Monthly Archives: August 2010

Science

To Your Health! Nondrinkers Die Younger Than Imbibers

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Not all alcohol is created equal. Wine has more beneficial effects than, say, grain alcohol.

“Why do heavy drinkers outlive nondrinkers?” is the title of the TIME magazine article (among others). The surprise result from a study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (which does not seem to be funded by Jack Daniels) is that the mortality rate for nondrinkers is even higher than heavy drinkers.

This is no flash-in-the-pan study, either; its 1,824 participants were tracked over two decades. (Caveat: 63 percent were men.) Participants were between 55 and 65, and the study controlled for “for nearly all imaginable variables–socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on,” says TIME.

Charles Holahan

The study’s author, Charles Holahan, researches “health psychology, with a specialization in stress and coping,” which is a clue to what the answer to the puzzle may be, and how debilitating it is to miss out on socializing regularly.

While no one’s suggesting heavy drinking is good for you (69 and 60 percent of the study’s nondrinkers and heavy drinkers died, respectively, but only 41 percent of moderate drinkers did), it may be that stress and lack of social interaction is worse for you than brain damage and increased cancer risks. (Moderate, by the way, is one to three drinks per day, so it’s not a path of ruthless sacrifice.)

Coincidentally, the same day I heard about the study, El Gaucho Bellevue (City Center Plaza, 450 108th Ave. NE) emailed me about their new line of “medicinal” cocktails, four new drinks involving “ginseng, ginkgo biloba, St. John’s Wort, and skullcap.” Says lead bartender Chris LeRoy, “With all the stress that people deal with these days, I thought I would take the trend a step further and combine it with the healing properties of natural herbs and tinctures.” See? Stress!

The tinctures are pre-made by the herbalists at Herb Pharma, and each drink contains half the recommended dosage, so you can “take two.” Who you call in the morning is up to you. 

Here’s the mix-up in your cup:

Remember Me:  Cachaça, honey syrup, lime, gingko biloba

This cocktail blends gingko biloba (thought to enhance memory and to alleviate altitude sickness and premenstrual symptoms) with cachaça (for energy), honey syrup (for healing and immunity as well as sweetness) and lime (a powerful antioxidant and scurvy cure).

Gin Zing: Boodles gin, triple sec, lemon, honey syrup, ginseng

Asian ginseng (Panax Ginseng) is considered to be an energizer for the entire body, partially attributable to the human shape of the ginseng root. In addition to being an energy tonic and physical and emotional stress reducer, it is used to treat everything from common colds to diabetes to erectile dysfunction.

Pain Killer: Hendrick’s gin, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, lemon, cucumber, St. John’s Wort

Popularly known as “nature’s Prozac,” St. John’s Wort (Hypericum Perforatum) has been used for millennia, most widely as a treatment for mild depression as it increases levels of serotonin in the brain.

Stress Reliever: Calvados, Luxardo maraschino liqueur, pear liqueur, lemon, ginger, medicinal blend

The medicinal blend contains 20 calming herbs, including skullcap, (Scutelleria Lateriflora) whose powerful sedative properties are used to treat a range of nervous conditions. Ginger calms the stomach and alleviates symptoms of the common cold.

News

Bicyclists Can Activate Traffic Signals? Is Nothing Sacred?

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Photo: SDOT

SDOT’s blog mentions that they’re painting Ts on traffic signal actuators buried in the street, so bicyclists will know where to place their front wheel for best results.

Technically, it’s your bike that trips the signal, not the front wheel alone. Even a carbon fiber frame probably has enough metal on it somewhere (gears, cranks) to work. The T should help newbie cyclists especially not to ride right over the actuator, and give them confidence they won’t make the fuming line of motorists behind them miss a turn cycle.

There is nothing more wonderful than cycling for looking into how in-group and out-group behaviors develop. This is one instance. When you can’t, on a bicycle, get a turn signal actuator to work, you’re usually stuck in the middle of traffic. Neither option available (dismounting and using the crosswalk; or making the turn anyway, when traffic permits) inspires confidence in the drivers around you, who more than likely have no idea you can’t get the light to change.

Every time a cyclist doesn’t appear to be obeying the rules of the road, it counts against cycling in general. This is that in-group, out-group thing I mentioned. Some of these instances have to do with learned understanding, as with this actuator example; you don’t really know why a cyclist is doing what they’re doing (whether it’s legal or not) until you’ve ridden yourself.

Some have to do with people just being bad drivers (of bikes, of cars, of motorcycles). I’ve been stopped on my bike at a red light only to have another cyclist whoosh past. That person has broken the law, but cycling hasn’t. Most people who complain to me about how cyclists behave are not spending equal time counting up how many times the driver in front of them changed lanes without signaling, how many people were speeding, who pulled a U-turn, or who pulled into a bike lane to park for minute.

Car drivers talking among other drivers have no problem detailing everything some asshole or moron did during the commute, but they never say, “Car drivers don’t obey the law!” or “They don’t belong on the road!” That’s absolutely normal in-group thinking. What’s strange to me about it is that many car drivers also walk, also occasionally bike. And when they do, they notice that people drive “crazy.”

