubbard" has been discovered in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It dates from 1804 when it was invented by Sarah Catherine Martin. The names are now also known for the writers of "Mary had a little lamb" and "there was a little girl, who had a little curl..".. but people still want to know who wrote : "Hush-a-bye baby", "Twinkle, twinkle, little star", and "Little drops of water." (This was, of course, long before Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia.)
ok 13 is enough for now.
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