Protected inside of a car, people develop strange priorities regarding the saving of five to ten seconds in the stretch before the next red light makes them idle for 30 to 45 seconds. They’re insulated from the fear and anger they inspire when they cut into a crosswalk to “sneak” their two-ton SUV through pedestrians. Rather than stopping, some drivers prefer to time their acceleration just as the pedestrian makes it across.

This is car crazy, enabled by the tendency of people to jump out of harm’s way. The analogue is bike crazy–the person who thinks since cars have to stop to stop at red lights, bikes don’t. But the common denominator is that a person, not a car, not a bike, is making both decisions. That makes it a really large in-group.

Film & TV

This Week’s DVD Releases

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You know it’s a week full of quality movies on DVD when the biggest release is a television show. Yes, the biggest DVD for the week was the sixth and final season of Lost, which includes (zomg) another eleven minutes of never-before-seen bonus scenes of Ben and Hurley on The Island. There’s also a new crazy-ass box set of the whole series.

Besides that, the next biggest release is The Back-up Plan, Jennifer Lopez’s getting knocked up and then meeting the man of your dreams rom-com. There’s also City Island, a family-with-secrets comedy that’s actually one of the top box office earners amongst indie films this year. There’s a mediocre movie version of Dorian Gray and the latest zombie installment from George A. Romero, Survival of the Dead.

Ajami is well-reviewed, but to me the intersecting storylines just sound like Crash in the Middle East. Shirin is an experimental film with Juliette Binoche, in which a theater audience watches a film based on a poem, while The Square is a noir thriller from Australia. Nightfur is a sci-fi romance with a soundtrack by Band of Horses, and Abandoned looks to be the final (direct-to-DVD) release with Brittany Murphy.

In terms of special editions, there’s the 30th anniversary release of Shogun Assassin, the Bluray of cult British comedy Withnail and I, and 1969 gangster flick Machine Gun McCain, starring John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, Britt Ekland, and Gena Rowlands. This week also marks the release of three silent films by Josef Von Sternberg from Criterion: Docks of New York, The Last Command, and Underworld.

And in the realm of documentaries, there’s La Danse, which follows the rehearsals and performances of seven ballets by the Paris Opera Ballet. Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg covers the life and work of TV pioneer Gertrude Berg, who created The Goldbergs, one of the first sitcoms, which also helped to introduce Jewish culture to the American mainstream. The Age of Stupid is a quasi-documentary in which forty-five years from now, on a scorched earth, one man watches news footage from our time to understand what went so wrong.

Chuck Close is a portrait of the photo-realistic painter, while The Comeback studies washed-up German boxer Jürgen “The Rock” Hartenstein. Generation Rx is a look at the side effects of the unmitigated prescription of psychiatric meds in children. And for something completely different, Legends of the Canyon tells the story of all the great music borne of Laurel Canyon in the late ’60s, from Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, and many more.

News

The Weekend Wrap Sets the Record Straight

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You know that mournful, mysterious train whistle you hear sometimes downtown? Here’s the culprit: a freight train emerging from the South Portal of the Great Northern Tunnel.

Perhaps encouraged by the Seattle Times Truth Needle series, people are taking it upon themselves to correct the Times‘ reporting: Previously, the Seattle Bike Blog has fisked Joni Balter and Nicole Brodeur columns for their specious car vs. bikes set-ups (and let’s not forget Sightline’s succinct “Seattle Times Flunks Math“).

Now Jon Scholes, vice-president of advocacy and economic development for the Downtown Seattle Association, has written an open letter to the Times to point out that enforcing parking limits is not, in fact, an anti-business move. That doesn’t mean the Times doesn’t write good stories; just this morning there’s a great piece on why it seems like there are so many spiders around lately.

After years of crying out in the boom-erness, Seattle Bubble is now becoming our own Paul Krugman of real estate, getting quoted far and wide on how a home is different from a retirement account. TechFlash is covering Paul Allen’s Friday patent freak-out. Crosscut suggested that Mayor McGinn might be some kinda new-Jerry-Brown-style leader. (Where have I read that before?) Publicola has outsourced a temp column to Mexico City’s Grant Cogswell, who, judging from the comments section, has still got that gadfly “it” factor.

Meanwhile, in neighborhoodliness news, a woman vanished from Hemp Fest. [UPDATE: Found! says the comments section.] CHS walked Broadway with the King County Council’s Larry Phillips, who was not beaten and robbed. CD News waded into the intersection of nightlife rules and race. Queen Anne View covered City Council activity on urban farming, which increases the chickens you can have from three to eight.

Blogging Georgetown has the scoop on the potential reregulation of the trucking industry, and RVP reports from the city’s most violent corner. Fremont Universe alerts you to advance tickets to Oktoberfest. Ballard got its stolen barber poles back. Tune into My Green Lake for all your pruning news. The Admiral’s House at Smith Cove is now an official landmark, says Magnolia Voice. Now, to find out where Smith Cove is.

Maple Leaf Life reports that while Revolution Cycles is closing their store, they’re moving to an on-call service. Watch construction of the University Light Rail Station on webcam. This story confirms that Wallingford has the worst neighbors in Seattle. Just awful. It’s shocking. Nothing happened in Wedgwood.